Best Bites: Dining out in Dallas-Fort Worth March 17

by Teresa Gubbins

Spin-offs and sequels sprouting everywhere, but especially at Preston and Forest.

Is a new restaurant any less exciting when it's a spin-off? Let's say no – so we can run through all the spin-offs that have opened, or are about to sometime in the next month:

Open now is the second branch of Manny's Uptown Tex-Mex, which has taken its Uptown self to Addison, at the somewhat west-ish corner of Midway and Belt Line Road. People care about Manny's because it’s related to longtime favorite Mia's; Manny is Mia's brother, and you definitely see similarities in the food and menu. The original Manny's Uptown on Oak Grove at Lemmon opened in 2005 and yet people are still lining up on weekends, so it's no flash in the pan. For now, there's no lines at this Addison spin-off.

Opening by April is the second branch of Snappy Salads, the cool, environmentally-conscious salad place at Preston and Forest, expanding to NorthPark Center. Founder Chris Dahlander, a former exec at Brinker Int'l, made the original branch entirely green right down to the nontoxic paint on the walls, and he'll do that to the best of his abilities at the NorthPark outlet, too, using organic ingredients in his upscale salads whenever possible as well as biodegradable cutlery and to-go containers (made from potato starch, how do you like that).

Speaking of salads, Greenz is about to open a branch on – why, yes, Preston and Forest, by Mi Cocina. It’ll make the third Greenz, after Addison and the original in Uptown.

A couple of Dallas places have their sights set on Southlake, including the already-announced Campania Pizza and More, spreading out from one urban village (West Village) to another; plus Ziziki's, the Mediterranean bistro specializing in Greek and Italian cuisine that first opened in Travis Walk and has a second branch at -- Preston and Forest.

Also mid-cities bound: Tex-Mexery Uncle Julio’s, with a new branch in Grapevine, the fourth local outlet (with 7 other branches outside of Texas).

Meanwhile, here’s some stuff from press releases, which means you may have seen this elsewhere, but let’s go ahead:

Tim Love, owner of Lonesome Dove Western Bistro (in Fort Worth but not New York) and Duce (which he just re-fashioned into a steakhouse), will open a funky, outdoor burger joint cleverly titled Love Shack on March 23. He’ll serve sodas, homemade root beer (a big trend lately), shake of the day, gourmet hot dogs, burgers, beer, and wine. Open 7 days a week for lunch/dinner, and late night on Friday and Saturdays.

La Duni founders Espartaco and Dunia Borga will open Aló Cenaduria & Piqueos – you can call it Alo -- which will focus on the contemporary street foods of Peru and Mexico, in the space that used to be Vermillion in Knox Plaza at Knox and 75.

Leftovers

Maybe you've seen the stories about corn becoming the new solution to global warming, and the accompanying increase in prices. Feeling the pinch: Coca Cola, which is considering alternatives to high-fructose corn syrup. That's the stuff that is supposedly responsible for making people fat; how perfectly twisted would it be if this is what it took for Coke to stop using the stuff? (Although Splenda's supposedly even worse.) Times are tough all over for the stodgy, un-nimble Coke: Soft drink sales declined last year by 1.5 percent, and industry-ites predict that trend will continue in 2007, as people switch over to enhanced water, tea, sports drinks, and energy drinks.

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