{"id":118833,"date":"2025-08-04T18:33:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/118833\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T18:33:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:33:23","slug":"normans-japanese-grill-is-open-in-dallas-heres-a-look-at-the-menu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/118833\/","title":{"rendered":"Norman\u2019s Japanese Grill Is Open in Dallas. Here\u2019s a Look at the Menu."},"content":{"rendered":"

Every time Duro Hospitality<\/a> opens a new restaurant, it immediately becomes the hottest <\/a>and hardest to get reservation in town<\/a>. The trend continues with Norman\u2019s Japanese Grill<\/a>, which officially opened on Friday, August 1, in the space that used to be occupied by the much-lauded restaurant Homewood<\/a>. The menu marries Japanese dishes, spices, and cooking styles with the same from archetypes of the Old West \u2014 with a few elements of other cuisines mixed, including Chinese, Korean, and Thai flavors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think as the concept developed, to be a Western Japanese restaurant, it gave us license to do whatever fits in that box,\u201d Duro co-founder Chas Martin says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a pretty big box.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the idea of how to interweave the two came from Duro partner Corbin See, who pointed out that Japan has a niche country music scene and appreciation for cowboy culture as presented in old films and television, influenced by the Allied Forces occupation of Japan following World War II. \u201cHe brought this concept up, of all of these Japanese designers who were heavily inspired by \u2018the Wild Wild West\u2019 and underground dive bars inspired by Texas honky tonks<\/a>,\u201d says Martin.<\/p>\n

Eater sat down with Martin and Jared Harms, Duro\u2019s culinary director, to learn about five dishes on the menu at Norman\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\"Hands<\/a><\/p>\n

Edamame hummus with pear chutney. Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

Harms: \u201cIt\u2019s edamame with fresh jalape\u00f1o, which we have to blend three times to get to the correct consistency. We go from a food processor into a Vitamix, and the end result is a little granular. It\u2019s vegan and craveable, and punchy in the center, where it has an aromatic plum chutney that has a lot of herby, sweet, and acidic flavors to it. We went through a lot of phases of figuring out which crispy things to use to dip. Ultimately, we went with wonton chips dusted with our shichimi togarashi [a Japanese spice blend of chile pepper, sesame seeds, orange peel, poppy seeds, ginger, and sometimes nori seaweed]. It\u2019s a pretty way to start the meal. The chips stay in our dehydrator and are warm all through service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Hamachi meets tom kha sauce in this crudo. Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

Harms: \u201cI\u2019m a big fan of the way the pureness of the tom kha sauce in this hamachi plays with the fish caramel, along with the sweetness of the papaya and charred shiitake mushrooms. This plate came together over six or seven tastings, and the final is the best variation. We knew we wanted to do crudo our way. More than anything, we wanted to make sure you could taste the fish. Tom kha isn\u2019t Japanese, but it is part of the culture of chef Benjamin Norton, who runs the kitchen at Norman\u2019s, and this is a recipe he has worked with for his entire career.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Oil<\/a><\/p>\n

The oils are the secret to transforming this carbonara into a Japanese-inspired dish. Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

Harms: \u201cIt\u2019s a nod to our love of noodles, and is a nod to our first restaurant, the Charles<\/a>, which is always in our hearts. Of course, there is a twist in the carbonara. It has egg yolks cured in tare, shiro dashi [a Japanese soup base made with white soy sauce, kombu, and bonito], dashi, and black pepper. There is also pancetta that is diced large and rendered daily. If you want to, you can use a fork to eat it and twirl it. There are pickled mustard greens in it as well, along with fresh lemon juice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

You can eat these noodles with chopsticks. Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

Martin: \u201cThe pickled mustard greens were, to me, the aha moment of this dish, when we all were like, That\u2019s the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cutting<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the rule breaking dishes is this Korean fried chicken. Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

Harms: \u201cThis dish began as an idea for karaage chicken, but it evolved. The best iteration of the dish wasn\u2019t a dry batter, but the wet batter was what we liked best. It has been the most consistently delicious. Chef Ben Norton, who is half Korean, wanted to bring his mom\u2019s gochujang sauce to Norman\u2019s. The chicken gets tossed in that sauce, pseudo hot chicken-style, but only about 80 percent, so you still get extra-crispy bites. The plate also has pickled cucumbers, negi [long green onions], and toasted sesame seeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hands<\/a><\/p>\n

Cowboy rib-eye with a Southeast Asian salad \u2014 that\u2019s about as Japanese Western as it gets. Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

Harms: \u201cHaving a papaya salad with a big, fatty rib-eye was an idea from the beginning. We loved the punchy, spicy, acidic, and crunch accompaniment with a fatty, crusty steak. We weren\u2019t always planning to use dry-aged meat, but it worked out well. We are using a 45-day dry-aged cut that gets crusted with salt and black pepper on the grill. We brush it with tare glaze as a last step before it comes off the grill. The way those two flavors dance together is amazing, as is electing to add honey butter torched tableside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin: \u201cWe kept the grill from Homewood, so that\u2019s a massive component of the cooking here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Handrolls<\/a><\/p>\n

The sushi counter spread. Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

If you only order one piece of sushi: <\/strong>Make it the bluefin tuna with foie gras shredded over it. Norman\u2019s has three sushi chefs. \u201cWe use the otoro, the fattiest part, and top it with pickled red pearl onion, crispy garlic, and then hit it with frozen foie gras.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pro-tip from Martin: <\/strong>You have to order the Crazy 88, a mezcal margarita with wasabi and lemongrass.<\/p>\n

Norman\u2019s Japanese Grill is open now at 4002 Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas, serving dinner. Reservations can be made on OpenTable<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every time Duro Hospitality opens a new restaurant, it immediately becomes the hottest and hardest to get reservation…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":118834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,38852,74169,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-118833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dining-out-in-dallas","11":"tag-inside-the-dishes","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114971934971543000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}