March will probably be mild. A little rainy, maybe. But, unless you're from somewhere quite tropical, you'll be comfortable in shirt sleeves.
Dallas requires work. Certainly there are malls and malls and more malls as well as stuff related to the JFK assassination. But that stuff gets old pretty fast. A few weeks before your arrival, check out DallasObserver.com. You'll get a good idea of what's going on as far as nightlife is concerned. You also might look around the page for their "best of dallas" section. Good choices for the best of everything.
My votes for Dallas must-dos. Gloria's, a salvadoran restaurant. There're locations in Oak Cliff and on Lower Greenville. The latter is a bar/nightclub/restaurant neighborhood. Take the Mockingbird exit off 75 and turn right on Greenville, or take the #1 bus from Mockingbird Station. While you're on Greenville, check out Buffalo Exchange, a vintage shop, the Dubliner, a pub, and my favorite Dallas spot ever, Ships. Ships is the city's oldest bar, and it serves TX beer and plays TX music and is full of TX's oldest people.
Munger Place. An historic neighborhood full of ethnic diversity and great architecture. Also, check out the Fiesta Market on Knox. It's a grocery store with loads of Mexican imports and a tacqueria. Grab some helotes (seasoned corn cut from the cob and covered with nine kinds of deliciousness) from the Mexican lady out front or some pastries from the bakery. It's not uncommon to find your checkout girl doesn't speak much English.
Head to Deep Ellum, a shopping/nightclub/business district near Munger Place and Downtown. Check out Adairs, a great honky tonk, or Angry Dog, a burger joint. If you can see live music at Adairs, do. Especially if a band called "boys named sue" are playing. It's a big, fat drunken TX good time. There's a hookah bar and a mediterranean place around there, a number of tat shops, some salons, and some music venues. See if you can find a building with "Trees" painted on the outside. In the early nineties, just a few weeks before Smells Like Teen Spirit broke, Kurt Cobain and a sound tech got in a legendary fight here. The venue's closed now. In the 1910s and 20s, this part of town was one of the country's biggest blues destinations, and alot of the buildings are from then as well. Try Club Dada for live music. Or the servers at Monica's Aca-Alla if you're interested in scoring pot or in eating great sorta Mexican food.
Go to the Farmer's Mkt for cheap eats. If you accept all the free samples you're offered, you won't need lunch.
If you want to checkout some Dallas-style poshness, put on something nice and try Dragonfly, a roof-top bar on the Hotel Zaza, in Uptown. Rachel Ray went there and so do a surprising number of my friends. If you like things a little on the posh side, stay in Uptown and head to the West Village for restaurants and bars filled with Dallas' most surgically corrected beauties. Boob jobs and cocaine abound in that neighborhood. If you're into that.
The West End is the site of the Kenedy assasination and some mediocre touristy restaurants. The architechture is great, though. You can also head to the museum in the old red courthouse to find out about the region's history. Check out the exhibit on Bonny and Clyde, some of Dallas' fave outlaws.
You might check out the Bishop Arts District and Oak Cliff as well. These are considered to be "up and coming" neighborhoods, that is dodgy ones with interesting bits. You can find a shop dedicated to many kinds of sodas, a great jazz bar or two (Brooklyn), and a lot of yummy soul and Mexican food.
Last but not least, go to Fair Park. Each fall the state fair is held here. But you can check out a number of museums, an IMAX theater, and a lot of great art deco at Fair Park during the off-season. In the neighborhood you'll find a number of bars and nightclubs and restaurants. Eat for half price at the Meridian Room on Wednesday evenings. They have old fashioned cocktails (I love thier brandy alexanders) and a lot of great food.
Answered By: July - 8/23/2007 |