Dallas suburb Plano is not the upscale shopping mecca it wanna be. It may have Central Market, but it also has a ton of $1 stores and other cheezebag signifiers … another way of saying there aren’t nearly as many Starbucks as you’d want: a mere five (the crappy outlets located in smkts and Targets don’t count). But the coffee chain’s expanding N, and that includes a new Starbucks on 15th & Custer. (alas, still in boring/predictable west plano; maybe one’ll come to the eastside soon?)
In eastside news: 3 new mom-and-pop restaurants in the historical downtown (where they’re building lotsa hipster urban loft thingies):
1. Feels Like Home. 1410 K Ave. #1109B, 214-578-1500. Philly-style cheesesteaks.
2. Vito Bistro. 1410 K Ave. #1109, 214-473-8046. Affordable white-tablecloth Italian. They have branches in FW and NY (where they’re from).
3. Macatrello’s. 1112 E.15th St., 972-312-1940. Petite deli does burgers, chicken, salads.

Those who can never get enough chocolate will heart the imminent transformation of Dallas Chocolates, the Uptown chocolatier founded by Zel Nealy. She’s expanding from choc-making to a choc-themed café called the Xocolatl Room, where everything on the menu will have a touch of chocolate: choc drinks, choc desserts, but also choc-laced items for breakfast and lunch. (It’ll stay open at night, but just drinks & desserts.) Xocolatl will have a soft opening on Aug 1, followed by, what, a hard opening? in September.

2817 Howell st. 214-559-7277

say, how bout some chicken-like extrusions

Here’s what you get when portability is your priority: BK Chicken Fries, which Burger King actually has the balls to call “innovative.” As if extruding chicken into a French fry shape is innovative. The chick sticks are coated in a “zesty, seasoned batter” and served in a cup that fits into your car cup-holder, w/ a well on the side for sauce (buffalo, BBQ, honey-must, sweet&sour, ranch). BK was already doing chick tenders, so this is just a mktg campaign to get young males on board (which is why the ads star a stupid fake band named Coq Roq – can you believe? on TV?) They’re $1.69 / 6 or $2.69 / 9, but keep in mind that all this ultra-cheap chicken ain’t cheap if you consider factory farms, the pathetic chicks themselves, the air/water pollution, etc. Somebody pays down the road.

Given the name, Tijuana Bar & Grill might sound like your basic restaurant-bar; the help-wanted ads, however, describe it as “one of the city’s newest and most innovative hospitality concepts.” So there. Maybe the “hospitality concept” part comes from the fact that owner Dante Picazo has experience not just in restaurants but also casinos? Anyhoo, it opened Tues Jul 19, w/ a multi-Latin menu (Cuban sandwiches, tortas, “Latino tacos” described as having barbacoa beef) and modern decor; but equally interesting is the location at McKinney / Monticello in the site formerly occupied by the doomed Vino & Basso, and before that, the odiferous Toscana.

4900 McKinney Ave., 214-443-9293, no website yet

Why looky here: new samwiches from a (semi) fast-food chain, served on ciabatta bread. OH, must be Jack in the Box, since they’re the ones who originated the idea of using this oddly-named bread many people had never heard of. But no, it ain’t JITB; it’s copycatter Boston Market, who just introduced a line of carvers (how friggin pretentious - ya suppose they mean SANDWICH?) being served on CIABATTA rolls. Wow, what a clever idea. The meats include such JITB favorites as turkey and ham. BM (snicker) bites anyway, in many ways, including its use of thick to-go packaging that’s really bad for the environment.

*call it petty if you like but i can’t even be bothered to put a link to the company’s website

Eat the World, a Lake Highlands drop-in, has a cool back-story. It’s owned by Toby O’Brien, a mad-genius visionary who was behind Yegua Creek, a well appointed brewpub on Henderson. (This wuz in the ‘90s - LONG before Hibiscus, Hector’s, etc.) After Yegua closed, customers begged him to keep doing the fried turkeys he sold on holidays. He couldn’t do it at home so he opened Eat the World, a little to-go spot on NW Hwy. Now, 5 yrs later, he’s upgraded to this expanded space. Along w/ take-home casseroles for which he’s become known, he does salads, sammies, ice cream, espresso. In an ex-convenience store, ETW has refrig cases but also couches, antiqued walls, and stained-concrete floors. Every other Wed, he hosts a $10 “wine exchange” where he puts out snax and you bring a bottle of the wine-o-the-nite. And on Weds & Fridays, Paul Cascio, of Al’s fame, comes in and makes Italian sausage, which for many people is a very big deal.

9850 Walnut Hill Lane, Dallas, 214-340-3663

*props to BK

Boots and Brix, which needs a new name, is a hotel restaurant (in the lobby of the Richardson Hotel). Recently renovated, cheffed by Brian Dietz (formerly of Oceanaire Seafood), and hot to seduce the locals, it has a new lunch buffet that’s a steal. The salad/soup is $8.99 and gets you stuff like tomato-mozz, chick salad, artichokes, pasta, grilled vegs, deli meats, olives, blue cheez chunks, grape tomatoes. For $13.99 you also get entrees like rotiss chicken, blackened tilapia, and pork loin, w cheddar mashed potatoes and steamed vegs.

*Unusual blog item alert: no links, not “breaking,” neither sweet nor caffeinated

Beets get the respect they deserve w/ Terra Sweets & Beets, a salty-snack deal from Terra Chips that combines its already-popular sweet potato chips with beets. Unlike Terra’s other root veg chips, these are crinkle-cut, which usually adds a buttressing element; maybe beets are too fragile to endure being cut into regular smooth chips. They’re purply-red and, since beets are the sweetest of the root vegs, so are the chips. Terra is part of Hain Celestial which owns about half the brand names sold in WF, from Celestial Seasonings to Garden of Eatin’ to Arrowhead Mills to Health Valley to WestSoy to Imagine Foods (maker of Soy Dream and Rice Dream) etc etc.

Brooklyn’s Pizzeria is a relatively young chain w/ four branches, all far N of LBJ (Plano is the newest), but they do all the right things: make everything from scratch, incl. their pizza dough which they hand-toss, use whole milk mozzarella which they shred daily, etc etc. the family that owns it is in fact from Brooklyn, so this is old-school pizza; no arugula or upscale-type toppings, it’s not that kind of place. They also do calzones, stromboli, pepperoni rolls, lasagna w/ house-made pasta, and so on.

1314 W. McDermott Dr., Allen 972-359-1144
4900 ElDorado Parkway, McKinney 972-540-5561
5729 Lebanon Rd., Frisco 972-377-4410
4637 Hedgcoxe Rd., Plano 214-705-0777

Ruggeri’s, an old-school Italian restaurant, was last seen in Dallas at the Quadrangle (in the space previously occupied by Mediterraneo, which is now a classy Ital mom&pop called Riccardi’s). Well, hi, there are two new mini-Ruggeri’s, both in sibling antique malls. The first opened last wk at Vineyard Antique Mall in Colleyville; the second opens next wk at Vineyards Antique Mall in Plano (which has been open about 6 mths at the NE corner of Preston & Park). Though still ID’d as Italian, the menu for the Colleyville location has your typical antique-mall food: salads, chick-sal samwiches, quiche, w/ the only “Italian” item being spumoni.

4701 Colleyville Blvd., Colleyville 817-849-1330
4817 W. Park Blvd., Plano 214 473 8300