If you think Dallas is boring, wait 'til you get to the Hill Country, lol.
M

I think rjw_lgb_ca raised an interesting point about how the Zagat scores are calculated. But would the score for the French Room be lower in San Francisco because if its supposedly greater restaurant star power? Maybe not.

Here is how the Mobil Travel organization rates restaurants. It awards stars to a tiny fraction of the restaurants in each city, essentially the cream of the cream. The number represents the number of restaurants that earned at least one star.

New York: over 300
Chicago: 167
San Francisco: 129
Dallas: 128
Los Angeles: 88
Washington: 85
Boston: 74
Seattle: 73
Atlanta: 70
Houston: 65
Philadelphia: 56

This puts San Francisco and Dallas into a virtual tie for 3rd best restaurant town in the United States. And Chicago is not that far ahead.

What this means: The French Room in Dallas faced some very stiff competition in the Dallas restaurant scene and most likely earned its ranking as the best hotel restaurant in the USA.

hi dabber- I lived in Dallas for 8 years. You most certainly need a car for this trip. Taxi prices are not too bad, if you are only visiting places in downtown. But anything else, even going to dinner not in your immediate area, is going to be very expensive to go back and forth in a taxi. Now, there is DART, the bus/light rail system in Dallas, but this will entail a little bit of walking and planning/coordinating bus/train schedules.

Sorry, I came in to this way late!! Please do have a Shiner Bock beer for me! Enjoy!

dabber, it's kind of Freeman to offer you a beer, and Shiner is quite a good Texas beer by the way, but I'm going to have to disagree with him about the need for a car.

Living in the Adolphus hotel for a few days, the downtown restaurants, and there are dozens, will be in convenient walking distance, as will be the DART rail stations. You will not have to coordinate rail schedules because the trains come every 3 to 10 minutes apart. In fact, the easiest way to reach any part of downtown Dallas will be for you to walk to a rail station, then take a DART train across downtown toward your final destination.

The area of Dallas just north of the downtown area is known as "Uptown" and contains at least 100 restaurants. It is a couple of miles wide and a couple of miles long, and is a cheap cab ride. Even better, its main street, McKinney Avenue is literally lined with restaurants... one after another after another. The Trolley on McKinney Avenue is free of charge, and will take you the 2 1/2 mile distance from downtown, at Ross and St Paul streets, to a shopping and restaurant area called West Village. This "Uptown" neighborhood is easily the most quaint, pleasant and walkable area in the city.

Some destinations on the trolley line are the Hard Rock Cafe, a gallery called the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, with attached theatre, and a playhouse called Theatre Three. Another theatre, this one designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is a dew blocks away, at Blackburn and Turtle Creek streets. Turtle Creek is itself a beautiful linear park built around a small river.

Another way to reach the West Village in Uptown is via DART rail. Take either a red or blue line train going north, and exit at the CityPlace underground station. From there, it is a 3 block walk to the heart of West Village. For restaurants, I'd recommend the Tom Tom Noodle House, Mi Cocina for Tex-Mex, and the Taco Diner for Mexico City fare. Also, the ice cream shop called Paciugo's is particularly good. The West Village also contains a filmhouse called The Magnolia that shows foreign and "art" films.

Another station with some interesting destinations is the Mockingbird Station district, with several restaurants, some gift shops, and another art film house, the Angelika. It is also a convenient location to a university, SMU, with several performance halls, and the Meadows Museum, specializing in Spanish art from the last few centuries.

Farther out, the Park Lane station on the Red line is close to the mammoth shopping mall known as Northpark. It is Dallas' premier shopping destination, although other shops sell luxury goods.

The Galatyn Park station is adjacent to a major performance hall called the Eisemann Theatre, likely to be having some shows you'd like to see.

The downtown Plano station is next to the high street of Plano... once a small country town and now a major Dallas suburb. Many quaint antique and gift shops.

On the Blue Line, the White Rock station gives you access to the trails around an attractive lake and its walking and bike trails. The lake is a public park and contains a small playhouse and gallery called the Bath House, and also has the Dallas Arboretum, a set of formal gardens and showhouses. Take the #60 bus from downtown if you do not care to walk.

The Red Line going south is adjacent to the Dallas Zoo. People in Fort Worth believe their zoo is better, and believe that you should dismiss Dallas' zoo out of sheer contempt, but the Dallas zoo is big, good, and easy to reach.

Fair Park is a major location for several museums and several bus lines converge there. In about 2 1/2 years, it will have a rail station of its own, but for now, take a bus there. Or a taxi.

I've never visited Lee Harvey Oswald's grave, but he is buried in a local cemetary, I believe in Oak Cliff.

There has always been a place near Dealey Plaza called the "Conspiracy Museum". I don't know whether it's in your guide book, but it gets terrible reviews on Trip Advisor. I thought I'd heard that they lost their lease, but the sign is still there. May want to double check if that is one of your destinations.

Oh, also, if for some strange reason you should want to walk through the triple underpass, you may see a homeless guy or two there, esp. if the weather is not good.

How old are the kids for whom you want to buy gifts? If you want Western wear(boots, shirts, belts), Ft. Worth would be the place to buy it.

The McKinney Avenue Trolley is a visitor attraction in itself. In American usage, a trolley is a vehicle powered by an overhead electric wire, running on the street, starting and stopping with the traffic. This trolley line is a restored antique, with cars almost 100 years old.

The normal schedule has the cars about 15 minutes apart. If you like, the trolley operator will point you to the car barn, just off of McKinney Avenue, and you can have a look at the restoration s in progress, and perhaps purchase trolley souveniers at their small gift shop. And oh yes, you may also pet Sherman, the cat and trolley mascot.

The Mobil Guides guy!

aceplace=xbt2316, how we've missed you! The worthless statistics! The fly-against-reality assertions about the worthlessness of World Cities like Chicago and San Francisco-- despite having not visited them.

Like anyone pays attention to the Mobil Guide any more.

You can throw stat after stat at the world, but you cannot turn Dallas into a World City merely by regurgitating meaningless numbers. I've been there many times. I've been bored after six hours. In contrast, I've been to Chicago dozens of times and not only never run out of things to do, I'm sitting here planning my next trip there in my head. Same thing with New York City. And San Francisco.

rjw_lgb_ca, sorry if you took offense. But why were you offended? Because I disagree with you?

I don't know why you think I'm down on Chicago, I think it's a great town. If this XBT2316 poster doesn't like it, I guess that's his business. And if you don't like Dallas, that's your business.

If you can't find anything interesting to do in Dallas, I wouldn't want to trust your advice about the place... I'd sooner listen to people who CAN discover interesting things to see and do.

I use resources like the Mobil guide and others because I dont have time to check out the thousands of restaurants in Dallas and other major cities. I generally trust their reviewers to make reasonably objective judgments. The business success of guides such as Fodors, Mobil, Frommer, etc., depends on their credibility.

Dabber was not asking for a recommendation of what American city to visit. He is visiting Dallas for a specific purpose. Please respect that.

Ace... good info about DART.

missypie
the kids are aged from 2 to 13,I would like to buy some cowboy boots for myself and my wife while we are there,have found a place called Wild Bills in Dallas or would Fort Worth be better?
The pound is quite strong against the dollar at the moment,about $1.88 to the £,what sort of daily budget,food transport etc. would be advisable as I dont want to run out of cash,is it easy to get cash from a bank on my credit card or can you use the card to pay for meals,cabs and shopping?
I think that the grave of LHO is very hard to find as it is unmarked?
Only 5 weeks on Saturday till we make the trip,what will the weather be like in March?

I am trying to think of an instance where you would need cash instead of credit cards. I carry very little cash. I guess you will need cash for public transportation and tips. Short of that, I can't think of much. (You can check the Sixth Floor's web site to see if they take credit cards.) Even lots of fast food places (like most McDonalds) now take credit cards (not that you will want to eat fast food).

You can eat a good meal at a casual restaurant (sit-down, perhaps burger, barbeque or Mexican - not fast food)for $20-$30 for two of you. I've learned from this board that restaurant prices in Dallas are quite low compared with many parts of the country.

I consider barbequed ribs and Tex-Mex food "essential" meals for you to try. (Plus the Zodiac Room at Neiman Marcus ifyou can fit it in.) I would also highly recommend a good "home cookin'" restaurant meal: chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, turnip greens and peanut butter chocolate pie, but my favorite place near downtown closed a while ago. (The food at the home cookin' places is so chock full of fat and other bad things that I guess they've gone out of favor. The folks who used to eat like that every day worked in the fields all day. I don't think they had to worry about calories when they were working outside in the Texas heat 14 hours at day!)

As for weather....with any luck at all it will be fabulous - perfect. That's one thing that is a shame about our having mid-March spring breaks - there are few places we travel where the weather is as good.

Bring rain gear, however. Downtown Dallas is not like Rome, where when there are raindrops, the street vendors appear with raingear to sell. The only department store downtown is Neiman Marcus, and even with a strong pound, you don't want to have to rush to buy raingear there.

I admit that I'm not a frequent purchaser of Western wear, but I do know that Cavenders has a good selection (they have a web site with a store locator.)

I'll start pondering the kid souvineer issue...our stores are filled with merchandise made in China, just like everyone elses' stores. A Western belt or cowboy shirt might be nice. Some kids like Dallas Cowboys jerseys.

If you are really serious about finding the Oswald grave, try http://tinyurl.com/39m8sa. It's a website that gives you directions to get there.

One option for inexpensive food is to eat at the Central Market. Most supermarket ready to eat food is not very good, but the Central Market is very exceptional... there are dozens of ready-to-eat dishes to purchase by the pound (weight). The Market has a dining area with microwave ovens you use to warm the food, and tables to eat from.

To get there, take the DART Red Line north to the Lovers Lane station and walk one block west. The Central Market will be across the street.

Cash should be no problem, there are cash machines everywhere. Just make sure that you know your password or PIN number for your card, and make sure it IS a number. Alphabetic characters cannot be entered into the machines.

Wild Bill's is SO overpriced for western wear!! Honestly, I'd recommend finding a Western Warehouse, Shepler's or Cavender's store. MUCH better prices and selection. There is a Western Warehouse on the southbound service road of I-35 (Stemmons Freeway) near the Market Center exit.

I'm also one of the people who rarely carry cash. The only place you'll really need cash is for DART. Everywhere else takes credit cards, including the Sixth Floor

This is great. I, for one, am thrilled that someone is finally going to use the Dart line as their primary transportation. I look forward to that trip report.

Can you do Dallas with public transit? Sure. But much like any city that was built up in the 2nd half of the 20th century, Dallas is really made for cars, and using Dart is a stopgap at best.

One the food front -- I buy the fact that Dallas is a great food town. However, to me, the allure of Dallas' food is BBQ and Tex Mex. The fine dining is on the same plane as your typical American metro area.

I second a trip to Central Market. I think it would impress all but the most jaded of foodies. And yes, there are lots of ready to eat foods. You just can't go back home and tell your friends that all Americans shop at places like Central Market; their research shows that most folks shop there only on occasion (they are trying to change that.) But Central Market is way cool.

For Mexican food near downtown, if you don't go to Iron Cactus (which is walking distance from your hotel), take a short cab ride to either Uncle Julios (have a sangria/margarita swirl), Chuy's (they have an Elvis booth and great chile rellenos) or the Blue Goose (you can sit outside there if it's a nice day). Chuy's would put you in an area with decent home-type shopping (home accessories, kitchen, etc.)

Oh also, if you are looking for something to do on Sunday night after dinner, go to Reunion Tower for a drink. It's one of those rotating balls, but the view is nice (walking distance from your hotel.)

Oh! You just made my mouth water by mentioning Uncle Julio's. In addition to the swirl my favorite dish is one that has carne asade and camarones. I haven't been to Dallas in years, maybe I need to find a way. Dabber, do consider this restaurant!

I do LOVE the garlic shrimp at Uncle Julio's...we go for lunch. Also love Chuy's chili rellano...Chuy's is a fun place - I love the decor, especially the floor tiles.

One more thing...Chuy's has very cute and clever t-shirts for sale in kid's (and adult) sizes...would make a good souvenir!!