Cakes (left); Pierre (right) [photo by Karley Osborn

It starts at 6:00 p.m. The bread baker arrives in the kitchen, and the mixing begins. Two hours later, the rest of the baking staff arrives. A metal scooper dives deep into an industrial-sized sack of flour and dusts the surface of the countertops, prepping them for pastries: first the croissants, then the muffins, then the brioche. Nothing goes into the oven until 10:00 p.m.; long after the Main Street Bread Baking Company storefront has closed for the night. On weekdays Pierre, the head baker, pushes through the back doors of the kitchen at 2:00 a.m. to oversee the final stages of production amid the scent of leavening, melting chocolate, pastry cream, and almond.

By 4:00 a.m. the packaging is finished and a truck driver is waiting outside, ready to deliver boxes of pastries to each of the 15-20 accounts on his list, depending on the day. He’ll stop in Plano and Richardson to stock the pastry windows of the bakery’s two franchises, drop off a selection to the Nordstrom Café in Northpark, Galleria, Stonebriar, and Euless mall, and supply Emirates Airline with trays of customized dessert and breakfast offerings for their first and business class customers headed to Dubai.

Somewhere in between baking for two different airlines (Main Street Bakery supplies Quantas with in-flight fare, too), maintaining one of the most successful restaurants in Grapevine, and building arguably the most expansive post-Louisiana Purchase French empire the United States (okay, Texas) has ever seen, owners Fabien and Yasmine Goury noticed that their business had outgrown the Main Street kitchen. Their solution? Purchasing a 3,500-square-foot piece of property behind the bakery that will serve as the new epicenter of their empire. Once the ovens have been transferred to the new property, the current storefront will expand to accommodate more Sunday brunchers with an after-church hankering for an éclair…or three.

photo by Joshua Martin

Although initially warned against setting up shop in downtown Grapevine, it’s not an exaggeration to say that business at the bakery has been booming from day one. But why is that, exactly?

“One of our goals is for [customers] to have an experience,” Fabien explains. “People can go eat anywhere. But the main thing is to make them want to come back.”

And come back they do—to order blue cheese sliders for holiday parties, request custom designed wedding cakes with delicate chocolate scripting, or select shooters layered with avocado and tomato to be served to guests at museum gallery openings.

“It’s nice,” says Fabien. “People come in, you’ve got a line out the door, people are enjoying the food. It’s good when you do that—it’s a good feeling.”

And if the line spotted spilling onto Main Street on a recent Sunday morning was any indication, it’s a feeling Fabien and Yasmine will likely enjoy for a long, long time. In the future, they’d like to see a franchise open in Dallas—but only if it can function without compromising the legacy of quality and customer service they’ve already established through other endeavors.

“We could do more with the new location happening, but sometimes more doesn’t mean better,” says Fabien. “We want to keep our quality up there.”

Whether or not the franchise extends to Dallas, you’ll still find plenty of opportunities to get your Main Street Bakery fix. Peruse the pastry selection at Global Peace Factory coffee bar, hit the café while shoe shopping at Nordstrom, crash catered events at the Gaylord or the Omni, or book a first-class flight to Dubai. Or just do what we plan on doing: follow the scent of fresh baguettes wafting through downtown Grapevine in the middle of the night, stand outside the bakery until Pierre hangs up his pastry apron, and pretend to be the delivery man.

Hope you are well. I’d love to know where you think the best challah is in Dallas. In 20 years, I’ve yet to find one that is outstanding. I feel like I’ve tried them all. Surely I’m missing some. Any ideas?

Shrimp and crawfish enchiladas (photography by Desiree Espada)

Jump for more beautiful photos by Desiree Espada.

Kay and Margaux Agnew (left); Bistro exterior

The Design: Glass panes cover the front of Bridge Bistro and face Riverfront Street, so please don’t pick your teeth while you’re dining. Drivers will be able to see you. Soak in the natural light, which balances nicely with the dark, neutral colors inside (i.e. black tablecloths, black chairs, white walls, except for one pop of bright orange). Kay’s still using her old furniture from Margaux’s, but she’s planning on switching the chairs out for some comfortable and contemporary pieces from OFS. In a few months, the blank wall will be covered with art decor that’s still “under wraps,” and an additional staircase is going to lead to a rooftop garden where diners can enjoy a breathtaking view of Downtown Dallas.

Homegrown herbs (left); The interior

The Kitchen: Chef Manuel Contreras has been working with Kay Agnew for the last 15 years. She loves him because he doesn’t have a big ego. We love him because his menu infuses Cajun, Texan (if that’s a cuisine), and upscale deli.

Chef Manuel's brisket plate with mini buns and slaw

The Menu: According to Kay, loyal customers are still ordering what they used to order at Margaux’s (even though it’s not on the menu anymore). I guess that means you have permission too. Shrimp and crawfish enchiladas, pasta chandelier, and crawfish étouffée are still entree options, but Manuel has added more à la carte sandwiches and salads for busy take-out people. Dine-in folks get warm, doughy bread and cornbread to start off their meals, and the help of attentive staff.

The Crowd: On the weekday we visited, we saw some power-lunching ladies, middle-aged couples, and some suits discussing business. The quiet, cool atmosphere makes the place a great setting for lunchtime meetings. Millenials should catch on, though, as soon as they figure out that Bridge Bistro has a full bar serving some serious cocktails.

The Prices: Not too shabby. The three of us spent somewhere around $35 for two entrees (which came with a soup or salad) and a sandwich order. Entrees run between $12-$16, while sandwiches are priced between $8-$9. Completely worth the price for fresh ingredients that you know are prepared with love and care.

Pecan pie

Wowza: Sweet potato bisque, apricot & field greens salad, and the shrimp and crawfish enchiladas with rice pilaf.

The space, designed by JonesBaker, has been completely redone into a sort of contemporary Texas-Tuscan farmhouse. The ceilings have been raised and I loved the rustic basket “chandeliers.” The room is light and open. I feel like the bar area may prove to be too small once word hits the surrounding neighborhood. Two flat screen TVs can be seen from any spot in the house. (Not so Tuscan.)

However, the food was classic Ascolese which translates into finer versions of “safe” Dallas Italian food. I could eat the tagliatelle Bolognese every night. The sauce was barely a sauce. The light, house made noodles were tossed with fresh tomatoes, basil, small bits of meat, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Not a drop of liquid pooled on the bottom of the plate. Which I guess is a good thing because there would have been nothing for me to sop it up with. No bread. Patrick, you hired David Brawley and don’t serve bread on the table?  Yes, he can make pizza dough; he proved that at Fireside Pies. And Princi does have a wood burning pizza oven. I guess I’ll eat pizza next time.

I almost choked on a salad of rapini and arugula. The greens were blanched and formed a tangled salad of soggy leaves and stems which were topped with a salty, in a good way, blob of burrata cheese. Once again I yearned for bread. The broth beneath the weed was a drinkable liquid of olive oil, specks of red pepper, and lemon. The plates of Italian “specialties” such as grilled Colorado trout, veal Slatimbocca, and grilled wild Alaska salmon going to other tables looked interesting. The portions are just right and priced from $13 to $20. The list is full of nice Italian reds, whites, and sparkling wine most of which are in the mid-$30 to $50 range. You can order a carafe of several interesting wines for $15 to $31 (12 ounces).

Princi reminds me of Popolos when they first opened—it’s a perfect fit for the demographics of the nearby neighborhood. However, times have changed and Princi is much more casual. Shower shoes and shorts and school uniforms were the norm last night.

Roast beef sandwich at La Spiga in Addison.

This week Kristy Alpert manga’s some Italiano.

Overview: Tucked away in an ever-so-elusive location in the warehouse district of Addison is where you can [hope to] find Donato and Carolyn Milano’s tantalizing Italian bakery, La Spiga Bakery and Cafe. The scent is so powerful it can’t be contained by brick and glass walls, as patrons can catch their first whiff of warm, baked bread as soon as they step foot into the parking lot. Open since 1994, La Spiga is known for one product: artisanal bread. Boasting hotel, restaurant, and country club clients around Dallas and the ‘burbs, this bakery has made their passion known. But there’s a whole other side to this leavened location.

Boxes of Ruffino Chianti stack against the walls to hold displays of Italian memorabilia and antiqued photography, adding to the already overwhelming sense of comfort to this place (what’s more comforting than the smell of bread, fresh out of the oven?). All their breads are baked daily in brick ovens, and the café serves a varied menu for both breakfast and lunch. The best part of this place? The free samples. Walk through the tight tables to the back of the room to find a buffet of glass jars covering mounds of warm breads, muffins, pastries, homemade butters and jams, and more. From egg and wheat to sundried tomato and lahvosh, if you could sneak into the back unnoticed, you could feast on bread alone … worry about your conscience later. Unfortunately though, you’d be missing out on some amazing lunch dishes.

Tomato soup at La Spiga in Addison.

Menu: La Spiga is a definite bang-for-your-buck place. Their salads are huge and even their half of one of their sandwiches is enough to satisfy a fierce appetite. House (large $4.95), chicken (large $6.95) and Caesar (large $4.95) salads all come with homemade creamy Italian dressing and are themselves an entrée; although most people get a sandwich on the side. All of their soups are made in house and range from $3–6. Although their pastas are all over eight bucks, I’ve heard the penne pasta with vodka cream sauce is heavenly and worth the extra $.75 if you’re trying to stick to the eight-dollar-budget, as is their Bolognese lasagna. Their pizzas are made on the spot and come on homemade square pizza dough with fresh ingredients for only $8.75.

What we ate: Bread. Lots of bread. Like a rookie I ordered way too much food (it all looks so good and it’s so inexpensive!), and started with a cup of tomato basil soup ($3.25) which had a nice hearty consistency that was gently pureed, creamy and delightfully thick. Then we ate more bread. Blueberry muffin tops, cinnamon apple scones, egg bread, and more. My friend ordered the half roast beef sandwich with thinly sliced roast beef, sautéed onions, melted cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and a side of salty homemade chips ($4.25) with a fresh-brewed iced tea ($1.50). The sandwich alone was outstanding, but the homemade horseradish dip took it over the top. I ordered the half Italian ($3.95) with Italian dressing, vinegar and oil, onions, black olives, turkey, ham, pepperoni, and mustard. Both sandwiches were served with warm, doughy bread and lightly browned lunch meat served hot between melted cheese and decadent toppings.

Blurry photo of Italian sandwich at La Spiga in Addison.

Blurry photo of Italian sandwich at La Spiga in Addison.

Extras: Have I mentioned the bread? Good. Get some. But being an Italian bakery, it’d be a shame to leave without a cup of espresso ($1.50) and a slice of Italian cream cake ($3.25). They also have some mighty amazing muffins, brownies, and lemon bars, and if you catch them on a good day you can even try a Godfather-worthy cannoli … leave the gun.

It used to be that the parents could go away to golf, chill, and dine in luxury or they could take the kids to the place where little ones are given the impression that the whole world was designed for them. The JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort combines both options. Golf predominates for adults, with not one but two TPC (Tournament Players Club) 18-hole courses designed by Pete Dye and Greg Norman exclusively serving resort guests. The centerpiece of activities for kids is a six-acre water park named the River Bluffs Water Experience where you’ll find a 650-foot rapid river ride, multiple water slides, 1,100 ft. lazy river, children and adult pools, whirlpools, and an expansive activity pool. These, and a host of other amenities (about more of which below), are not only the province of families, who tend to fill the weekends. During the week, the resort switches identities to become one of the leading corporate retreat locations in Texas. It is one of the few places where a Hewlett Packard, or a Yahoo, can bring thousands of employees.

To find out how adults can enjoy a weekend at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort we recently visited  as guests of the resort with the singular intention of relaxing.

Day One: Friday

2pm: Arrive from Dallas. We drove down on account of the enigmatic beauty of I-35. It took about five hours including stops. My new favorite road is the TX-130 toll way from Georgetown to Buda. It replaces with a $7 one-hour ride what used to be a week crawling through Austin traffic. It even reads your NTTA toll tag. However, San Antonio airport is easy to get to for those who prefer to fly.

We are somewhat lost at the scale of the resort property. From the front entrance, it is over a half mile to the main building where you check in. I am anonymous at this point so the empathy shown by the doorman handling traffic at my request to park right outside the front door while I check in is genuine. Fortunately, every Marriott employee seems to be assigned to the check in desk at that point in time and the process is a no-wait breeze. They expect a capacity crowd this Easter weekend. Every room is taken. Luckily, we are early enough that I can find a free self-park spot half way down the hill. That is the last time I shall see the car until we leave.

Our room is on the ninth floor with a floor-to-ceiling window that affords a spectacular view over one of the golf courses. Strictly, this is the “AT&T Oaks Course” designed by Greg Norman (on one of his days off from making wine, developing housing, growing turf, opening restaurants or getting divorced). From my room it looks as if the AT&T Oaks Course is fortunately not as crowded as AT&T’s data network. Beyond the fairways is the Texas Hill Country and I notice that the resort is on an outcrop so it looks down over the variegated green of the Hill Country foliage which is like a carpet below. Perhaps I will spend all weekend staring out of the window?

Our room is similar in size and facilities to what you would get in a Marriott hotel. We don’t have a balcony, although many rooms do. If you want, you can stay in one of the suites which range in size from 900 up to 2,300 sq. ft. and are lavishly decorated, mainly in Hill Country themes.

Crooked Branch Lobby

3pm: We meet a Marriott representative for a facilities tour. One of the other press peeps along for it is Christopher Wynn from Dallas who says he writes for the Dallas Morning News. I apologize for not having heard of it, but it must be very nice for the person who does read it.

Our tour begins in the massive Crooked Branch lobby where cars pull up on one side and guests walk to-and-fro on the other. At one end is the main restaurant for the resort, Cibolo Moon, where buffet breakfasts and à la carte dinners are served. We will be returning here later. Off to one side of the lobby runs a corridor where there are some of the commercial operations: A TPC golf shop, a FedEx office, a Starbucks coffee house and a Segway rental office (more on that below). Further down are escalators that adjust for the hillside as we go past ballrooms larger than Rhode Island. This is where Yahoo built a track for electric go-karts for their young geek-centric employee workforce. Out the back here is the other golf course, the AT&T Canyons Course, which we walk past along the many footpaths that ring the buildings.

River Bluffs Water Experience

Further round we reach the River Bluffs Water Experience, a six acre water park with 650-foot rapid river ride, multiple water slides, 1,100 lazy river, children and adult pools, whirlpools and an expansive activity pool. I suggest to our guide that this is just too good to allow children on it. Make it adult-only for the weekend. He gives me an ambiguous response.

5:30pm: I am in the bar at Cibolo Moon where Will Peniche, Lead Restaurant Supervisor and resort Tequila Ambassador, is to guide me through a tasting of the Blue Agave nectar. The guy is a star so I am posting a separate video of his class on SideDish in the next couple of days. The reason for this tasting is that Cibolo Moon has earned a special award from the Consejo Regulador del Tequila (Regulatory Council of Tequila) the Distintivo T Agave de Oro for its level of commitment. The CRT is the organization responsible for regulating the tequila industry standards in every step of the production process as well as to promote the tequila culture, quality, and education.  To receive the award, representatives from the CRT came to the restaurant to teach an 8-hour long course on everything tequila, which was followed up by an exam in which over 80% of the staff had to score an 80/100 or above to become certified. To date, Cibolo Moon is one of only 15 restaurants in the United States and the only one in Texas with the CRT’s Distintivo T Award.

We work our way from blancos to añejos, straight and in cocktails. For me, it’s a refreshing change from wine. I learn that tequila, like wine, has a designated area of origin system (like appellation controlée or AVA) and I conclude that I will look out for añejo and extra añejo tequilas as they seem to have more complexity and a soft vanillin character that offsets the fiery impact of young spirit dominant in many tequila blancos.

Afterwards, I feel charged-up for the next event!

7:30pm: We have a dinner reservation at 18 Oaks. This is the resort’s high-end restaurant, situated in the club house for the TPC. The menu is unmistakably New American with an emphasis on steak. On the menu they proudly list the names of local suppliers and state their commitment to local, organic and sustainable. I chose the house’s pièce de résistance – the 32 oz Tomahawk, a 28-day dry-aged bone-in rib-eye named after the unmistakable outline formed by the blade of the bone. Luckily, the table is large as this cross between food item and self defense device stretches well out of one chair’s width. If menu writers can describe entries as ’playful’ (have you ever played softball with a scallop?) then this dish could be called ‘loquacity inducing’ as everyone had something to say about it (much not printable).

We also have the Windy Bar Ranch Short Ribs. These were succulent, oozing with meaty flavor, and they had a fall-apart-in-the-mouth texture as a result of the slow-cooking. We paired both entrées with à la carte vegetables: asparagus and cream spinach. Our earlier appetizers had included Beef Carpaccio (also from Windy Bar Ranch) spiked with mustard, celery and capers. Also, a respectable baby spinach salad which contained pear, pecorino, house-cured pancetta and poached egg.

From the extensive wine list we enjoyed a Plumpjack Cabernet from Napa.

Day Two: Saturday

Cibolo Moon Restaurant

8:30am: Breakfast in Cibolo Moon. This is a buffet as extensive as almost any one can find. I have a policy to test brunch places by their Eggs Benedict. It is easy to mess up (the eggs have uncooked whites or the yolks are hard) so it tests their care in execution. Also, do they cut corners with ingredients. E.g. not making the hollandaise fresh, but using ‘growler hollandaise’ – yellow chemical from a tube/can/bucket instead. What about the muffin? Does it have the right springiness in the dough? Is it not too sweet, and is it just lightly toasted? And the meat: it is easy to substitute something that is ‘supermarket refrigerator bland’, what with all the other flavors at work. It should be distinctively flavored ham or Canadian bacon. On this score, JW’s EB does fairly well, and the orange juice is fresh too.

11:00am: It is Spa time. The Lantana Spa is a neo-Grecian structure with an eerie calm and quiet to it. I think the calmness is a result of their only being indirect light. We have a couple’s massage in which my masseur turns out to be an expellee from the very same Mafia that does the valet service at Park (and expelled from the organization for human rights violations as well). An hour later I pick up my disembodied limbs and struggle out. Fortunately there is the pool and it turns out that the spa is the only facility at the resort that is off limits to children, making for a very different atmosphere from the water park.

12:30pm: This weekend is very busy and the water park is crowded. The main attraction is the lazy river to which access is rationed by the number of tubes. If you can’t find a tube, you have to wait for someone else to relinquish one. This wait looks long, so we pass on the water park on this trip.

3pm: Instead, we check out something unusual that turns out to be, by some measures, the find of the weekend: Segway rental.  The rental is actually an organized class. Around 16 of us learn how to get on, and stay on, the ungainly ‘personal transportation devices’ and spend an hour touring the resort grounds, convoy fashion. It’s a bit like the experience of first learning to ride a bike in that it feels very unstable at first, and then you just get the hang of it. The Segway’s do about 12 mph, so it is like running round the resort – but with no effort.

7:30pm: Wander over to Cibolo Moon for dinner where the breakfast cavern has been converted, by means of a few discrete furniture movements and door closings, into the main evening meal restaurant.  Not as expensive as 18 Oaks, the menu might be described as “Unscary Hill Country Cooking”. I have an appetizer of grilled Texas quail (with roasted peach, spring mix greens and spiced maple vinaigrette), others in our party have bacon-wrapped scallops (with shaved fennel apple salad), smoked brisket “burnt ends” (with Brazos Valley Blue Cheese and flour tortillas) and tequila shrimp (red chile agave and BBQ onions). All familiar heartwarming stuff. The theme is the same in the main course but the quantities are more daunting. We work through (and box) Char Grilled Ribeye with Baked Potato, Smoked Baby Back Ribs with Texas Pit Beans, Redfish on the Half Shell with Red Chili Butter Smear and Seasonal Vegetables, and bison meatloaf (with Brazos Valley Mac & Cheese) which appeared to be made from a whole bison. Afterwards, a walk around the building is required to digest some of this. There are little tables around the lobby that double as screens for video games and they are very popular right now with parents remembering their ‘inner child’ and children trying to get their parents to forget putting them to bed so early.

We check out the fish ponds one more time and then, since we are at an exotic resort, we go back to the room and watch TV – exhausted.

Day Three:Sunday

10:30am: A one mile jog past the golf course and then back to 18 Oaks, site of our Friday night dinner. We are confronted by a feast of a different ilk. It is brunch, on an esthetic level that would have thrilled those classical still life painters if only, for them, there was still life. At every station the composition is as important as the cooking and it feels sinful to mess up the arrangement, as though it will disturb the Tao. 18 Oaks has stations for (house-baked) breads, seafood, charcuterie and desserts and manned stations for carved meat and omelets. I gorge mainly on raw oysters and smoked salmon, figuring they don’t have any calories.

1:00pm. This isn’t the Hotel California, so we must check out – and leave. Due to our own designs we have created the most hectic relaxing weekend we have had for ages. But you could just lay by the pool in the spa sipping ice teas all weekend if you wanted to. Our journey back will be a cinch because we will take the excellent Texas 2-lane blacktops that parallel I-35 on which there are all kinds of interesting small towns and grand Hill Country vistas. We will pause our trip at Duchman Estate Winery, in Driftwood, and rejoin the freeway near Temple, making the journey it seem much shorter. And soon, we will return to the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort.

Seafood Station

Bread & Pastries Station

Dessert Station

With this in mind, I’ve spent the last three months trying to bake just one passable loaf in my own kitchen. My failures have convinced me that these guys know some bit of leavening magic that I don’t.

My first loaf, which I bullishly made as a hostess gift for a party at my husband’s new boss’ home, was salty enough to attract deer. (Lesson: Never make for others that which has not crossed your own palate at least once.)

click the link to read the rest of the story…

My second attempt, a Jamie Oliver recipe involving a bottle of lager (which I subbed out with Imperial Stout), refused to rise. (Lesson: Baking is basically chemistry, so if the recipe says ale, use ale.)

The next, supposedly no-knead recipe resulted in a dough so soupy that it had to be poured into the waiting garbage can. (Lesson: Fact check recipes off the Internet for accuracy.)

Last weekend’s plain, white boule showed more promise and, while it was dense and almost immediately stale, it did make good toast. (Lesson: The road most traveled, while not as exciting, is sometimes the smarter choice.)

So, what now? Now it’s time to consult the pros. Stay tuned as I meet some of our great local artisan bakers, sample their wares, and get them to spill the beans (or the flour as it were) on how they manage to rise (and shine) every day.