Where to Eat

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 5 hot new restaurants for October

Poke comes to the west side of Fort Worth.

Photo courtesy of Ohana

For most restaurants, expansion is a long-term goal that only a few manage to achieve. Lately, though, there have been several local expansion success stories, whether it’s a second location or an upgrade from a food truck to a brick-and-mortar.

For this month’s Where to Eat, we tip our hats to these newly expanded spots.

Hoang's Noodle House
The latest local food truck to graduate to a brick-and-mortar is Hoang’s Noodle House, which recently opened a storefront inside a Shell gas station at 8405 N. Harwood Road in North Richland Hills. Owner Johnnie Hoang serves food you wouldn’t normally see in a gas station restaurant, including fried lobster tail atop garlic noodles; meatball or chicken dry pho; shrimp and beef ribs over jasmine rice; and a salmon salad ladled with raspberry vinaigrette. He also serves specialty tea, coffee, and boba drinks.

Hot Box Biscuit Club
Hot Box started out as a pop-up — not just any pop-up but THE pop-up. Events sold out minutes after they went on sale, a good sign owners Sarah Hooton and Matt Mobley would do well with a permanent restaurant. That restaurant opened October 1 in the happening South Main area at 313 S. Main St., where they're open for breakfast and lunch every day but Monday. Of course, the buttermilk biscuits and biscuit sandwiches are the primary draw. But don't ignore the fried green tomatoes or the deviled eggs, topped with green onions and a dusting of Flaming Hot Cheetos.

My Lan
Second location of this long-running Vietnamese staple opened recently in Colleyville, where good Vietnamese food is hard to find. Regulars of the charmingly scruffy Haltom City original will hardly recognize the new location, at 5307 Colleyville Blvd. All-white décor is sleek and upscale; each side of the wall boasts a big-screen TV. The abbreviated menu offers many of the original's signature dishes, such as the crispy chow mein and a grilled pork and rice plate served with a side of crunchy egg rolls; along with several new drinks, including frosted limeade and various milk and boba drinks.

Ohana Hawaiian BBQ & Poke Bar
Poke comes to the west side of Fort Worth, to a strip mall space at 6328 Camp Bowie Blvd., thanks to this spinoff of a family-run spot in Garland. Poke bowl ingredients include classic ingredients such as ahi tuna, ginger, wasabi, avocado, and crabmeat, along with a few interesting items like scallops, purple cabbage, and corn. The menu is rounded out with Hawaiian-inspired fare, tough to find items that include musubi, blocks of sticky rice topped with spam and wrapped in dried seaweed; kalua pork, slow-roasted shredded pork served over a bed of rice; and loco moco, a hamburger patty topped with a fried egg and brown gravy and served over rice.

Panther City BBQ
One of the city’s best barbecue spots has made the jump from trailer to brick-and-mortar. Owners Ernest Morales and Chris Magallanes will officially unveil their new open-air digs, nearly a year in the works, on Saturday, October 12 at 201 E. Hattie St. Designed by Near Southside architecture firm Studio 97W, the new building features an outdoor seating area that'll hold up to 100 people. Magallanes says eventually they’ll add vinyl curtains to heat and cool the dining area. With the new building comes a new smoker — their third — and new menu items, including cheesy grits, cornbread pudding, and collard greens.

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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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