Elsie the cat is not allowed to eat people food. Elsie has never been allowed to eat people food. And, before you scroll through a gallery of Elsie’s never-ending brazen attempts to steal takeout from some of Dallas’ most beloved restaurants, you should know that she was not actually allowed to touch any of them. I kept one hand on the camera, one hand ready to gently nudge the cat away from the dining area.

We adopted Elsie from Dallas Animal Services in April 2017, and she has been trying to eat our food ever since. We were told that her previous owner was an immigrant who returned to Mexico and left her behind. This owner left Elsie with a permanent love for spice and richly aromatic sauces. If you try to open a bag of tacos, or an enchilada plate, or a cup of mole negro, or a package of tamales, Elsie will tackle you like a football player. I don’t have photos of this, but just a few weeks ago I brought back a bag of leftovers from newcomer El Carlos Elegante, and when we assembled tacos out of the osso buco “carnitas,” Elsie climbed into our laps and sniffed our fingers.

But her love of food goes deeper than her Mexican-American heritage. Open a box of crackers, or toast a loaf of pita, and Elsie will climb you like a tree. She runs into the room when we eat salads. Last week, we made roasted vegetable sandwiches. To be clear: all vegetables. They would have been vegan but for the cream cheese in the Trader Joe’s cauliflower dip. When we left the room for a moment, we returned to find Elsie dashing away like a bank robber, carrying the top half of a sandwich in her mouth.

Here, I’ve documented the best takeout in Dallas in 2022—as measured by Elsie’s reactions. This was hard because as I wrote this article, Elsie kept trying to eat more food. Mere minutes after watching the best sports game of the decade, she was climbing onto our laps, trying to whack Bilad Bakery shawarma off our forks. The saga never ends.