Best Chicken Soup 2012 | Herrera's Cafe | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Chicken Soup

Herrera's Cafe

Amelie Herrera opened the original Herrera's location in 1971, in the space that is now the Grapevine Bar. Since its beginning, Herrera's has expanded into several different locations around town (each is a little different since they're all individually owned), but it's the original location, now situated a block north from where it all began, that serves up the best caldo de pollo (chicken soup) in town. The soup comes served piping hot, heaping with fresh vegetables and tender pollo. Sure, you have to navigate through the bones, but it's worth it. The soup is a sure way to cure a cold, hangover or a simple a case of the blues. The catch, though, is that this delicious soup is only available on Fridays, and not for long, so make sure to get there early (especially during the chilly seasons) or it could be gone.

Best Doughnut Shop

Sunrise Donuts

Sunrise Donuts knows how to brighten up a hungry person's morning. The tiny shop, located in a strip mall off Oak Lawn Avenue, is open seven days a week, from 5 a.m. until noon except for Sunday, when opening time is 6 a.m. The shop offers an abundance of delicious fried dough. There's something for every doughnut lover, from cinnamon-sugar twists and apple fritters to traditional sprinkle doughnuts and kolaches. In fact, the shop has some of the best kolaches in town. They come plain, with cheese or with cheese and jalapeños, and the friendly staff will gladly heat up the breakfast hotdogs for you.

Best Burger

Bolsa

Choosing a best burger is like choosing the best sex position. There are just too many options, and you can only enjoy so many a day. If you really want a burger that tops them all, you need a version that covers all the bases. Thankfully, Bolsa's bliss on a bun does just that. You can get a fancier version if you want, but you will pay through the nose for it, and Bolsa's burger clocks in at a respectable 11 bucks. That's not bad for a delicate patty that's full of juice and flavor, made from for organic beef that's ground on-site. While high-end restaurants top their burger with nonsense like pork belly and slow-roasted-caramelized-balsamic-glazed super-onions, Bolsa keeps it simple with LTO and cheese. This isn't a fancy, refined and overwrought burger cookery — it's an honest, everyman's burger cooked with the attention and respect that every burger deserves.

Best Use of Beets

Rita Rioja at Bolsa

Beets, those nasty vegetables your mom used to splatter on your plate, that turned your teeth purple and set your gag reflexes into motion, have gone from disgusting to a delicacy. The root vegetable can be found on menus all over town, and is most popularly served in a salad with goat cheese, arugula and walnuts. But the folks at Bolsa have taken beets to the next level and are serving it in a cocktail. The Rita Rioja is a florescent purple cocktail made up of tequila, mint, citrus juices and beet puree. The drink is delicious. So delicious, in fact, that it could turn a diehard beet hater into a beet lover.

Best Sliders

Whitehall Exchange

We didn't see these sliders coming when we ducked into the new Whitehall Exchange down the street from Hattie's. It's a small joint, just a bar, a few tables along the back wall and a men's restroom that looks like a structural afterthought, but, boy, did we demolish the Korean BBQ sliders they served up on an attractive, gastropub-ish white dish with cucumber sliced paper-thin and a side of aioli. The beef was juicy and flavorful, best washed down with a glass of bourbon. Solid as any bar food in Dallas, and a nice refuge when the Bishop Arts District goes night-night at 11 p.m. on a Saturday.

Best Burger at a Place Where You May Spot Robert Jeffress

St. Paul Cafe

Just off St. Paul Street, nestled at the foot of First Baptist's Godly megalith, there is a café whose burgers are eminently passable — quick, flavorful, reminiscent of some competent greasy spoon. Bun, meat, cheese, onions, tomatoes, mustard. They're not going to compete with the gourmet burgers at Local or The Grape. On a weekday at lunch, however, they will certainly do. They're not even close to being the bright spot in the dining experience. To top it off, we recommend stepping into First Baptist's well-lit lobby and circling the scale model of its remod, a monument to God only Texans could conceive of. Keep a weather eye, because, if you're lucky, you might catch sight of a busy gay-condemning, GOP-loving Reverend Robert Jeffress speed-walking through the church, resembling a well-dressed, incredibly affable wood sprite. This man is, at the very least, among the most powerful religious figures in the state. Now, your visit to St. Paul Café is complete.

Best Chicken and Waffles

Jonathon's Oak Cliff

Sara Kerens

We cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is to, um, "pre-game" before eating Jonathan's chicken and waffles. This is the ultimate stoner food: a sublime crossroads between sweet and salty. Sure, you can enjoy them in sobriety, but the enhancing effects of a certain herb make eating this dish a bit like slipping into a warm cocoon made of fluffy Belgian waffles topped with crispy fried chicken and smothered in jalapeño gravy. Only you don't emerge from this cocoon, metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly. Rather, you'll transform into a supremely satisfied, tranquilized sloth, waddling ever so slowly to your car while questioning the wisdom of consuming the entire dish.

Best Bloody Mary

Oddfellows

Kathy Tran

Drink Oddfellows' house-made bloody mary and you can skip brunch. True to Oddfellows' rustic chic, it only makes sense that the BM, like everything else on the menu, tastes farm-to-table. Served in a mason jar and garnished with pickled okra, celery and olives, its flavor is sweet, peppery and redolent of fresh vegetables. Just try to drink only one. Of course, what is brunch if not an invitation to day drink. Right? RIGHT?

Best Arepa

Zaguan

Think of the arepa as a grilled cheese sandwich made with two fluffy corn cakes, but toss in an angelic choir singing "hallelujah" as your mouth and belly radiate a warm, happy glow. That's the arepa at Zaguan: fat, fluffy corn tortillas with kernels of sweet corn, gobs of oily cheese and, if you like, a pile of flavorful ham or shredded chicken or beef. Dump salsa all over the top of the arepa and get messy, or apply after each bite. It makes for a great lunch so long as you can resist the impulse to curl up under your desk for some postprandial hibernation.

Best Cheap Tex-Mex Lunch

Avila's

No matter how broke you think you are, you can afford to eat lunch at Avila's. Skip the iced tea or Dr Pepper, order a water and stick to the lunch menu. It's pretty standard-issue, but Tex-Mex is Tex-Mex; get out of the way and, as Ron Washington might say, let it do what it do. Try the cheese enchilada drowned in chile con carne, throw in a crispy beef taco and some of that burn-your-face-off salsa they serve, and be happy. If you're one of those chalupa or soft cheese taco weirdos, they got that too. Best part of all, of course: You can walk out of there for less than eight or nine bucks, depending on how shameless a tightwad/how hard up you are.

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