I am laying it out there: I love food. And I hate food. Or put another way, I hate how I feel after eating a lot of food. And even more I hate how I look after too many calories in and not enough out.

So it makes me happy to see a trend towards smaller plates and waiters' eyebrows that remain stable when I choose to order only an appetizer or two for dinner. Lately I’ve had some smashing small dishes. What with chefs into seasonality, there’s no guarantee the items will be on the menus for long. So step to it.

--

The yellow tail sashimi salad with sesame dressing from the stunning RDG invades my dreams. Vibrantly fresh, the best evolution of the Japanese sushi/sashimi craze in the city sings with flavors. Delicate slices of pristine fish, appear as petals on the plate. Dressed with a drizzle of sesame emulsion and an aggressive jolt of sweet hot red chilies.

Wonder struck again with a perfectly roasted scallop, ever so slightly glistening on the inside, atop a small bed of grits and two tiny crisp and smoky pieces of bacon. All crowned with a glorious poached egg: Mountains of flavor and textural contrast in perfect balance. But then one expects nothing less of chef Robert Del Grande, who still rocks after all these years.

Perfect flavor combinations, perfect portion size for me. But the din—too loud. I could not hear the table conversation. The gracious hostess, Del Grande’s niece, suggested future reservations for tables on the perimeter of the room where the floor is carpeted. Problem solved. Before deciding on the menu you must first decide if you want to be seen or be heard. Your choice. The exquisite flavors remain constant regardless of table location.

--

At Reef, Chef Bryan Caswell’s rendition of the Vietnamese banh mi po’boy pulls double duty – a mighty fine lunch and a tribute to the recent past. The crunchy tempura coated red snapper on a toasted onion Kaiser roll, shredded carrots, a tad of jicama, cilantro celery, and cilantro wrap it up.

Besides being one of Food & Wine’s 10 best chefs of America and the genius behind Bon Appetit’s award of Best Seafood restaurant of the year, Caswell is also a sentimental guy. Back when Midtown was Little Saigon, a marauding teenage Caswell would find himself at the exact same address that is now Reef. With his pals he would slurp late night pho and devour the traditional French-influenced Vietnamese po’boys.

Jettison to a more recent past, during the construction of Reef, when Caswell and partner Bill Floyd would chow down on traditional banh mi every day week after week at the nearby Les Givral. “Bryan’s interpretation of the banh mi is his homage to what has gone before,” says Floyd. A sentiment I like as much as I like the sandwich.

--

The king of locavores, Chris Shepherd’s Saturday morning appearance at Houston Farmers Markets are legendary. Now the partner/chef of Catalan has added another dimension to his tasty, innovative cooking—"street food." “Street food is a window into the flavors of the city,” Shepherd says of his celebration of ethnically diverse offerings.

Possibly appetizers, certainly light meals or, in an eclectic sense, tapas. My fave is the pork empanadas. Visually the plate is a bit dull, a smear of mole, the dark tan empanadas - a classic study of browns. Get over it: the plate swooshes. Truly. When cutting into the empanada, it pops—well, that might be an overstatement. It swooshes, releasing a faint yet startling bit of pressure.

Shepherd says it's from the leaf lard—the whitest, cleanest fat around, rendered from a pig’s kidneys—that he uses in the crust. The pork filling is succulent from 5 hours of slow braising, then more hours of simmering in a pasilla sauce. The earthy smear of mole is an ever so slightly bitter compliment to the pork filling.

You missed this one folks, though Shepherd promises it will return to the menu. He’s temporarily out of leaf lard. He renders it himself and he’s awaiting pig delivery. Console yourself with the braised oxtail lettuce cup with dynamite house pickles. You're going to want to ask for extra pickles.