Welcome back to Table Talk, where Daily Memphian food and dining editor Jennifer Biggs and her colleagues send the latest food news (along with a dash of this and that) directly to your inbox every Wednesday.

Another popular restaurant is headed to the area around Mt. Moriah Road and Park Avenue in East Memphis. 

In March of this year, 901 Hot Pot & Korean BBQ opened to crowds of diners ready to try out the new Bartlett restaurant. Now, a second location of 901 Hot Pot is in the works. 

Derek Wong, 901 Hot Pot marketing manager, said the new location is a direct result of the crowds they’ve seen at the first.

The plan is to open in East Memphis in December, and they’re also looking at other ways they might ease overcrowding at the Bartlett location — but more on that in the coming weeks. 

Sophia Surrett 

Sharp-eyed readers may have also noticed a new byline on several food stories recently. Sophia Surrett recently joined The Daily Memphian as a business reporter, and she’s covering tourism and hospitality (which includes the restaurant business) as well as some other business sectors. 

Don’t worry, she’s not replacing food and dining editor Jennifer Biggs. Even before Jennifer got sick, we were planning to expand our restaurant coverage, and when Sophia began with us earlier this month, she hit the ground running. 

So far, she’s written about Otis and Janie Jackson opening a second Peach Cobbler Factory in the area and Huey’s Restaurants adding a to-go kitchen at its East Memphis location. She also wrote about Go Grisanti opening in Germantown earlier this summer. 

She comes to us from the University of Alabama, where she got her master’s of Journalism and Media Studies. She’s new to Memphis but has family in the Mid-South, and has already begun to sample the city’s many restaurants. One place she’s particularly liked was Slider Inn. 

In pretty big food news, the city’s sole tasting-menu-only restaurant is changing how it operates. Dory, located on Brookhaven Circle, relaunches next week with an a la carte menu of appetizers, entrees and desserts.

David and Amanda Krog 

Owners David and Amanda Krog say their original plan was to always open with an a la carte menu but when their dream of having their own restaurant came together in the middle of the pandemic, they had to adjust. 

“We’ve been a ticketless restaurant for two and a half years,” said executive chef David Krog. “It’s like opening an entirely new restaurant.”

Because of the tasting menu concept, they’ve been able to develop more than 300 original menu items since opening, and many of the dishes on the new menu will be refined versions of their signature classics. 

Speaking of fine dining, Germantown Parkway is not exactly known for it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a great meal there. Chris Herrington brought us a guide to some of his go-tos along the Parkway, from Cedars Restaurant to Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana to Two Empanadas. (I even know of one Cordova resident who has printed out the entire guide, so they can mark all of those restaurants off their list.)

Some restaurants within Germantown city limits took a hit last week, as the city issued a no-contact order for its water, which was contaminated by about 100 gallons of diesel fuel. The water restrictions came right on the tail of a power outage (not coincidentally), meaning that restaurants had to close first due to a lack of electricity and then had to spend more time shuttered due to water problems. 

About 8,000-9,000 people showed up at Crosstown Concourse Sunday, July 23, for Memphis' first Asian Night Market. (Elle Perry/The Daily Memphian)

A new event kicked off Sunday at Crosstown Concourse: Memphis’ own Asian Night Market. The concept of an Asian night market has been popular in cities around the globe for a while now, and the first to be held in the Bluff City was a rousing success. Almost all of the food vendors sold out, and the event’s organizers are already planning to do another one— they just need to find a location bigger than Crosstown. 

Lastly but not leastly, sometimes it just takes one person to make a difference, especially when that someone is mayor. 

Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite was such a fan of Georgia Blue, a small Mississippi restaurant chain, he convinced the owners to open one in Silo Square. The restaurant serves Southern-style staples such as fried crawfish tails, shrimp and grits, and catfish, and has been well-received since opening in Southaven. 

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

.....