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the year of eating fabulously So much food, so little time: Our favorite dishes of 2012. STORY BY SCOTT REITZ n PHOTOS BY CATHERINE DOWNES fellow food writer recently told me that food is one of the greatest pleasures of life you get to experience three times a day. If you followed this convention, you’d have more than a thousand opportunities to consume some- thing beautiful every year. Our daily meals seem like an Aalmost endless opportunity for culinary exploration. The thing is, most of us don’t unearth even a fraction of this potential. Breakfast is almost always forgotten. If we eat at all, our morn- ings are often mired in microwavable oatmeal or a terrible bagel sandwich purchased and devoured on the run — hardly inspira- tional eating. So many lunches are squandered on mindless meals we bull- doze in a hurry, collecting our calories at drive-thru win- dows, munching sloppy sandwiches on bad bread from the cafe in an office basement or wolfing down lukewarm Chinese takeout during a quick afternoon break. Dinner seems more sacred, but even this meal falls victim to the countless in- trusions of other important activities in our lives. Our ultimate barrier to plea- surable dining is our demand for con- venience. Unless you have a lot of free time, you probably get only a handful of opportunities a month to go out and eat something wonderful, and those experiences often fall victim to a res- taurant rut. Overwhelmed by recom- mendations offered by newspapers, magazines, blogs and friends, we fall back on our old familiar favorites and then won- der how we ended up stuffed with mediocre Tex-Mex again. Even as a professional food critic with a dining budget, I’m not immune to the occasionally uninspired meal. If you ever see me stuffing a 7-Eleven egg-salad sandwich into my face outside the office you’ll know I’m really behind on a dead- line. This is how we end up trying to wrap our faces around another burrito at Chipotle (which is a fine enough meal, but hardly an excit- ing one) or at the prepared foods section of Whole Foods. This is how that frozen pizza ended up in the fridge. Suadero Tacos at La Banqueta The richest dining experiences require us to let go of our comfort- Fanned out on a plate like daisy petals with two limes able restaurants and venture to try something that will often turn out to be where the yellow center should be, La Banqueta’s a disappointment. If you gamble enough, every now and then you’ll stumble suadero tacos look just as good as they taste. They’re a across the undiscovered treasures that drive the best food lovers to constantly little salty — good salty — and sparsely seasoned. The seek new dishes. This is how you find the small-batch, hand-crafted cooking brisket isn’t muddied with too much cumin or other that gives any food scene its core identity. spices but flavored simply by the heat of a flat grill in- Not all of the following dishes, gleaned from my year eating out in 2012, are gems, stead. Some pieces are tender and fatty, others have a but they all bring something significant to the table. If you dig deeper and learn how bit of chew, and still more get rendered down into they’re inspired, prepared or made, you’ll find they’re all interesting in some way. crunchy, desiccated bits of salty meat like brisket ba- They all have a story. con. With a hearty squeeze of lime and a squirt of Use a single dish for your launching point to check out a new restaurant you bright green tomatillo salsa, this is one of the best bites hadn’t previously considered, or as a stepping stone into a neighborhood you’d never you can buy in all of Dallas. otherwise have visited. There are hundreds of culinary treasures to be discovered in and around Dallas. This list barely scratches the surface. dallasobserver.com | Month XX–Month XX, 2012 | DALLAS OBSERVER 1 Turkey Sandwich at Bolsa Mercado Turkey sandwiches are usually dry and bland, so I’ll only order one when I feel as though I’ve hit my burger quota on any given week. Bolsa Mercado’s smoked turkey sandwich could change this. The soft, freshly baked ciabatta roll is springy and supple, while an avocado spread keeps it from eating like a sack of sand. The turkey is smoked in house, and a pepper spread brings brightness. Chicken Shish Kebab at Pepper Smash Put aside the skewers and roll up your sleeves. You’re about to make a killer sandwich. Pick up a huge, tender hunk of juicy chicken, blis- tered in a hot tandoor oven. Fold it into a hunk of freshly baked naan bread. Smear a little tahini dip and yogurt on your makeshift sand- wich before topping it with a little tabbouleh laced with lemon. The people at Potbelly in the same plaza have absolutely no idea what they’re missing. Babaganoush at Baboush Typically, babaganoush is about a point or two higher than hummus on the boring scale of Mediterranean dips. Baboush’s dish is more sturdy, based on a simple blend of roasted eggplant given personality with the subtle heat of fresh jalapeños. A dollop of creamy basil pesto adds unexpected flavors that are offset by bright bursts of fresh pomegranate. Jerk Chicken at Island Spot Most Jamaican restaurants make use of pre-made seasonings (Walk- erswood is the most popular) and Island Spot in Carrollton is no differ- Grilled Whole Bronzini at Tei Tei Robata ent, but a waitress there told me the jarred spice blend is only the This dish is like a haiku of fish: Deceptively simple in construction, but artfully revealing unexpected depths. Cross start. They add spices and aromatics to hop up the flavor and amp up hatches are cut into the flesh of a whole fish that is seasoned only with salt, skewered and laid across a smoking the heat before letting chicken parts soak in the marinade for days. grill. The juices boil and drip as the flesh slowly blisters and blackens. The meat is lean and juicy near the bones, and fatty and flavorful near the belly. It’s a thing of beauty seasoned with nothing but salt and lemon, served with Barbacoa Tacos at Restaurant Y Taquería Cristina a pickled onion laced with ginger on the side. The tacos may be greasy as hell, but it’s hard to argue against some of their fillings. Lengua and carnitas are woefully bland, but pastor is full of flavor. The barbacoa taco, however, is outstanding, at once beefy, bright and juicy enough that you have to eat it directly over your plate. Enmoladas at Mesa Jhinga Masala Nizami at Mughlai Fine Indian Cuisine A freshly made tortilla is carefully dipped Sure, the shrimp are tender and plump, and the curry itself is thick and into a hot pan of mole. The sauce softens heady, but it’s the fresh ginger and herbs the kitchen tosses into the the tortilla, which the cook folds and dish at the last second that really round out the dish. The thin match- dips again before folding the tortilla a sticks are cooked only by the residual heat from the sauce, and they second time. Now the tortilla is shaped explode with spicy, fresh flavor. The herbs do the same. You might like a fat slice of pizza, and the cook want to consider ordering a second naan. You’re going to want to mop plates up three of them, tucking a little up every last drop of this dish. braised chicken inside each soft corn- laden envelope. Some cotija and micro Schwarma at Samar cilantro finish out the plate. Enjoy. Tex- Order the schwarma sandwich with a very important caveat. Tell your Mex will never be the same to you. waiter you have no interest in their store-bought, pallid pita. Request your sandwich be made on freshly baked naan and all will be right in the world. Small strips of flavorful hanger steak mingle with tabbouleh so lemony it’s almost a sin. All sandwiches should taste this great. Grilled Pimento Cheese Sandwich at Highland Park Pharmacy It’s a simple sandwich of soft, melted cheddar the cooks griddle on a press that looks just about as old as as the bar stools that line the counter in this drugstore, which first opened in 1923. Who knew grilled cheese could be so punk rock? Cochinita Pibil at Meso Maya The pork may not be Berkshire, but it’s braised into juicy succulence, and while I wish they used more achiote for pungency and earthiness, vine- gar is used so aggressively this dish will almost make you pucker before a smile slowly spreads across your face. Pick up a huge hunk of tender pork and drop it into a handmade tortilla, pressed from freshly ground corn. Top it with a few strands of pickled onions. Take a bite. If it’s not hot enough, the smoky habanero sauce served alongside will take you as far as you need to go. Berkshire Pork Belly with Japanese Plum at Sharaku Watch as the cook stokes the coals with a bamboo fan before balanc- ing a thin skewer holding two rolled strips of meat cut from the black Arepas at Zaguan Latin Café pig’s belly. Inside the pinwheels of pork, a small Japanese plum waits Stuffed with your choice of beef and cheese, chicken to burst with fruity flavor.

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