Dinner in the ‘Grove,’ and what’s this not-so-beefy burger at Hopdoddy?

You know about downtown Fort Worth and the plaza.

But do you know about Waterside or the Grove?

The handsome greenspace behind the new Bryant Irvin Road shopping center will host a four-course wine dinner Thursday with Piattello Italian Kitchen chef Marcus Paslay (yes, from Clay Pigeon) serving lasagna under the live oaks outside Piattello (and behind Taco Diner).

Piattello has expanded its original menu and has full lunch, brunch and dinner service daily, including weekend brunch shrimp-and-polenta “grits,” frittatas, pizzas and the restaurant’s popular eggplant Parmigiana.

For the “Dinner in the Grove,” hosted and partially donated by Whole Foods Market, Paslay will open with hamachi crudo and a fig-burrata-prosciutto salad with basil.

It’s Parker County peach season, so dessert will be a peach crostata with blueberry ice cream.

It’s a $99 dinner, but net proceeds after wine costs will be donated to the Tarrant Area Food Bank.

(Always ask about charity benefits. When an event advertises “proceeds benefit,” legally that means every penny has to go to charity. If the ad says “net proceeds,” “a portion of proceeds” or “profits,” then ask right way, “How much of the proceeds?”)

The dinner is at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Grove at Waterside, 4918 Convair Drive, a block east of Bryant Irvin Road or about three blocks east of the Chisholm Trail Parkway off Arborlawn Drive.

Piattello opens at 7 a.m. daily for morning coffee and pastries and then lunch; it reopens at 5 p.m. nightly for dinner; 5924 Convair Drive, 817-349-0484, piattelloitaliankitchen.com.

Paslay’s Clay Pigeon restaurant is open nightly except Sundays for dinner only; 2731 White Settlement Road, 817-882-8065, claypigeonfd.com.

Hopdoddy: possible

Work has begun on the new Hopdoddy Burger Bar location in Fort Worth, just as the Austin-based “better burger” concept is blowing up in other cities with its new beef-like vegan “Impossible Burger.”

Signs are up for the new Hopdoddy at 2300 W. Seventh St., in the new Left Bank shopping center facing Trinity Park.

Hopdoddy has been drawing even longer lines than usual since last week’s rollout of the Impossible, a Stanford-engineered wheat-and-potato-based burger with an iron compound added that gives it the sizzle and juicy texture of beef.

The reviews have been bang-up, and some Hopdoddy stores have been running out of Impossibles. Hopdoddy has even started using its Twitter account to post updates as locations sell out or supply runs low.

If Hopdoddy sounds familiar, a Dallas location in Preston Center has been a finalist in our Burger Battle. The Dallas area has three locations open for lunch and dinner daily: Preston Center, Uptown on McKinney Avenue and Addison; hopdoddy.com.

(Even Sonic Drive-In is testing a mushroom-beef blended burger. No word yet whether we’ll see that in Cowtown.)

Modern summer

Café Modern at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has rolled out its summer menu with some interesting twists.

The daily lunch menu is even more international, ranging from Mexican shrimp cocktail and shrimp-bacon tacos to Korean fried chicken wings and Indian butter chicken.

For local tastes, Café Modern also has Fort Worth-based Martin House Brewing beer-battered fish-and-chips, an Ennis-based Rosewood Ranch wagyu bruger and a Parker County peach-and-pecans salad.

The Friday night dinner menu also features Central Texas-farmed chicken pipian and Flower Mound-based Latte Da Dairy goat cheese-stuffed pasta. The menu also includes Fort Worth’s Blue Zones Project healthy-dining items.

It’s the work of Modern chef Denise Shavandy and sous chef Scott Kaiser; lunch or brunch daily except Mondays, dinner Fridays and on Tuesday lecture nights, 3200 Darnell St., 817-840-2157, themodern.org.

This story was originally published June 27, 2017 at 10:02 AM with the headline "Dinner in the ‘Grove,’ and what’s this not-so-beefy burger at Hopdoddy?."