EATS

Hey, gang, we're launching a new dining feature to spotlight Dallas-Fort Worth's best restaurants.

Every two weeks, we'll present a list of top restaurants in one category (ranging from burgers to Thai and late-night joints to ice cream shops) selected by our squadron of dining critics. We're kicking it off with - what else in Dallas? - steakhouses.

But, as has become the tradition during the Eats blog's inaugural year, we're looking for your opinion, too. So let's hear it: What chophouse most sets your carnivorous heart atwitter?

Post your picks and feedback here. Or e-mail dining@dallasnews.com. We'll publish some of these comments in a print version, which will appear in a future issue of Guide.

Click the link below to read our picks.

I had the pleasure of speaking with food and wine expert Ted Allen on Wednesday morning. He was in Puerto Rico where he's filming the final episodes of Top Chef (and trying to squeeze in some vacation time). He discussed his Sunday appearance at Taste Addison and talked a little about what's coming on Top Chef. His not-exactly-a-spoiler: "Whatever you may think or however you might want to handicap it, remember it doesn't matter who the best chef is. There are front-runners in this cast. But it doesn't matter." You can read the rest of my Q&A with him here.

He had a lot to say – as you can imagine if you've seen him on Top Chef, Iron Chef America or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. And there wasn't enough room in the paper. So I'm sharing some leftovers. Click below to read more about his advice for aspiring oenophiles and his love-hate relationship with his Top Chef blog on BravoTV.com.

Slow Foodies and Food Roots combined forces for a "Cheese, Burgers & Viognier" tour recently, visiting three local producers southwest of here. You might not want to make a day of it like they did, but all three are day-trip-friendly. Here's a little taste of the tour, courtesy of Mary Kimbrough, who's got her feet in both camps (Slow Food and Food Roots):

First stop: The Burgundy Boucherie in Grandview, the area's only grass-fed butcher shop, where Jon and Wendy Taggert dry-age, cut, and sell their pasture-raised meats. They also serve burgers made with their beef. Yum.

The KLTY-FM (94.9) and Market Street "Two-Minute Family Grocery Dash" will be held at 7 a.m. this Saturday (May 10) at the Market Street in Allen (985 W. Bethany Drive).

Traci Griseta of Terrell; her husband, Tony; son, Colton, 16; and daughter, Emerald, 14 will have two minutes to run through Market Street and grab as many groceries as they can.

Jeanette Prasifka is one tall stalk among local rabbit-foodies, thanks to her vegetarian Crosby Catering. Now she's started a blog about things veggie in and around Dallas, from how the French Room accommodated her dietary needs (well, she says, very well) to a romp through master gardener Peter Scharr's fab Southwestern garden with many edible plants. Even if you're not a vegetarian, Jeanette gives insight into how to eat lower on the food chain without giving up any gustatory pleasure. I'm jealous that Peter also cooked for her, by the way, because he's a master cook, too.

If the Dallas Farmers Market is on your agenda Saturday or Sunday, check out the slightly off-market shop of Pastabilities and Koster Cattle Co. These guys share a space just north of Shed No. 1 (where the farmers are) and next to El Mercado restaurant.

I got a chance to try Mike Koster's ground beef, black Angus that he raises on pasture locally. He's not an organic guy, but he's into his cattle and doing right by them (no feedlots). I made burgers with the beef, whose fat content was high enough to produce outrageously juicy and flavorful patties. Sometimes, you just gotta have it.

But here's the kicker: I've got an elderly cat who's never much interested in food. When I add a little of the leftover drippings to his bowl, he goes crazy on them. So I scraped the skillet clean, and we both enjoyed this local product. Koster also has steaks and such, all USDA choice - another reason to check out the market.

Bijoux's Italy Tour takes a spin through the Piedmont and Tuscany regions, with experts such as Stefano Chiarlo (oenologist at Piedmont's Michele Chiarlo) on board. The four-course wine dinner highlights seven wines. May 12 at 7 p.m. $145. 214-350-6100 for reservations.

Need reservations for Mother's Day? Check out our dining guide. We've got brunch , lunch and dinner options. There are buffets with omelet stations, prix fixe meals with fig-glazed quail salad, bottomless mimosas, frozen Bellinis, sushi, specials for kids, chocolates for mom and more.

It's a matter of survival as customers become more frugal and food gets more expensive. Check out details on how restaurants are getting menu makeovers.

Then tell us, have you seen it happen at restaurants you love?

Saturday is Customer Appreciation Day at the Coppell Farmers Market, held in conjunction with the Old Town Coppell Festival, a small-town shindig, fun for a family outing.

The "appreciation" is in the form of a free raffle for prizes provided by the vendors, and burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill. Kids will enjoy the free pony rides with photographs and a miniature stagecoach ride, plus some Clydesdales, antique tractors and a bluegrass band. The festival also brings out craftpersons, artists and gift vendors.

But you really come to buy the foodstuffs, and Marilyn Horton, the market chair this year, writes that Saturday there will be tomatoes, green beans, zucchini and yellow squash, a few cucumbers, green beans, garlic, new potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, mushrooms, poke sallet, broccoli, lettuces, chard, kale, spinach, collards and turnip greens. "We usually get a few surprises, too," she writes.

Also at the market: cheese, pastured meats, eggs from real free-range hens, seafood from the Gulf, Alaskan wild-caught salmon, honey, jams, fresh pasta, breads, pecans, teas and coffees, homemade soaps and those earthworm casings. And lots of plants: bedding, herbs, veggies, hanging baskets, the works.

Last night spotlighted two classic pivotal Top Chef challenges: The Relay Race and the Big Team Challenge - which usually would have been Restaurant Wars, but became Wedding Wars this year. One little cliché the producers should contemplate: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This bonus-length episode was fine and all, but these are restaurant chefs. Let 'em put on a restaurant again next season. Save Wedding Wars for the inevitable catering spin-off ...

Spoilers every which way after the jump.

This week, Restaurant Critic Bill Addison reviews Bolla, David Bull's modern Italian restaurant in the newly renovated Stoneleigh Hotel. Dining writer Kim Harwell reviews Daniele Osteria, a rustic Italian eatery in a hidden-away spot on Oak Lawn.

Share your own review of these restaurants. Leave a comment below.

Read Kim Harwell's latest column to get the dish on new restaurants, including Alberto Lombardi's Pesca, Dali in One Arts Plaza, TruFire Kitchen and Bar and L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, plus other news about dining in Dallas.

I told Neal Newsom when I visited him and Janice earlier this year that if Nowhere had a middle, where they live in West Texas would be it. To reach Newsom Vineyards outside Plains, I had to fly in to Lubbock, then drive across 60 miles of West Texas flatland: red soil, tumbleweeds, oil derricks, fallow cotton fields.

Along with Neal's mother, Neal and Janice grow some of the best grapes in Texas and earn vineyard designation on many wines. (They don't make wine; they just grow grapes.) Not that it hasn't come at a cost: Only after I had completed the story - which starts out with a devastating hail storm - did I learn from Fredericksburg Winery that when Neal's dad died in 2000, it was in a harvesting accident.

Dues have been paid, but the wine gods also have smiled on this small-town family, which is helping to shape Texas' nascent wine industry. Check out the story here.

The new Whole Foods Market house-baked banana bread uses "green" bananas from EARTH University in Guacimo, Limon, Costa Rica. the private university dedicated to teaching sustainable agriculture to young people in Latin America's tropical regions. To find out more about the school, click here. The bread itself is tasty and moist with walnut pieces scattered on top; 'sells for $3.99 (15 ounces). Very coffee-friendly. WFM is also sells pineapples and mangos from EARTH University.

Does that sound like heresy? Going to K.C. for three days and indulging in no steaks and no barbecue... what sacrilege!

But that's what my husband and I just did. Fact is, we couldn't look at prime beef or BBQ because we'd just spent the previous weekend chowing down on same in the Hill Country, on a Roadfood.com "eating tour" with food writers Jane and Michael Stern. [More on this in a future issue of Taste.]

We were pretty well BBQ'ed out, even a week later. So in K.C., we skipped the usual stops and didn't try out classic 'cue at Gates or strip steaks at the venerable Golden Ox. We'd already been to Arthur Bryant's and Jess & Jim's on a previous K.C. visit, so we tried a few places that were new to us.

If you're a SuperTarget shopper, you know that the store often groups grocery close-outs on an end cap somewhere among the grocery aisles. If you're an eagle eye, you also know that these are often feeble mark-downs - 20 cents off a dollar, 30 cents off a couple dollars.

But this morning, I caught one that was 50 percent off all items, and there were items worth picking up. They fell largely into the gourmet or budget categories, and many were ethnic foods, i.e. a bag of small dried red beans next to Ming Tsai lemongrass vinaigrette, canned green chiles and Iron Chef sesame-garlic sauce and glaze, Nestle canned crema and designer salsas. But also six-packs of 12-ounce bottles strawberry Gatorade and individual packets of mild taco meat seasoning and Pioneer biscuit mix.

I made off with the aforementioned Ming Tsai dressing, Casa Fiesta no-fat refried black beans, reduced-sodium tamari soy sauce and toasted sesame seed oil. My junk-food Jones was sore tempted by the Old El Paso zesty ranch Taco Topper. But the grown-up inside my head said, "No." My SuperT is at Skillman and Abrams.

If you're collecting the full set of Flying Saucer commemorative glasses, you won't want to miss next Wednesday's annual Beer Knurd glass (see left), which the bartenders will start filling at 7 p.m. There's a small charge for the glass, plus the beer in it. If you've just got to have it, get there early; we're told they go fast. The Flying Saucer is at 14999 Montfort Drive in Addison.

Usually when a store offers free sorbet, it comes on an itsy-bitsy plastic spoon. Not so with Sorbeteria, the new sorbet and smoothie emporium that just opened in the strip center at 7700 W. Northwest Highway, across from NorthPark Mall.

Come May 17, Sorbeteria will give out free full-sized servings of your choice of 16 fruit sorbets or nine fruit smoothies. It's a one-day-only grand opening event, designed to get you hooked on a treat that's really good -- and good for you.

We beat the rush and sampled a couple of flavors today. Prices are $3 for a single scoop, $4 for a double and $6 for a take-home pint. The Apricot-Tangerine sorbet bursts with intensely fruity flavor with just the right amount of tanginess.

The Doubleberry Sorbet Smoothie -- a blend of Marion Blackberry and Strawberry Sorbets with fresh berries -- packs a whollop of flavor, plus antioxidants to boot.

The sorbets are made with 90 percent ripe fruit -- much of it from Texas farmers -- and have less than a teaspoon of added sugar per serving. You'd never guess that while tasting these sorbets though -- that's a tribute to the abundance of naturally sweet, ripe fruit used to make them.

Bring the kids for the freebies, and feel good about indulging them with something so healthful.

Sorbeteria
Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
7700 W. Northwest Highway
214-373-7777

Tina Danze

Dallas ex-pat Kathryn Hall (how could anyone leave Dallas for Napa Valley?) leads the discussion and previews new HALL Winery vintages at an Abacus wine dinner May 13 at 6:30 p.m.

Kent Rathbun and crew will be pouring the 2007 sauvignon blanc, 2005 merlot, and the 2004 and 2005 cabs with courses that include quail-foie-gras-stuffed mushrooms, grilled elk medallions and pan-seared scallops wtih braised spinach. It's a great chance to see the new digs, too.

The dinner is $130 a person plus tax and 20 percent gratuity. For reservations, e-mail here. For more info, call 469-867-3681.