Best Bites: Dining out in Dallas-Fort Worth March 23

by Teresa Gubbins

There's a lot going on at Life's a Beach, a grandly-mounted new spot in Highland Village. Described as a Caribbean sports bar and family restaurant, it has: a fire pit, man-made lake and beach, palm trees, and sand volleyball. It has a slogan. ("Life's a beach and then you dine." Ouch.) It has 7,000 square feet, a patio with fireplace, and an enclosed smoking bar with something called "smoke eaters" and nine hi-def flat-screen TVs. Oh, and it also has food: hot wings, ribs, pizza, pastas, and burgers.

The team behind it includes Scott Richardson (who calls it "my baby"), chef Phillip Smithwick, and Jim Verfuth, known in Highland Village circles as the owner of the Village Grill. It's part of a whole campus that'll include other concepts, Richardson says, including a wedding facility and an Italian restaurant.

"We're trying to be an experience that's not just where you can go eat, that's different than anything else," he says.

The name: Olenjack

If having a restaurant named after you pushes you into celebrity-chef realm, then it's time to start asking Brian Olenjack for his autograph, with the opening of Olenjack's Grille in Arlington (that's Grille with an E, honey). Olenjack had already made a name for himself as a cowboy cuisine guy, first working with Grady Spears at Reata in downtown Fort Worth, then the (now defunct) Chisholm Club. He did an interim consultation on the menu at Metro Grill on Knox, before partnering with a couple of Arlington business guys on this eponymous place. On the menu: espresso-glazed baby-back ribs, beef tenderloin, and shrimp-and-grits, plus "small plates" such as antelope ribs and ancho pulled pork.

Gourmet market part 1

If you're one of those people who loves getting access to the great foodstuffs sold behind-the-scenes to bigtime restaurants, then you'll want to know about World-Delicacies.com, a new gourmet-food retail outlet opening April 4 in Farmers Branch (near Addison). The company's been selling imported cheeses, high-grade DGF brand French chocolate, fine cured meats (ask owner Carlos Pippa to say the words Jamon Serrano ham -- the way he rolls his Rs will send chills down your spine), and 100-year-old Balsamic vinegars to places such as Mansion on Turtle Creek, Craft, Bice, and Nana Grill; it seemed a sin not to offer those goodies to Regular People, too. Located near the Galleria, the facility is impressive, from its Mediterranean-blue floors to its tasting room, rentable for private parties. For a quick glimpse into the benefit of shopping here, consider his Parmesan cheese, sold at $8 per pound. Compare that to Central Market's $15.99 per pound, or Whole Foods' $16.99. You see what I'm saying.

Gourmet market part 2

If you're one of those people who'd like to go to Italy but wouldn't know the first thing about planning a trip, then you'll want to know the folks at Flavors From Afar, a gourmet market in Snider Plaza. Owners Nancy and Gary Krabill are telecom-fugees who wanted control of their own destiny when they opened this market in 2004. They have jars full of pestos, tapenades, and other stuff that makes you look like a gourmet cook, but they also import all sorts of special olive oils and colorful Deruta pottery from Italy. That gave them the hookup on travel, and they lead cool trips such as the one where you pick olives for a couple of days -- just like a blue-collar laborer! Fun stuff.

Leftovers

Carl’s Jr., a pretty good burger chain based in Calif., is converting some of its company cars into biofuel machines that'll use recycled vegetable oil from the restaurants.

MJKL Enterprises, the largest Carl’s franchisee with 52 stores nationwide, converted five of vehicles already, a process that owners Jason and Margaret LeVecke say was cheap and easy to do. Converted Jeeps, Dodges, and Fords run on a mixture of diesel and filtered, treated vegetable oil. They wanted to do it to save money but also to make a statement.

"The current model of slowly integrating ethanol into fuel blends is designed by politicians to protect their own special interests. It's a poor solution," CEO Jason said.