Subject: Experienced Dining Writer - Dallas |
From: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Date: 6/25/07, 15:51 |
To: freelance@diningoutonline.com |
Louie's 106
Louie's
106 was doing tapas before tapas were cool or, rather, a few
hundred years after tapas first became cool in Spanish port towns,
and about fifteen years before tapas saw a sudden surge of popularity
in Austin, Dallas, and similarly go-getting Texas cities back around
2000. At 106's upscale downtown digs, the traditional Spanish
snack/wine accompaniment comes both hot and cold, with manifestations
ranging in complication from meatballs to herbed goat cheese
crostinies. Meanwhile, the Mediterranean-heavy main menu is focused
largely on the fare of Italy, except when it's not many
selections originate from locations as far-flung as New York and New
Zealand, and that's just taking the steaks into account. Consisting
of over 400 varieties, the restaurant's wine cellar draws from an
equally diverse well. - Barrett Brown
Noodle-ism
Many
are the pleasures to be found within the walls of Noodle-ism, not the
least of which are the walls themselves, done up as they are in the
kind of superbly urban sort of avant-garde kitsch that would take a
professor of humanities to adequately categorize. Those whose chief
concern is with the actual menu will be similarly harassed with the
myriad possibilities life has to offer. Consider, for instance, the
dan dan mein a noodle dish topped with peanuts, scallions,
grilled shrimp, and a spicy Sichuan sauce or perhaps the three
cabbage ravioli with mushroom lime butter sauce. Less
utensil-intensive is the shrimp and tofu cake sandwich accompanied by
miso soup. Additionally, the mochi ice cream is the most novel
dessert you're ever likely to encounter, consisting as it does of a
ball of ice cream surrounded by a thick layer of dough. How this
might be accomplished is left to the diner's imagination. --
Barrett Brown