YOUR GUIDE TO DINING OUT

TILLMAN’S ROADHOUSE $$ODWB

Tillman’s is a place for really good food, drinks, and music in a fun, casual, come-as-you-are environment. An update on the classic Texas roadhouse with regional menu favorites, familiar tunes and no-one is a stranger hospitality — all energized with a modern take. A combination of both rustic and lush in everything from the menu to the décor make Tillman’s a good-time anytime destination. Bishop Arts District 324 West 7th St. 214.942.0988. www.tillmansroadhouse.com.

PIZZA LOUNGE $$ODFB Voted Dallas best late night restaurant 2010 ! Pizza LOUNGE offers their own unique, made-from-scratch recipes featuring fresh made pizza dough and sauce. Appetizers, salads and deserts are also an option in their eclectic, funky atmosphere as you listen to off beat tunes. Open 11am. 7 days a week till late late night at 841 exposition ave, Dallas. 214.887.6900. Pizzaloungedallas.com and on facebook.

by giuseppe verdi

Texas wine has never been more popular or of better quality. So what’s the Legislature about to do? Eliminate the state’s funding for wine research and marketing as it attempts to solve a $27 billion budget deficit.

The savings? About $3 a Texan a year for the next two years, which won’t make much of dent in the deficit.

It will, however, seriously damage the progress Texas wine has made over the past several decades. Texas wine is not some effete pastime enjoyed by a bunch of outsiders who don’t like to drink Lone Star and eat chicken fried. It’s Big Bidness.

Texas wine sales increased 6 percent in 2010, with consumers buying almost 240,000 cases of Texas wine from grocery and liquor stores, according to the Nielsen survey company. Texas wine outsold Argentine and Chilean wine — combined — in the state in 2010, reported Nielsen, and four Texas wineries were among the top 100 brands in the state.

So buy a bottle of Texas wine, toast the Legislature, and hope it does the right thing:

($15). This is the best-selling viognier in Texas, outselling viogniers from California and France. Which is exactly the point of the $3 a person tax, since it pays for the research necessary to find out if a grape like viognier will make quality wine here.

$10). Yes, I always recommend this wine. And why not? It’s cheap and well-made, and, though pink, manly enough for any member of the Legislature.

($13). Texas chardonnay has always confused me. But if Texas is going to make chardonnay, this is a good start — unoaked, with lots of tropical fruit and balance.

—JEFF SIEGEL