Nora Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Dallas

Wow, Oak Cliff is changing more and more. My little side of the world looks totally different and Bishop Arts is really popping. Our plan was to go to a café but they were full and the only had outside seating. My newly flat-ironed hair and Texas aren’t a good mix for that kind of carrying on so I’m glad we walked to another place. The nearest restaurant is Nora. It’s on Bishop but the opposite end and they had parking. Hooray! I didn’t have to park in front of someone’s house ¾ mile from the venue. Nora’s is a familiar name in Dallas and they’ve decided to come over to the expansion of the Bishop Arts district. It’s a nice big space that is accommodating for big parties. We arrived as they opened the restaurant for their Brunch hours. I will come back to that. I never had Afghan food so I was intrigued. Initially I ordered a drink. It was Mango with blended yogurt with booze as the waiter grinned as he described it. It’s a common drink that was refreshing thick but very satisfying. It has a nice buzz to it. I went to my website to look for pictures to see what I might be interested in. It was hard to decide by the descriptions everything could be a winner. I saw Garlic Shrimp sautéed with garlic, onion, yogurt on a bed of fancy greens. It was a good price $10.00 but I didn’t see it on the menu. The waiter said that was for dinner menu. That kind of shocked me because looking at menu overall it was dinner prices. So, I was bit confused, but he said that he could do that in a similar fashion with the kabob. I really didn’t. I got exactly what the shrimp kabob listed on the menu, but it was tasty. The shrimp was season extremely well, not salty but true herbs and fragrant spices. I also broke down and decided to get the hummus. The Hummus and Feta was delicious with tahini, garlic, and lemon juice. It was garnished with olives (yum my favorite) and feta cheese pieces. It was delivered with fresh and warm naan bread. Well, I was nice and decided to share hummus with my party, they helped me SLAM it down. We had to order another plate. I did enjoy my food but I wasn’t all that fond of the price. There wasn’t really a brunch special. The offering for Brunch was to include an egg in it. That doesn’t qualify as Brunch to me. It’s okay, you don’t have to be just stand on your own to offering lunch and dinner. There was nothing bottomless or discounted for those early hours. We sat near the front and saw people checking out the menu and walking on by. I believe because there are no obvious brunch items and $13.00 cocktails don’t compute for 11:00am. I would go back but I know this would be a splurge or date night experience, which I could see the ambiance to make a...

I will never go back here. The owner was so incredibly rude to our guests and to me and my now husband. He spoiled what should have been a beautiful night with his terrible attitude. He was pissed at us because HE double booked the balcony we reserved over a month ago so he put us in the downstairs private room. He made sure to keep telling us how he was losing money on our party of 50 people and how much we were inconveniencing him. We didn't ask him for anything extra. He offered to give us real plates instead of paper ones (which, at $25 per person, you'd think real plates would just be part of the deal) because it was our wedding night, which, to his credit was very nice. It would have been very nice, anyway, if he hadn't kept making sure I knew "how much I am doing for you" and "I'm losing money off of you". Super inappropriate for the owner of a restaurant to speak to his customers this way. He tried charging quite a few of my guests for double the number of drinks they had, then yelled at them when they asked him to fix it. He told them he knows how many drinks people drink per hour, so of course my girlfriend would have had 8 drinks in 3 hours. What?! He wouldn't let my elderly mother in law use the restroom at the end of the night when the place was shutting down, he shook his head in disdain and walked away from me because we were bringing a cake, even though he was well aware through our email communication that we were bringing one for our WEDDING. He yelled at me the night before because my violinist was running late. He yelled at his bartender, telling her she wasn't going to have a job the next day, in front of my guests. By the way, she was wonderful. This guy has major temper issues. If you want to plan an event, do it somewhere else. You don't want to work with him. It's sad because this could have been a beautiful experience and my very socially connected friends could have decided to bring him lots of business. Instead, they all told me at the end of the night how they want to leave him bad reviews just for...

My friends brought me here for my birthday and I was excited because it was a new find for me. I ordered the Silk Road for my drink, I'm a whiskey girl and reminded me of a sweeter old fashioned. I'd definitely get it again. We ordered multiple small plates to share to start off our dinner: Sampler, Hummus w/ Feta, 2 orders of the Spicy Chicken meatballs because they were that good, and a bread basket that never came.

We devoured everything (would definitely order every single thing again so good) and were ready to order more until with no warning, heads up, or final call our server, who was pretty hard to find at times in such a small restaurant, came to our table not to take our dinner order but to tell us the kitchen is closed so we can't order dinner. Now it was our mistake for not realizing the place closes at 8 on Sundays and the last person in our party arrived at 7 so that's when we ordered all our small plates. However, it's odd that the server didn't tell us that they stop placing orders in the kitchen at 7:30 or tell us to go ahead and order everything at the same time. Even when she came by to get another drink order, there was no mention of needing to place our dinner order. It also took awhile to pay out and correct our bill since the bread basket and extra naan never came. It left a bad final impression on our first experience and we left still a little hungry. We went to another restaurant a couple doors down to finish dinner, but I'm looking forward to coming back here (earlier in the day) because the food was amazing. Hoping for a different server and a better experience...