| Restaurant | ||
| • Welcome
• Lunch Menu • Dinner Menu • Desserts • Wine List • Patio • Awards & Reviews |
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| Market | ||
| Catering | ||
| General Information | ||
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| • This Month at Celebration • Map & Directions • Hours of Operation • Celebration's History • VIP Guest List • How to Contact Us • Home |
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| Community Involvement | ||
| • Dinner with Dialog | ||
| • Making a Difference | ||
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Best Home Cooking D Magazine Readers' Choice Awards Best Family Dining Park Cities People 1999 Best Homestyle Restaurant Observer Reader's Pick 2002, 2003, 2005 Best Homestyle Restaurant People Newspaper Best Dining Al Fresco Observer Critic's Pick 2002 Best of Dallas Observer 1997 Best Dallas/Fort Worth Restaurants 2006 Zagat Survey Top 10 Home Cooking Restaurants in the Country Featured on Food Network 1999 Comfort Food Featured in Texas Monthly |
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| Gourmet
Magazine Two for the Road - Cheap Eats in Dallas Jane and Michael Stern |
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 A
low-slung, stone ranch house in a residential neighborhood, CELEBRATION
is not like other restaurants and is especially unlike most joints
that specialize in home-style cooking. There is no sassy waitress
in this establishment; the staff is enthusiastic, helpful and impeccably
polite. "I've been coming here since I was a child," the
young hostess volunteers as she leads us to a table. "I love
it when people discover this place." As for decor, there are
no jackalopes, football pennants, or rude homilies. The handsome,
wood-paneled walls are decorated with Native American rugs and evocative
black-and-white photographs of contemporary Texas ranch hands, cattle,
and life on the range in general. In the small dining rooms throughout
the building, a surprising calm prevails as gentle country-western
music plays quietly in the background. Three and four generations
occupy some tables, especially on Sundays, but, even when there
are herds of kids in attendance, the mood seems more like that of
an art museum that of a raucous family restaurant. |
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 In
this gracious environment, Celebration serves magnificent home cooking.
We don't mean the meals are fancy or unusual; they are simply fresh,
expertly prepared versions of classics. Pot roast is cooked until
ridiculously tender: Its profound meaty juices arrive in a little
bowl alongside mashed potatoes that are still a little chunky and
freckled with potato skin. Meat loaf is perfumed with spices, lean
and beefy. Each piece of fried chicken is massive, nutty-crusted
on the outside and dripping moist within. Don't worry if you find
it hard to choose from among the dozen entrees; house policy is
that you can have seconds of any other equally priced meal. |
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| Vegetables keep coming, too: The day's choices vary with the season. Last September, we enjoyed a glorious yellow squash casserole. Its mantle of crumbs was rich and savory, but the real pleasure was the squash itself. Sweet, bite-size morsels were cooked al dente and retained a bracing harvest flavor in their veil of garlicked cheese. Spinach came glistening with butter and seasoned just enough to highlight its natural vigor. | ||||||||||||||||
 Waitress
Stephanie offered her advise about dessert. "I'll be honest
with you. The coconut cream pie is the best," she said. We
couldn't call her wrong, for this pie is a beauty with a deliriously
coconutty filling; but the chocolate cake is equally awe-inspiring.
It is a double-layer one, moist and thickly iced, and so tall that
cutting into it can be difficult without carefully positioning the
fork on top and gliding down through six inches of devil's food.
The only conceivable accompaniment is a glass of cold milk."I have traveled for more than thirty years," declared a salesman at a nearby table with whom we struck up a conversation about the best restaurants from New Orleans to Phoenix. "I have survived by eating where the locals eat. That's what I like about Celebration. Nobody accidentally finds it," he said with a wink. "It is just for those in the know." |
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| CELEBRATION RESTAURANT,
CATERING & MARKET For the food you want to eat, but don't want to cook . . . make it a Celebration! |
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