Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Tijuana Bar & Grill

Given the name, Tijuana Bar & Grill might sound like your basic restaurant-bar; the help-wanted ads, however, describe it as "one of the city’s newest and most innovative hospitality concepts." So there. Maybe the "hospitality concept" part comes from the fact that owner Dante Picazo has experience not just in restaurants but also casinos? Anyhoo, it opened Tues Jul 19, w/ a multi-Latin menu (Cuban sandwiches, tortas, "Latino tacos" described as having barbacoa beef) and modern decor; but equally interesting is the location at McKinney / Monticello in the site formerly occupied by the doomed Vino & Basso, and before that, the odiferous Toscana.

4900 McKinney Ave., 214-443-9293, no website yet

45 Comments:

At July 26, 2005 10:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A restaurnt named after Tijuana? Not exactly one of Mexico's best tourist destinations...

 
At July 26, 2005 10:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I Like Cuban's so I might go see how these ones are.

 
At July 26, 2005 10:59 AM, Blogger TG said...

perhaps you'll be kind enough to provide a "review" of said sandwiches sometime in the future. speaking of, you've revised your opinion of piranha? it did always seem hit or miss ... you had a miss?

 
At July 26, 2005 11:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm not sure I get what you mean by Toscana being "odiferous" (but that link is good silly fun).

 
At July 26, 2005 11:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I never went to Vino & Basso, primarily because I could never find it. Then one time I was at Dunlap Swain and saw it, but it had long closed by then. [Insert joke about location here.]

 
At July 26, 2005 12:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

dean: great to see a mention of dunlap swain. those guys are my heroes. lee, the road guy at the monticello one, has rescued me so jillions of times from dead batteries, flat tires and other car woes. ditto the dunlap swain on routh street, especially when i worked downtown, and the lemmon avenue one when i lived in oak lawn. i am grateful for the one on forest lane, too; it is in the same center as the antique mall where i rent a space.

 
At July 26, 2005 12:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

tg: forgive me for plugging a service station/garage on your food blog but i think the world would be a better place if we had as many dunlap swains as we do starbucks.

 
At July 26, 2005 12:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

haven't been to tijuana in years, but it used to be a great place for booze

 
At July 26, 2005 12:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's funny you should mention that. I went to that Antique mall one time looking for a first edition book. They had tons of books (except for the one I wanted) and it was a fun way to spend three hours on a Friday afternoon!

 
At July 26, 2005 12:33 PM, Blogger TG said...

well this is off-topic too but this is interesting news: for the first time since the Gallup Poll began keeping track in 1992, more Americans say their alcoholic beverage of choice is wine, not beer.

 
At July 26, 2005 12:44 PM, Blogger Scott Roche said...

"more Americans say their alcoholic beverage of choice is wine, not beer."

This country's goin' straight to hell.

 
At July 26, 2005 12:46 PM, Blogger Scott Roche said...

"a service station/garage on your food blog"

The two aren't necessarilly mutually exclusive. The best cheese biscuits this white boy has ever had was at a Phillips 66 in Greenville, NC.

 
At July 26, 2005 12:48 PM, Blogger Scott Roche said...

And yes naming an upscale restaurant after Tijuana seems to make as much sense as attending Mass at "Our Lady of Quentin Tarrantino".

 
At July 26, 2005 12:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"captain eucalyptus" should be "captain hilarious"

 
At July 26, 2005 1:04 PM, Blogger TG said...

m.b. re: odiferous, whenever i entered toscana, it reeked of stale, crusted-on cooking smells. it wasn't just about improper ventilation; the lingering odor told me the staff wasn't keeping the kitchen clean.

 
At July 26, 2005 1:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

tg: That's what JITB smells like too!

 
At July 26, 2005 1:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Speaking of alcohol, I saw on the news that there's a discussion about whether alcohol should be required to have nutrition lables like other types of food (which it's not) telling you the calories, fat content, serving sizes, etc.

Here's a link telling you more if anyone is interested.

http://www.knowyourdrink.com/

 
At July 26, 2005 1:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i never noticed an order problem at toscana and david holben is a talented chef, better I think that the overly touted dean fearing. also on the odiferous front, a restaurant ought to close down for the day or night or however long it takes when it has a clogged grease trap. if you happen in during that time, you'll never want to return

 
At July 26, 2005 1:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

it's hard to imagine archie bunker having an after work glass of wine

 
At July 26, 2005 1:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

twisted: how can you be in portland and oak cliff at the same time?

 
At July 26, 2005 1:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

dean: david grossblatt, the big book dealer at Forestwood mall, is probably Dallas' premier fine book seller, especially for first editions and books on texas history. tom keener, a friend or at least an acquaintance of tg, also has books there -- not as many and not as rare but at much lower prices. a woman whose name i can't remember also has a small space there; her big specialty is children's books and she has a large space at the unlimited ltd. mall in addison. love field antique mall has two good book dealers, too.

 
At July 26, 2005 1:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ms. worth: do your ears burn when you hear people talking about antiques?

 
At July 26, 2005 1:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

to fans of fried chicken livers and gizzards: for some reasons, lots of giant truck stops have them and usually they are pretty good.

 
At July 26, 2005 2:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I tried the knowyourdrink link recommended by the first-edition-loving, JITB-hating dean. WARNING, it shut down my computer for a moment, so enter at your own risk. But besides that, what a dumb site! First of all, it's just a big ad for a liquor co.; second, does anyone give an F about the CALORIES in a cocktail?

 
At July 26, 2005 3:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

frequent flyer: if you don't give an "F" about the calories in your cocktail, why did you go to the link in the first place? do you feel compelled to click on every link, just because it's there? do you also re-press the elevator button when you get there and someone else has already pressed it?

 
At July 26, 2005 4:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i LIKE the name tijuana. it's got a zip to it that monterrey and cancan and other mexico city names don't have. i'm a herb alpert fan, too.

 
At July 26, 2005 4:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well "clairevoyant", I recommend you consult the dictionary to find out how to spell your name. I went to the site dean suggested to be polite, which I'm going to surmise is a characteristic you do not possess. As for the elevator button, it is my belief that if you hit it repeatedly, the elevator moves more quickly. I keep my finger on it for the whole ride down. Thanks for your interest.

 
At July 26, 2005 4:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

boxed wine is the GREATEST!

 
At July 26, 2005 4:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah, boxed wine goes great with those JITB sandwiches and cici's pizza

 
At July 26, 2005 4:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

frequent flyer: since elevator buttons are heat activated, you might try holding a cigarette lighter to the button to go even faster! also, here's an old indian trick for dark elevators: if you have trouble reading the numbers on the buttons, angle a credit card under them so that it reflects light on the buttons. it works.

 
At July 26, 2005 4:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

mr. otis regrets to say that someone else is pretending to be him. those elevator tricks are malarkey. also, there is no truth to the old wives tale that if an elevator starts falling you should jump up and down so that you may be in the air when it hits bottom and escape unscathed. jump all you want, but when an elevaor drops a dozen or more flights, you're going to be hurt

 
At July 26, 2005 4:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

my problem with elevators is that i jump every time i hear a bell. i'm always getting on an up elevator when i want a down, or vice versa

 
At July 26, 2005 7:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

tg: i think it's commendable that you scan the help-wanted ads in search of new restaurants that are hiring. that's real dedication and imaginative enterprise. if i were mr. trump, i'd have you on the apprentice

 
At July 26, 2005 10:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i still have half a pint of dreamery's BLACK raspberry ice cream and i'm still not wowed. the chocolate chunks taste ok (despite the coconut oil) when you let them melt in your mouth, but when you encounter one cold and head on, it's like you're biting on a rock. can't wait to get back to my h-d rum raisin!

 
At July 26, 2005 10:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

WHERE is mr. trump? it has been more than a week, maybe two weeks, since we heard from him.

 
At July 26, 2005 10:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

gee. where oh where could mr. trump be?

 
At July 26, 2005 10:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

once again, BORING item, lots of responses. of course, we have to discount the ones from "plano guy," who is obviously more to you -- and you to him -- than just another resident of the suburban backwater. a lot of crazy people must have discovered this blog. still, i wish you the best...if only red ennk or jess trulove would give me the time of day.

 
At July 26, 2005 10:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

it is 10:31 p.m. in dallas

 
At July 26, 2005 10:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

sorry, red, i have 10:32 p.m.

 
At July 26, 2005 10:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

dang! you can't trust those computer clocks.

 
At July 27, 2005 2:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mine says it's 2:46.

 
At July 27, 2005 10:23 AM, Blogger Scott Roche said...

m.b. said...
"captain eucalyptus" should be "captain hilarious"


Well thanks. At least I'm not the only one who thinks I'm funny.

 
At July 27, 2005 10:25 AM, Blogger Scott Roche said...

Oh and back on the whole fast food thing, I was down in your neck o' the woods (Dallas) a while back and experienced Taco Bueno and I wish we had one of those here. Taco Bell would spiral into obscurity.

 
At July 27, 2005 10:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh my!

It's time for a new thread from where I sit.

 
At January 30, 2019 3:50 AM, Anonymous Noreen Fatima said...

Ohh what happened dear.!! you can't trust computer clock
Angry Quotes

 

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