Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The new Yankee Stadium has a high- end steakhouse and great barbecue. Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, has some of the city’s best burgers and excellent Brooklyn beer.

The Dallas Cowboys’ $1.15 billion football arena has Frito pie.

Three major American sports teams have opened new stadiums this year. Two of them try to serve, with varying degrees of success, ambitious food and drinks to the masses. The other one’s in Texas.

I reached this conclusion from my $100 nosebleed seat on Sunday. Along with about 105,000 other spectators, I watched the New York Giants beat the Cowboys during the stadium’s inaugural home opener.

To be honest I liked the Frito pie. There’s something to be said for good junk food in the era of organic everything.

Chili and liquid cheese (the yellow, processed kind) are poured over Fritos chips so they get soggy enough to pierce with a fork. It’s a delicious, messy, corny, meaty, cheesy extravaganza. It makes Miller Lite seem high-class, and that’s exactly what you should drink with this.

The concessions are run by Legends Hospitality Management, a partnership founded by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the bank that set a Wall Street pay record, the New York Yankees, who have won more championships than any other team in Major League Baseball, and the Dallas Cowboys, the most valuable team in the National Football League.

Gray Burger

But success in business or sports doesn’t mean success in food. And junk food, however unambitious, has to at least taste good. Consider the hamburger, a gray patty with no char, a chewy, rubbery texture and unidentifiable cheese. The chili dog ($5.50) was a mealy abomination.

Tex-Mex fare should reach its microwavable apex in Texas. It doesn’t over here. Reasonably tasty flautas ($8) were filled with cheese (again, couldn’t tell what kind) and intense chicken flavor, but weren’t any better than the taquitos available at 7- Eleven. Beef fajita tacos ($8.50) were dry and stringy.

Sports stadiums are lowbrow culinary ambassadors for their cities; that’s especially the case with the Cowboys, who have a national following. Al Roker and Matt Lauer were eyeing Cowboyritas at the stadium on the “Today” show last week. Jersey-wearing fans, people who might not otherwise visit Texas, swarmed my connecting flight to Dallas this weekend.

Nice Digs

So why do the chopped beef sandwiches ($8.50), a Lone Star specialty, taste “worse than sloppy joes,” to quote a Texan who joined me? Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones should try the excellent chopped brisket sandwich at Cousin’s at the Dallas- Fort Worth International Airport. Why hasn’t Jones enlisted higher quality regional chains for the fare? Papa John’s rules here.

The new digs are stunning, like a giant alien space ship from “Independence Day.” It has a retractable roof: Texans like to say it’s so the Lord can watch his favorite team play on Sundays. A high-definition screen about the size of Air Force One hangs in the middle, drawing your eyes away from the live action.

Fans who paid hundreds of dollars for club-level seats have access to a quieter, closed-off concessions area with dry, chewy $13 Kobe patties that expertly evoke McDonald’s.

The Cowboys granted me unrestricted access, so I also tried the $12 Patron margaritas in one of the club lounges. They had the same chemical sour-mix taste as the cloying, $14 frozen Cowboyritas available to all fans.

Odd Euphoria

The right call is to order anything with cinema-style pourable cheese, like the frito pie, ultimate nachos or a cheesesteak that’s covered in tasty white goop. The latter is served on a Wonder-bread style hoagie (I’d have preferred a denser, crustier loaf), but sports juicy, seasoned, paper-thin, pepper-studded meat.

I found myself cheering for the Cowboys (I’m a lifelong Giants backer), but I attribute my odd euphoria to the fellow fans who breathe life into this stadium, not to owner Jones or Legends Hospitality, who take that joy away with over-sauced pulled pork and $5 bottled water.

The Bloomberg Questions

Cost? Easily $200 per person with tickets, parking, food.

Sound level? As loud as any other stadium.

Date place? Yes. It’ll let your date know you have money.

Inside tip? Nearby lots typically charge $40 to $90.

Special feature? Fast lines; I never waited longer than five minutes.

Private room? Suites can cost $20,000 per game on StubHub.

Will I be back? To watch the Giants destroy the Cowboys.

Cowboys Stadium is at 900 E. Randol Mill Rd. in Arlington, Texas. Information: http://stadium.dallascowboys.com

(Ryan Sutton writes about New York City restaurants for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Ryan Sutton in New York at rsutton1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 23, 2009 00:01 EDT