Food: the Dash Between Ft Worth & Dallas

I have always loved this hotel back to the days when it was the Worthington Hotel. Now it is owned by Marriott and is called the Renaissance Worthington Hotel. Centrally located in downtown Fort Worth it is a destination in itself. A totally non-smoking property, this hotel is as fresh and bright as a new penny.

The rooms are lovely, the public areas are grand, yet comfortable, but the best of it all is the fantastic food in the restaurants. Do not miss Kalamatas either for a meal from the menu or one of their specialty Sunday buffets.

The location of this hotel makes it idea for anyone wanting to play downtown, have a rest in luxury or just get away from the ranch for a while.

Minutes by foot from the Bass Performance Hall and 16 miles from DFW International Airport.

Family friendly with a secure parking garage and valet parking.

Absolutely wonderful. Look for special rates and seasonal packages.

There must be a story of how an Italian Restaurant and an Irish Bar ended up sharing this location. In any case the location (a short drive from Six Flags Over Texas, Ranger Stadium and 20 minutes from D-FW International Airport) makes this restaurant a real winner for family meals especially when you don't want to empty your wallet.

The Italian food selections are excellent, well prepared and very generous in size. The New York style pizza is extremely popular with students from nearby schools. They have a very reasonably priced children's menu. All and all a winning situation.

I love their pasta. All the lunch specials have the option of a 99 cent soup or salad. Can you believe? Well, I do. Every thing is fresh and tasty. This is a large restaurant. They can handle a mob.

Handy to entertain the children for free is a walk through a nearby pet store with all sorts of puppies, kitten, birds and fish. If the children get nervous while waiting for their food, you can walk them around the pet store.

These folks are really nice! Give them a call if you need driving directions or want a take away order. Eat here before going to Ranger Stadium or Six Flags and be money ahead!

Don't let the strip mall location of this fine restaurant fool you as this is a great place to dine. North and west of the huge D-FW International airport, this restaurant is a real treat in a world of franchise places. We were pleased to find Mezza Luna after we finished a long business meeting in the area.

The food is so good that you will want to have a very nice glass of wine (they have a very nice wine list), a cappuccino, and dessert after your main course. When you are seated at your white linen covered table, you will be given a menu and a loaf of excellent white (soft not Italian style) bread with olive oil and spices. They don't want you waiting in hunger for your food.

I ordered a pasta dripping in a heavy cheese sauce which was excellent if not low cal. My husband, as usual, had a shrimp dish. We were pleased with both. We finished off with dessert, but don't tell on us.

A private party room and a wine bar round out this fine restaurant. You will enjoy dining here. I promise!

I usually don't go out of my way to eat at a chain restaurant, but The Cheesecake Factory is the exception to my rule. This large restaurant has over 200 items on the menu which has the unusual distinction of having full page advertisements distributed from front to back. For your first few visits you need to allow at least 10 minutes to speed read the menu so you can at least find a category of food you want to have. Shepherd's pie? Pasta? Fish? Asian style? Hamburger? Eggs? Well, they are all there with a long list of salads and soups.

Then there are the desserts. Perhaps you might want to begin with the dessert and see if you have room for an entrée. The portion sizes are huge and nearly always require a take home box. You can also take home the cheese cakes, mini-cheesecakes, and other desserts.

Extensive wine list and full bar service are available. The coffee is very good, but the hot teas aren't. This restaurant is very, very noisy when full of customers. The decor is very fancy and interesting, but sound proofing would be a huge benefit.

Southlake is a nearly brand new town a few miles north and west of DFW International Airport. Well worth a visit just for the food and shopping.

If you have 5 hours between flights at DFW during regular shopping hours, you could do worse than take a taxi to Southlake and spend your time shopping and dining. You can even see a movie is a very fancy movie multi-screen theater. The walkways are open to the sky so it can be very hot in summer and cold in winter, but still worth doing. Parking is free.

I will tell you how much we like this restaurant. We drive 90 miles round trip just to have lunch!

Hannah's is a wonderful place to dine, but on a busy weekend, you better have a reservation. Not far from the country court house, the Square and two large universities, this is a very popular place, especially now that it has parking, a patio, and a large bar.

The food is beautifully prepared and served. I had a lavash, which is basically a flat bread pizza, with on this night vegetarian toppings. It was very good, but the price listed was 'market price'. I have never seen that for a pizza.

The menu is excellent and varied. One of my friends had venison chimichurri tacos (soft) which is sliced venison served in a do-it-yourself style of dining. Very good but not exactly what she expected.

The appetizer platter was excellent and featured sushi. Just about the last thing I would expect to find in a small town in Texas. It was fresh and tasty.

Seek out Hannah's.

Website: www.hannahsoffthesquare.com

It had rained for weeks and still rained so our Memorial Day plans were awash. We headed to the wonderful Renaissance Worthington Hotel to join great friends staying at this hotel for a long and leisurely lunch and plenty of talk and quite a few laughs. The food here is absolutely wonderful. We enjoyed the asparagus on our tapas platter so much we ordered 2 more servings. It was the best any one us had ever had.

Great service with a smile, extremely high quality food and a congenial atmosphere. All of our food was freshly prepared with extremely high quality ingredients. Among the six of us, four ordered salmon grilled and served with fresh vegetables, my husband ordered (and loved) a lobster club sandwich and I had a great vegetable pizza.

We talked so long we had plenty of room for desserts. Don't miss the Poached pear pastry. We had a great time. No one rushed us. We kept our table for a couple hours of fun, food, and friendship.

After hurricane Katrina moved folks from Louisiana all over the planet new restaurant choices began to appear far from the Missippippi River. Fish City Grill is pure Louisiana cuisine (perhaps toned down a bit on the spices but hot sauce is on every table) served in a friendly bar and grill in a brand new shopping center just north of Interstate 20 in Arlington Texas.

Perhaps too new and too clean for those of us used to New Orleans, this restaurant offers really tasty food at fair prices served by friendly waiters. You can watch most of the cooking being done on the east end of the room and ask away about recipes and spices.

My friend ordered the lunch special of Mahi Mahi served with rice and a huge heap of fresh vegetables. I'm thinking he was expecting something fried instead of all that green. $12.

I ordered Red Beans and Rice heavy with andouille sausage which is the true test of any restaurant claiming to be from Louisiana. Good it was, at about $6 a bowl, it is relatively cheap eats.

The coffee is outstanding as they serve the Community brand coffee from New Orleans. Strong and heavy with a flavor and memories of New Orleans this is a much better coffee than Starbucks.... my opinion.

If you like oysters and other shell fish, this is your restaurant. They have oyster nachos! I can see this place really going to town on Saturday night.

Seek out this restaurant. It is a few yards south of the Petsmart and a few minutes from an easy on, easy off to I-20.

www.fishcitygrill.com