The Spread.

Gatorade Hits Frisco, Fried Foods Escape Fair Park and Penis-Shaped Desserts Are Way Hot Right Now.

Welcome to The Spread, our weekly feature that aims to share all the area restaurant, food and beverage industry news that’s fit to print. Except, this is the Internet, so space isn’t a concern. Also: Good thing, because this is Dallas and this town always has breaking restaurant news going down like whoa.

We’re just over two weeks out from the State Fair of Texas‘ three-and-a-half-week run in the increasingly controversial Fair Park, which is good news if your arteries feel like they’ve been running a little too cleanly of late. As previously mentioned, in addition to the expected fried dough and corny dog offerings, this year’s edible abominations big draws are the fried Jell-O and cookie fry dessert options.

But do you ever catch yourself thinking, “Man, this heart attack ain’t coming fast enough?” Well, good news: Isaac Rousso, the mind behind those aforementioned fry-shaped cookies, is opening on September 20 a spot inside of the Walmart on Coit Road in Plano called State Fair Treats. There, in what D Magazine is a calling his “first of many” of these spots, he’ll be serving 45 items, the majority of which you can expect to be fried and life-shortening.

Speaking of D: Seems some folks aren’t too pleased with their recent area barbecue joint rankings and are complaining about it, which has prompted senior editor Nancy Nichols to then complain about that in turn. But their process was totally legit, Nichols swears, although she’s yet to share the actual math behind her staff’s efforts, which is 100 percent not a big deal, except that D literally cried foul and asked us to share the math behind our 2013 best burger list after it gained some traction. We’ve reached out to Nichols and requested to see her math, and she says it’s coming, although she continues to hem and haw her way around it. What’s she hiding? Hmm. This story is developing!

Staying on the topic of developments: The Dallas Cowboys have announced that a Gatorade research center will be heading to its over-the-top The Star practice facility and team HQ in Frisco, joining the non-electrolyte likes of Cane Rosso, The Common Table, Mi Cocina, Dee Lincoln Prime and Neighborhood Services, all of which have already announced locations there.

In non-Cowboys cowboy news, the Dallas-based fast casual chicken chain Cowboy Chicken, which already boasts 21 stores across four states, says it plans to up those numbers to 45 stores and possibly as many as 10 states by 2018. The Morning News took this opportunity to use the phrase “taking flight” in a headline, but while chickens are indeed birds, they’re flightless. Boom, roasted! Extra points because roasting is a thing you do to chickens? Yup, that’s a solid burn — another thing you can do to chickens in a kitchen! That’s what we call a three-fer, folks.

On the subject of threes, here are three new desserts bound to pop up on your social feeds that you should know about:
• Up in Casa Linda, Cow Tipping Creamery is now serving its ice cream in cones made of doughnuts, and Eater approves.
• On a similar tip, Milk + Cream is now open at Ross and Greenville, serving “milky buns,” which are basically just-a-bit-denser-than-doughnut pastries stuffed with ice cream. D, which otherwise loves food on Instagram, thought it would hate the ‘gram-ready treats for being so ‘gram-ready, but ended up approving.
• Up in Carrollton, Bubble Jipangi is serving a traditional Korean treat where a J-shaped corn base is topped with soft-serve. The Observer approves and, more impressive, spent a whole 50 words dancing around the subject before outright acknowledging that the dessert option looks like a penis.

Staying on the photo-ready food front, the Observer also passes along word this week that Rapscallion is now serving a version of its Moscow Mule inside of a glass that’s shaped like a bear. Finally, a way to get your toddler into cocktails!

Also new to town this week is Del Frisco‘s re-vamped Double Eagle Steakhouse concept, which Escape Hatch reports comes in the form of a new flagship location at McKinney and Olive, in that gray area between Downtown and Uptown. Look for new he said/she said commercials from the Double Eagle squad on The Ticket soon, presumably.

Another thing to keep an eye out for? Where the James Beard-nominated Misti Norris will head next. Per Eater, she’s out at Small Brewpub following a disagreement in future kitchen directions with management. Now, she’s onto bigger things, pun definitely intended.

Lastly, feast your eyes on this Cafe Momentum video from HistoryNow:

That place, as we’ve reported previously, is the best.

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