Yes, Kavala is still open, and thank goodness. The food is consistently good. Earlier this year, the Mediterranean restaurant in a former Dairy Queen on Davis resumed its lunch schedule, and added a few daily specials to entice customers.

For lunch yesterday, the people at my table ordered the mixed greens "Greek style" with gyro meat, the moussaka, and the pizza bianca (ricotta, goat cheese, white truffle oil and wild mushrooms). The pizza was piping hot from the oven and big enough to share between two people — a good deal for $14. And if you dine at Kavala on Wednesdays, pizzas are half-price until 7 p.m., so two people (or one very hungry person) could eat for $7. That’s hard to beat.

The other two dishes were around $10, and the plates were pretty bare by the time we finished. No complaints on the food itself. It did take a little while to be delivered, which can be problematic for people trying to have a quick in-and-out lunch, but I chalked up the delay to freshly-made dishes, and to me, that’s worth waiting for.

The Oak Cliff neighborhood favorite is among the 14 restaurants vying for best breakfast joint in a contest sponsored by WFAA TV, called appropriately enough, the WFAAList. Think we should consult our legal team, given our A-List?

The link to vote is here (registration is required). It’s apparently part of an effort by the station to add what’s called hyperlocal content to its web site. Hyperlocal is the new, trendy industry term for neighborhood news. It’s getting all sorts of cyber-ink these days as the Mainstream Media tries just about anything to reverse its revenue slide. That some of us have been doing this for almost 20 years always comes as a huge shock to them. As such, there are 119 categories in the contest, ranging from art gallery to motorcycle shop to wedding dresses.

But don’t tell anyone — the contest and the listings associated with it are run by a company called CityVoter, in Cambridge, Mass.

The thing about Hula Hotties is that it’s just fun to order from a menu that sounds tropical — items like macadamian nut-crusted burgers. Not to mention that everything appears pretty healthy.

Stopping in for lunch yesterday, I ordered the grilled talapia sandwich ($9.95) with macaroni potato salad. Sandwich orderers have their choice of sides, and one I was tempted to try was Indonesian peanut potato salad, which the waited said they make quite a bit of because it’s so popular. Next time. The macaroni potato salad was just fine, but the sandwich really hit the spot. The tilapia was fresh off the grill and served on a purple sweet potato/taro bun with lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo.

My lunch partner ordered the Saigon sub ($7.95), also called Bahm Mi, which came with ground pork, thinly sliced ham and spicy mayo, and was volcanically overflowing with mixed greens, assorted picked veggies, cilantro, peanuts, peanuts, mint and basil. It was messy, but tasty enough to be worth it. We really wanted to try one of the Hawaiian treats in the bakery display, but lunch was too filling. Those are worth a stop on their own merit.

Dallas restaurant giant Norman Brinker is this year’s recipient of the Oak Cliff-based Methodist Health System Foundation’s Robert S. Folsom Leadership Award and will be honored at a charity dinner Friday night at the Hilton Anatole Hotel.

The award, in its fifth year, is named after the former Dallas mayor and Oak Cliff resident and recognizes commitment and excellence in community leadership.

“Mr. Brinker truly embodies the Robert S. Folsom Leadership Award with his business accomplishments, community leadership and philanthropic ventures, and we are proud to honor him,” Methodist Health System Foundation President and CEO April Box Chamberlain said in a press release.
Brinker’s involvement in the food service industry began as a partner with Jack in the Box, when the chain expanded from five locations to national prominence. Later, he earned the distinction of being credited with popularizing the salad bar when he founded the now-defunct Steak and Ale restaurant concept in 1965.

In 1983, Brinker invested in and became chairman and CEO of Chili’s, then a fledgling Dallas-based chain of 28 restaurants. In 1991, the company was renamed Brinker International, and currently is the parent company of Chili’s, On the Border and Maggiano’s, with more than 1,700 restaurants it owns, operates or franchises across the three concepts.

Brinker’s philanthropic ventures include support for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, and the Salvation Army, as well as serving on the boards of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Museum of Art.

The restaurant‘s plate of six sliders is great to share as an appetizer, or enough to act as an entree. The trio includes two mini cheeseburgers, two with sliced brisket (executive chef Susie Buck‘s specialty), and two with grilled peppers and onions (so good, we promise you won’t miss the meat). If you want, however, you can order half burgers and half brisket (Buck’s recipe is a dry rub with three spices, slow-cooked for a minimum of five hours), or all grilled veggies, or any other combination.

Fries don’t come with this $7.75 appetizer, but we recommend ordering a side of them — Jack’s Backyard has a potato-wedge version that, amazingly, remain piping hot throughout your meal.

It may seem a stretch to take a chef who trained at a New York vegan culinary school and stick her in the kitchen of a diner that focuses on comfort food. But Chef Robin Gill Lacy, who came to the Cliff Cafe from Whole Foods, took over last September and has been slowly but surely making the place her own since then.

Her training means that the menu now has plenty of vegeterian options, Lacy says, but ample meat dishes remain. For example, the BLT comes with the customer’s choice of pork, turkey or tempeh bacon. And no bacon fat is used to make the gravy — though you wouldn’t know it by the way it tastes, Lacy points out.

More on the food, after the jump:

I was told that the black bean burger is one of the tastiest items on the menu, whether you’re a vegeterian or not. So I tried it, and was pleasantly surprised to find a thick, tasty patty. I chose to top it with granny smith apples and brie cheese, subtle but good, and opted for the soup of the day — a cream of corn and tomato — instead of the fries.

Another nice touch was the side of cornichons (which I later learned was the French word for gherkin) that Lacy pickles with red onion. I didn’t put these on my burger, but instead ate them out of the tiny bowl. We also ordered a couple of sides of deviled eggs as appetizers, which hit the spot. Make sure to order enough so that everyone can eat two.

I’ve not yet tried breakfast, but hear that the sweet potato pancakes are amazing. And I’m planning to try the buffalo mac and cheese the next time I’m at the Cliff Cafe for dinner.

Anyone with a sweet tooth could find satisfaction in the glass cases at Cretia’s. “You can’t go wrong with cakes, pies and cookies,”

Restaurant Review: Tejano’s

Not much on my list of childhood favorites withstand the test of time. Tejano’s, that big, beautiful Tex-Mex joint on Davis, is one of the rare exceptions. Sure, I have an appreciated adult taste for sushi bars, vegan diners and veal Frito pies, but I also have a soft spot for taco specials, enchilada plates, and free chips and salsa.

Just to make sure I wouldn’t write too biased a review for one of my favorite restaurants, I took along a friend from North Dallas who had never eaten there. The first thing he noticed was the huge circular dining room and wrought iron chandelier hanging above rows of red plastic booths. A big, stained-glass window depicting Spanish ships and Mexican Indians is lit up on one side of the wall, and photos of Marylin Monroe Elvis Presley hang on another.

My friend and I decided to order from the lunch menu and he settles on enchiladas sonoras and a small, 99 cent frozen margarita that might remind one in taste and appearances of a Slurpee. After eating here for years, I find something on the menud I’ve never ordered, a mini chimichanga. I pick it based on the sides, because as my friend pointed out, it’s the sides that matter with Tex-Mex. If the main falls short, I know I can make do with guacomole, queso, salsa, rice and beans.

The enchiladas come with shredded beef and red ranchero sauce with sour cream and rice and beans. It’s yummy, simple, and filled my friend up fast, which is good because once it got cold, the rest wasn’t so appetizing. My mini deep-friend burrito came with a cheese sauce reminiscent of Kraft and a texture that can only be described as “velvety.” It was crunchy, tasty, cheesy—basically comfort (or childhood) on a plate. It kept me full for the rest of the day, which is also good because I would hate to count the calories on that plate.

All together, the whole tab—two lunches, two small margaritas, flan and tip—was under $25. If it’s cheap, hot, fast and tasty you’re looking for when you’re entertaining in Oak Cliff, then look for the big red white and blue sign at the south west corner of Beckley and Davis.

I’ve been wanting to try the new restaurant for some time — Rob Shearer first mentioned it in his October column, and other neighbors sent out the word as soon as they saw the "open" sign in March. I stopped by a few weeks ago for lunch, but a sign was hanging in the window stating "closed for maintenance repairs".

Dinner this week worked out, however. Right now is prime patio weather, so my fellow diner and I chose ConFusion’s little outdoor enclave, complete with zen fountain, fireplace, and round-bulb string lights. It was a bit noisy, what with the traffic on Davis and the car wash right next door, but the ambiance was pretty nice. Other diners apparently had the same idea — the patio as full by the time we left at 7, with one lone diner eating inside the restaurant.

Servers were definitely attentive. My water glass was refilled (and offered to be refilled) probably 20 times in a 1.5-hour period. Now, to the food, after the jump:

We started with the dim sum, which were esssentially dumplings filled with shrimp, pork and sausage with a sweet chile sauce for dipping. The dish had six of them for roughly $7, and they were yummy.

As an entree, I ordered the Con Fusion cashew dish, and my friend ordered something with a much more complicated name that featured broccoli, peanuts and peanut sauce. Most of the menu items were right around $10, including ours. We both chose chicken as our meat (beef, pork and tofu were the other choices, plus seafood options like shrimp and scallops for an extra $3). The waiter also recommended the pad thai and the thai curry dishes. I love pad thai, but it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll like it, so I tend to try something else when testing out a new restaurant, and I’m not a curry fan, so I stayed away from that portion of the menu.

We were both pleased with our choices. The chicken and broccoli dish was pretty much drenched in peanut sauce, which my friend loved, and my dish included all kinds of crisply-cooked veggies — red peppers, onions, mushrooms, baby corn, scallions — swimming in a mild and tangy sauce. (That was another choice — mild, medium or hot could be applied to any dish.) The portions were ample, and we also loved the presentation; mine was a large square dish, and hers came in a taller square dish with a star-shaped bowl inside. The white rice was served in a pyramid shape.

The restaurant was BYOB while it was in the process of getting its liqor license, but a sign on the front window notifies customers that the license is now in hand and not to bring in their own liquor any longer. It appears that ConFusion is still working n this portion of its menu — the wrinkled print-out we were presented with the restaurant’s wine and beer list had more than half of its options crossed out.

Two more things to note: ConFusion does have lunch portions at lower prices, and serves sushi at dinner time.

Believe it or not. The soon-to-be-released America’s Best BBQ lists 100 of the best barbecue recipes from the best barbecue joints around the country, and none of them are around here. There are 15 restaurants in Texas, but none is closer than Euless – North Main BBQ’s Glazed Barbecue Ribs.

Surprisingly, none of the other Metroplex standbys are listed either: No Angelo’s, Railhead or Sonny Bryan’s. And, for some odd reason, it includes barbecue from Italy.