Hash Over

Remember when everyone was saddling Dallas chef Avner Samuel with the word "peripatetic"? Well, maybe not everyone. Just a few writers with a thesaurus fetish. And I'd be the last person to call chef Marc Haines peripatetic. But consider his journey over the past five months, which has taken him from Sipango, to a stint with millionaire Darwin Deason to start the personal-chef service Net*Chef, to a stab at Soprano's, the Frisco "AmerItalian" restaurant he helped launch. Now he's severed his ties with Deason, cashed out of Soprano's, and has congaed over to Cuba Libre, the Caribbean bar and restaurant on Henderson, where he plans to roll out a "nuevo fusion" menu May 1. Maybe "itinerant" is a better word.

When is Jeroboam -- the Kirby Building brasserie hatched by the owners of the Green Room and the Gypsy Tea Room -- finally going to open? "When you live as long as we have with city inspectors, I would tell you this: They have a much better idea," says Jeroboam partner Whit Meyers, who swears they'll be open June 15. Maybe. "I don't know what they [city inspectors] have lying in wait for me at this point."...Vinnie Virasin, the restaurateur who hatched Chow Thai and Mango Thai, has just opened a third restaurant: Chow Thai Pacific Rim, an Asian fusion foray at Parker Road and the Tollway. And in keeping with the theme, Rim's kitchen is staffed with refugees from all over: former Ellington's (the M Crowd's Fort Worth Southern chow spot) Executive Chef Kenny Mills; former Il Solé sous chef Eric Wallace; and Thailand native Oudi Utedpornratanakul, former sous chef at Sea Grill in Plano.

It's known among Dallas wine pros as the "divorce cellar," a liquid compilation in need of liquidation to help settle a divorce. The collection has some astounding drinks in it: a vertical (1991-'95) of Harlan Estate Cabs and a near vertical of Chateau Margaux, scattered amongst the Opus Ones, the Lafites, and the Domaine de la Romanée Conti assortments. And though media millionaire Scott Ginsburg may not consider himself an expert in marital dispute resolution, he sure has done his part here. Ginsburg just picked up this 7,090-bottle cellar valued at $1.03 million for his restaurant Voltaire, where it should be inventoried and cataloged on the restaurant's wine list in about three weeks. "It's not a very low-cost collection," deadpans Voltaire Executive Chef George Papadopoulos. Spouses rarely are.

—Mark Stuertz