About Donna Cooks August 19, 2006

Some people eat to live, I live to eat.  When not properly fed, I get hangry (so hungry that I’m angry).  A dedicated food enthusiast currently residing in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, I spend all my time (when not at work, school, or the gym) cooking, eating out, reading and learning about food, or engaging in some detailed discussion about food. 

I am your typical 20-something endeavoring to map the corporate America maze, attempting continual education, balancing work and fun, and generally trying my hand at every new possibility.  However, one thing that has always been constant in my life is a love of food.  I’ve had this culinary obsession for as long as I can remember.  My dad is a wonderful cook so I was never deprived as a child.  He was the kind of person that could go to a restaurant, taste something, and duplicate it back home (or something close to it).  His precise palate was always impeccable, and my tastebuds were spoiled in return without me ever having to pick up a spatula.  In fact, I never even cooked until I was in college (with the exception of scrambled eggs, I could make scrambled eggs, sort of).

All that had to change when I moved into my first apartment.  I was excited to have a full-fledged kitchen after two years of living in the dorms and wanted to entertain my friends with dinner parties the way my parents did.  But I didn’t want to feed them Hamburger Helper and Easy Mac.  So I started cooking, and I liked it almost as much as eating!

When I’m not busy in the kitchen, I’m always on the hunt for the next great restaurant find, be it in DFW or during my travels.  Though I do enjoy going out to nice restaurants, I’m not a food snob.  I am an adventurous eater and my favorite places tend to be hole-in-the-strip-mall types.  With every outing, I learn more about the new combinations of flavors in nouveau cuisine and cultural histories behind traditional ethnic/regional cuisine.  Raised by Chinese parents and having lived in the southern states for most of my life, I tend to be better versed in Chinese and southern cuisine.  However, my insatiable hunger for culinary knowledge is the motivation behind my travel explorations, restaurant visits, and cooking experiments.  The world of food is fascinating and the possibilities are endless!

Follow my adventures as I experiment in my kitchen and out on the town!

About Donna’s Recipes:

All the recipes posted here have been personally tested by me in my typical entry-level job kitchen with mediocre quality cooking utensils from places like Target.  A successful recipe for me can be a delicious dinner made in any other kitchen.  They’re not fancy recipes that call for ingredients from the gourmet market (and if they do, I will usually list a substitute ingredient you can purchase from your local Piggly Wiggly).  I also include shortcuts wherever possible (like asking your seafood counter guy to de-skin your salmon).

A note about health-related concerns: I’m not a super picky healthnut, but I substitute with lower fat ingredients when it doesn’t compromise the taste of the finished product.  I also prefer fresh ingredients when it’s not too inconvenient.

A note about portion sizes: I find most portion sizes on recipes ridiculously small (and those in restaurants the opposite).  Portion sizes specified on this page are somewhere in between, enough to satisfy most 20-somethings after a long day of work without stuffing them so full to the point of nausea.

About Donna’s Restaurant Reviews:

I’m not a professional food critic but perhaps you’ll find my insights and photographs helpful.  I tend to be more focused on the food and less so on the atmosphere (unless service is just absolutely terrible or the restaurant was just plain dirty, both of which should be unacceptable to patrons).  Rest assured that as an anonymous diner, I don’t receive freebies or special treatment from any restaurant, and I try to be as discreet as possible about photographing the food.  My experiences should accurately reflect what every diner would be exposed to.  The ratings are based on whether I would personally return to the restaurant and spend my hard earned money (since this is a self funded project), thus the ratings are somewhat relative to the price of the restaurant.  I don’t expect the same atmosphere or quality of ingredients from a $6/plate hole-in-the-wall as a 5-star restaurant charging $40/plate.  The rating scale can be summed up as follows:

5: I plan on being a regular at this place and will even drive across the metroplex for its fantastic offerings.
4: I will gladly visit this place whenever I am in the general area and recommend it to everyone I know.
3: I have no opposition to going to this restaurant if someone else insists, but won’t be proactively raving about it.
2: I am unlikely to return to this restaurant unless there is news of some kind of major re-vamp.
1: It was so bad that I will avoid this place like the plague.  Not again in this lifetime.  I’m happy to say no restaurant has scored this low yet in my dining adventures.

Most of my reviews are of restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (since I live here) but occasionally there will be posts from my travels.  I have also created an interactive map showing the locations of all my DFW restaurant reviews so old reviews can be tracked easily.

Donna Cooks is a Pegasus News content partner, and you can find some of my DFW restaurant reviews in their Dining section. 

About Donna’s Enthusiasm for Wine:

That is best summed up here.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email me.