Eating Green for Earth Day

Earth Day Texas dials up allure with celebrities and fine dining

Stock & Barrel is one of the restaurants providing food this Earth Day.

Photo courtesy of Stock & Barrel

The 2016 Earth Day Texas, aka EDTx, is offering two new features sure to lure in the crowds: food and celebrities.

For the first time, EDTx will serve beer and food from what it calls sustainability-minded restaurants and breweries through its partnership with the Untapped Beer Festival and Savor Dallas.

The restaurant lineup runs from obvious "green" places like Kalachandji's, the vegetarian restaurant at the Hare Krishna temple, to more culinary-focused options such as Stock & Barrel and The Porch.

Participants include Bbbop, Café Momentum, Common Table, Crisp Salad, Down to Earth, Front Room Tavern, Garden Café, Chef Jennie Kelley, LYFE Kitchen, Nature’s Plate, Patina Green, Chef Patton Robertson, Pink Magnolia, The Porch, Salum, Small Brewpub, START: Real Food Fast, Tacodeli, and Unleavened.

The Untapped Sustainable Beer Garden will feature breweries that ostensibly champion environmentally responsible practices, including Alaskan Brewing, Deschutes, Franconia, Full Sail, Harpoon, Odell, Real Ale, SanTan, Sierra Nevada, and Uinta.

Food and drink will be sold via a sample card system. A $5 fee gets you six samples, either of food bites or 2 ounces of beer. Full pours and additional sampling cards will be available for purchase in the Beer Garden.

Vendors serving samples and snacks include Gardein; NadaMoo; Ben & Jerry's; Buda Juice; Samson’s Gourmet Hot Dogs; D-Lish; and Little Herds, a nonprofit that promotes edible insects.

If all that food isn't enough, there will also be celebrities, coming in for the first-ever "Celebrities for Change" Gala on April 22 to raise awareness and drive solutions for the future of our environment.

The lineup of environmentally minded celebrities includes Lance Bass, Malin Akerman, Ed Begley Jr., Frances Fisher, Amber Valletta, Wendie Malick, Amy Smart and Carter Oosterhouse. There'll be a "green carpet" walk — green because it's Earth Day, duh — and reception at 6:30 pm, followed by the dinner and program at 8 pm. There's a full list of luminaries here.

EDTx 2016 runs from April 22-26 at Fair Park and is free. A preliminary kick-off party organized by the new Earth Day Texas Young Professionals group will take place on April 14 at the Dallas Farmers Market, followed by an after-party at Eastwood's Bar. If the YPs are on board, then you know it's a winner.

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Omakase News

Downtown Dallas restaurant Sauvage expands with new dining twist

Sauvage

A downtown Dallas restaurant famous for its multi-course tasting experience is letting its hair down: Sauvage, the high-end mom-and-pop restaurant near the Statler Dallas hotel, has a new dining option that gives a smaller, more casual taste.

The restaurant opened in September with a set menu featuring 16 to 18 courses — wild game, seafood, vegetables, and dessert — all cooked via grill and smoker.

While 16 courses might sound like a lot, the courses are mostly small bites. However, owners Casey and Amy LaRue received feedback from diners wanting a smaller option.

"We were getting a ton of messages from guests who want to stop by just to try one dish, a bite, or a specific pairing without committing to the full tasting — so we built something for exactly that," Casey says.

They've introduced a new three-course "Cocktails & Bites hour" featuring three dishes, each paired with its own cocktail, served from 5–6 pm on weekdays.

Last week’s menu consisted of:

dry-aged red snapper crudo with La Chinola Way, a cocktail featuring passionfruit, mezcal, lime, and ginger
foie gras & truffle on house-baked croissant with Pendennis Club, a gin sour with apricot liqueur bitters
jerk-spiced shrimp with Clarified Paper Plane, a bourbon cocktail with Aperol, Amaro Nonino, and lemon juice

The new offering continues their pattern of pairing courses with cocktails rather than wine — an approach they've embraced since opening. "Limiting pairings to wine can get boring — it so often ends up being one expensive red after another," Casey says.

You can make a reservation on Tock, or just walk in and grab a seat.

Caviar
They've also added a new version of their classic menu: no caviar.

"Some love having caviar integrated into the menu, but others prefer to skip it, whether for taste or dietary reasons, but still want the full value of the experience," Casey says. "With such a small counter, this put us in a strange position: do we give everyone caviar whether they want it or not, or do we remove it entirely and lose a core part of our menu?"

Thus, a new menu without caviar, priced at $195, with an optional caviar course available for those who want it for $245.

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