Rise No. 1

For pre-Mother's Day dinner, despite my sister's request to go to a sport's bar to watch the Pacquiao / Mosley fight, my family went to Rise No. 1 in Inwood Village in Dallas.  It's a French restaurant that centers upon souffles.  My parents have both been vegetarians for 20+ years and Rise had several options, not just one option, for veggies.  My mom gets really excited whenever we take her someplace different so we decided to give this place a go.

The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating and the atmosphere is very country-style chic.  The glasses were made out of recycled wine bottles and the linen napkins are 80-year old French linen.  The store is lined with bookshelves that hold old board games, books and other tchotchkes.  We ordered a bottle of cab and my mom and dad had artichoke andree and marshmallow soup starters.  The marshmallow soup was a tomato basil with mini souffles (that look like marshmallows) floating in it, almost like a savory version of hot chocolate.  We were worried that the souffles were not going to be filling enough - each of us ordered our own.  The restaurant has both vegetarian and meat / seafood options for souffles.  Rise has an open kitchen concept and while you're waiting for your food, you're surrounded by the aroma of cooking butter and cheese.  We also placed our dessert souffle orders, one chocolate and one Grand Marnier souffle.  The Grand Marnier souffle was definitely the better one with a wonderful cream sauce.  And let me tell you, don't be fooled by the size of the souffles.  We were STUFFED after the main course.  We of course finished the dessert souffles but were groaning with belly pains as we walked out of the restaurant.  We were full until noon the next day.  Overall, my family had a fantastic time and my mom really appreciated something different.  Rise is quite a nice restaurant with some special touches:

• Each plate you eat off of is a unique piece and stampled with the restaurant's name and logo
• You can purchase the glasses, napkins, bread cutters and more from the restaurant in its "store" as well as several souffle cookbooks
• They gave us each cookies on the way out because we made a reservation

Note: Pictures from Rise's flickr account