EATS

Another milestone (finally!): I'm down 15 pounds. It was a pretty good week, restaurant-wise -- not so much for the diet (lots of steaks!), but it terms of deliciousness. That meant a lot of time in the gym, where I made my first attempt at the Stairmaster. It seemed to be so easy at first -- I cranked it up to Level 7 -- and after 5 minutes, yikes! I only stayed on for 9 minutes, and burned about what I would have burned in 10 minutes on the elliptical trainer. I usually spend an hour doing cardio altogether, and it's nice to mix it up. Hopefully the Stairmaster won't continue to be so daunting.

According to the Dallas Observer's Unfair Park Blog, Roaster's N Toasters, the less-than-a-year old deli on Preston Road, has also closed.

It's always sad for all the people involved when a restaurant closes. Nancy Nichol bemoans its fate at Side Dish; sounds like she was a bigger fan than I was.

Photo of Roaster's double-decker sandwich by Ben Torres/Special to DMN

Hiatus is, I think, another way of saying "closed for the foreseeable future." Nancy Nichols reported this over on SideDish, and Nancy Visser, who reports on East Dallas for the Dallas Morning News, just gave me the heads up. Like NN, I'm lifting here from the Chapman Chile Web site:

We have come to the realization that Fran needs to delegate more of the day-to-day kitchen operations. She has spent the last year chopping onions, stuffing jalapenos and grinding toasted peppers while attempting to hold together a house with four young children. The problem is that even with our loyal customer base, the space we currently occupy just cannot generate the kind of income needed to employ extra help. Our much ballyhooed expansion seems to be on infinite hold as the owner of the building cannot decide if he should stay or go. We thought the return of the beer and wine license to the ghetto convenience store would herald an acceleration of the renovation but this has not been the case.

It is with light-hearted irreverence that we annouce our hiatus from Chapman Chile. That's right; we're taking a break. The simple truth is the Kitchen never made much money and frankly we are tired of subsidizing the endeavor. We know the problem - no seating and short hours. Without money we can not rectify those shortcomings.

Fran and I would like to sincerely thank everyone - even the person who told us buffalo were extinct. This has been an amazing experience. Lessons learned and contacts made will occupy the coming months as we formulate the next step; we are not done. Hopefully we will be back soon with a new space, the money and menu to give this a real go (if you have money let's talk!).

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep what business plans may come?

Call 214-887-8872 to get your chile and chili fix while you still can.

I really hesitated before blogging about Cosmic Cafe because it's one of my favorites and the parking is already a nightmare. (Don't even think about pulling into the rear lot if you drive anything larger than a midsized crossover.)

That said, today's miserable weather is just too perfect for my favorite dish there. Go try a bowl of their spicy dahl. For a while, Cosmic was serving it a bit too watery for my taste, but it's back to the slightly chunky texture I love. (And talk about a soup to clear your sinuses.)

I like to order it off the menu as the combo, "Dahl & Nan & Garden of Silence" (my actual dish snapped above), which pairs the soup with nan and a crispy salad. Bonus: You'll love the atmosphere of this quirky vegetarian haunt inside a brightly-painted old house.

Cosmic Café, 2912 Oak Lawn Ave., 214-521-6157

I just been munching away on Sea Breeze Fish Market and Grill's house-smoked salmon, so tender, buttery and perfectly infused with smoke. This is not the thin sheets of smoked salmon you think of with lox. No, this is a full plump, moist fillet.

If there's any left - I'm sure they smoke in batches, and I was there yesterday - it's not too late to snag some for today's Super Bowl fest. Serve it plain, or dress it up with Grey Poupon, capers and red onion, sided with toast or rye crackers or such. Or put it out as a sandwich option. Sea Breeze makes a smoked salmon club with it.

Sea Breeze is in Lakeside Market Center on Preston just below Spring Creek Parkway. And if you miss out on the salmon, there were also in the fish case some of the hugest, best-looking scallops I've seen.

I was comparing Tormaresca NePriCa from Puglia by Antinori to Las Rocas Garnacha in a recent post - not that they taste alike, but that they're similar good deals.

At least, Las Rocas used to be. In the years since we critics all proclaimed it to be such a bargain, its price has slowly crept upwards. No surprise there.

But finding it at the Plano Whole Foods Market for $11.88 was a great surprise. Check it out. (I don't know if it's on sale at the other WFMs.)

Frosted Art Bakery & Studio's executive chef Bronwen Weber has created two new items for Valentine's Day.

Baby cakes are cakes tucked into a chocolate shell in lieu of a paper wrapper and capped off with meringue icing. Flavors include Double Fudge, Kahlúa, Chocolate Amaretto with Roasted Almonds, Rich Caramel Praline, Mikido (Cherry Rum Cordial), European Chocolate with Crème Brûlée and Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. They're $5 each.

Frosted Art is also making gold-dusted strawberries. Each strawberry is dipped milk or white chocolate, followed with a golden shell. They're $3 each. Order now through Saturday, February 13, by calling (214) 760-8707 or e-mailing bronwen@frostedart.com. Frosted Art is at 1546 Edison St. (in the Design District).

I had the opportunity recently to sample the new (2006) Robert Mondavi Winery Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon at a trade lunch (Mondavi and its local distributor picked up the tab). The limited production (5,000 cases) Napa Valley cab is sourced primarily from the famous To Kalon Vineyard in the Oakville AVA with 5 percent cabernet franc.

It was, by all accounts, a gorgeous mouthful, a snapshot of what Napa Valley does so well and what Mondavi built his reputation on. Dark, generous blackberry fruit tumbled with a spicy, cigar-box edge balanced by brushed-velvet tannins (like a perfectly brewed cup of tea), nice acidity and complementary bitter undertones. You can imagine how beautifully it snuggled up to a medium-rare tenderloin.

Robert Parker, who gave it 96 points, adds pencil shavings and violets to his description. (I confess: I do not have the aroma of violets on the tip of my frontal lobe). It retails for between $119 and $129, and it's a classic - if that's your price range. Check it out at fine spirits stores.

At the other end of the spectrum, I tasted a new wine the Antinori folks sent me that, well, sent me. I'd spend $12 a bottle on this wine anytime (and probably less at Jimmy's Food Store). It's the Tormaresca Neprica 2008 from the Puglia region in Italy, a tasty, ripe, fruit-forward Italian with those husky, molten undertones that I love in primitivo, one of the grapes. Like Dallas' very own Wine Curmudgeon says, you don't need a Ph.D. in winespeak to appreciate it.

The name Ne-pri-ca is a combination of the beginning letters of each grape (eyes rolling here): 40 percent NEgroamaro, 30 percent PRImitivo and 30 percent CAbernet sauvignon. And it's a bargain the way we all talked about Las Rocas Grenache Garnache Garnacha from Spain was a few years ago. (Its price has already gone up.)

Besides Jimmy's, Central Market Dallas is supposed to have some, as well as Beverage Depot on Stemmons Trail and the Lakewood Texaco on Skillman. Also Chicotsky's in Fort Worth. I haven't called to verify whether it's still at those locations (which came from the publicist). But anyplace that carries wine should be able to order it, and it's worth the wait.

How wonderful to come upon a restaurant as frankly French as Saint-Emilion, Bernard Tronche's soon-to-be 25 year-old place in Fort Worth. Tronche gets so many of the details just right, from the availability (and proper service) of aperitifs such as Ricard and digestifs such as Calvados and Armagnac, to the French on the menu. It's definitely a destination for this kind of dining, even if the experience can be uneven.

But one little detail is different than it would be in France: The word menu itself. It means something different in French than it does in English. In French "menu" means a fixed-price, multi-course menu. It could be anything from a three-course menu du jour (usually the best way to go if you're traveling on a budget) to an 8-course menu degustation, or tasting menu. This is why American visitors to France are often surprised when they ask for a menu, and the food just starts coming -- they don't realize they've ordered the menu du jour. If you simply want to look at all the choices and order exactly the dishes you want, you ask for the carte. Hence the phrase "a la carte."

At Saint-Emilion, there are two ways you can order -- from the "menu classique" or from the "menu du chef." The menu classique really is a menu -- it's three courses for $45. But the menu du chef isn't (in the French sense, bien sur); it's a carte.

Photo of Saint-Emilion chef Mark David Hitri by Mona Reeder/DMN

I was cruising through Central Market yesterday to check up on some wines, when I passed the bottled water/soda aisle. There on the floor was a young woman studiously scrubbing that lowest strip that holds the price cards with a toothbrush, or a good facsimile of one. She had a tiny bucket of soapy water nearby. I have never, ever seen that in any grocery store before.

I would never have known about Coconut Thai Grill had my son not scoped it out and sent me an e-mail. It's in his neighborhood in Carrollton, in a spot that used to be a Long John Silver's, then a string of forgettable places. Not the location where you'd expect to find unexpectedly promising Thai.

It's owned by a former Asian Mint co-owner, Marayat Gary, who took a break, then decided to open a restaurant focusing on Thai rather than Asian Fusion, according to her daughter, Pora Chitrathorn. It looks simple and charming, and the menu brings Thai to an area where it will be a fresh, new cuisine.

Photo from the Coconut Thai Grill Web site.

This would be funny except it's kind of sad. Tom "Spiceman" Spicer tells us he's having a cash-flow problem and so, to continue his crusade for locally grown produce, he's having a "Clarence" sale to raise some cash now. Call it raising cash to raise more crops.

"I admit that I don't even know who Clarence is," he writes in an e-mail, "[but] we need some cash so prices I will slash (in the make of Clarence)."

What's on sale at FM 1410? Foodie posters, Wolf Creek organic smoked pickled jalapenos, Royal Pepper Co. (this is a local company) Kampot peppercorns from Cambodia, black and white Oregon truffles, local hydroponic lettuces, petite heirloom chicory mix, wild winter mushrooms, exotic cultivated mushrooms, dried porcini and wild dill pollen.

Once again, the Spiceman has big plans afoot. He's working with his spring inner-city garden out back. He has five new farms producing for him. He's trying to get hotel kitchens to separate their produce scraps so he can use them for compost, he's even talking to Paul Quinn College about teaching students how to grow for market (and he will sell all they can grow).

This guy is one of a kind in our community, as committed to the cause of locally produced food as anyone I know. So I'm putting the word out, in case you're moved to drop by. FM 1410 is at 1410 Fitzhugh, next to Urbano Cafe and a few doors down from Jimmy's Food Store. It's open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

Here's Kim Pierce's latest installment of Table Talk -- complete with something really juicy: the phone number for the Smoke team's new "guerrilla" restaurant, 48 Nights. Anyone going to make a reservation? Christopher Jeffers tells me if you call to do so, they'll ask for your credit card number, and they'll charge it ($70 per person) on the spot.

Photo of Nonna's tajarin with sunny-side up quail eggs by Kye R. Lee/DMN

Dude, Sweet Chocolate, former pastry chef Katherine Clapner's cutting-edge, artisanal line that she makes in her new factory and store in the Bishop Arts District, is coming to local Central Markets. Clapner will make her first delivery run tomorrow morning.

Then on March 15, Whole Foods Market will introduce a special chocolate collection she's making exclusively for North Texas stores. Its introduction coincides with the opening of the Park Lane store (which can be seen and accessed from Greenville Avenue).

For this week's review, I visited Saint-Emilion. No, not the hilltown in Southwest France; this is Bernard Tronche's 25 year-old restaurant in Fort Worth.

Saint-Emilion
• Read and comment on the review
• Leave your own review of Saint-Emilion

Photo of Saint-Emilion's scallops with a bearnaise-inspired sauce by Mona Reeder/DMN

Nancy Nichols is reporting at Side Dish that Gina Campisi, owner of Fedora restaurant in One Arts Plaza and daughter of the family that owns Campisi's Egyptian Room restaurants, was found dead, apparently a suicide. We are so sorry to hear it.

Photo by Christopher Wynn of Gina in 2008 at a DIFFA Dining by Design event in North Dallas

I have been slowing gnawing my way through a free sample of Candy Corn's chocolate-covered cherry popcorn, and I find it irresistible. I keep thinking this would make a great V-Day gift for someone who loves chocolate but doesn't want a pound of chocolates for Valentine's Day.

It's chocolate-y and crunchy, and the touch of cherry sweetness really makes the combination sing. As it turns out, this is a gourmet popcorn flavor made especially for Valentine's Day. The smallest parcel is a mini-bag for $4.95, but I really liked the clear, Chinese-style, to-go container wrapped up with a bow that's $7. Candy Corn's is at 6827 Snider Plaza.

New York Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton had a delicious critic's notebook today about dining in Vancouver. In it, he raves about Sun Sui Wah, my favorite dim sum place in North America.

A restaurant opening wouldn't be a restaurant opening without delays, and it seems the opening of a "guerrilla" restaurant is no exception. 48 Nights, the pop-up restaurant planned by the team at Smoke -- Christopher Jeffers, Chris Zielke and chef Tim Byres -- was supposed to be ready to go at the end of January, but now they're set to launch the six-month run on Monday, February 22. The idea is a surprise guest chef will be cooking, it'll be a fixed-price, $70 BYOB affair, and proceeds minus overhead will go to charity.

The website, www.48nights.com, isn't working yet, but Jeffers says it should work starting this weekend. Presumably it will tell anyone interested how to make a reservation.

48 Nights, 1805 Sylvan Ave.

Teresa Gubbins reports at Pegasus News that chef J.W. Foster is leaving Pyramid Restaurant at the Fairmont Hotel to take over as chef at the San Francisco Fairmont.

Photo of J.W. Foster by Carter Rose/Special to DMN