The Other White Meat

New restaurant is a prime place for pricey steaks

Comments (0) By Mark Stuertz Thursday, May 30 2002

Abbotsford Court, the banquet-facility arm of Wall's Catering, has delivered an offshoot called "a," a full-service restaurant situated inside a 15,000-square-foot facility. "a" features little flecks of dining exotica such as prime beef, Hudson Valley foie gras and timpano--a pastry crust jammed with pasta, ragu, meatballs, peas, chicken and mozzarella. But this is not ordinary prime-grade beef. The restaurant serves prime beef from Wagyu cattle, the same cattle that produce the Kobe grade of beef, from a ranch in Athens, Texas (Wagyu produce three beef grades: prime, Kobe and white). As of this writing, "a" is just one of two restaurants currently serving Wagyu prime beef in the United States. (The other is the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.) "a" also serves a white beef rib eye, a cut so named because of the copious marbling tightly woven throughout the flesh. But maybe it should be called green beef, for the steak costs 120 bucks. Both "a" and Abbotsford Court reside in the space that used to house the Addison continental restaurant/cabaret Yvette, which opened in 1996 with the involvement of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and former coach Barry Switzer. Yvette shut down in July 2000 and was purchased in October of that year by Wall's Catering owner Kyle Wall.

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