EATS

Still need a place to eat on Easter Sunday? Check out our Easter dining guide. We've got 50 selections for brunch, lunch and dinner, from kid-friendly buffets with visits from the Easter Bunny to sophisticated seated brunches with live music. Here's just a few highlights: The Hotel St. Germain will have a New Orleans-style brunch, Parlour Cafe and Wine Bar will have live jazz and an Easter egg hunt, and the Rosewood Crescent Hotel will do the full hotel buffet brunch with stations for omelets, meats and more. Click to see the full list.

On Saturday, March 29, Jim Henry will bring samples of his all-Texas-made olive oil to Flavors From Afar, in Snider Plaza. His Texas Olive Co.'s "green gold" oil is made in Carizzo from Spanish-style Arbequine olives.

Half-liter bottles cost $20, and free tasting sessions will happen on the hour from noon to 4 p.m. that day. (Advance tastings also are available.)

Not only that: Mr. Henry's bringing some olive trees to sell, too, with advice on taking them home and planting them. Trees are $24.99 each and can be reserved in advance by calling the store at 214-696-2327.

Flavors From Afar is at 6712 Snider Plaza in University Park, near SMU. See their website, www.flavorsfromafar.com, for more information on the store.

Speaking of remodels (as we were yeseterday), Abacus will go dark at the end of the month - presumably starting April 1 - and reopen all spruced up sometime in April.

Between now and then, the entire Iron Chef America menu that brothers Kent and Kevin Rathbun (Rathbun's Restaurant, Atlanta) created with the mystery ingredient elk to defeat Bobby Flay on the popular TV cooking show will be available as a five-course tasting or a la carte. See highlights of the competition here.

If you love the grapes of Oz, you won't want to miss the monthly wine dinner that chef-owner Brian Luscher has planned at The Grape on Sunday, March 30.

Along with Grateful Palate Imports, chef Luscher will present a three-course dinner featuring the wines of southern Australia. Cost is $45 per person (plus tax, gratuity and any other beverages besides the wine pairings), and reservations are recommended.

The Grape is located at 2808 Greenville Ave. in East Dallas. Call 214-828-1981 or go online at www.thegraperestaurant.com for more information.

Does anybody remember caterer Rollie Blackwell? She left Dallas a few years back to run a B&B in the Hill Country. She's now Rollie Devlin, and her place is called Stony Ridge Ranch. She offers cooking classes, spa treatments and even all the gear you need to test your watercolor skills.
Check it out in this story from Hallmark magazine.

La Cubanita has been open for what, two or three whole months now? So, right on schedule, we've received word that the peripatetic Alberto Lombardi is officially on the move again:

In May of this year, veteran Dallas restaurateur Alberto Lombardi will open a new restaurant in the West Village. The Italian seafood concept, as yet unnamed, will open in the space now occupied by Ferre Restaurant.

This actually will be Mr. Lombardi's second restaurant to feature an Italian-seafood concept. Lombardi Mare, at Addison's Village on the Parkway, won critical acclaim under top chefs such as Tom Fleming (now at Central 214) and Avner Samuel (now running Aurora). But Lombardi Mare closed in 2003, a tough economic year that claimed many notable Dallas restaurants.

In related news, Mr. Lombardi has announced that Yoanne Lardeux, a native of Paris (and we don't mean Texas), is the new executive chef at his Knox Street bistro, Cafe Toulouse, replacing chef Colleen O'Hare.