YOUR GUIDE TO DINING OUT

CHUBBY’S $ When looking for a restaurant to have breakfast, lunch or dinner, we all want a place that serves up variety, hearty helpings and even bigger portions of friendliness. The Touris family has developed a recipe that delivers all of the above at a good price. With four locations in the Metroplex, Chubby’s Family Restaurant provides a rustic setting with down home cooking. Catering available.

Locations: 11331 E. NW Hwy. 214-348-6065 and 7474 S. Cockrell Hill Rd. 972-298-1270.

TILLMAN’S ROADHOUSE $$ODWB

Tillman’s is a place for really good food, drinks, and music in a fun, casual, come-as-you-are environment. An update on the classic Texas roadhouse with regional menu favorites, familiar tunes and no-one is a stranger hospitality — all energized with a modern take. A combination of both rustic and lush in everything from the menu to the décor make Tillman’s a good-time anytime destination. Bishop Arts District 324 West 7th St. 214.942.0988. www.tillmansroadhouse.com.

SPY VALLEY 2008 ($18) NEW ZEALAND>

Screwcaps aren’t a joke any more. Screwcaps and artificial corks accounted for one-quarter of the wine market in 2009 — compared to just 10 percent at the turn of the century. Meanwhile, the number of screwcaps increases by an estimated 500 million worldwide every year, and more and more expensive, high-quality wines are closed with screwcaps instead of traditional corks.

About the only area of wine where screwcaps haven’t made inroads is with the most expensive wines (and you can find $100 wines with screwcaps). Otherwise, they’re all over the place.

And why has this happened? Natural cork suffered through horrific quality-control problems in the past decade, when as many as 1 of 10 bottles of wine may have been spoiled by bad cork. (The technical term is TCA taint, a chemical process that makes the wine smell like a wet basement.) And though cork’s quality has improved over the past several years, screwcaps are here to stay. They may not take over the world as it was once thought they would, but they still offer quality, especially for wines that don’t have to age.

And they’re much easier to open. These screwcap wines offer a good overview of why the closure has become such a success. All of these are available at Central Market:

This California white is a blend of viognier and chenin blanc — fresh, crisp and fruity, which makes it an ideal screwcap wine. Chill it, twist it open, and enjoy it with grilled chicken with a minimum of fuss.

I’m not a big fan of Australian shiraz, which can be pretentious and difficult to drink — literally, thanks to too much fruit and too much alcohol. That’s not the case with the Jim Jim, which has plenty of shiraz character but without the phoniness.

New Zealand’s wines were among the first to adapt screwcaps, which suit the wines they make — bright and full of citrus and tropical fruits. Spy Valley may make the best sauvignon blanc in the world (and its riesling is even better).

JEFF SIEGEL’SWEEKLYWINE REVIEWS appear every Wednesday on the Advocate Back Talk blog, oakcliff.advocatemag.com/blog.