EATS

I didn't have the space to mention, in my review of Rick's Chophouse, that I loved the bread at Rick's. It's long, thin French bread -- a ficelle, like a thin baguette, wonderfully crusty, with a good crumb -- serious artisanal French bread. As it turns out, the bread comes from La Francaise French Bakery in Garland; the bakery calls them baguettes rustiques. Baker Jean-Christophe Blanc (shown in photo), who makes the bread there, used to bake at Voilà Bakery, which closed last year. According to Chris Alves, who owns La Francaise with his father, Blanc used to divide his time between the two bakeries.

Chris also told me that his parents, Samuel and Anita Alves, founded La Francaise in 1976, on the corner of Kingsley and Audelia in Lake Highlands. "My father was a pioneer," he said. "They were the first to introduce croissants and French bread to Dallas."

La Francaise supplies other restaurants too, including Chamberlain's Steak and Chop House, Kuby's Sausage House, Patrizio, Oceanaire and a few others. The bakery is wholesale only, but you can buy some of the breads (though not the baguettes) retail at Kuby's and Henk's European Deli and Black Forest Bakery. And Chris says that if you call La Francaise ahead and place an order, they'll be happy to sell you a baguette or two (or more) directly from there.

La Francaise Bakery, 201 Gold St., Garland; 972-485-4400

Photo courtesy La Francaise

While you were busy watching the Olympics last night, Charlie Palmer at The Joule quietly made its debut on ABC's The Deep End.

The high-gloss legal drama that I've only been watching at via TiVo shot six episodes in North Texas last year. Creator David Hemingson previously described the show to the DMN as L.A. Law with "the back-stabbing of The Devil Wears Prada and the sun-drenched bed-hopping of Entourage."
We have all of that in Dallas so I'm not sure why the show pretends to be set in L.A.

Anyway, actor Billy Zane looked picture-perfect in the Palmer dining room. I hear they also shot in the Joule's lobby and on the rooftop lounge. Speaking of, was that the lounge featured earlier in last night's episode? Afraid I missed that part.

Watching for Dallas locations in The Deep End reminds me of the Volkswagen "PunchDub" game.

In the Avila's Mexican restaurant saga that's pitting brother against brother (and sisters and mother), a district judge Thursday sided with the mother.
Ricardo Avila has been ordered to appear in court Friday before Judge Ken Molberg to talk about what's going on at the tiny Mexican restaurant on Maple Avenue. The judge Thursday granted a temporary restraining order to Avila's elderly mom Anita, who sought a civil injunction Thursday. The judge also ordered Ricardo Avila to "restore all property and tangible things taken or removed from" the restaurant within 24 hours of Thursday's order.
Calls to Ricardo Avila's attorney were not returned. The restaurant voice mail says Avila's is "expanding to a new location with a great patio and lots of parking."
Stay tuned.

FD Luxe's Jason Sheeler just told me that Ricardo Avila mentioned to him last year that Avila's invented the brisket taco. Could that be true? I thought only God could invent something as good as a brisket taco. (Full disclosure: Jason told me Ricardo Avila did not know he was talking to a journalist.)

Anyway, you all have been in Dallas much longer than me. What's the first brisket taco you remember? Does anyone know anything definitive about its provenance?

Meanwhile (and sorry for burying the lede), Side Dish reports that Avila's has closed.

Photo of brisket tacos (not from Avila's) by Evans Caglage/DMN

In case you've been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to find out who the James Beard Award semi-finalists are, your wait has ended: the foundation has announced all 200 of them.

Yes, 200, 20 each in 10 categories including Outstanding Restaurateur, Outstanding Chef, Outstanding Restaurant, Rising Star Chef of the Year, Best New Restaurant, Outstanding Pastry Chef, Outstanding Wine Service, Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional, Outstanding Service and Best Chef in each of 10 regions.

Cutting to the chase, Stephan Pyles is a semi-finalist in the Outstanding Chef category, Samar is a semi-finalist for Best New Restaurant, and Sharon L. Hage is a semi-finalist in Best Chef: Southwest. Congratulations and best of luck to Stephan and Sharon!

Other Texas semi-finalists: Robert del Grande (RDG and Bar Annie in Houston) is also semi-finalist for Best Chef; and Tyson Cole (Uchi in Austin) and Armando Pomales (Cafe Central in El Paso) are semi-finalists for Best Chef: Southwest.

Interestingly, only four of the 20 semi-finalists for Best Chef are from the northeast: Jose Andres (Minibar, Washington, D.C.; Tom Colicchio, Craft NYC; Sam Hayward, Fore Street, Portland, ME; and Ana Sortun, Oleana, Cambridge, MA).

Finalists will be announced March 22 in New Orleans. A complete list follows after the jump.

Photo of Samar by Kye R. Lee/DMN; photo of Sharon Hage by John Ater/Special to DMN

For this week, both Mark Vamos and I headed north -- Mark to Plano, where he checked out The Holy Grail Pub, and I to McKinney, where I visited Rick's Chophouse in the Grand Hotel on the square. If you happened to watch the TLC reality show BBQ Pitmasters, you'll recognize chef Paul Petersen, who heads the kitchen at Rick's.

Rick's Chophouse
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The Holy Grail Pub
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Photo of Rick's Chophouse chef Paul Petersen by Rex C. Curry/Special to DMN

Everyday with Rachel Ray magazine sent a team to taste pizza all over the country to find the best one. No, the winner wasn't in Dallas -- though it was in one of the four regions they carved the country into. It was Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.

Nor did any Dallas pizzerias make the list of finalists, though one from Texas did: Dough Pizzeria Napoletana in San Antonio.

But three Dallas pie palaces made the big list: Campania Pizza and More, Coal Vines and Olivella's. I haven't been to Campania or Coal Vines yet. I have been to Olivella's and liked it a lot, but I liked the pizza at Nonna even more.

What do you think of Team Ray's picks? What would you have chosen in Dallas?

Photo of Olivella's pizza by Evans Caglage/DMN

I was checking out Empanadas N More, where owner Rosalba Benavides makes nearly everything by hand, and discovered that includes the corn and flour tortillas for her expanded Monterrey Mexican selections.

I had to try the barbacoa and the beef (deshebrada de res) soft corn tacos. Both meats were finely shredded, with distinctly different seasonings. I confess I loved the beef best; it was just so beefy. I added cilantro and onions and some of Benavides' hot sauce which is more about flavor than heat.

But the corn tortillas - there's just nothing like the fresh texture, the gentle "give" when you bite into them and their moist tenderness. Oh, they were good, and the tacos were only $1.65 a piece.

Meanwhile, here's an update on her empanadas, which are also handmade and fabulous. She now cooks the savory ones to order now so that they will be perfectly fresh when she sells them. This takes 20 minutes. Most of her customers either call ahead or take the time to shop, she says. She knows people want fast, she says, "but I'm not going to change."

She still has the luscious fruit empanadas ready to go, with the flavor stamped on the top with food coloring.

3949 Legacy at Coit (northeast corner, next to Tom Thumb), Plano; 469-467-0591; www.empanadasnmore.com.

Crush Wine Shop has announced that it will close its doors Feb. 22 after almost three years on Knox at Cole.

"We have lost our lease," writes owner Jim Larkin in an e-mail, "and will be moving from this location. Future plans are uncertain at this time...but stayed tuned."

In the meantime, the store will be conducting an inventory clearance sale to avoid having to move stock. "So come shop for some super deals," writes Larkin.

Deals are good, but I always feel a bit creepy buying things under these circumstances, like the scene with Madame Hortense in the film, Zorba the Greek, where the village women surround her deathbed, waiting for her to die so they can loot the premises.

Still, fans should take advantage of the last week to stop by and tell the staff what the wine shop has meant to them and to wish them well.

Wow, so many interesting comments on the "Ick factor" post -- thank you all, and keep 'em coming!

Gipson posted an interesting idea: "A fun spin-off of this post," he writes, "would be retelling moments that turned you on to a once-disliked food. You hated it as a kid, you were sure you'd hate it your whole life, but then one day you risked it with this one dish, and your life was forever changed."

OK, I'll bite. I hated (or thought I hated) tripe, until one day I tasted it in a combo pho at Pho Bang in New York City. (Which I think is related, or used to be related, to the Pho Bang in Garland -- same logo, anyway.) Not knowing what it was, I loved its frilly chewiness. I also hated (or thought I hated) sweetbreads, until I tasted them at Daniel, also in New York, also a million years ago. He did a spin on vitello tonnato he calls tonnato vitello -- slices of tuna sashimi, sauced with a classic tonnato sauce, and topped with perfectly-fried, very crisp outside-tender inside sweetbreads. The sweetbreads I had tasted before that were mushy, and now I'm forever trying to find some as good as Daniel's. There's a recipe for his tonnato vitello in Cafe Boulud Cookbook, one of my favorite cookbooks of all time.

And Gipson had a few: "I hated corn on the cob until I ate it fire-roasted one year at the Texas State Fair. I hated Brussels sprouts until I had them as a side dish at Neighborhood Services. My wife couldn't stand mushrooms until she had this mushroom soup at the steakhouse during a cruise last year."

Thank you, Gipson. OK, everyone -- have at it!

This flap is all over the web, and it's absolutely baffling. It seems Conde Nast, owner of the late, great Gourmet magazine, has asked Gourmet contributor Barry Estabrook to stop posting links to his own articles on his own blog, Politics of the Plate. Go figure. Here's his post about it. And mind you, they're links back to gourmet.com, not purloined stories posted to his site.

Meanwhile, it's a good reminder that Estabrook did some terrific work for Gourmet, work that's worth reading if you haven't.

UPDATE: Two commenters mentioned that Estabrook originally posted pdfs of his stories, then changed them to links after Conde Nast objected. I contacted Estabrook, who confirmed that's the case. Thank you to Conde Raiz and Steven L for pointing it out.

I also asked Estabrook whether the contracts for the stories in question were work-for-hire, meaning Conde Nast owns all the rights. He responded: "I had many agreements with Conde Nast over a period of nine years covering general aspects of editorial work I did filling in as an editor in their offices when other editors were away. Conde Nast and I disagree whether the articles I posted on my blog were works for hire or not. I did not sign work-for-hire agreements on those specific articles. It is anything but cut and dried, and I certainly wouldn't fight with them if they want to make a legal issue out of it."

I'm just now surfacing from an emergency root canal this morning (is there any other kind?), but I have to tell you what the Sig-O made over the weekend: his incredible version of chicken alla cacciatore. It seems like Italian comfort food was "in" all around.

The laughable part is: He started with a chicken. Fearing he didn't have enough meat, he added TWO breasts and some thighs. The result: He had to cook it in two Dutch ovens to make the proportions come out right!

He doesn't use a recipe, you see. Just follows his Amer-Ital instincts and the memory of his Aunt Mill's cooking. I do know he started with a head of garlic, grating one head at a time on the Microplane grater (a fab trick for ginger, too). He browned his cut-up chicken pieces with the garlic and his spices in a little olive oil. The spices included cardamom, piquin chiles and Penzey's Chili 9000 blend. Then he added cut-up onion and red and green bell pepper, button mushrooms, some of those canned cherry tomatoes from Jimmy's Food Store (winter's best fresh substitute), and some regular San Marzanos. After that, he covered it and let it slow-cook.

Oh my gosh, it was as good as it sounds, and I have tons of leftovers to savor through the week.

Restaurant critics are supposed to like everything, but I don't. I can't stand:

--Banana bread
--Kidneys
--Liver and onions (though I love chopped liver, and any kind of liver pate)
--Oscar complementation (in case you haven't been subjected to it, it's when they plop some bearnaise-dressed crabmeat atop veal or steak)

How about you -- what makes you run for the exit?

Photo of banana bread by Ed Suba Jr./Akron Beacon Journal/MCT

Sunday morning at Whole Foods on Preston and Forest, Dennis Cohn was offering tastes of his Salsa, Texas salsas, in mild, medium or hot.

I have to say, this was one of the best things I've ever tasted in a supermarket -- the flavors were pure and very fresh. Cohn, whose company is based in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston (but they make the salsa in San Antonio) fire-roasts tomatoes and serranos, and his salsa tastes terrifically bright, tangy, spicy and deep. It's certainly the best salsa I've ever tasted from a jar. In fact, if I didn't know, I'd never have guessed it was from a jar. I loved the "medium" heat version, but bought a jar of the "mild" in order to please everyone at home.

Of course I was in hot water anyway, having forgotten the chips.

Salsa, Texas salsa, $5.99 for 16 ounces at Whole Foods

I've rarely met a meatball I didn't like, but these are my favorite ones -- to cook, anyway. Partly because they're so easy, partly because they're so good.

They're Sardinian pork meatballs, from a recipe from Joyce Goldstein's "Italian Slow and Savory" cookbook. What makes them so easy? You don't brown them; just form them and simmer in a tomato sauce till done. They're very tender. And they were perfect for a snowy weekend. Goldstein suggests serving them with mashed potatoes (which I did) unless kids are involved, in which case she recommends topping spaghetti with them. (I've done both; I think polenta sounds good too.)

Hey -- doesn't that photo look like a backwards Italian flag? Here's all you do, after the jump.

I didn't get to it until late Sunday, so posting here by the time I got home would have been pretty useless. But I'll give you an alert for next year: Central Market Plano had the Best Free Sample Day Evah. At least a dozen kinds of chocolate -- bacon flavored, chili infused, single-nation varietals, etc. The chef station near the butcher/fishmongery offered tastes of (no-chocolate) shrimp and rib-eye steak. Did I mention the sample hot-fudge sundaes? If there were any real bargains, I'll admit I didn't notice. Too busy tasting chocolate. Looks like this has been an annual Valentine's Day-ish event for CM. Was Friday through Sunday this year. Puts me in mind of the current TV commercial for some kinda food thing where a guy dresses in disguises so he can get more free samples.

Alan Peppard was a twittering titan this NBA All-Star Weekend. Here is a summary of where he reports the stars were sipping and noshing:

~ Dancing With the Stars hunk Mario Lopez hit Craft and Al Biernat's
~ Michael Jordan and Jerry Jones did The Rattlesnake Bar at the Ritz
~ Jaime Fox shook things up at Nick & Sam's steakhouse
~ Holly Madison, Carmen Electra and their "Blondetourage of Playmates" hit Nick & Sam's Grill, AMPM Restaurant & Lounge and Holly went to Campisi's to visit Amber Campisi.
~ Sammy Hagar rocked Fearing's and House of Blues
~ Rappers Nelly and Drake, Jamie Foxx and NBA stars like LeBron James also went to AMPM
~ Jay-Z took over Café Pacific in Highland Park Village for an afternoon meal with 10 friends
~ Alicia Keys ended her NBA All-Star weekend with a late meal at Al Biernat's

And there are more. Did you have any star dish sightings this weekend? Tell us about it.

DMN staffer Tom Maurstad filed this hilarious iPhone report early Saturday from the Snoop Dog party at Victory Park's Boardroom restaurant and lounge:

"Here's the celebrity thus far at the Snoop party. A young woman in a leather miniskrt went up to this stocky, shave headed man and squealed with all-star weekend excitement. 'Are you that chef guy, Tom Colicky-whatever?' (Tom Colicchio, host of Bravo's Top Chef) The man shrugged. 'No, but I work at a restaurant.' That coincidental fact didn't seem to take the edge off her disappointment."

I spent most of Thursday night and Friday without power. Hence, the dearth of posts. Mine went out at 10 p.m. Thursday (just minutes after my neighbor called to say we were one of two streets he'd passed that were spared). It didn't come back on till about 7 p.m. Friday.

I was maybe a mile from Sig-O's house when HIS power also went out Friday morning. But fortunately there was enough water to shower, and a gas stove is a blessing.

With my phone battery running low, I did what so many others did: went to Starbucks and shared outlets. Nation's Restaurant News reporter Ron Ruggless wrote on Facebook that he also took to Starbucks and Corner Bakery, although it became a bit like Lord of the Flies around the outlets.

Once the power came back up, Sig-O and I settled in for dinner and a movie (after a walk through the snow). I'd made a red lentil soup with chicken broth, onions, thyme and poached, shredded chicken finished with copious amounts of lemon juice. We added a salad of arugula, watercress and endive (not the curly type), and I whipped up a quick shallot vinaigrette. All the veggies except the watercress, BTW, came from SuperTarget.

We watched Julie and Julia, and I was surprised at how much more I liked the Julie character than I had on first viewing. But Meryl Streep as Julia is still one of the most wonderful portrayals I can remember.

Did the power go off at your house? What kind of foodie adjustments did you make?

I've been thinking about red sauce and tomatoes for the last few days. I had a take-out pizza from Pizza by Marco with good red sauce on it. There was the spaghetti and meatballs at Bella, and the nice roasted tomato tart. It's winter, and I guess I'm getting tomato envy. Will it ever be summer again?

I've also been thinking lately about ways I can cut down on cooking with canned foodstuffs. That's because the stories about the dangers of bisphenol-A (BPA) in the news lately have been freaking me out. BPA is a component of plastic that's found to be toxic, and it's used in the liners of cans. The canned food I use most often is canned tomatoes, especially in the winter.

Anyway, that tart at Bella with the roasted winter tomatoes that had such a nice depth of flavor decided me: I'm going to get off my lazy butt this weekend, buy a bunch of Roma tomatoes and slow-roast them. You just cut them in half lengthwise, set them cut-side down on a baking sheet and roast at about 225 for a few hours. I'll make a bunch of it, remove the peels, then freeze those slow-roasted tomatoes, in plastic that doesn't contain BPA. (Most soft, pliable plastics don't have it; hard plastics that have it are supposed to be marked with a number 7.)

How about you -- do you worry about this kind of thing?

Photo of Bella's roasted tomato tart by Rex C. Curry/Special to DMN