Healthy Dining Guide in DFW by our friend Amanda Albee
Our friend Amanda writes about food for the Dallas Observer, a monthly independant source of local news and culture. She's a seriously talented writer and once in a while I'm invited to go with her to check out the restaurants she will be writing about. I was most delighted to join her on an excurion to a healthy and casual dining (Tex)Mex place called Lala's Mexican Cafe. David and I don't tend to go out to very many new restaurants, we have a few that we keep going back to over and over, so it was nice to step outside the box and try Lala's. I really liked it a lot! They have an entirely separate vegan menu, which always makes things easier for us.
Amanda has created a list of some of the best healthy choices in the Dallas metroplex, check it out!
By Amanda Albee of The Dallas Observer
In a restaurant scene dominated by steaks, burgers and Tex-Mex, healthy dining options in Dallas have historically been limited. Yet today, probably more than ever, people of all ages and backgrounds are eschewing fryers and mechanically separated pink slime for healthier, more naturally-produced and locally-sourced food.
Our city’s longest-running healthy restaurant is Kalachandji’s. The beloved vegetarian buffet that feels a bit like a spiritual retreat — especially at those outdoor tables next to the fountain — has been operating now for 37 years and consistently shows up on Dallas' “best healthy restaurant” lists. It’s a sanctuary we hope lasts for eternity.
Between 1982 when Kalachandji’s opened and the 2010s, not many health-focused concepts survived. It wasn’t until 2012 that we finally got a healthy drive-thru when working Park Cities mom, Erin McKool, grew tired of not having convenient options to feed her family. She opened Start, advertising organic and alternative dairy, grass-fed beef and organic, free-range poultry on the go. As proof that her concept filled a marketplace need, her third location opened last year in Frisco.
By 2014, two national health-conscious chains had moved in, offering green food with a side of booze: the farm-friendly Denver-based company, Modern Market, and the ever packed by ladies who eat kale True Food Kitchen, based in Phoenix.
Around two years ago, Dallas’ healthy dining options exploded in a proliferation of new, salubrious places to eat. For the purposes of this article, healthy restaurants are defined as those with menus low on refined starches and high on rainbow-colored veggies. Ethically sourced and sustainable proteins are also important to carnivorous healthy eaters. So whether you’re a full-time paleo yada yada or just want an occasional break on the waist, here are the newest places in Dallas to eat green and actually enjoy it.
See the list:
