Note to C&W fans: Head to Bubba’s

Great chicken-and-waffles is all about the details. The Vinyard family, who also started Babe’s Chicken Dinner House, gets them right at Bubba’s Cooks Country restaurant in Frisco, the family’s only restaurant to put the new sweet-savory combo on the menu. (The first Bubba’s opened in 1981 in the Park Cities.) The scratch-made waffle is light and fluffy with an almost creamy center. The chicken is brined overnight in maple syrup and spices, and then cooked in an open fryer. “The brine and the open fryer are what sets us apart,” says co-owner Joel Vinyard, son of the original owners.

4585 Preston Road, Frisco, 214-436-4455, bubbasfrisco.com

The proof is in the beef

When your business name is on the beef you serve, the steaks and burgers had better be good. Harwood Hospitality Group believes the proof is evident at its 10 Dallas restaurants. “For the last few years, we’ve been working with a small group of ranchers to raise our own super-prime Akaushi beef cattle,” says Taylor Kearney, Harwood’s corporate executive chef. Harwood’s beef has more flavor, tenderness and marbling than USDA prime and a tangy minerality that’s loaded with umami. Each restaurant offers different cuts, from filets, New York strip steaks and rib-eyes at Te Deseo, Harwood’s Latin concept, to burgers and tri-tip steaks at Mercat Bistro. Find details on the website. harwoodhospitality.com

Las Palmas ready for patio weather

If there’s one Tex-Mex restaurant that makes you want to cancel your afternoon plans to just chill, it’s Las Palmas. The new patio is open all day for sipping Palomas and dining on wagyu beef fajitas, which come with excellent handmade tortillas from owners (and brothers) Pasha and Sina Heidari. Don’t skip out on the personal-size tres leches cake. Eat it all; surely you’ve earned it.

2708 Routh St., Dallas, 214-647-1232, laspalmasdallas.com

When the heat is on, think red, drink light

Call us a seasonal drinker. It’s gin in the summer; bourbon in the fall. The same goes for wine. We shun the big reds and opt for something white or lighter in hot weather. While October can go either way — sometimes within the same week — we like to keep a light red on hand for those unseasonably warm days where we sit outside in our shorts and leaf-peep at all the foliage that has turned brown due to lack of rain. So far in this Texas fall — don’t you love our lack of seasons? — our pour of choice has been the San Michele Rondinella, a tasty red from Italy that’s a great bargain (about 15 bucks at Central Market). As for its provenance, it comes from the same production area in northeastern Italy near Lake Garda that is known for Amarone, which is a dry, medium-bodied wine that’s perfect for when the temperatures drop. The Rondinella is OK with being chilled just a bit, and it goes with light food, too. Cheers, and here’s to breaking out that Burgundy very soon.