Food-o-File
I hope you saved your appetite for all of the news Virginia B. Wood is plating up.
By Virginia B. Wood, Fri., Oct. 3, 2003
Eat, Drink, Watch Movies III
Our third annual Eat, Drink, Watch Movies series benefiting the Capital Area Food Bank kicks off later this month with a wonderful first-run movie! We've been lucky enough to get the new film based on Frances Mayes' delightful foodie bestseller, Under the Tuscan Sun, for our first screening on Monday, Oct. 20, with a menu presented by chefs Will Packwood and Sam Dickey of Osteria Amerigo, opening this spring. On Monday, Oct. 27, we'll feature Fried Green Tomatoes, a warm-hearted movie about female empowerment and great Southern cooking, with exemplary down-home food by chef Lou Lambert of Lambert's American Kitchen. This year's series culminates on Sunday evening, Nov. 2, with a screening of Ang Lee's dynamic Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, complemented with a Chinese menu designed by chef Jeff Liu of Bistro 88. Check out the ad on p.45 for online reservation information.
All the News That Fits
Boy, you miss a column week around here, and the news really backs up! October is always the busiest month of the year, with multiple charity events, Texas Wine Month festivities, restaurant openings, and other fun food things to do. At press time, I'll be attending the annual Southern Foodways Symposium in Oxford, Miss., where the topic this year is the foodways of Appalachia. More on that later... Enjoy an evening of food and music presented by local Women Who Cook to benefit the Austin Girl's Choir this Sunday evening, Oct. 5, 5-9pm, at Crimson Restaurant (407 Colorado). Call 794-9590 to purchase tickets... Another event celebrating creative young Austinites is the "Film & Food" party and fundraiser sponsored by the Austin Film Festival and the Saveur Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 7-10pm at the Driskill Hotel (604 Brazos). The party will feature food from 12 area restaurants against a backdrop of food-related films and benefits AFF's Young Filmmakers Program. Call 478-4795 to purchase tickets... Look for the new Pacific Blue Asian Cafe (3500 Jefferson, 465-9999) to open this week in the West Austin upstairs space formerly occupied by Collin B's and Jean-Pierre's... Austin's newest eatery to boast authentic East Coast-style food is a Jersey Mike's Subs (10001 Research #170, 338-4200) franchise where Texans Steve and Yvonne Cullen sell subs just the way they've been served on the Jersey shore for nearly 50 years... Second-generation San Antonio restaurateur Roger Diaz has transformed the former Calabash space on the Manor Road restaurant row into Vivo Cocina Mexicana (2015 Manor Rd., 482-0300). Diaz should be serving up affordable San Antonio-style Tex-Mex fare and margaritas on the lovely decks of the new restaurant just any day now... Drop by Austinuts (2900 W. Anderson, 323-6887), Austin's premier outlet for dry-roasted nuts and custom gift baskets, and wish proprietor Doron Ilai a happy 10th anniversary!... And speaking of auspicious debuts, Central Market Cooking School chef de cuisine Paul Schunder and his wife, Ingrid, recently welcomed an 8-pound, 7-ounce, little redhead into their family, and his name is Alexander ... And, last but not least, former Chronicle Food editor Robb Walsh will be signing his Are You Really Going to Eat That? (Counterpoint, $25) at BookPeople on Friday, Oct. 3, 7pm.
Boat House/Boat Yard
Tracy Collins, longtime proprietor of the Boat House Grill (6812 FM 620 N., 249-5200) near Lake Travis has asked for our help in clarifying just which restaurant is which. It seems that she has been getting an annoying volume of calls from folks looking for a new eatery on the shores of Lake Austin called the Boat Yard (3825 Lake Austin Blvd., 651-0505). As we discovered, there is no current listing for the Boat Yard in local information, so we called the offices of proprietors Mike Young and John Zapp, aka Comida Deluxe, and they provided the phone number. Hope this helps, Tracy.