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The December version of CultureMap’s month-to-month The place to Eat characteristic nearly at all times follows the identical theme: The place to take your out-of-town company, coming in for the vacations and able to strive the native favorites.
For 2022, the listing is damaged down into classes to make the choice course of even simpler, from the place to eat when you’re on a funds to the place to go when you’re on the lookout for the large splurge.
Here is the place to eat in Dallas proper now:
Finest spot for vacationers
Top-of-the-line locations to take vacationers is downtown Dallas, with metropolis streets you possibly can stroll, buildings to ogle, parks to linger in, and remember Dallas’ No. 1 vacationer attraction: the Grassy Knoll. Downtown additionally has loads of good eating places, from lodge eateries to streetside pubs. However Cafe Momentum is the one one with a nationally-recognized program to assist at-risk youths, letting you dine out finely and do a superb factor, good for the vacations. Led by founder Chad Houser, the menu options chef takes on homey dishes like braised rabbit pasta, shrimp bisque, Black Bean Rollatini with vegan cashew queso & fried corn, and their signature dish, smoked fried rooster with mashed potatoes & collard greens.
Finest spot for severe foodies
If awards are your benchmark, then Carte Blanche, the fine-dining restaurant on Greenville Avenue, wins hands-down. No different Dallas restaurant has earned 5 stars from Forbes Journey Information in addition to the coveted AAA 5 Diamond designation. It is not simply concerning the resume. These awards let you know that Carte Blanche is aware of methods to execute with modern delicacies, components, preparation, service, and environment. They’re open for dinner, and their quintessential meal is a 12-course chef’s tasting for $225, with programs like smoked boar empanada with candy potato and collards. However they’re going to additionally do six- and four-course variations and even a vegetarian possibility. The cherry on the sundae is that, within the mornings, they are a bakery (with an award-winning chef) that’s making the most effective pastries and doughnuts in Dallas proper now.
Finest to seize a drink and a snack
There will be generally whenever you’re less than a full unfold and as an alternative simply wish to sit and have a small chew. Ideally with a drink. You’re in any case saddled with company. Ellie’s, the elegant restaurant on the Corridor Arts Lodge, matches the invoice: It has craft cocktails, a superb wine listing, an upscale but comfy environment, plus bar snacks like eggplant dip with lavash crackers. Its location in Dallas’ Arts District can be a plus: close to the museums akin to Dallas Museum of Artwork and the Nasher Sculpture Middle, which out-of-towners would possibly wish to see, to not point out its personal assortment of murals and sculptures on website.
Finest outside area
Dallas’ climate makes al fresco eating viable even throughout winter, one thing that out-of-towners adore, and everybody lately has some type of outside area. However it’s arduous to discover a prettier patio in Dallas than Fearing’s, on the Ritz-Carlton Dallas lodge. It is an expansive courtyard with a wide range of seating – benches, comfortable couches, bar seats, common tables & chairs – plus properly landscaped greenery, fountains, a comfy fire – altogether extra particular when you think about its in-city location, an oasis in an city space, sunny in the course of the day, sultry at night time. On prime of all that, your company will get to eat buffalo tacos, Southwest Caesar salad, and different superb meals by Dean Fearing, one among Dallas’ best possible cooks.
Finest for a giant splurge
The stereotypical splurge in Dallas is a steakhouse which is why The Mexican, the luxe restaurant that opened in Dallas’ Design District in March, is such a blessing. The restaurant is spearheaded by Monterrey businessman Roberto Gonzalez Alcalá, whose household owns Mission Meals, and is a extremely mounted enterprise that spares no particulars. There are steaks, when you should, and seafood, however with Mexican-style sauces, in addition to non-Tex-Mex choices like lobster enchiladas, roasted cauliflower in a truffle-habanero pistachio dressing, and a Mexican twist on a chopped salad. The decor is its personal purpose to go, with beautiful Mexican tilework, ceramic fixtures, and picturesque outside patios that includes landscapes from the area.
Finest on a funds
Tacos are a meals group that match the invoice when you’ve gotten a tightwad in tow: It is typically well-made meals at fast-food costs. One of the crucial attention-grabbing native purveyors is Taco Ocho, a doting family-owned chain with 4 areas: Richardson, Frisco, Flower Mound, and McKinney. Their menu of tacos, tortas, quesadillas, tostadas, and nachos usually spotlights refreshing Latin flavors and components akin to black beans as an alternative of humdrum pinto, and a sandwich just like the Cusco torta with Peruvian steak layered with potatoes. A sandwich with potatoes, how cool is that. They’re additionally pretty healthy-ish, with nice salads and vegan choices, together with a cool vegan breakfast taco with scrambled chickpeas. They’ve margaritas, and full service, and nothing is over $15.
Finest vegan
Extra locations are providing vegan choices, however Dallas additionally boasts a full-on Vegan Eating Expertise at Belse, the plant-based restaurant that opened in downtown Dallas in 2021. Positioned on the bottom flooring of an workplace constructing behind the Majestic Theater, Belse comes with a California connection: It is a spinoff of Little Pine, a well-known vegan restaurant based in L.A. in 2015, and boasts a few of its award-winning dishes. There are candy potato empanadas, cauliflower tostadas, flatbread with Italian sausage, a patty soften on toasted marble rye, and an irresistible pasta with chick’n in a pumpkinseed pesto. Most vegan eating places in Dallas fall underneath Mexican, Asian, or diner-y junk meals, making Belse’s informal sophistication subsequent degree.
Best option for the new new factor
“What is the cool new place?” is a query I am usually requested, proper earlier than folks determine they wanna go to the place they had been already serious about in any case. Nonetheless, the reply to that query proper now could be El Carlos Elegante, a newly opened Mexican restaurant from Duro Hospitality Group (The Charles, Sister, Cafe Duro) situated within the Design District. The menu is structured into intuitive classes of Chilly, Grill, Vegetales, and Masa, and options intensely intriguing dishes akin to a ricotta tamale with mole negro, ohmigosh. Duro can be recognized for its drop-dead decor, and El Carlos doesn’t disappoint with beautiful textiles and pure supplies together with a lot of imported Mexican tile and stone.
Finest place for giant teams
Massive events are the bane of any server’s existence, they take up manner an excessive amount of time and a spotlight, they usually at all times undertip. However Pepe & Mito’s Mexican Cafe, the favored and long-running Tex-Mex restaurant in Deep Ellum, gamely rolls with the punches: pushing tables collectively, coming again repeatedly to replenish the chips, convey one other spherical of sturdy margaritas, even tolerantly fielding requests for separate checks. The meals’s good with nachos, mixture plates, spinach enchiladas, and the meat tacos Norteños and Mexican meatball soup featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. If Man Fieri preferred it, that’ll positively impress company.
Finest for espresso and dessert
The right place whenever you’ve had a meal and wish to cap it off, or are craving one thing candy, or simply desire a effectively made espresso is San Martin Bakery & Restaurant, an idea Guatemala that opened in Uptown Dallas in 2018. It is a spacious, extremely cosmopolitan place with a cool bakery the place you collect your pastries your self into a bit basket, and the choice is superb, with all kinds of pastries, desserts, embellished cookies, dulce de leche cookie sandwiches, breads, strudel, empanadas, eclairs, cinnamon rolls, tarts, Napoleons, shortbreads, apple cake, guava-cream cheese pie – the one factor extra unbelievable than the breadth and high quality of their choices is the worth. These things’s loopy low-cost. Their facade is again a bit from McKinney Avenue however they’ve their very own car parking zone, making for a handy and relaxed cease.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is exploring options for a new head coach following the departure of Mike McCarthy, and one name generating buzz is franchise legend Jason Witten. Known as the best tight end in Cowboys history, Witten has long been a favorite of Jones and is being considered for the high-profile role.
McCarthy and the Cowboys parted ways after five seasons, ending a tenure that included three consecutive 12-5 records but just one playoff win. The coaching search is officially underway, and Witten’s name has surfaced alongside other contenders.
Witten, an 11-time Pro Bowler and the franchise leader in games starts, receptions, and receiving yards, has deep ties to Dallas. While his coaching experience is limited to leading a private high school team to a state championship, his leadership qualities and familiarity with the organization make him a compelling, albeit unconventional, option.
If hired, Witten would follow a path similar to Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell, another former Cowboys tight end. Campbell transitioned to the NFL coaching ranks after years of assistant coaching experience, a step Witten has yet to take. However, Jones has a history of making bold decisions, and Witten’s intimate understanding of the Cowboys’ culture could give him an edge.
While some question whether Witten’s high school coaching background is sufficient preparation for the NFL, Jones values loyalty and passion for the franchise, qualities Witten embodies. His connection with the Cowboys and leadership on and off the field could make him an intriguing choice to guide the team into its next chapter.
Jones’ next coach will be his ninth. The first four were first-time NFL head coaches, starting with Jimmy Johnson when Jones bought the team in 1989. The former University of Miami coach won back-to-back Super Bowls before an acrimonious split with Jones, his college teammate at Arkansas.
Three of Jones’ past four hires had NFL head coaching experience, including Super Bowl winners Bill Parcells and McCarthy. The exception was former Dallas quarterback Jason Garrett, the longest-tenured coach under Jones at nine-plus seasons.
The Cowboys have yet to release updates on the search, but Jason Witten remains a name to watch as the process unfolds.
About four minutes into the Dallas Mavericks’ recent contest against the Denver Nuggets, starting center Dereck Lively left the contest with an ankle injury.
Evidently, the Mavericks are already dealing with massive injuries to Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. Those two superstars lead the team and Lively is right up there as one of the more impactful players on the team.
However, just one day after the injury, Lively has already gotten X-ray updates back on his sprained right ankle, and it’s a bit of a relief for Mavericks fans. Chris Haynes provided the recent update.
“Dallas Mavericks center Dereck Lively II received an X-ray on his sprained right ankle and results were negative. No timeline established as of now,” Haynes reported.
The Mavericks are struggling to stay healthy, though doing so by April is the main goal and it’s just January. Lively has had issues remaining on the hardwood for the club in his inaugural two seasons, and it’s leaving some fans concerned.
READ MORE: Latest Timeline for Luka Doncic’s Return to Dallas Mavericks Revealed
Stick with CommanderGameday and the Locked On Commanders podcast for more FREE coverage of the Washington Commanders throughout the 2024 season.
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The Dallas city manager search has unspooled in the chaotic style we’ve come to expect from this City Council. There was the ho-hum recruitment brochure draft featuring the wrong skyline. There was the council civil war over the timeline of the search and the flow of information about candidates. And nothing says “we’ve got our act together” like eleventh-hour candidate interviews the day before Christmas Eve.
When two original semifinalists and a former Dallas city official dropped out of the race, no one was surprised.
We wish the next city manager the best of luck because no amount of talent and hard work can overcome a fundamental flaw of this search, and that is the lack of formal, measurable goals by the City Council. Our city is about to hire its CEO, but its board of directors has no metrics to set expectations or hold that person accountable for the most important job in Dallas.
If you want to understand how dysfunctional the situation is, start with the fact that the council’s appointees — the city manager, city attorney, city secretary and city auditor — haven’t had a performance review in more than two years. Our last city manager, T.C. Broadnax, had his last evaluation in August 2022. He left in May 2024. Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, the front-runner for the job, hasn’t had an evaluation since her appointment last spring.
The council has hired a consultant over the years to help conduct the evaluations of its appointees. But no consultant can fix this council’s main problem, and that is its inability to come together to develop a consensus around four or five priorities and the metrics to measure progress in those areas.
Even when performance reviews for council appointees were happening, the process was broken. The council’s consultant called council members individually to solicit feedback, with the consultant identifying “themes” shared verbally with the council, and with no particular comments attributed to specific people, according to a 2022 memorandum from Management Partners, the firm hired to do the work. The city manager and other appointees were “invited” to prepare a report on their accomplishments and goals for next year, with the potential for “refinements” based on council input.
There was no written report from the performance evaluation, other than any goals reports produced by the appointees.
It’s a shockingly wishy-washy approach to evaluating an employee, let alone a C-suite executive.
And don’t expect even a veneer of transparency for taxpayers. Last year, we requested Broadnax’s goal reports and were told by the city that there were no responsive records, only to hear a council member remind her colleagues last week that Broadnax produced a memo with his goals after his last performance review in 2022. City staff failed to release this memo in response to our request. Such a document should be public under the Texas Public Information Act.
Now, on the brink of hiring its next city manager, the council is panicking about the fact that it hasn’t evaluated its council appointees in a long time and that it has no measurable goals for any of them. The council committee whose job it is to codify the annual review process can’t seem to agree on how to move forward.
Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins chairs the committee. In a December meeting, he led a discussion on next steps to resume performance reviews of council appointees. Council members learned that their previous consulting firm, Management Partners, had been acquired by Baker Tilly, the company that is leading the messy city manager search. But the woman who had worked closely with the council on previous performance reviews was no longer associated with either company.
The committee gave city staff mixed signals on how to proceed. Some council members said they wanted to continue working with the previous consultant. Others asked to hear from Baker Tilly. Some said they were dissatisfied with the previous consultant or concerned about Baker Tilly and wanted to hear from other vendors. Council members said to move quickly.
By the time the council committee picked the conversation back up this month, confusion reigned. Baker Tilly prepared a presentation that described a performance review process very similar to what the council had with its previous partner. Atkins indicated that the council was moving forward with Baker Tilly using an existing contract, and other committee members pushed back. Meanwhile, an assistant city manager and an assistant human resources director couldn’t answer a council member’s simple question about when the council appointees were last evaluated.
“Yes, we are overdue for these reviews, but I think that they should be pursued seriously with the appropriate time periods involved,” said council member Paul Ridley. “I don’t think we should out of convenience select someone who is doing other work for the city at the present time.”
Council member Jesse Moreno asked whether Baker Tilly would have a conflict of interest in facilitating the performance review of an executive the firm helped hire. A representative tried to assuage Moreno, but he is right to bring that up, given that Baker Tilly would be required to conduct a new search at no cost to Dallas if the city manager doesn’t last a year. Council members should be skeptical. (Keep in mind it was Baker Tilly that produced the hiring brochure for Dallas city manager. The cover photo was a shining image of the Houston skyline.)
The council now seems poised to consider other consultants for the performance evaluations. Council members should do their due diligence instead of repeating their sloppiness for the sake of comfort.
Hire a consultant, if you must, to moderate the conversation or offer pointers, but a management firm can’t do the hard work for you.
Outgoing council member Jaynie Schultz said it best: “This problem is ours as a council. We have not done our work. And so we can try spending all of our time diverting all the problem and the blame on Baker Tilly. … The delay is us, 100% us.”
The council’s job is not to run the city but to set clear, measurable expectations for the people it hires to do that. It’s telling that council members have relied on a consultant to remind them to perform a fundamental duty.
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