Is there a hotter location right now than Henderson, what w/Tei Tei, Fireside Pies, Hibiscus, Hector’s etc? (that’s rhetorical, the answer is no.) Vickery Park, a new restaurant-bar, scored a site in the thick of it, where Big Fish Little Fish used to be. For now, VP is still in “soft opening” mode, so it’s just a few snacks, but these ain’t no chicken wings: mussels in champagne lemon-butter garlic sauce, grilled vegs, Dos Equis ribs, pizzas w/ housemade dough. With chef Eric Najera from the Green Room in the kitchen, there’ll be a full menu, altho Vickery Park will always be lounge first, restaurant second. It’s already a big hang for the service industry, a late-nite drop-in for chefs and servers who work on the street.

2810 N. Henderson Ave, 214-827-1432

sorry this is not a holiday-appropriate BBQ sauce or such*

On a bottle of fudge topping, the First Ingredient should be “chocolate”. Good luck finding that. (Scharffen Berger’s is one of the few but it’s $9.95 a bottle… at Central Market, fyi.) Mosta the crappy choc syrups start w/ “fructose,” and that’s true of Guittard, too. But Guittard is also a superior chocolatier (used by pastry chefs, up there with Callebaut & Valhrona), and to give fructose corn syrup its due, it does facilitate pouring, into, say, a coffee beverage. Guittard is a small, slightly wiggy Calif company, and its hotly-desired syrups hadn’t been available to Me-The-Consumer until, well practically just now. SuperTarget has them in milk choc and caramel, in animal-printy squeez bottles; no sign of the dark choc, but maybe my SuperT was just out.

*but hey, some people eat ice cream on Memorial Day, so there.

a NYCE exclusive! no applause necessary. really. stop. i mean it.

Hot-hot-hot Kit-Kat spinoff alert! CVS has ‘em NOW: orange & crème Kit Kats. It’s a limited edition with an orangey cream coating (which ech consists mostly of artery-clogging palm kernel oil, but let’s not bogue our new-kit-kat-spinoff high, shall we). Orange Kit Kats are old news in Europe, but theirs is more sophisticated, w/ la-dee-da Seville and/or blood orange fillings. Guess they hadda dumb it down for Americans (outsida the U.S., Kit Kat=Nestle; but here it’s Hershey. weird, eh). The Kit Kat Thing is off the hook: wild spinoffs we can’t get and a Kit-Kat cult seen on candy blogs everywhere. In the U.S.: we briefly got mint Kit Kats last Xmas; a limited-edition triple choc came out in January (never saw that, tsk); and white choc graduated from limited-> year-round product. so much to say about Kit Kat!

Millie Ortiz had been making cakes for 20 years, but it was always a side thing. Three years ago, she created a website — and her business boomed. Last year, she decided to make it official and look for a space. She was having dinner at Bavarian Grill when she spotted a “for lease” sign on the storefront next door. It previously housed a caterer and, lo and behold, had kitchen gear. And that’s how Millie Got Her Cake Shop. No pies, no pastries, just decorated cakes. It was a fortuitous time to open, it being wedding season, and there isn’t a whole lot of competition. She’ll accommodate the occasional walk-in but she mostly bakes to order and so appointments are recommended.

221 W Parker Rd #520, Plano. 469-467-9620

It hurts to say so but the pizza at Grab A Slice is only fair. On the plus side: toppings are fresh, food’s made to order, nunna that greasy sheen you get at the chains. But if you judge a pizza by its crust (as well you should), the brought-in product here doesn’t cut it, no matter how much care was invested in its selection by owners Tina & Leah Bennett. But the sisters had a reason, and this gets to what’s cool about Grab A Slice: It’s in a kiosk hardly bigger than a closet, 500 sq ft tops, w/ a kitchen shoehorned inside and employees spilling outa the windows. They deliver, of course, but you can stop by and do as the name says: grab a slice, served, they claim, in 2 ½ minutes.

1100 W Main St. (at valley parkway) Lewisville, 972-353-5777 or 1-877-492-6874

After a year in the making, White Rock Coffee Co. is good to go. This independently owned coffeehouse-roaster at Northwest Hwy W of Ferndale comes from Bob and Nancy Baker, who live in the ‘hood. She was in software; he had a furniture store in Oregon and a West-Coaster’s obsession with coffee. They’re using PC beans — fair trade (which guarantees the farmers get a fair wage) and beans certified by the rainforest alliance — and roasting them onsite, thus fresh fresh fresh. The location, next to an animal hospital and a JITB, used to be a popeye’s chick but the Bakers rebuilt from the ground up with a Hill-Country-meets-urban theme … high ceilings, corrugated metal, stainless steel, stone. They’ll have pastries from the best purveyors (Empire, Cheesecake Royale) and wanna have music on weekends too.

Opening Friday May 27 at 10105 E. NW Highway, 214-341-4774.

Sara Lee — “global manufacturer” and 3rd largest bakery in the U.S. — has been on a health kick: In 2001, it acquired Earth Grains; then, last December, it created a whole-grain line called “Sara Lee Heart Healthy” (it’s also pushing the “Sara Lee” brand*). The newest in that line (so new, a press release hasn’t been issued yet!): wheat hot dog buns. You’ve seen wheat hamburg buns — but wheat hot dog buns? It almost doesn’t go with the idea of hot dogs which is why it’s great. For those who care (zzz), the buns have 2 grams of fiber and 10% of your daily dose of calcium. Paired with a turkey hot dog or a tofu dog, it’s practically like eating vegetables.

*(It should love this posting, don’t you think? Let’s namedrop Pepperidge Farm so as to avoid looking like a total shill.)

After the usual round of delayed openings that seem to go with ambitious new ventures, Dallas City Market, the food-to-go deal from eatzi’s/sipango vet Joe Goetze and partner Tiffany Darley, is doing business, sorta, on the SW corner of lovers and the tollway. It has the following: a deli case filled with prepared foods (which, oddly, the staff seems unable to describe over the phone – you’ll need to actually GO IN to find out that it’s much like the eatzi’s deli with items such as grilled tuna with sesame vinaigrette, like that’s so hard to describe), plus wine, cheese, Sbux, salad station, you’ve seen those before, and right on to all of that. But answer me this: what other urban market has “Danish-style shopping carts.”

5600 W. Lovers Lane, 214-350-TOGO (8646)

that’s marko, slicing oranges. sigh
booze is booze and it’s not like there aren’t a buncha flavored vodkas out there. But Charbay, a boutique spiritier from napa valley, uses prestige fruit such as meyer lemons, key limes, and blood oranges. the vodkas come in fine opaque bottles worthy of holding perfume. and while this has nothing to do with anything, the family-run company has a dreamy front-guy, Marko Karakasevic, who’s a 12th-generation master distiller, oh yeah baby. in dallas, you can buy charbay at sigel’s, centennial, goody goody, etc. or else order your charbay cosmo at nikita, republic, zubar, o bar, morton’s, and the mansion. (grey goose=ancient history.) coming later this year from charbay: pear brandy and a vodka made with green tea.

Nothing against Tulsa but it ain’t the pinnacle of fine dining. Yet it spawned Camille’s Sidewalk Café, a chain with 60+ units open and 650+ in development (that’s the key info when you’re discussing franchising concepts: how many UNITS). Camille’s is like a healthy-ish Corner Bakery, w/ wraps, paninis, salads, smoothies, cappuccinos. Cool things about Camille’s: 1. They recycle Perrier bottles into light fixtures. 2. They take a trail-blazing approach to selecting locations. I.E., they opened one downtown, they’re putting two in the new int’l terminal at DFW, and they just opened this branch on 15th St. near 75. Which is Plano, yes, but at least not WEST Plano.

Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe, 600 W 15th St #A, 469-467-8401