Regular Joe's Guide

Latest visit: Jul 2015 First visit: 1984 The RJG goes from our favorite Denver Italian restaurant, to our second favorite Dallas area Italian restaurant. As many of you all know, Pietro's is our favorite Italian in DFW, and remains the RJG's all-time favorite restaurant. But for close to 30 years, Prego has been right there behind them, providing hearty competition. And like Pietro's, we're infrequent visitors to Dallas anymore, so it's a rare treat indeed when we do dine here. We may have been only a couple of times since I started this blog, so this week's visit gave us the opportunity to finally blog about it. One major difference between Pietro's and Prego, is that the latter is open for lunch. And it's just that opening that allows me to choose Prego when in the area at that time. Mrs. RJG and I were in Dallas for an emergency weekday errand, and we had a bit of downtime right around lunch. Of course we first had to visit Northpark (guess who was...

Mar 31, 2022 update: Cantina Laredo currently is in 8 states with 19 restaurants. There are still 7 locations in Texas including 2 in the DFW airport. The Addison location remains. None in Colorado unfortunately. Last visit: Jul 2015 (Grapevine, TX - closed) First visit: May 1988 (Addison, TX) Earlier in the week, we once again had a new project kicking off in Plano, so we had employees all over the country fly in for the start. Sounds like a team event to me! As noted last month, we recently went to Pappasito's, and this time we selected a very similar place with Cantina Laredo. Old time DFW citizens know Cantina Laredo well, as it was one of the first "upscale Tex-Mex" places in the area. I can remember going to the one in Addison as far back as the 1980s. I've always found Cantina Laredo to be reliably good. On this visit I tried the Tacos Cascabel which they describe as "Sautéed chicken with cascabel sauce on soft corn tortillas with cilantro, marinated oni...

The last time I would have been at the location in Durant would have been 1993. But it is still open as of 11/29/24! They are primarily in Oklahoma with a stray location in Kansas and Arkansas. Latest visit: Jul 2015 (McAlester, Oklahoma - closed) First visit: sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s (Oklahoma City) The Justin location mentioned below was closed in 2015.  It was roughly 5 years ago that I first wrote about Taco Casa, and our trips up to Durant, Oklahoma. I mentioned that one day I would write about Taco Mayo. And here we are. Since my Dad was a traveling salesman (he sold industrial uniforms to large laundries), I spent many a time in the car with him - especially in the summers before I was old enough to get an off-school job. Oklahoma was one of his prime states, and we'd probably travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Enid, or Clinton at least 3 times a summer. According to their website, Taco Mayo started in 1978, and that's within one or two years...

Latest visit: Jul 2015 First visit: Aug 2013 Mrs. RJG and I had a free Saturday, with absolutely no obligations for lunch, dinner, or anything else for that matter. So on days like this, the RJG likes to travel outside of our usual cow pasture here in Northeast Tarrant, and try something new. We've been pretty negligent with Arlington, and so I decided to point our cattle car straight south and see what happens. We both had a hankering for some Mexican food with a beer or margarita, and so with my handy dandy Urbanspoon App at my disposal, we went digging. After a couple of minutes of research, El Gabacho looked like the perfect place to try. And it was. The first thing you'll notice upon arrival is that it takes a couple of minutes to get your bearings. Even though the restaurant is visible from the street, and there is outdoor patio seating, the actual entrance is inside a nice mini-mall called the Brownstone Village. Once inside the restaurant, you'll be immersed in...