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Food

Best things we ate this week: Korean noodles, an olive oil drink, and a summer salad

These were our favorite bites this week, and yes, a salad really was one of them.

I’m fascinated by other people’s food habits and live with the perpetual need to know if I’m missing out on some great culinary discovery. So every week I ask my colleagues about the best things they’ve eaten recently. Here are the bites we had that stood out:

Olive oil latte at Fount Board & Table

Whenever I’m at this elegant little restaurant in Uptown, I feel the need to treat myself. And a $7.50 latte was my choice this time (along with a bagel and lox). The latte is a bit of a splurge, but it was delicious, and quite a large serving. It’s made with tangerine-pressed extra virgin olive oil, plus espresso and your choice of milk. (I chose whole milk). I loved the citrus flavor and smooth mouthfeel that the evoo added to the drink. It was well-balanced, with no bitterness. Treat yourself! – Erin Booke, food editor

$7.50 at Fount Board & Table, 2414 Routh Street, Dallas. fountboardandtable.com.

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Olive oil latte at Fount Board & Table
Olive oil latte at Fount Board & Table(Erin Booke)
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King Ribs Jjamppong at Kooksoo

I’ve been eating my way through the Dallas and Carrollton Koreatowns for years, but my new favorite Korean restaurant might be Kooksoo in Plano. The sunny little storefront on Legacy Road specializes in noodles — its tag line is “long noodles, long life,” which really resonates with my belief in noodle-related self-care. It serves noodles in a variety of dishes, including King Ribs Jjamppong.

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Jjamppong is a Korean-Chinese dish that varies some depending on where you eat it, but Kooksoo’s version fills a heaping bowl with chewy noodles, beef ribs, shrimp and mussels, all swimming in a spicy seafood broth that’s spiked with gochugaru (Korean chili powder). Each slurp of broth and noodles was so satisfying that I momentarily ignored my increasingly red-splattered shirt, and the fact that it was 100 degrees outside. — Kevin Gray, contributing writer

King Ribs Jjamppong at Kooksoo
King Ribs Jjamppong at Kooksoo(Kevin Gray)
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Tomato and cucumber salad at Loro

If you go to Loro and you don’t order the tomato and cucumber salad, especially during these months when summer produce is popping off, you’re depriving yourself of what I think is one of the best bites in Dallas. Cherry tomatoes, cucumber and hunks of cantaloupe are served in a cilantro oil and topped with fresh lemon zest and mint. It’s a simple salad even salad haters (of which I am most definitely not, for the record) can get behind. It’s cold and tangy, and exactly what you want on a summer day. – Claire Ballor, food reporter

$6.50 at Loro, 1812 N. Haskell Ave., Dallas. loroeats.com.

Tomato and cucumber salad at Loro
Tomato and cucumber salad at Loro(Claire Ballor)

Haupa pie at Au Troisieme

We hesitated before ordering the Haupia Pie at Au Troisieme, a new globally influenced bistro in Preston Center. Our server likened the dessert to a sweet potato cheesecake. That sounded too heavy for this oppressively hot day; plus, we had just stuffed ourselves with hearty sandwiches. We need not have waffled.

Cool and creamy, this layered Hawaiian pie is a bit lighter than cheesecake — and it’s delicious. The lavender-toned custard base gets its mildly sweet flavor from mashed Okinawan sweet potato, a purple tuber that thrives in Hawaii. Although the dessert’s texture is similar to cheesecake’s, its creaminess comes from the eggs, coconut milk, and sweet potato, not cream cheese. Coconut milk also stars in the panna cotta-like layer that sits on top of the custard. Perched on a crunchy, macadamia nut-graham cracker crust, the two creamy layers are perfectly sweetened — nothing cloying about them, thank goodness. The pie is topped with a cloud of whipped cream sprinkled with toasted coconut. Sure, the dessert’s plenty rich, but not as weighty as cheesecake or coconut cream pie and more interesting, to boot. This Haupia Pie is my new favorite summer dessert. — Tina Danze, contributing writer

Au Troisieme, 8305 Westchester Drive, Dallas. autroisiemedallas.com.

Haupia Pie from Au Troisieme
Haupia Pie from Au Troisieme(Tina Danze)

The La Cava Avocado Margarita at Walt Disney World

Last week I experienced what some may call “fun” while others might see as “expensive marathon torture”: I took my family to Walt Disney World in Florida. After enduring the alcohol-free Magic Kingdom on our first day, I was delighted to see a number of quality and creative cocktail options available at the other parks. It seems we saved the best cocktail options for our final day as Epcot is heaven for walk-around imbibing.

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I made my way into Epcot’s Mexico Pavilion and procured my favorite souvenir of the week, the La Cava Avocado Margarita. Crafted with Trombo blanco tequila, melon liqueur, fresh lime juice and yes, avocado, this dreamy drink is served frozen with a hibiscus salt rim. It’s not as tart as a standard marg, but it’s still plenty bright and just sweet enough. And the way in which the avocado and ice blend together creates a velvety smoothness the likes of which I’ve never tasted in a margarita, frappuccino, slurpee or any other straw-delivered icy treat. At $17 a pop, it was nice to know I was tasting a well-made cocktail and not some quickly cranked-out, mass-produced slushy. – Kelly Dearmore, contributing writer

$17 at Epcot’s Mexico Pavilion in Walt Disney World.

The La Cava Avocado Margarita at Walt Disney World
The La Cava Avocado Margarita at Walt Disney World(Kelly Dearmore)