Good Space, Cowboy

Soy Cowboy recently opened in the ground floor of Arlington’s new Lowes Hotel across from Texas Live!, the massive indoor/outdoor space between our two baseball parks. The upscale pan-Asian restaurant adds some much-needed festivity to a town long on chain joints and short on white-tablecloth, celebratory spots.

The brainchild of Houston’s Berg Hospitality Group, Soy Cowboy is cousin to B&B Butchers in Clearfork. The media opening was hot (literally, one of the warmest days of early summer) and loud — with dragon dancers, live music, and an overflow crowd of Arlington luminaries and the requisite social media-teers. The selection of sushi, dim sum, cocktails, and desserts was impressive and yummy. The snow-crab taco and truffle-kissed salmon sashimi were two impeccably fresh standout appetizers. The impressively presented, grilled whole branzino and a simple, tasty orange chicken were enough to convince me that I’d like to revisit the glittery corner restaurant in the fall to better take advantage of some people-watching from the wrap-around patio.

My joy for Soy Cowboy has only been amped up by the arrival of Cafe Americana, a new tapas and paella bar/restaurant slightly farther away from our Fun-Central stadia. Open about three months, Americana is owned by a collective and headed by chefs Wendy Felix and Mark Guatelara (chef of Fort Worth’s late, lamented Ober Here, first a food truck, then a brick-and-mortar specializing in lovingly executed Filipino cuisine).

Cafe Americana took over the space formerly occupied by Urban Alchemy, an ethereal place where you could have coffee and snacks in the morning and/or wine and snacks in the evening. Americana retained much of Alchemy’s beautiful bones, including the light-filled main dining room and a small, intimate private room, and I’m celebrating its arrival because Arlington is also short on these kinds of third spaces, where you can meet for coffee/cocktails/mocktails, or work, or just sit and think.

Cafe Americana’s gloriously presented charcuterie board that easily serves three came stuffed with unusual meats and fun cheeses. A creamy burrata appetizer with toasted sourdough crusts, tomatoes, and a healthy dose of olive oil also proved to be a substantial snack. Most refreshingly, there are zero-proof mocktails on the bar menu along with your favorite standards.

If you’ve lived in Arlington long enough, you probably have some priceless memories of a local restaurant that no longer exists. Mine is Daniel’s on Division Street and their International Burger (with Canadian bacon, Swiss cheese, and cheap yellow mustard –– still my burger standard). Later on, Cacharel Restaurant served glorious French cuisine out of a top-floor space not too far from Cowboys Stadium until 2016, and I still miss Olenjack’s Grille, which was arguably the best that we had until Brian Olenjack was allegedly done dirty by his financial partners in 2007.

Most of the restaurants in A-town are either small mom-and-pop places or chains. What we’re short on are white-tablecloth, celebratory joints like Fort Worth’s B&B and Bonnell’s. Or even regular-tablecloth celebration stops like Clay Pigeon.

Frankly, between the trains that parallel Division Street, the lack of parking, and the lack of any coherent transit system, locals like me don’t want much to do with Texas Live! unless we’re headed to a game, and this feeds my concern for Soy Cowboy, which is possibly the nicest restaurant in town as of this writing. Berg has some familiarity with pan-Asian cuisine –– Houston’s Benny Chows offers an impressive array of specifically Chinese dishes and delights. Some of these have migrated to Soy Cowboy. Founder and CEO Benjamin Berg has a long history of supporting local, including treating first responders to lunch every October and offering a meal to veterans and their families on Veterans Day. The bad news is that parking around Soy Cowboy is an absolute crap show, whether one or three of the stadiums are open for business or there’s something going on at Texas Live! On a game day, you can forget about a casual drive-by dine.

There’s a possibility that if my crew and I plan right, we can start with appetizers and a Pear 76 (Grey Goose, Monin Pear puree, prosecco, lemon squeeze) at Soy Cowboy, hit a game, and negotiate our way to a celebration/commiseration with a nightcap at Cafe Americana. Send good vibes our way.

Soy Cowboy
888 Nolan Ryan Expw, Ste A, Arlington.
817-766-6444. 11am-10pm Sun-Thu, 11am-11pm Fri-Sat.

Cafe Americana
403 E Main St, Arlington. 682-338-3033. 11am-11pm Sun, 11am-11pm Tue-Thu, 11am-1am Fri-Sat.