Restaurant News: La Bodega in Boca; BBQ at Taste Gastropub

Chef Allen Susser

​• Looks like barbecue has gone viral in Palm Beach County, with the recent debuts of Rib Bizz and Sheila's and the weekend smokefest at Harvest Time Market. Now Allen Susser's Taste Gastropub has been bitten by the barbecue bug, launching Monday Night Backyard BBQ, an all-you-can-eat chowdown with a weekly menu of 'cue, three sides, and dessert for $29 per person. Dinner is served from 5 to 10 p.m., and the series itself will run through August. 
• No island is an island, even if it's Palm Beach. Yes, even restaurants on one of the most expensive dots of sand on the planet are trying to lure off-season business with "Palm Beach Restaurant Summer." More than a dozen local eateries (Café Boulud, Michelle Bernstein's at the Omphoy and Renato's among them) are offering three-course lunches and/or dinners for $20.10 and $35, respectively. This restaurant summer lasts from June to September, when presumably the snowbirds will flock back on their private jets and the Island can go back to being an island again.

• The dining mix at Boca's Royal Palm Place just got a little wider with the debut of La Bodega Tapas y Tintos (100 Plaza Real,  561/395-1217), a cute little tapas and wine bar from Spanish aficionado Gianna Jones. The short menu reprises many tapas bar staples -- tortilla Espanola, jamons Serrano and Iberico, chorizo, a selection of Spanish cheeses among them -- as well as a roster of daily entrée specials. More than 250 wines from around the world are also offered.