We had a week in Dallas and a list that was too long for it. This video is what happened when we tried anyway: street art, an aquarium that shouldn't fit inside a downtown block, two barbecue meals we're still thinking about, and a zoo that ate an entire afternoon. If you're planning your own Dallas stop, our route makes a decent template.
Deep Ellum and downtown
We started in Deep Ellum, the neighborhood east of downtown known for its murals and music venues. It's the kind of place where you park once and just walk, because there's something painted on every wall. Lunch was Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken, which lives up to more of that name than we expected. From there we wandered the AT&T Discovery District and made our way to Pioneer Plaza, where a herd of larger-than-life bronze longhorns marches down a hill in the middle of the city. It's free, it's strange, and it's very Dallas.
The Dallas World Aquarium
The Dallas World Aquarium got the longest chapter in the video for a reason. From the outside it's a warehouse downtown. Inside it's a rainforest with toucans and sloths overhead, a shark tunnel below, and, the part that stopped us completely, manatees. We stood at the manatee tank longer than we'll admit. It's pricier than a typical aquarium, and we'd still go back tomorrow.
Dinosaurs and brisket
The Perot Museum of Nature and Science filled a morning easily. It's five floors of hands-on exhibits, and the dinosaur hall is the headliner. We left when our stomachs outvoted our curiosity, which worked out, because dinner was Terry Black's BBQ in Deep Ellum. You order brisket by the pound at the counter, they slice it in front of you, and conversation stops for a while. Later in the week we doubled down on barbecue at Pecan Lodge in the Farmers Market area, and picking a favorite between the two started a friendly argument we haven't settled.
Farmers market, Reunion Tower, and the zoo
The Dallas Farmers Market is a good low-effort stop: local vendors, food stalls, and enough samples to accidentally become lunch. For the classic Dallas view we went up Reunion Tower, the ball on the skyline, right around golden hour. The observation deck gives you the whole city, and the interactive screens tell you what you're looking at.
Then there's the Dallas Zoo, which we'd budgeted half a day for and should have given a full one. The giraffe feeding is the famous bit, but the whole park is bigger and better laid out than we expected from a city zoo. Watch the video for the animal encounters; describing them flattens them.
The food that filled the gaps
Between the big stops we ate our way through Hawkers Asian Street Food and finished the week with Emporium Pies, a Deep Ellum institution where the pie names are almost as good as the pie. Almost. Dallas fed us better than any city stop we've done, and we say that as people who take barbecue personally.
A week wasn't enough, and we didn't even get to Fort Worth next door. Dallas surprised us the same way Louisville did later: big-city amenities, easy driving between stops, and more to do than the reputation suggests.
Watch the full Dallas video on YouTube for all of it, manatees included. We also send a short weekly newsletter about where we are and what broke this week. The signup form is on our newsletter page.