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Where Miley Cyrus Dines in Dallas

Miley Cyrus was in town last night to perform at the American Airlines Center, but she stopped for some grub along the way, sez a little birdie:

At about 4 p.m. today (ed note: um, yesterday), Miley Cyrus and her entourage (SIX BUSES WORTH) piled into Galleria Dallas to dine at Grand Luxe Café!

Once word gets out, we imagine the restaurant will be filled with 12 year-old girls eating spinach dip.

Wolfgang Puck to Handle Duties at Winspear Cafe

I reported sort of as an aside in this post that Wolfgang Puck would be doing the food at the Winspear. I’d heard it from too many with too many connections to the Performing Arts Center for it not to be the case. But I didn’t talk to Puck’s PR person until just now. Jennifer Strauss says the PAC and Puck are “having conversations” but that nothing has been officially decided yet. They hope to have something to announce in a week or two, she says.

Norma’s Café Opens in North Dallas

Oak Cliff’s Norma’s Café will open a new location in North Dallas at 17721 Dallas Parkway (@Trinity Mills). The Grand Opening party is Thursday, October 22 starts at 4:00 p.m. The celebration will include a pie eating contest, raffle for 100 people to win free chicken fried steak for a year, and a ribbon cutting at 5:00 pm. by State Representative Joe Driver.  At 6:00 p.m. players from the football teams at Texas Christian Academy and Prestonwood Christian Academy will compete to see who can eat the most pies in 5 minutes.  Each participating school will receive $500, donated by Norma’s Café Owner Ed Murph, the winning school will receive bragging rights and a special surprise. Jump for more. (more…)

Dining Critics and Anonymity: Does it Really Matter Anymore?

Sometimes you feel like a duck. Sometimes you don’t.

I find it interesting that two high-profile dining critics are changing their tune about the importance of remaining anonymous. Maybe it’s because they are no longer high-profile dining critics. Former New York Times dining critics Ruth Reichl and Frank Bruni have been giving interviews with quotes such as these:

“Dining companions are not good covert operations agents,” Bruni says. It’s one of the many reasons Bruni no longer feels restaurant critics can remain anonymous.

Is Bruni paving the way for his successor Sam Sifton? Before Sifton took over as the Times critic, he was the cultural news editor and deputy dining editor. His head shot was plastered all over the paper and the web. Sifton was forced into wearing disguises before he wrote his first lead review.

I believe anonymity is important—I have a closet full of clothes, glasses, and wigs to prove it. As a magazine editor, I have interviewed a lot of chefs in Dallas. I have even traveled with a few to do feature stories. As a dining critic, I have managed to slip past them in their restaurants and review them. (Hi Avner! Hi Dean!) That said, even when I am recognized (Hi, Kent!), which is not very often, it doesn’t always guarantee the restaurant will provide a perfect dining experience. Just because there is a dining critic in a restaurant doesn’t make the chef a better chef or the menu a better menu. Service might step up a notch, but it has been my experience that servers overcompensate and make more mistakes when they know they are serving a critic.

Most restaurant critics don’t get busted by personal appearance, they are outed by their behavior. Asking too many questions upfront and ordering too much food are dead giveaways to perceptive servers. A critic also has to be careful what they say at the table. You never know who is sitting next to you or what they will say to the manager, chef, or owner.

Servers, what do you think? Chefs? Fire away. Dishers, take your best shot.

(BTW, love this.)

Somebody Help This Poor Boy: Chilean Restaurant

I’ve already told him you can find bits (bites?) of Chile at La Duni, Zaguan, and Stephan Pyles, but he wants more.

Do you know of any Chilean restaurant in DFW (empanadas, etc.)?  It’s kind of hard to Google “Chile” and DFW without Google thinking of the pepper and not the country.

Silly Google. We’re smarter than Google.