Taste of Dallas returns to Fair Park, Pakpao gets a menu makeover
FRUITY PRESENTATION | A hollowed-out pineapple filled with fried rice, cashews and shrimp is one of the dramatic stars of Pakpao’s new menu, which incorporates Indian flavors. (Arnold Wayne Jones/Dallas Voice)
Taste of Dallas is right around the corner, offering bites from dozens of North Texas restaurants next weekend, July 11–13, at Fair Park. It starts Friday with “date night,” designed specifically for couples with not only food but palm reading and fair games. Tickets are $12 at the gate for single-day admission ($8 if you get them ahead of time at Walgreen’s). Tickets for Taste of the Town VIP Indoor Tasting Experience — which includes 15 tastings of food and 15 of beer or spirits, as well as air conditioning — are $40, and available exclusively at TasteOfDallas.org.
If you prefer tablecloths, wait until next month when DFW Restaurant Week starts up again, with more restaurants offering special deals on three- or four-course menus for a fixed prices. It officially runs Aug. 11–17, with some restos offering extensions to Aug. 24 or 31. July 14 is “Reservation Day,” when you can find out who’s participating and start arranging your dining schedule. The event benefits the North Texas Food Bank, and is sponsored by Central Market. DFWRestaurantWeek.com.
Asador, the farm-to-fire restaurant inside the Renaissance Hotel, offers one of the more reasonable fine dining options in the Uptown area, especially with its Summer Harvest Series, which kicked off in June with a wine dinner. That will be followed this month with a beer dinner (on July 11) and next month with a cocktail dinner (on Aug. 8), all featuring chef Brad Phillips’ admirable take on the freshest ingredients (you never know what you’re gonna be eating until he does the morning of the dinner).
Brian Zenner has been named the new executive chef at Oak, a jewel in the up-and-coming Design District dining scene that also includes FT33, Meddlesome Moth, Ascension, The Slow Bone and Pakpao, among others. He will continue to oversee Belly & Trumpet, the Uptown eatery he opened last year.
Speaking of Pakpao, the menu there continues to undergo an evolution, thanks to the new chef-partner Jet Tila. The casual Asian restaurant, which specialized in Thai-Chinese fusion, has added many Indian elements, from the curries to the spicy flavor profiles, but maintains a mainland China influence and upscaled presentations. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the showpiece halved pineapple packed with fried rice, shrimp and whole cashews. The Khao soi curry noodles recalls beef stroganoff with an Asian attitude, with a creamy yellow sauce, while morning glory salad is an unexpected delight, dancing on the tongue. The fried boiled eggs with tamarind remain a hit appetizer, and the cocktails, including the Phuket-fashioned (a spin on the old-fashioned) and the Buddha’s gold daiquiri, are worth a happy hour as well.
If you’ve ordered a glass of wine at Savor (probably Dallas’ best-looking restaurant of the moment, a glass palace looking out over Klyde Warren Park), you might be surprised to know it might have come not from a bottle, but from a keg. That’s the technological advance offered by Free Flow Wines, which provides wines delivered in small kegs, allowing controlled release of wines to reduce spoilage and give patrons access to higher-end options, instead of the ordinary house. “This isn’t about house wines,” they say, and they mean it. Just try a glass, and I dare you to tell the difference.
Welcome to the neighborhood, Firecrust, Neapolitan-style pizzeria that just opened near Uptown in the Knox Village development along North Central Expressway.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 4, 2014.