Food-o-File

Spring has definitely sprung, and everyone wants to be outside! Runners, bikers, Deep Eddy swimmers, and Austin High students are keeping the staff busy at the newest Daily Juice outlet (2307 Lake Austin Blvd.), where the freshly squeezed, organic juice drinks are both healthy and delicious… Now that Tiedt's Service Station on South Lamar has been demolished, longtime customers of the Sno-Beach Hawaiian Shaved Ice stand that shared that spot for 14 seasons need only look around the corner and down the block on Barton Springs Road near the entrance to Zilker Park for their favorite summer refreshment. Sno-Beach customers are remarkably loyal – there's a long line at their midcity location at Guadalupe and 34th every time we drive that way… Al fresco dining fans will be pleased to note the opening of the new patio dining area at the popular Hyde Park Bar & Grill Westgate (4521 West Gate Blvd., 899-2700), where they'll soon be featuring live musical entertainment… We couldn't help but notice the packed dining patio outside the new Mars location (1400 S. Congress, 472-3901) in SoCo on a recent drive through the old hood. Chef Reggie Ferguson reports that response to the newly opened patio has been very good… Local members of the International Association of Culinary Professionals spent a snowy week in Chicago earlier this month at the group's annual conference. Chronicle contributor and avid culinary historian MM Pack was very impressed by a seminar she attended on the history of foods served on Pullman dining cars; she also reports having a delectable meal at Chicago's numero uno Mexican restaurant, Salpicón (www.salpicon.com). (Word is chef/owner Priscila Satkoff is being considered for an invitation to next spring's Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival.) Also in attendance was Central Market Cooking School director Kelly Ann Hargrove who says her most memorable Chicago meal was at the ultrahot Moto (www.motorestaurant.com), where a team of Charlie Trotter alumni is wowing crowds with tasting menus of a cuisine that can best be described as "molecular gastronomy meets global fusion." Moto Executive Chef Homaro Cantu holds several patents for innovative culinary inventions. Hargrove is doing her best to book Cantu at Central Market for the fall. She also recounts that she had a great visit with former Austinite Cathy Cochran-Lewis, who is the national vice president of IACP this year as well as recently appointed marketing director for the Rocky Mountain region of Whole Foods Market.