| CITY OF ATE | ▼ Dish Noodles for the Soul Highland Noodles in Frisco offers some great hand-pulled noodle dishes, along with soups and stir-fry. BY HANK VAUGHN H ighland Noodles opened in Frisco in December, another entry on the hand-pulled noo- dle scene that is becoming more popular each day in North Texas. This is way out there in the hinterlands of Frisco in yet another huge, sprawling strip mall. But, it’s in the same shopping center as Haidilao Hot Pot, so perhaps one could make a day of it to justify the drive. Highland specializes in All Things Noodle, from hand-pulled to beef noodle soup to the increasingly common oily chili noodle, as well as stir-fried and cold varieties and other dishes accessible via the QR menu. The website blurb proclaims that noo- dles are a soul food of sorts: “…eating isn’t just about feeding your body. It’s about nourishing the soul, too. And life is too short for mediocre soul food. We make sure every dish that we serve satisfies your en- tire being.” Indeed, life is too short, full stop, and while noodles may not be the number one priority in YOLOing, they’re right up there. We went there for lunch and found spe- cials that included noodle soup, a tea egg and a side salad, so we went with that as well as ordering a bowl of oily noodles, a dish that has quickly found a warm (and spicy, and messy…) place in our hearts. The lunch special included Lanzhou Hand Pull beef noodle soup, a tea egg and a Hank Vaughn Lanzhou Hand Pull Beef Noodle with cubed beef, chopped scallions and cilantro. shredded potato salad as our salad selec- tion. The width of the noodles can be per- sonalized, with at least four levels ranging from very thin to extra wide; we opted for a midrange noodle. The noodles had the per- fect chew, and the bowl where they lived contained diced pieces of tender beef, a generous amount of chopped scallions and cilantro, all hanging out in a wonderfully rich and flavorful broth. Some loud slurp- ing might have occurred during the con- sumption of this soup, but what are you going to do? The oily noodles came in a decently sized bowl along with chili pepper, bok choy, soy sauce and vinegar, with a little dollop of raw garlic sitting atop it all. Stir- ring it all up let the oil blend with every- thing, providing the slightly spicy noodle coating that is becoming a common crav- ing for us. Of course, the wide, long noo- dles can be a challenge to eat with chopsticks. One pulls and pulls with no noodle end in sight, adding the challenge of noodle entanglement. But fear not. The server saw us struggling and brought us a pair of scissors, which we gladly, if sheep- ishly, used to cut the noodle hanging from the chopstick to a more manageable length before shoveling it into our maw. It had to be done. The sides were good as well. The tea egg was a tea egg, no surprises here, a hard-boiled egg with a mottled tea-colored surface that went well with the noodles. The shredded po- tato salad, on the other hand, was something we’d never had: shredded al dente potato pieces with carrot and green onion in a pleas- ant vinegary base, which also complemented the main courses well. All and all, a welcome addition to the fresh hand-pulled noodle market in the Me- troplex. 9188 Prestmont Place, Frisco. 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. Monday – Thursday; 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. Sunday ▼ WINE DON’T DISS BEFORE YOU DRINK T Vote For Us Best of Dallas 2022 spirits made by local producers are much re- vered, but local wine? Not really. One na- tional food writer once told me that local wine always seemed too bougie. Which has never made much sense. Lo- cal wine, including and especially Texas wine, is about as local as it gets. The grapes are grown here, and wine doesn’t require something else, like hops, that come from elsewhere. And one of the most distinctive elements in winemaking, land, is widely available too. It’s why California wine doesn’t taste like French wine, and why Texas wine doesn’t taste like either. And why it’s not supposed to. In all of this, Texas wine has thrived over the past couple of decades. It’s the fifth-biggest wine-producing state in the country, behind only the three West Coast states and New York. It’s widely available – in supermarkets, even — and there is wine in most price ranges. And, believe it or not, much of it is dry, just like wine from “real” places. So what makes Texas wine distinctly local? Grapes It’s too hot and too dry for the grapes most people know — like cabernet sauvignon, mer- lot, chardonnay and pinot noir — to do as well here as they do elsewhere. Yes, they’re grown in Texas, but the focus has long been on grapes that thrive in this kind of climate. That means whites like viognier, a French grape, and the Italian vermentino. Reds include the Spanish tempranillo, the Italian sangiovese and even lesser-known French grapes like cinsault, carignan and mourvedre. These grapes grow in regions similar to Texas; Spain’s Rioja, famous for its tempranillo, looks a lot like the Hill Country (save for the odd castle scattered here and there). IN DEFENSE OF TEXAS WINES, PLUS A HILL COUNTRY WINE PASSPORT. BY JEFF SIEGEL he local food movement has long re- garded local wine as something not quite right. Craft beer and artisan Regions Most of the grapes for Texas wine are grown in the High Plains in West Texas — as much as 80% in some years. The Hill Country is the second-most important re- gion, as well as the center of Texas wine tourism. There are also grapes grown on the Gulf Coast, East Texas and around North Texas. In fact, Texas has seven American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs. Those are specially designated areas for grape growing because they have some- thing that makes them distinct from other parts of the country. >> p18 7224 Independence Parkway • Plano 972.618.4542 • litasdallas.com 17 13 dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUT |ZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 AUGUST 25–31, 2022
