Friday, March 7, 2008

Best Bites: Dining out in Dallas-Fort Worth March 7

By Teresa Gubbins

African restaurant Mo Chops, which just opened last week at the very far eastern edge of Northwest Highway, is named for its owner: Moji Dewunmi Williams. She goes by "Mo."

"My husband decided to give it that name," Williams says. "'Why don't you say Mo Chops?' Chops is what you eat."

She moved here eight years ago from Nigeria, where she had a successful catering business, which she's been in the process of recreating, culminating in this restaurant. Though primarily African, her menu incorporates Caribbean and Indian-curry dishes, too, with goat, oxtail, pepper gizzard, curry chicken, hot wings, jerk chicken, and ogbono, a traditional Nigerian stew with a distinctive peppery, nutmeg-like flavor. A house specialty is Jollof rice, rice that's been mixed with tomato sauce, onion, salt, and chili pepper, and then garnished with peas.

Last but not least, she offers fufu, sometimes spelled foofoo, an African porridge in which a starch or grain is cooked and pounded until it turns sticky and firm. Williams makes hers from pounded yam. Fufu serves basically the same function as mashed potatoes, though it's more versatile than the lowly spud.

A wad of fufu is often served with a sauce for an interactive experience in which the diner breaks off a piece of the fufu, creates an indentation, then cups up some of the sauce and eats it. In some parts of Africa, it's considered tacky to chew the fufu; you're supposed to eat it whole.

Wildflour Texas Cafe

Gayle Wood and Sylvia Workman had a catering company in Richardson for many years when they were approached by the Chamber of Commerce a couple of years ago with a proposition: How about opening a restaurant in the newly revitalized II Creeks development on Custer Road near Richardson's Canyon Creek area?

"We had our catering company located in an old Nortel building and our lease was coming up, and we knew it was going to skyrocket," says Wood. "So we had been talking about it -- that we didn’t have a storefront. It was one of those things that worked out great for all parties concerned."

Evoking the city's annual Wildflower Festival, Wildflour Texas Cafe has become a popular lunch-ladies spot with its menu of soups, salads, sandwiches, quiche, and one daily entrée, plus an awesome lineup of house-made cakes.

"My husband calls it 'chick food' but it's more than that," Wood protests. "Today our special was chicken & dumplings."

For now, they're keeping lunch hours only, every weekday, plus breakfast and lunch on Saturdays, but they plan on extending to dinner hours, too.

All hail the Queen

The Cultured Cup in The Plaza at Preston Center in Dallas may specialize in tea, but it's also one of a limited number of places in the U.S. of A. that sells drinking chocolate made by Charbonnel et Walker, one of Britain's oldest chocolate makers and chocolatier to the Queen, don't you know, yesssss, that's right, the Queen.

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• Food and Drink > Dining / Restaurants > Best Bites

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