Meatless Eating

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 8 best restaurants to go meatless in March

At Righteous Foods, you can make it meatless in March.

Photo courtesy of Righteous Foods

With Lent having begun on March 1, and with many people "giving things up," such as chocolate and meat, we're taking a Lenten theme with the March issue of Where to Eat. Life without chocolate seems unfathomable — but we can surely survive without meat. Here are eight restaurants that make it easy to go meatless in March:

Cafe Modern
Restaurant inside The Modern serves a sustainably sourced menu of global cuisine. As a classic ladies-who-lunch spot, it has the expected gallery of salads, all of them impeccable. Two are entrée salads sans meat: Cauliflower salad has arugula, ranges, craisins, and almonds tossed in a cumin-y chermoula (Moroccan herb sauce) dressing. Cucumber chaat salad has cukes, tomatoes, Romaine, garbanzo beans, crispy quinoa, and coriander chutney.

Chadra Mezza and Grill
Named for the city in Lebanon from which chef Nehme Elbitar hails, Chadra serves Lebanese versions of Middle Eastern classics such as hummus and falafel. The surprise here is that there are just as many Italian dishes, such as eggplant lasagna and penne à la vodka. Whichever cuisine you favor, you'll find oodles of veggie options, from smoked eggplant dip to spaghettini with mushrooms to pizzas with Daiya nondairy cheese.

Enchiladas Ole
Owner Mary Perez describes her restaurant as "a healthy twist on Tex-Mex," with the food made in small batches on-site. The healthy part references the beneficial spices such as garlic, curry, and turmeric, and the use of olive oil instead of lard. There are vegetarian enchiladas, filled with poblano chiles, onions, zucchini, and yellow squash, and served with rice, beans, and a salad. Meatless easy-peasy.

Hanabi Ramen & Izakaya
Ramen spot in the Cultural District has eight varieties of ramen, plus a menu of izakaya, or small plates, with salads, edamame, dumplings, tempura, and skewers. In February, the restaurant introduced vegetable ramen, and it's a worthy addition. It's a veggie soup chock-a-block with ingredients — and flavor — including regular cabbage, Napa cabbage, wood-ear mushrooms, bean sprouts, bok choy, carrot, scallions, and noodles, of course.

Mellow Mushroom
Atlanta-based pizza chain is a favorite destination for vegetarian (and vegan) diners thanks to its wide selection of veg toppings, from artichoke hearts to caramelized onions to roasted red peppers to spinach, not to mention nondairy Daiya cheese. But it also has a pretty meaningful veggie burger made with quinoa, kale, brown rice, and roasted mushrooms, seasoned with roasted garlic and shallots, and finished with avocado, garlic aioli, Romaine lettuce, onion, and tomato, and served on a grilled brioche bun.

Pizza Snob
For a different kind of pie, Pizza Snob serves the upscale foodie crowd with build-your-own Neapolitan-style pizzas, just big enough for one. At two branches, including the original in Fort Worth and one in Denton, you walk down a cafeteria-style line, choosing ingredients for a pie that's assembled on the spot. Toppings have a gourmet bent: beer-glazed onions, Greek olive medley, or roasted potatoes, wonderful paired with candied jalapenos. They recently added a sprouted grain dough to their crust lineup, with purple corn, sorghum, millet, brown rice, chia, quinoa, and amaranth.

Righteous Foods
Chef Lanny Lancarte was clairvoyant in 2014 when he opened Righteous on West Seventh Street, pre-dating the DFW arrival of healthy-ish chains such as Modern Market, True Food Kitchen, and Flower Child. Eating meatless here is a snap, with options like risotto with shiitake mushrooms, and rice noodles with broccoli and tofu. Righteous is open for breakfast, too, with irresistible porridges and waffles made with flaxseed and dark chocolate.

Spiral Diner
Award-winning vegan restaurant is ground zero for meatless dining, and while there's a branch in Dallas and another opening soon in Denton, Fort Worth is where it all started. At Spiral, you don't have to scour the menu for "the meatless dish" — you can eat the whole damn thing, whether it's decadent loaded nachos, "sketti & meatballs," or a chopped "BBQ" sandwich. The Fort Worth branch is worth a special trip for the pastries, with cakes and pies that are among the best around.

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Fresh Pasta News

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 6 hottest new restaurants

Bocca Osteria Romana

Twirling the pasta at Bocca Osteria Romana

Restaurants seemingly open and close in waves, and right now, they’re opening. Over the past few weeks, there’s been an influx of new restaurants in and around Fort Worth, from a cool new Italian spot to high-end Tex Mex to Texas’ favorite cuisine, barbecue.

For this month’s Where to Eat, we take a look at six of the area’s latest restaurants.

225 BBQ
This beloved craft barbecue food truck has finally opened its first brick-and-mortar, at 601 E. Main St. near downtown Arlington. 225 fans will recognize the new restaurant's location: It was where owner/pitmaster Rene Ramirez operated temporarily last year, sharing the space with a bar. After the bar moved out, Ramirez took over the building, transforming it into a full-fledged barbecue restaurant. Ramirez’s menu includes ‘cue essentials such as moist brisket and meaty pork ribs, along with several Mexi-cue-inspired dishes that have become his calling cards, like excellent birria ramen, brisket elote, chipotle chicken nachos, and brisket quesadillas. His burgers are great, too.

Bocca Osteria Romana
New Italian restaurant in the South Main area, at 411 S. Main St. #104, specializes in housemade pastas, freshly made focaccia, and beautiful salads filled with seasonal ingredients. The restaurant comes from a trio of Texans - brothers Alfonso and Alessandro Salvatore and their cousin Eduardo Mariel - who have lived and cooked all over the world, including Puerto Rico, where they opened the original Bocca Osteria Romana. Pasta is their thing, and it comes in several forms, from spaghetti alla carbonara, made with guanciale, percorino romano cheese, and crushed black pepper, to the bacon-studded bucatini all’amatriciana, to a plate of classic cacio e pepe. Entrees include lamb chops, osso bucco, and gorgeous seasonal salads.

Los Guapos Mexican Street Food
Newly opened at 2708 West 7th St., Los Guapos Mexican Street Food is the latest concept from Angel Fuentes, the well-known Fort Worth chef who made a name for himself at the original location of Mariachi’s Dine In and Guapo Tacos, two Mexican restaurants born inside an east side gas station. Los Guapos is Fuentes’ first full-on brick-and-mortar. His menu includes many of the dishes he’s known for, like superb birria tacos, pozole, huge burritos, and a wide range of veggie dishes. New to his menu are street food-inspired items like huaraches, oblong-shaped pieces of fried masa dough topped with smashed pinto beans, vegetables, and proteins, and alambre, a traditional Mexican dish comprised of chopped meats and vegetables, held together with melted cheese, and served with tortillas.

Juicy Dumplings
The handmade Chinese dumpling trend hits the Fort Worth suburb of Euless, courtesy of this sleek new spot, originally called Home of Juicy Dumplings, in the Glade Parks shopping center. It’s a state-of-the-art restaurant where robots help deliver your food and the immersive decor is designed to make you feel like you’re under the ocean. There’ll be lots of oohing and ahing. But it’s not all show: Hong Kong natives, owner Rixin “Jimmy” Zheng and head chef Bosco Seung, offer a vast selection of Chinese dishes, including nearly a dozen variations of Chinese dumplings, including pan-fried pork buns, har gow (shrimp dumplings), Sichuan-inspired spicy wontons, vegetable dumplings, and soup dumplings. Elsewhere on the menu, there’s peking duck, Mongolian chicken, several noodle dishes, and cool desserts such as mango pancakes, made with razor-thin crepes layered with a mango-infused cream.

La Cabrona Cocina Mexicana
Long-awaited, high-end Mexican restaurant from Adam Shanaa and Jalal Chanaa, owners of the soon-to-reopen Terra Mediterranean, takes over the West 7th-area space originally occupied by Tillman’s Roadhouse at 2973 Crockett St. It’s a family-run spot whose kitchen is led by Rosario Ortega, a chef from Monterrey, Mexico, who’s using recipes passed down through generations. His menu includes dishes such as carne asada, camarones a la diabla, chile relleno, and whole fried snapper. There are plenty of tacos, made with your choice of skirt steak, slow-cooked pork, pan-seared tilapia, or grilled shrimp, and appetizers such as shrimp cocktail and ceviche. The restaurant is beautifully decorated with hand-painted murals and colorful furniture; there’s also a nice patio.

Tokyo Mizu
New sushi spot in North Arlington, at 2390 E. Lamar Blvd., in the space previously occupied by Take a Bao, puts a unique spin on the all-you-can-eat concept. Instead of going through a buffet-style line and loading up your plate, your server brings you five items at a time, all freshly made. When you finish those, you can order five more, and so on. Selections include a vast array of cooked and raw sushi, nigiri, tonkotsu ramen, pork dumplings, bulgogi bao buns, calamari, soup dumplings, and various fried rice dishes. The prices are a steal: $19.99 per person for lunch, $29.99 for dinner.

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