| CITY OF ATE | Rise’s ▼ Dish Soup’s On Where to find the best bowls of soup, cold snap or not. BY ANGIE QUEBEDEAUX W Rise 5360 W. Lovers Lane (Park Cities) Rise is best known for its soufflés. The at- mosphere will transport you to a Parisian café near the Eiffel Tower, and it is the per- fect place for ladies who lunch. While the soufflés are fantastic, the showstopper is the marshmallow soup ($12, photo at top). It’s an upscale and refined tomato and car- rot bisque with a drizzle of pesto topped with goat cheese soufflés that resemble marshmallows. Rise sells about 100 of these soups each day, regardless of the tem- perature outside. Beto & Son 3011 Gulden Lane (Trinity Groves) Beto & Son has some magic happening when it comes to their tortilla soup.The pri- mary ingredients — fresh calabacitas, achiote rice, shredded chicken, cilantro, cheese, avocado and tortilla chips — are served in a bowl and the chicken broth is poured over at your table. We’re not sure ex- actly how they make their broth for this soup, but every cold snap we can’t help but to think about it again. Pho Bac 153 N Plano Road (Richardson) We’ve had a million bowls of pho through- out the years and recently discovered the Pho Tai Kobe from Pho Bac and, after eating this, it will be hard to ever have pho with any other kind. This Kobe beef version is incred- ibly rich and flavorful with a generous por- tion of tender beef. Kostas Café 4914 Greenville Ave. (Upper Greenville) Avgolemono (Greek lemon soup) is a classic soup with chicken broth, egg yolks, lemon juice, rotisserie chicken and fresh dill served over white rice. Kostas Café is a family- owned restaurant that has been a staple to the Upper Greenville restaurant scene for years and they have some of the most au- thentic Greek food in the DFW area. If you like citrus flavors, chicken and rice, this is the soup for you. e’re approaching the time of year when weather god Pete Delkus will be filling our social media feeds with teases frigid weather. Below are some great places to belly up to a bowl of soup to dip your beard in and warm your frigid soul while we wait a few days for 70-degree days return. Cindi’s NY Deli Multiple Locations Cindi’s NY Deli’s matzo ball soup, a tradi- tional Jewish dish often served during Pass- over, is a chicken soup filled with dumplings made from matzah meal (crushed unleav- ened bread). The dumplings cook in the broth and soak up the flavors. Each bowl is served with two soft and fluffy matzo balls that melt in your mouth. Fish City Grill Multiple Locations Fish City Grill is a great place for casual sea- food dining, and when it comes to their clam chowder, they consistently hit it out of the park. It’s loaded with fresh clams, potatoes and bacon. Add a touch of hot sauce and a package of oyster crackers and it will quickly become your favorite version of clam chowder. Roman Cucina 7989 Belt Line Road (North Dallas) The Italian wedding soup at Roman Cucina is so simple but different. This chicken- based broth is served with acini di pepe pasta, small Italian meatballs and fresh spin- ach. We could get a gallon of this soup and be reluctant to share. José 4931 W. Lovers Lane (Park Cities) The carrot habanero soup ($6) at José is made with carrot, habanero, coconut milk and pepita pesto, and if you’re a pro, you re- quest some lump crabmeat. The sweetness of the crabmeat and the savory spiciness of the soup is perfect. B2J Fish Soup 151 W. Spring Creek Parkway (Plano) The owners of B2J Fish Soup visited a Chi- nese sauerkraut fish restaurant in Guang- zhou, China, years ago and loved it so much they decided to open a restaurant specializ- ing in this dish in Seattle and have since ex- panded to Plano and Houston. Their signature soup dish comes in three flavors: spicy, the classic spicy sour and vine pepper numb flavor. You then choose your main in- gredient: tilapia, largemouth bass, wagyu marshmallow soup at the Richardson location only: Eat it in less than 12 minutes without reaching for water and you’ll get a prize. ▼ COVID LINGERING ILLNESS restaurant closures in New York City, Hous- ton and Philadelphia on Dec. 22. The wave hit locally a day later when Thunderbird Station had to close just before Christmas because of sick staff. Amor y Queso closed soon thereafter. According to The New York Times, cases A Angie Quebedeaux beef, or tilapia and wagyu. Don’t forget an or- der of Chinese doughnuts to dip in the broth. La Me 9780 Walnut St. (Northeast Dallas) The “go-to” dish at most Vietnamese restau- rants is a bowl of pho. However, the noodles at La Me go well beyond your traditional pho. Mi Quang is a dish that originated in Central Vietnam and should be ordered anytime you’re at a place that serves it. The flat rice noodles are made with turmeric, which gives them a golden color. Unlike a bowl of pho, this dish is served with a smaller amount of broth and is loaded with shrimp, squid, pork, peanuts, a boiled egg, bean sprouts and fresh herbs. The broth is rich and savory and is sea- soned with fish sauce, black pepper, shallots and garlic. You will get a serving of fried rice paper crisps with sesame seeds on the side that are meant to be crumbled and sprinkled on top of the dish. Boulevardier 408 N. Bishop Ave. (Bishop Arts District) At Boulevardier, the French onion soup is made with caramelized onions simmered for hours in beef stock with a sheet of melted Gruyère cheese. It’s a simple recipe to make at home if you have the time to commit to it. But why do that when you can get it at Boule- vardier? They caramelize their onions for 72 hours and use white wine to bring out the fla- vors of the onions even more. The beef broth has hints of star anise and chervil, which make it savory and delicious. It is topped with a thick slice of crostini, which is perfect for dipping into the broth. Oni Ramen 3661 Plano Road (Richardson) If you’re truly ready to feel some heat, try the reaper ramen at Oni Ramen. The miso broth is made with “demon” spices, then topped with pork belly, bamboo shoots, Par- mesan, corn kernels, bean sprouts, leeks, green onions and an egg. It’s served with a killer hot sauce that is a mixture of Carolina reaper pepper, habanero pepper, Trinidad scorpion pepper and 7 Pot Brain Strain pep- per. It’s so spicy that it has its own challenge of COVID in Dallas County have jumped 534% in the past 14 days. Hospitalizations are up 52% over the same period. Last week, Shoals in Deep Ellum closed for a night “out of an abundance of caution” because of a sick employee. On Jan. 3, Tei An posted to its Facebook page that it was clos- ing after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19. Detour Doughnuts closed for several days and is pleading for customers to wear masks inside the store. Oak Lawn bar Alexandre’s closed for the rest of January after employees submitted a proposal that called for an immediate shut- down of the bar “for a period of no less than 30 days to avoid the continued massive in- coming wave of transmissions here.” And AllGood Café, the restaurant and live music venue in Deep Ellum, posted this week they too are closing for the safety of their customers and staff after positive tests. Owner Mike Snider says they’ll stay closed as long as they need to, though he hopes only about five days. He’s doing what he can to keep his staff paid, he says. The term “soft-lockdown” has been ap- plied to this form of self-regulation: busi- nesses shut down because so many employees are sick. Rodney E. Rohde is a professor and chair of the clinical laboratory science program at Texas State University. When we asked if these rolling voluntary closures will help stem the tide of COVID cases, Rohde said anything helps. “From a pure public health and infectious disease perspective, any mitigation measure to cut down transmission helps,” Rohde says. “How much it helps is hard to measure when, at this point, it’s like putting a plug in one hole of dozens of holes in the dam.” In terms of financial support for these struggling restaurants, the Restaurant Revital- ization Fund, approved by Congress, ran out of funds in July, having fulfilled fewer than 35% of the grant requests it received in Texas. Kelsey Erickson Streufert is the vice president of government relations and advo- cacy for the Texas Restaurant Association. “Previous relief efforts at the federal level were great, but they were short-term life- lines. And this pandemic has shown us it’s go- ing to take a while to rebuild,” Streufert says. She says there are bipartisan “conversa- tions” at the federal level about funds similar to the relief fund that are targeted at smaller businesses. >> p14 13 13 RESTAURANTS CONTINUE TO CLOSE DUE TO SICK STAFF; MORE FINANCIAL RELIEF MAY BE ON THE WAY. BY LAUREN DREWES DANIELS s cases of omicron continue to climb, more restaurants are tempo- rarily shuttering. We first reported dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUTZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 JANUARY 13-19, 2022
