EATS

A national research firm is looking for wine drinkers in the Dallas area to participate in a focus group in Addison. The dates are Dec. 3-4 and the times are 11 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:45 p.m. or 7 p.m. (slightly different on the 4th). Participants will be paid $125 at the end of the sessions, which run 75 minutes.

These aren't tastings; the researchers want your input and opinions. They could be researching anything from brand-name recognition to your impressions of a particular varietal or region.

They're looking for people 21 to 65. If you'd like to participate, fill out the online survey here. If it looks like you might qualify, someone will call you within the next week. And if you have questions, you can call Eden Parker at 303-341-0886.

What makes Local's the perfect butternut ravioli? It starts with a vibrant, pureed filling, which is wrapped in the most delicate pasta, then cooked just to al dente.

Local chef-owner Tracy Miller sauced it with light butter-sage, something like a restrained hollandaise, then dropped on a handful of tiny, salty chunks of pancetta and a handful of baby spinach leaves. Butternut ravioli really doesn't get much better (unless, of course, you know of one that does). It's an appetizer, but could easily pass as a small entree.

From Local, our party made a dessert stop at Samar, which was busy, but not too, at 10:30 p.m. We enjoyed drinks and wickedly strong Turkish coffee pots de creme around the under-lit onyx bar. We could also smell the sweet, fruity smoke of the hookahs as we passed by the outside patio and fire pit. Chef-owner Stephan Pyles popped in as we were leaving. I think he stays fit running between his two Ross Avenue restaurants.

Sunday is the last day to place an order with Abacus for Thanksgiving dinner dishes. But if you'd like to see a demo of Kent Rathbun's Thanksgiving menu, he's preparing it Monday at 6:30 p.m. at Jasper's. Maybe you'll be tempted to make use of the recipes for your own turkey day.

It's $75 plus tax and 20 percent gratuity per person; reservations are required; call Jamie Carey at 972-673-0823. Here's a link to the Web site where you can find his Thanksgiving recipes under the "recipe" tab.

I met Australian winemaker Chris Ringland at Urbano Cafe last week to taste through some of his wines and get him some decent food during his whirlwind promotional tour. But a little peace and quiet? No way.

Wednesday is pretty much party night for the boisterous BYOB crowd. The tiny place was packed, every seat at every table filled. And because Urbano Cafe is so small - perhaps a dozen tables - you can't help but be on top of your neighbor. As Chris said at one point, "If you turned the lights down, you could imagine you're in New York."

While owners Mitch and Kristen Kauffman and staff were busily shuttling food and plates back and forth, every table was uncorking. Some guys even brought their own stemware. At one point, a fellow reached over to pour Chateau Mouton '82 into our glasses. Meanwhile, we were sharing Chris' Chateau Chateau wines, whose labels are designed by Istvan Orosz, one of M.C. Escher's last pupils.

One was the 2007 Skulls (pictured), a spicy, unoaked number blending mourvedre and grenache. It teases the tip of your tongue with fruit, then flips to dry and minerally. We were loving it with quail stuffed with toasted pecans, feta and pancetta. It was also good with the mushroom risotto and veal chop. (Sigel's is a good source for his wines, although other places, such as Central Market, carry them, too.)

How crazy-noisy was it? The Mozzarella Co.'s Paula Lambert and I were sitting back-to-back and not until well into our entrees did we realize each other was there. But it was a great opportunity to introduce Chris to the cheesemaker for the hoja-santa-wrapped goat cheese he'd tasted last summer. Fascinated with the native Southwest ingredient, he had written about it in his trip journal. Wonder what he wrote about his dinner at Cafe Urbano.

It's a rainy Friday morning, and I wish I were at Smoke eating breakfast instead of sitting at my desk.

But since I'm not, I thought I'd just run through a few more things I loved and didn't love about the new place at the Belmont Hotel, where Tim Byres is chef.

LOVED: The bread and butter pickles. Especially the cucumber ones. I think they're the best I've ever tasted. I could eat them all day long, even this early in the morning.

DIDN'T LOVE: The back room on a Friday night. There's a tournament-quality (according to one of the waiters) pool table back there, but the people playing pool were screaming and laughing so loud we had to shout across the table to hear each other.

LOVED: The configuration of the bar. It's kind of pointed, and arranged so there's plenty of space to sit or stand and have a drink if there's a long wait. The staff actually seems to care about people who are waiting for a table.

On Thanksgiving day, when you've had about as much turkey, stuffing and family chit chat as you can take, there's an outlet. Nearly all TGI Friday's will open up late in the afternoon on turkey day, for the first time in more than 10 years. Read more about it here.

That stands for Spiceman's Absolutely Unusual Culinary Extravaganza. And it takes place Saturday at FM 1410.

Tom "Spiceman" Spicer plans to have cooking classes and demos all day starting at 10:30 a.m. This will include wild mushroom paella cooked by the Spiceman over a bonfire. Someone will also be making duck and andouille gumbo.

Spiceman says, "Come dine, bring yo' wine and ...loose (sic) yo mind at Spiceman's Gumbo 'n da Garden."

For the uninitiated, Spicer is the city's most unusual and eclectic produce broker. He's big on local (he's harvesting greens), brings in gorgeous stuff from Louisiana (Satsumas, Meyer lemons) and helps chefs find hard-to-get produce from elsewhere (wild and cultivated 'shrooms).

FM 1410 is his storefront, where does business (anyone can buy any amount), plays his kalimbass (kalimba + bass) and farms his urban garden out back. The store is at 1410 Fitzhugh, in the block toward Central from Jimmy's Food Store at Bryan and Fitzhugh.

Australian winemaker Chris Ringland is in town, selling new releases and pouring samples. It's one of those dizzying, "if-it's-6 p.m.-we-must-be-at-Central-Market" kinds of promotional tours.

Ringland makes wine in a partnership arrangement with Dan Phillips of Grateful Palate, an importer of big-hair Australian wines so fat and juicy that Phillips handed out toothbrushes one year as a promo item.

Sigel's has enjoyed something akin to "favored nation status" with Grateful Palate, although the wines are not sold exclusively with the retailer. Ringland will be at the Old Town store (5757 Greenville) from 5 to 7 this evening, not only with some spiffy new releases (available as pre-orders, coming in December), but a handful of his most exclusive, small-production wines.

These include R Wines Anamorphosis Shiraz 2005, Evil Incarnate Shiraz 2004 and The Wine Shiraz 2004. All score in the high 90s with wine reviewers. How rare will they be in Texas? The state gets 52 bottles of the Anamorphosis, 45 three-paks of the Evil and 22 six-packs of The Wine.

Another of Ringland's finest wines, Longitude won't be open for sampling, but will be available for pre-order. (It arrives in January.) 500 bottles allocated to Texas; SRP is $1,000. The Wine Advocate gave this wine 100 points.

Do the folks at Sigel's a favor and RSVP for the free tasting event at 214-739-4012.

For this week's review, restaurant critic Leslie Brenner visited Smoke, the new restaurant at Dallas' Belmont Hotel. Do let us know what you think!

Smoke
• Read and comment on the review
• Leave your own review of Smoke

Photo of Smoke chef Tim Byres by Matt Nager/Special to DMN

It's time for an open house. Come on by and sample holiday specialty items and regular menu fare at Eat the World in its new location from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday. I wrote about the cafe/prepared foods store in a previous post.

If you're having overnight company on Thanksgiving, for example (the better to get a head start on Black Friday shopping), ETW's savory breakfast bread pudding sounds like a hearty day-starter. Owner Toby O'Brien also carries several Cajun-leaning dishes, such as boudin-stuffed chicken. This is the op to taste before you buy.

Eat the World is in the strip center at Royal and Abrams (northeast corner) behind the Starbucks. The last time I was there, O'Brien hadn't gotten his sign up. 'Hope it's there now.

Chalk it up to primal instincts, but Dallas dining has become a meat-and-greet this fall. From two glitzy new steakhouses and one hipster smokehouse, to an indie downtown barbecue joint, there's a beast for every bent.

Photos by Brandon Thibodeaux: (Top) Dr. Bell's BBQ: No appointment required and (bottom) buttery cracked-pepper prime strip from Bailey's Prime Plus.

One of the Daily Beast's top stories today is a photo gallery about the hottest restaurants around the country, and Samar by Stephan Pyles is one of them.

Go, Big D!

Photo of the bar at Samar by Kyle R. Lee/DMN

I know, I know...it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. But reader Liz Perez, who will celebrate her 40th birthday on Christmas, has her entire family coming and is looking for somewhere wonderful to take them for Christmas dinner.

The DMN's Bindu Varghese will be putting together a roundup of restaurants serving Christmas dinner -- look for a blog post with a link to it on or around Dec. 11. But in the meantime, are there restaurants or hotels where you've been wowed by the Christmas dinner? Do tell!

Like many chefs, Kent Rathbun (Abacus, Jasper's, Blue Plate) is offering Thanksgiving dinner fixin's to go, starting with hickory-roasted turkey with green chile-red-eye gravy. He's also making a leg of lamb, chunky garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with candied pecans, scallion sweet-corn pudding - you get the idea. You order at www.kentrathbun.com and pay through Paypal (no account needed).

But here's Rathbun's cool twist: You can access most of the recipes on the same Web site under the "recipe" pull-down. The sides and leg of lamb are the same; only the smoke-roasted turkey is missing. Click on the holiday recipe archive to unearth the green-chile-red-eye gravy. The cost for Rathbun's recipes? Zip. Zero. Nada. Enjoy.

There's a spiffy new Middle-Eastern pastry and coffee shop in Richardson: Bab el Harah. The shop, on Greenville just below Main, is co-owned by two gentlemen from Egypt; their baker arrived recently from Iraq.

I tasted three kinds of baklava, including the pistachio square you pictured on the left and the nests in the middle; they were fine, though not particularly distinguished. But the one on the right, which was just out of the oven, was spectacular -- the pastry so delicate and fine, filled with pistachios and drizzled with honey. I loved the coconut macaroon (the round white cookie on top) too. I think freshness is key when it comes to these pastries (like most). When they sit around even a couple days, they suffer, but right out of the oven, they can be amazing.

One of the owners said they'll be adding panini and drinks in a couple of weeks. For now, it's cash or check only; soon they'll also take credit cards.

Bab El Harah, 201 S. Greenville Ave., Richardson; 972-664-1119.

Do you plan to cook for Thanksgiving, or eat out? If you do plan to go out, but haven't yet decided where to go, the Thanksgiving dining listings that just went up on Guide Live can help you find the turkey day dining room of your dreams.

Check it!

Photo by Ann Stratton/Special to DMN

As promised, here's my report about the crispy braised chicken thighs dish I made this weekend from Thomas Keller's new cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home.

A few things attracted me to the dish. First, chicken thighs. They're inexpensive, easy to deal with and so much more flavorful than chicken breasts. I like braised chicken, but I'm often bothered by the slimy skin, so "crispy" sounded good. I was also intrigued by the flavor combination of fennel and green olives, especially Cerignola olives. (I have trouble distinguishing them from Castelventranos, which I buy at Central Market all the time and serve as hors d'oeuvres; I love both.)

The flavors dish turned out to be delicious and beautiful -- the flavors worked wonderfully together. However, there are some problems in the recipe, and I'll make some tweaks next time I do it.

I'm always looking for great dim sum, and lately I found some pretty good dumplings at Hong Kong Royal in Carrollton. (Thank you, Shane Stephens, for the tip many months ago...)

I particularly liked these ruffled pork dumplings (on the left) and the round ones (below), a fragile wrapper filled with shrimp and spinach. Turnip cakes and sticky rice were also very good.

Has anyone been, either for dim sum or dinner? What did you think?

And beyond that, what's your favorite dim sum spot? I have a feeling there are some amazing places out there I haven't discovered yet. (Addresses or at least approximate locations and cities are appreciated -- I love checking out the places you recommend.)

Hong Kong Royal Restaurant, 3030 Josey Lane, Carrollton; 972-492-9999

Farmer Jack Roach had beautiful East Texas field tomatoes at his table in Dallas Farmers Market's Shed No. 1 that he grew in Lindale. When I told him J.T. Lemley's crop had been washed out by the rain and never ripened for lack of sun, he said with a crinkly smile, "Well, that's because J.T. only has 30 years' experience farming, and I've got 48."

He plans to be back next week with his tomatoes, also green tomatoes and squash. Today, there were a specialty greens grower and an egg dealer, JuHa Ranch and Wackym's cookies, all in Shed No. 1. In Shed No. 2, there were the usual suspects (Texas Meats, Mawker Coffee, Kurry King) plus Rosey Ridge Bakery, BeeLiscious Spice blends (wow), Ain't No Mo Buttercakes, including caramel and pumpkin flavors, and Gulf shrimp and seafood. Slowly, slowly, Shed 2 is coming around.

It's always an event when Thomas Keller, chef-owner of Per Se in New York and French Laundry and Ad Hoc in the Napa Valley (among others), publishes a new cookbook. And Keller fans who loved flipping through the pages of the French Laundry or Bouchon cookbooks but found them too daunting to actually cook from will likely love this new one: "Ad Hoc At Home." Ad Hoc is Keller's family-style restaurant in Yountville, so these recipes are by nature more approachable than the recipes from his previous books.

I have my eye on meatballs with pappardelle (I love meatballs, and finally, they're in season!). The book includes the recipe for his renowned fried chicken, which he brines for 12 hours before dredging and frying. (The review copy we received came with some kind of kit -- I think it's brining mix and coating mix.) And hey -- there's a recipe for salt-crusted fish! (Keller combines the salt with egg whites -- four cups of kosher salt to eight egg whites, and pats that onto the fish.)

Wonderfully useful cooking tips are scattered throughout, and they're so valuable that if you went through them all it would serve as a mini cooking course with one of the country's best chefs. Here's a sample:

"The best way to sear a piece of fish or meat is over high heat. After you put the fish or meat into the pan, don't try to move it--let it cook until the bottom browns and releases on its own. When it is ready to turn over, turn it and, if possible, put it in a different part of the pan. The surface there will be hotter and give the best sear to the second side."

I never thought of that!

I just bought the ingredients for crispy braised chicken thighs with olives, lemon and fennel, which I'm going to make this weekend. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm thinking the book, which is gorgeous to boot, would make a super holiday gift. Cover price is $50, but Amazon is selling it for $29.25.

"Ad Hoc at Home: Family-Style Recipes," by Thomas Keller; Artisan Books