Regular Joe's Guide

Our original location in far north Fort Worth is still open along with one in Arlington. The Keller locale is closed. Latest visit: Dec 2017 (Keller - closed) First visit: Sep 2015 (Fort Worth) We're always on the lookout for high quality street tacos at the RJG, and the Mrs. is a fan of the Salvadoran favorite papusas, so Tacusa came across our radar for a try. This was in 2015, and we were surprised they've recently opened another location closer by. With our local Tacos y Mas now closed up, we thought we'd give Tacusa one more try. While the front of the menu clearly portrays a Mexican taqueria, it becomes obvious quickly this is truly an El Salvadoran eatery. All the same, I stuck with street tacos and tried their carne asada, pollo, and al pastor. Priced attractively at $1.25 and listening to a sizzling kitchen, I felt I could do no wrong. Tacusa features a salsa bar with 4 different sauces, an onion/cilantro mix, lettuce, and other items. Right away I was disturbed w...

Alrighty then... From the time I dropped the Howdy note until now, I've updated all the places we visited in 2017. I've created a new feature for each year - see the page above for the RJG's 2017 recommendations . This will my way of tracking all restaurants, and ensuring pages don't go unread. There were a few places we went for the first time in 2017 that we thoroughly enjoyed, but I didn't put a page up yet. I need to revisit the following: Roscoe's Smokehouse (Keller) Lucy's Lot (Grapevine) Slim Chickens (Keller) El Pollo Loco (Keller) - well we'd been here plenty of times before, but not in DFW! Planet Sub - I was excited to tell you about this sandwich place. I had been a frequent visitor to their location in Denver many years ago (which has now closed), and was excited to see them here in DFW. So I went to the one in Irving earlier this year and it was great! And now it's closed too. Argh. They are still open in Fort Worth though. ...

The Keller location is closed, leaving only the one in The Colony, which we haven't been to. Looks like they went back to their original name of Drunken Donkey. Last visit: Dec 2017 (Keller - closed) First visit: June 2016 (Keller - closed) Apparently the name "Drunken" didn't appeal to the good clean folks in Keller or Colleyville (as opposed to the dirty folks in Lewisville?), so Dallas Craft was born... Nothing else changed that I can see, except for my final note below. We still recommend it! On the last updated post from Funky Baja's, we spoke about how Keller is all grown up. The kid is now in college, and with that... we now have Drunken Donkey . We have longed wished for a Flying Saucer type place in Northeast Tarrant. When Ginger Man arrived in Southlake, it seemed our dreams had come true. Except it didn't. Ginger Man's mentality exists from a time when getting German drafts was still a big deal. We want local, and want the beers to rotate ofte...

May 13, 2022 update: Currently Hoffbrau has 3 locations in the Fort Worth area (Haltom City, Granbury, Benbrook) + 1 in far away Amarillo. Latest visit: Dec 2017 (Haltom City) First visit: 1985 (Dallas) Did I never write about Hoffbrau? Guess not. How funny. Well, not that one needs an underground guide for this legendary institution. It's likely to be found in your hotel hard cover guide to Dallas/Fort Worth (you know, the one on the Formica coffee table...). I did, however, mention the restaurant in our writeup for Bangkok Cuisine, only in that I stated everyone goes to Hoffbrau instead of the Thai concern. In any case, Hoffbrau is a relic of the past - the mid priced steakhouse. The cheapy Golden Corral places still exist, and of course the high end, high margin/markup steakhouses proliferate on the strength of the modern business expense account. Hoffbrau comes from the era of the everyman traveling salesman, when places like Steak and Ale and Stuart Anderson's ruled the l...

Malai Kitchen maintains 3 locations: Southlake, Dallas, and Fort Worth. Latest visit: Dec 2017 (Southlake) First visit: Feb 2017 (Southlake) If Taverna Rossa represents the perfect mix of craft beer and artisan pizza, then how about a Thai brewpub? I mean seriously, are these restaurants tapping into the RJG psyche or what? Strange as it may seem, Thai brewpubs are not unique in the United States. I know of at least two others, one in Denver, and one in Alpine, Wyoming(?!). I'm sure there are more. I've only been to Malai Kitchen twice to date, and had Mrs. RJG in tow on the last visit. Though the restaurant claims Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, it is definitely the former that defines this fine establishment. Usually it's the other way around. While you can certainly get a nice bowl of pho here, I wouldn't waste the visit, when there's so much great Thai food to be had. As always, I dug right into their variation of basil chicken. On my first visit they allowed for ...

First visit: Dec 2017 Speaking of two-fer-99 cent tacos, how about Tupinamba Cafe? I didn't realize the fried taco had survived the modern restaurant industry. Anyone who has been to Kansas City and eaten at In-A-Tub knows the glories of a greasy fried taco. Sure there's Jack In the Box, but let's be honest here, that's just frozen food dropped in a vat of grease. I want fresh food dropped in a vat of grease! Tupinamba Cafe has been around since 1947, and I remember them vividly (well not since 1947... but since the 70's I think?). Except I never ate there before! No time like the present, eh? We were with our long time friends The B's making a journey over to Dallas to grab some Italian sausage at Jimmy's ( see Mr. Music's review from 5 years ago ), still the best in DFW (along with Kuby's). Anyway Mr. B tells Mrs. RJG and I about these amazing fried tacos. And since Mr. B is a former resident of Kansas City, I'm paying attention! And we all ...