What's funny is that, in Dallas, all the interesting restaurants in the suburbs.

Want an authentic Sichuanese restaurant? Looking for a Cantonese barbecue joint? Or maybe an Indian place that serves real chaat? Or how about a nice steaming bowl of pho? In Dallas, you'll find all of these in strip malls in the suburbs (in fact, we have a pho joint on almost every street corner in some parts of the burbs), while food in the city core consists of a mixture of yuppie bars, restaurants that only appeal to white hipsters, and fast-food joints aimed at the people who commute to downtown.

Every single Asian demographic in the Dallas area has chosen the suburbs over the city, leaving Downtown and Uptown to white yuppies and hipsters.

So, not really, then.

"I don't really know what people mean when they say suburbs are dull."

There's very little going on in them. Most of the culture options are in the cities. Most of the live music is going to be in the cities. Suburbs tend not to attract the new, experimental restaurants, preferring instead the safe predictable chain restaurants. Suburbs tend not to attract museums or traveling Broadway productions.

"There always seemed to be plenty of options everywhere I lived, conveniently accessible by car"

And where are they? Usually in the city. And you have to have a car.

"Are the people who complain about this stuff real oddballs who need weird stuff you can only find in the biggest of cities, or are they congenitally hostile to driving?"

They like new things. They like experimental things. And they don't always want to deal with the pain of driving (traffic and parking).