[Dallas, Texas] “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,” more familiarly known as “Triple D,” is hosted by Guy Fieri, who will eat almost anything in front of the camera. This chef and restaurant owner has been around Food Network forever and loves to travel North America to bring us to places he loves.
Late last year, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host Guy Fieri made a DFW swing to check out several DFW spots, including Chop House Burgers in Arlington, and Dallas’ Maple & Motor, where he made a silly burger for Fort Worth chef Tim Love. The segments from DFW have been hitting the air throughout the spring and early summer, with the latest being a stop at Arlington’s Taste of Europe.
The brief segment – sandwiched (no pun intended) between segments shot in Honolulu and Las Vegas – began with shots of Rangers Ballpark, Six Flags Over Texas, a downtown Arlington sign, UTA – and Billy Bob’s Texas, which of course isn’t in Arlington, but given “nonfiction” television’s usual ideas about DFW geography, it’s surprising that Triple D got this much right. (This episode was titled Dynamic Dishes – does that make this instance Quintuple D?)
Fieri describes Taste of Europe, a restaurant/grocery-store combo specializing in Russian food, as an “Eastern bloc bonanza extravaganza,” and as silly as that is, he deserves credit for saying that Texas is a melting pot of cultures and cuisines and not acting like we all still ride horses. He visits with owner Michael Frumkin and his wife, Irina Pavlova, who are from Belarus. Irina shows Fieri how she makes Belarussian kolduny, a potato pancake stuffed with a layer of ground meat (half beef, half chicken). Fieri ebulliently (his default mode, on TV, anyway) comments on how the kolduny has the creaminess of mashed potatoes but the crispiness of a latke.
And really, there’s not a whole lot else from the segment, except for a brief visit with Frumkin and Pavlova, and some of the usua DDD interviews with diners who talk about how great the place is. And a joke about Russian nesting dolls. But if what was on the show didn’t make you curious, maybe the menu will. But you’ll learn more about Taste of Europe from DFW.com’s Cary Darling, who reviewed the place recently.