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They fell in love on Netflix as we watched. Alexa Alfia and Brennon Lemieux met and got married on Love Is Blind season 3, and this winter they return for the show’s After the Alter special. Lemieux was a self-proclaimed foodie on the series, and Alfia has a family connection to Dallas restaurants — she revealed to Eater Dallas that her father invested in a restaurant from a notable local chef (but you can read about that below).
Eater Dallas caught up with the couple to get their Dallas dining recommendations, from their go-to date spots to their favorite new discoveries. “We don’t like to be too repetitive, we love trying all different kinds of food, always,” Alfia says.
But for Lemieux, there’s one true measure of a great meal: “For me, it’s all about sauces,” he says. “If a place doesn’t have a great sauce, I’m out.” You’re on notice, DFW: Pay attention to your sauce game.
Uchiba
2817 Maple Ave, Floor 2
Alfia: “This is one of our favorite places to go for sushi. We love the upstairs area — Uchi downstairs is fun, we just love upstairs. I love the Zero Sen roll made with hamachi, avocado, shallot, cilantro. And I’m obsessed with the Uchiba salad, which has romaine lettuce, radishes, edamame, and jalapenos.”
Baboush
3636 McKinney Ave, #160
Lemieux: “I was over at [the now closed] Public School 214, and saw it next door. So I came back later to check it out. For people who like Mediterranean food, this place makes it well. The falafel is great, and they do really good kababs. Additionally, you can sit on the patio and have hookah. It’s an all-in-one experience for Middle Eastern foods. The staff are great too.”
Niwa Japanese BBQ
2939 Main St.
Alfia: “This is a place we like to go with friends and family when they’re in town. It’s a lot of fun, you get to cook the food in front of you. It’s not a place to get dressed up, but it is a fun date-night spot. Being interactive with the food is so fun. You will leave smelling like meat — it is the perfume of Texas.”
Yoshi Shabu Shabu
1801 N Greenville Ave., #400 in Richardson
Lemieux: “This is one of my all-time favorite places ever in DFW. I’ve taken my family here for lunch, and it was where Alexa and I went on one of our early dates.”
Alfia: “This was actually our first date post-filming and after we got married. We’ve been back several times, but we were there recently and spoke to the family — the owners are Jewish. We stayed and talked for for hours. And he taught us that ‘shabu’ means crackhead [laughs].”
Lemieux: “You have to say it twice, otherwise, one shabu means drugs [laughs]. Anyway, the sauces they have are amazing. They make them in-house.”
The Charles
1632 Market Center Blvd.
Alfia: “We’ve done a bunch of date nights here, and we went for my birthday last year. We’ve had a few special events there. I love everything on the menu, but my favorite is the spicy creste di gallo, with rock shrimp and pasta.”
8 Cloves - Spice of India
920 S Harwood St., #198
Lemieux: “This is my favorite Indian food in town, we always stop here when we’re at the Farmer’s Market.”
Alfia: “We try to go to the Farmer’s Market every other Sunday, and every time we want to try Rex’s Seafood and end up getting Indian food. This place has chicken tiki hummus, as is the chicken tiki masala.”
Lemieux: “The dishes are spicy, which I think is up Texans’ alley. But they’re not overly spicy for the people around here. Its dishes are a little bit on the high end, at about $18 per dish. But it’s pretty big dishes. They can almost serve two people. You get a lot.”
Alfia: “We normally only get one dish and the hummus to split. It’s super filling, heavy food. We go walk it off around the market after we eat.”
Alice
1623 N Hall St., #103
Alfia: “This is an Asian fusion restaurant, with sushi and other fun stuff on the menu. It’s a smaller place, which I like — I love an intimate restaurant. It also has cool wallpaper, and the whole place is funky looking, which also makes it a favorite. Its back area is great, and we’ve rented it out for parties to host our family and birthday parties. There’s karaoke and you can decorate it, and even hook up your own music if you want to.”
Saint Rocco’s New York Italian
3011 Gulden Ln., #100
Lemieux: “This patio offers, in my opinion, the best view of the Dallas skyline. It has a really good fried eggplant parmesan. I’m not a vegetarian, this dish is just amazing. You don’t see it served that much in this fashion. And its an especially good dish to order on a date night at an Italian place. I’ve been trying to take Alexa there for quite some time, but it hasn’t worked out yet. Hopefully soon.”
Shinsei Restaurant and Inwood Tavern
7713 Inwood Rd.
Alfia: “This is another good sushi place. It’s huge and they have really good fried rice, too. The chef is Kent Rathbun, and I’ve met him several times. My dad actually had a restaurant with him, imoto, but it ended up closing down. He’s awesome. I love going next door to the Inwood Tavern afterward, it’s a little bar that serves drinks in red Solo cups. It’s fun to go to sushi and then pop next door — especially for me, I like to be back home by midnight at the latest. And you don’t have to worry about Uber.”
Bigdash Ice Cream Pastries
888 S Greenville Ave., Suite 140 in Richardson
Lemieux: “This is a hole-in-the-wall in Richardson, near a warehouse area. It serves Middle Easter desserts: ice cream, amazing baklava, kanafeh. If people are willing to go out of their way to try a great dessert one night, you have to go to Bigdash.”
Moodaepo
3044 Old Denton Rd., Suite 133 in Carrollton
Alfia: “We found this place because of a friend’s boyfriend who is Korean and knows the ins and outs of the food scene there. It’s up in Carrollton and has robots bring you the food. It was so freaking good. There was a ramen station, and this fluffy egg rice stuff — oh my God.”