EATS

On FOX 4 News this morning, local Zagat's editor Kate Winzenried dished about some of the top area restaurants listed in the 2008 Texas edition of the dining guide -- ranging from the Adolphus Hotel's always top-rated French Room to down-home standbys such as Mia's Tex-Mex and Babe's Chicken Dinner House.

Reader Jed emailed to say, "Had to let you guys know that we saw a sign go up this week. Plano is finally getting an i Fratelli pizza delivery store. It is at the Polo Towne Crossing at Park and Dallas North Tollway between Omaha Steaks and Tin Star. Being a huge fan but dreading the long drive to Irving, this is great news for Plano and Far North Dallas."

I Fratetelli's Brian Murr says this location should be open "the first part of May." The address is 2208 Dallas Parkway, Plano, and the phone number is 972-608-8833. This will make the eighth pizza delivery location for the local chain.

A reader informed critic Lawson Taitte that Parlour Cafe and Wine Bar, which he reviewed in January, has closed. It's true. The phone number has been disconnected, and the web site has been replaced with the simple message: "We regret to inform you that Parlour Cafe and Wine Bar is closed for business."

Alfredo Trattoria, the homestyle Italian restaurant on Lemmon Avenue at Dorothy, appears to have closed as of last week, according to a source living in the Oak Lawn neighborhood.

The telephone is disconnected, so we were unable to contact owner Mario Perez. Alfredo Trattoria had been there for more than 20 years and was considered something of an institution on Lemmon, with lots of regulars coming over from the Park Cities. We'll post more updates as we hear them...

UPDATE: T.G. over at PegasusNews.com says:

The space is being taken over by one of the members of the Mia's Tex-Mex clan (according to a reliable member of the clan who asked not to be named), who will re-open it as a Tex-Mex place, probably called Casablanca.

I was at Nate's Seafood the other night doing some culinary research of the non-crustacean variety, but then I noticed almost every table in the place had a shallow tub of boiled crawfish in front of them. Don't ignore the context clues ...

Man, were they good. Big suckers, with more substantial tail meat than I encountered at the couple places (not Nate's) where I ate crawfish last year. And they were heavily encrusted with great, zingy, salty, reminded-me-of-Maryland-crab seasoning.

Mondays and Tuesdays, the mudbugs at Nate's are on special for $4.99 per pound. The rest of the week they run for $5.99 per pound.

Anyone else encountered good crawfish this season? I'm still new to the whole crawfish culture, so I'm wondering if this is turning out to be a particularly good year for them, or if I just lucked out.