WHAT: A light-filled, modern American bistro that builds polished menus around a zeal for heirloom grains. Sign up for Bill Addison’s newsletter for extras and outtakes from his travels across the country > AUSTIN Contigo The 38 essential restaurants in Texas, mapped > Let’s hash it out while standing in line for brisket and potato salad at Cattleack Barbeque in Dallas, or maybe over a Deluxe Mexican Plate at Garcia’s in San Antonio. Texans have a famous breed of zeal and loyalty for their homeland there will be vehement disagreements over our choices. Ten writers with deep local roots joined me in whittling down a small nation’s worth of restaurants to the crucial 38. My appetite certainly qualifies as Texas-sized, but no one person can pull off an authoritative survey of a place so far-reaching. But then, so did dinner at Kemuri Tatsu-ya in Austin, slurping ramen enriched with smoked brisket and banana pudding topped with kokuto (crackly Japanese brown sugar) and miso caramel. Running my hands along the turquoise Formica counter at H&H Car Wash and Coffee Shop in El Paso, watching the women spoon caldillo (green chile beef stew) into bowls and folding tortillas to make egg and chorizo breakfast burritos, felt like an archetypal Texas moment. New staples now include Vietnamese-Cajun crawfish boils, duck breast over mole coloradito, Italian bread dumplings with braised mustard greens, and Indian thalis (trays) filled with dishes like vinegar-tinged Goa pork and turmeric soup. (For more on that, read my case for Texas’s culinary superstardom.) Sure, this collection includes singular steakhouses, barbecue standard-bearers, Tex-Mex strongholds, and cafes serving outstanding burgers, breakfast tacos, and kolaches: the foods that make Texas defy trendiness.īut many of the state’s defining restaurants also reflect the rich multiculturalism of its metropolises. But I recently dedicated an entire month to wandering and devouring, and the standouts among my scores of meals made it obvious that eating in Texas has never been more exceptional. I lived in Dallas a decade ago and converted then to a disciple of Lone Star foodways since becoming Eater’s national critic four years ago, I’ve made a point of returning to the state for several weeks each year. But Texas is a state so immense, so full of mythology and ambition, and so populated with such compelling and culturally specific dining options, that it stands plainly as a region unto itself. The project builds on our city sites’ 38 lists and our annual guide to the essential restaurants in America. Eater’s “Regional 38” series previously named the vital dining destinations across three fertile swaths of America: the South, New England, and the Great Lakes region of the Midwest. The time has come: We’re messing with Texas.
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