I love to travel, but sometimes forget to explore my own city. So, one fine (hot) day in Dallas, I decided to enjoy a day out in the town I call home. To make things a bit more interesting, Jeff and I planned to go to one place for an appetizer, another for lunch, and a third for dessert. That way we check out 3 places to really make a day of it. And because drinking would obviously be involved, we [Ubered and] picked an area that had restaurants in walking distance from each other: Trinity Groves! 😊

Trinity Groves is new (ish) area in Dallas, located at the western end of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. It's filled with great dining options, patios, entertainment, a view of downtown and (of course) the bridge.

I heard lots about it, just never checked out — until now!

Stop #1: Appetizer at L.U.C.K. (Local Urban Craft Kitchen)

DAMN. This place is good. Just had to get straight to it. Okay, let me take a quick step back: L.U.C.K. is a trendy gastropub with local craft beers on tap and Southern comfort food. Where we fell in love was THE WINGS (...and the beer). We paired our appetizer with Sit Down or I'll Sit You Down, an American Double/Imperial IPA by Peticolas Brewing Company, and oh man, it was a great start to our date! 😋 MUST TRY.

(Update: we loved L.U.C.K. so much we went back a couple weeks later for a double date. From the pretzels and wings to meatloaf and burgers... everything was delicious!!! GO!!!)

Stop #2: Lunch at Off-Site Kitchen

Leaving L.U.C.K., we didn't think we'd find food to top the best wings we've ever had TBH. (We nearly scrapped our plans and were gonna just get lunch there, too.) But made the walk over to Off-Site Kitchen and man, were we glad we did! 🤗

Off-Site Kitchen is a burger joint that also offers brisket & fries. We ordered cheeseburgers and shared the sloppy cheese fries (BOMB👅). The burgers are one the smaller side, but they're perfect lunch portions — which was great since I still had to try to fit in dessert (lol). Seriously though, OSK had one of the best burgers I've had in Dallas, for sure.

Stop #3: Dessert at Kitchen LTO
(featured chef: Nick Amoriello)

This place was the fancier spot of the area — well, at the time. See, Kitchen LTO is a "limited time only" permanent pop-up restaurant so the chef, menu and the interior changes every six months. There's even a countdown timer outside of the restaurant that ticks off the time left until they will swap out everything.

When we went we had Chef Nick Amoriello, and although we were there just for dessert, he did not disappoint. We ordered the strawberry shortcake pie, with vanilla ice-cream and a balsamic drizzle. YUM! Oh, and the drinks — on point. 👌

Exploring Dallas was an all around success! Def recommending doing this, just remember to portion and work out after (haha!). It was really great to find delicious new spots in my own city. We will be back!