Restaurant review: Townhouse Kitchen + Bar in Dallas

Maybe skip the bacon donut.

Yellowfin tuna tower at Townhouse Kitchen + Bar in Dallas

Swiping our credit card over and over, walking from store to store, and deadlifting shopping bags is what we consider a full-body workout. And that makes us hungry.

But slices of reheated pizza from Sbarro or a Flaming Frito Double Decker Supreme Grilled Steak Baja Fire Bacon Ranch Burrito at Taco Bell aren’t exactly our cup of indigestible tea.

We require freshly made, highly flavorful food with price points just high enough to keep out parents and their screaming bare-footed children looking for germ-infested playlands, but still a great value due to gargantuan portions.

Our newest escape from mall madness at Galleria Dallas is Townhouse Kitchen + Bar. It’s a large space with a stellar patio nestled among the lighted palm trees leading into the shopping center. A large bar is big enough to hold plenty of bargain boozers during their weekday happy hour.

The menu is extremely diverse without going into an obnoxious multiple-page tome that makes it impossible to decide. Instead, they’ve culled it down to some mass-appeal categories like sandwiches, tacos, salads, shared plates, and hearty specialties with interesting international twists and fusions within each.

On our visit, favorites at the table included the pecan-crusted pork chop with a lightly sweet bourbon sauce; a fun-to-eat Yellowfin tuna tower; and a gigantic chicken Milanese loaded down with fresh arugula. Handcut fries topped with melty bleu cheese are also extremely addictive (and great with a frosty Franconia lager made right here in McKinney).

In fact, the only real disappointment was the bacon donut dessert, which just didn’t work for us. But that’s ok.

Bacon donuts aren’t exactly on our Galleria workout plan.