SideDish was in and out of Dallas in 2023. We traveled to cities across America and to the other side of the world. One thing we’re always guaranteed to do is seek out the best food we can get our hands on. If you’re traveling to any of these places, we’ve got a nice list for you.
La Nacional Restaurant in New York City
I came across La Nacional when looking for tapas in New York City. The restaurant is part of the Spanish Benevolent Society, an organization founded in 1868 that is the oldest Spanish cultural institution in the country. The society was a massive hub for Spanish immigrants, and it served as a place for Spaniards to jumpstart their lives in the U.S. (Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí both benefitted from having lived at the society during their time.)
La Nacional Restaurant opened in 2018, in honor of the society’s 150th anniversary, with four Valencian chefs whose visas were sponsored by the society. All four were given an apartment in the society’s brownstone. The proceeds from the restaurant go towards the society.
Now that you’ve gotten that history lesson, I’ll get to the meal, to which I’ll say, what’s not to love about tapas? We had a charcuterie board with Iberico ham and Spanish cheese, crispy patatas bravas, croquetas, and two massive platters of squid ink and seafood paella. The paella had a crust that when broken, unveiled soft and fluffy saffron-coated rice. The croquetas were filled with jamón serrano and were ooey gooey on the inside. We also drank through two pitchers of sangria. The best part was that everything was reasonably priced. – Nataly Keomoungkhoun
Goldee’s BBQ
I finally visited Goldee’s for the first time this year after an out-of-town friend requested it. It lived up to our expectations: splendid brisket, terrific side dishes, great sausage, and house-baked bread. I’m not qualified to judge whether it’s the best in Texas, but I can’t imagine better brisket, appreciated the thought and creativity that went into the sides and trimmings, and even enjoyed the line, which is a great place to catch up with out-of-town friends. The glaze on the ribs isn’t my style, but that’s clearly a me problem, as they’ve announced a second restaurant, Ribbees, focusing entirely on that meat. I hope some more friends from other states come visit soon. — Brian Reinhart
Green Chile Chicken and Grits from Caliche Coffee in Fredericksburg
This was technically not the dish I ordered during a visit to Fredericksburg in September. It was my husband’s, and I hijacked it. The green chile chicken and grits is a texture playground: shredded chicken on top of soft grits, plus avocado and zesty green chile, with toasted pepitas sprinkled all over. The dish was so good that I completely abandoned my breakfast sandwich for the grits. – N.K.
Fried Cheese Curds from The Mouth Trap, a Booth at the Minnesota State Fair
This booth has literally dozens of employees working at once, a hyper-efficient machine turning out what must be millions of orders of fried cheese curds over the course of the fair. They are perfect. Words don’t exist for them. I don’t want to know how many I could eat. Thanks to Mpls.St.Paul food critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl for the recommendation. — B.R.
Thip Khao in Washington, D.C.
Not going to say that this is the best Lao food I’ve ever had—I was in Laos in February, after all—but it’s certainly the best I’ve had outside of Laos. Between the naem khao (crispy rice salad) and the tam muk houng, my mind was blown to pieces at how flavorful the dishes were. Lao food is already bursting with pungent and interesting flavors, so it was really exciting for me to see that be elevated tenfold. There’s a reason Thip Khao makes it onto so many “best” lists for the D.C. area. It’s really so good. – N.K.
Boudin Queso Fundido from Odd Duck in Austin
Odd Duck is a supremely inventive, eclectic restaurant with a great bar and a semi-open kitchen. Think of it like Austin’s version of Petra and the Beast. But, like Petra, some of the best bites aren’t so complicated. Take the boudin queso. It’s boudin. In queso. Any questions? — B.R.
Boba in Taiwan
No matter where I go, I will look for boba. So when I spent about a week in Taiwan—the country from which boba originates—I made it a mission to have boba every day. If you aren’t familiar with boba or boba teas, they are milk or fruit tea drinks with balls of chewy tapioca. It’s not a drink you have to accompany a meal—think of it like a snack or treat, because you have to chew the tapioca, and you’re going to be decently full afterward.
There are boba shops on every corner in Taiwan, so it was really hard to figure out which ones to try. During my visit, I had seven different boba drinks from six different shops. My favorite was from 50 Lan, a chain with two different-sized boba pearls. I had never tried petite boba before this trip, and it was delightful. I also got to try Chun Shui Tang, a tea house that claims to have invented pearl milk boba tea in 1986. But let’s be honest, they were all very good. Here are the other places I tried: CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice, Ten Ren Tea, Truedan, and Comebuy Tea. If you look these up, you’ll find that all of them have locations in California or New York City. Come to Dallas, folks!
A special shout-out to the tea in general. Tea culture in Taiwan is huge, and none of the teas I drank had a bitter aftertaste, which is fairly common in teas I’ve had here. Next time I go to Taiwan, I plan to double my boba count. – N.K.
Cabbage Dill Dumplings from Nancy’s Hustle in Houston
This was one of my favorite meals of the year—my friends and I split a bottle of wine for “dessert”—and the highlight was a dish that combines most of my favorite things. Pork and cabbage dumplings, with loads of butter, dill, and a yogurt sauce. Ah, life. — B.R.
Pan Fried Pork Baos in Shanghai
The second half of my trip to east Asia included a visit to Shanghai, the land of endless dumplings. I did get to try Shanghainese xiao long bao (for breakfast!), which were divine, but the pan-fried pork bao lives rent-free in my mind. At a chain called Yang’s Dumplings, I had a tray of six sesame-sprinkled baos with golden-brown bottoms. The casing at the top of the baos was thin, and it got thick towards the bottom of the bun.
Pan-fried bao is dipped in vinegar and treated like a soup dumpling. And these were very soupy. And juicy. And meaty. And so very tasty. I am still on the hunt for something comparable in Dallas. – N.K.
KG BBQ in Austin, Texas
Egyptian barbecue is something I did not know I needed until I stopped by the KG BBQ food truck in Austin in January. (It was Brian’s suggestion!) I fell in love with the Mediterranean rice, which was technically a side. The rice was cooked with turmeric, so it was bright yellow, and bay leaves and cinnamon. The serving was topped with candied nuts and pops of pomegranate seeds. I’ve never had anything like it. The food truck is parked right by Oddwood Brewing, which makes for a great drink pairing. Check out the spread in the photo at the top of this post. – N.K.
Modern British cuisine
British is the most underrated food in the world. I used to say this about cultures with amazing foodways that are simply not very famous, like Lao or Bosnian. But British food is very well-known indeed, and most people think it’s terrible. They’re so wrong! They’re judging it on the heavy, sludgy brown foods, like bangers and mash and that weird pot pie that’s served cold with meat paste inside. This is like judging American food on meat loaf, or Italian food on a sauce-addled eggplant parm.
British cookery underwent a revolution around the turn of this century, inspired by chefs like Gary Rhodes, whose mantra was to focus on what you can take away from a dish, not add to it; and Fergus Henderson, who basically reinvented the nose-to-tail movement and whose influence on local chefs like Misti Norris and David Uygur could not be more obvious.
At restaurant after restaurant in a three-week dining crawl across London, the Cotswolds, and rural Wales, I found truly amazing produce, treated simply and with respect. I ate Scottish seafood and venison, Welsh lamb, and wild grouse. Wales has so many fresh, brilliant pea shoots that they stick handfuls in breakfast sandwiches, on top of your eggs. Menus named varieties of potatoes, because that matters, and because they were good enough to make you reconsider how many brain cells you’ve allocated to Thinking About Potatoes. This is not just about Michelin-starred fancy restaurants, either. There’s a pub in rural Wales called the Felin Fach Griffin. It’s just a pub. Felin Fach has a population of 673. The Griffin would, I’m certain, rank in Dallas’ top 10 best restaurants.
After I posted a version of this praise on Instagram, a commenter replied to say that “British cuisine” is entirely the result of imperialism, racism, and theft. That’s just not true. Yes, the British have a lot of stellar Indian food (if you’re in London, please get the tasting menu at BiBi and visit the all-women kitchen at Darjeeling Express). But I’m not talking about immigrant cuisines here. I’m talking about native British cooking. It may once have involved a parade of pot roasts, but now it is a thing of astonishing lightness, freshness, and balance. If they stole from anybody, it’s the French.
Anyway, here’s a quick London list of great modern British cooking for you, in rough order from most to least urgent recommendation: St. John, Rogues, The Ledbury, The Bull & Last pub, Muse by Tom Aikens, Quo Vadis. (Quo Vadis, like Darjeeling Express, is conveniently close to the West End shows.) If you take a day trip to Bath, get lunch upstairs at Landrace Bakery and dinner at Beckford Bottle Shop. Then come back and try telling me this is not one of the great cuisines of the world.
By the way, if you want to dunk on a former colonial power for having literally no decent food of its own and stealing cuisine shamelessly from the peoples it subjugated, may I recommend The Netherlands? — B.R.
Authors
Nataly Keomoungkhoun
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