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Casa Rosa, one of two recent Tex-Mex entries to the market, offers a beautiful dining room in which to enjoy tortilla soup, chili con queso, and other favorites.
(PHOTOS: COURTESY CASA ROSA) The other, Odelay, has a beautiful patio but is still all about the food such as
the shrimp fajitas. (PHOTOS: KERSTEN RETTIG AND COURTESY ODELAY)
ENJOY THE HEAT AND CLIMB ABOARD THE TEX-MEX TRAIN
The Tex-Mex segment in Dallas is en fuego.
Within the circulation boundaries of Preston Hollow People and Park Cities People alone, there are 12 Tex-Mex restaurants, including Rafa’s, Mesero (2), Odelay, Mi Cocina (2), Fernando’s, El Fenix, Muchacho, and Jalisco Norte. KERSTEN RETTIG That doesn’t include two Chipotles, one Taco Joint, a Velvet Taco, and two upscale, predominantly Mexican, not Tex-Mex, restaurants: Jose and Tulum. Just a smidge outside our circulation area, find Casa Rosa, Doce Mesas, Tupinamba, and Desperado’s.
There is a corn silk thread that connects most of them. However, there’s only one that’s owned by one of the two families that successfully commercialized Tex-Mex in Dallas: Casa Rosa, owned by Gilbert Cuellar Jr., whose family built El Chico’s, once the largest Tex-Mex chain in the world.
Tex-Mex is a regional cuisine that, like certain viruses, has subvariants. The TexMex you taste in Dallas is different from San Antonio’s Tex-Mex. The Tex-Mex at Fernando’s is not exactly like Mesero; some folks like one and not the other. Thank goodness we have so many, right?
The latest two market entries are Odelay and Casa Rosa; very different, both excellent.
Odelay is the bebé of Julian Barsotti, who’s known for his Italian restaurants. Odelay is spacious and highly decorated with carefully curated textiles, pottery, and paintings from Mexico. It has the most beautiful patio in the area, and, though it Instagrams well, it’s more about the food than décor.
The pan-fried Wagyu tacos are sublime - the filling is like meat butter - creamy, rich, and beefy. This is an updated version of El Fenix’s pan-fried taco. The naked chile relleno is baked and has a punchier chile and tomato flavor than the fried version. The chips are sturdy, the salsa is tomatoey and on the mild side, and the shrimp fajitas are filled with grilled, plump shrimp, seasoned perfectly. Casa Rosa is a reiteration of the legendary Inwood Village spot now located in a former El Fenix location at Lemmon and Inwood. Far simpler in décor, rose pink and terracotta walls are illuminated by a beaming skylight and wall lanterns that glow a deep maize. A lush center planter spilling
The Tex-Mex at with greenery and the uncluttered Fernando’s is not space remind me of exactly like Mesero; a restaurant in San Miguel de Allende.some folks like one What I love and not the other. most about this menu, besides the Thank goodness we most amazing taco have so many, right? meat, flavorful shredded chicken in enchiladas, and the best queso in town, is that you can choose your combinations. You pick two, three, or four menu items such as enchiladas, empanadas, or chimichangas and get two sides. Excellent quality food and reasonable prices. Both Odelay and Casa Rosa serve tortilla soup a la The Mansion on Turtle Creek, which will make everyone deeply happy when colder weather arrives.
Can so many Tex-Mex restaurants survive in the 21 square miles that encompass the distribution area of People Newspapers? Time will tell.
Follow Kersten Rettig, a Park Cities-based writer with 30-plus years of experience in food and beverage marketing and public relations, on Instagram @KerstenEats.
DID YOU KNOW?
En fuegomeans “on fire,” slang for super popular.
TexMex Train: It’s not just about food. The Texas Mexican Railway Company was christened in June 1881 and was a subsidiary of the Kansas City Southern Railway, a significant rail operator at the time. Known as the Tex-Mex, the route connected Corpus Christi to Laredo. In 1883, Tex-Mex became the first Mexican-United State railway connection when a bridge was built over the Rio Grande River to connect Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.
Summer’s final weeks are always a waiting game for me – waiting until I can turn the page on the calendar to September and the unofficial start of fall. I love summer, but North Texas’ unrelenting heat these past months tells me autumn can’t come soon enough. I
CHRISTY ROST long to fill my front steps with pots of yellow and bronze chrysanthemums, hang a sunflower wreath on my front door, and decorate the tops of bookcases and the china cabinet with silk autumn leaves and craft store pumpkins, squash, and pinecones.
I’m drawn to magazine covers and cookbook photos featuring pumpkins, butternut squash, savory casseroles, stews, oven-roasted meats, and baskets of just-harvested apples. With the promise of cool evenings and warm days soon to come, I’m already transitioning to the new season in my daily menus, but more than anything, I want to bake.
Quick breads, muffins, cakes, and chicken pot pies – these signal Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (PHOTO: CHRISTY ROST)
the onset of autumn in my kitchen.
Always reluctant to make a special trip to the supermarket for a single ingredient, I looked around the pantry a few days ago and spied a couple of very ripe bananas. They were no longer attractive for fruit salads or topping off my bowl of oatmeal, but I knew they would lend fabulous flavor to a banana cake. In the freezer, I discovered a package of cream cheese.
Baking a cake to celebrate autumn’s arrival was sounding better all the time!
Banana cake is one of those desserts that easily transitions from a casual, mid-week sheet cake topped with buttercream frosting to an impressive and decadent two-layer cake lavishly iced with thick swirls of cream cheese frosting. As a huge fan of cream cheese frosting, I decided to go with the latter and simplified the recipe by using sour milk instead of buttermilk.
Still, this cake is made with cake flour, which you’ll find in the baking aisle, rather than all-purpose flour for a light-as-air texture to ensure every bite melts in your mouth.
Christy Rost is a cookbook author, chef on PBS stations nationwide, and longtime resident of the Park Cities and Preston Hollow. Her Celebrating Home 4-minute cooking videos are available at youtube.com/ChristyRostCooks and on her christyrost.com website.
BANANA CAKE
Ingredients:
2/3 cup milk 1 tablespoon cider vinegar ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar ¼ cup dark brown sugar, packed 2 eggs, at room temperature 2 ¾ cups sifted cake flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine milk and vinegar, stir, and set it aside to sour. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 8 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
In a medium bowl, stir together cake flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Gradually beat the flour mixture, alternately with the mashed banana and sour milk, into the creamed mixture to create a thick batter. Stir in vanilla.
Line two 9-inch round cake pans with parchment paper and spray the pans and paper with nonstick cooking spray-with-flour. Pour the cake batter evenly into the pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. Cool the cakes 30 minutes, remove them from the pans, and place them on a wire rack to cool completely. Frost with cream cheese frosting.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter, softened 4 ounces cream cheese, softened 5 cups confectioners’ sugar
Dash of salt 3 tablespoons milk 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
Directions:
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add confectioners’ sugar and the salt, alternately with the sour milk, beating until the frosting is thick and fluffy. Stir in vanilla.
Yield: one 9-inch two-layer cake
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Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to watch pool trends come and go and help choose pool shapes, finishes, and pool furniture MARGARET CHAMBERS for my clients. Here are some things I’ve learned about pools during my career as an interior designer.
1. Determine How You’ll Use Your Pool
First, if you’re thinking of building a pool, you need to list the different ways you plan on enjoying it. For example, a lap pool needs to be rectangular and very long.
If you primarily intend your pool as a party setting, consider: Will you want a fire pit or fireplace nearby? What about an outdoor kitchen, bar, or cabana?
When it comes to water features, I love deck jets that arc and crisscross each other.
2. Take a Look at Your Site
It’s important to ask a pool design expert to do a site analysis based on your property. This can help prevent your project from running into snags later. Big leafy trees and pools are a terrible combination: You’ll constantly be cleaning out leaves.
Look for area pool companies that have been in the business for a minimum of 15 to 20 years and have a good reputation.
The shape of the pool should complement the architecture of your house. For example, I would design a sleek and simple pool for a modern home. Certain pool shapes are out of fashion, especially kidney or lagoon-shaped pools. However, you should also be careful about “trendy” pool designs. A pool that is trendy now can date the house later.
4. Add Outdoor Furniture
Pool furniture needs to have colors that complement the home’s exterior and interior. When it comes to outdoor furniture, I almost always use all matching sets, with the same metal finishes and fabric on the large cushions and umbrella. I introduce variety with contrasting decorative pillows or accent tables (like faux bois accent tables or garden stools), but that’s about it.
If adding a pool to your home is just one part of your home building or renovation project, you can also bring in an interior designer for their input. An interior designer usually has a lot to say about pools. After all, they want to make sure that your pool not only looks beautiful but is the perfect match for your house.
Margaret Chambers, a registered interior designer (RID) and member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), leads Chambers Interiors and Associates. Her colleague Caitlin Crowley helped edit this column. Visit chambersinteriors.com/blog for more design advice. This pool at a University Park home features an integrated hot tub with matching tile. (PHOTO: DAN PIASSICK.
DESIGN: MARGARET CHAMBERS)
