You know, I've been waiting for years for somebody to tell me not to eat spinach.
   Nevertheless, due to the current spinach scare, I've had to pass up fresh spinach on salad bars and specialty dishes in area restaurants.
   Following reports that almost 200 people in almost two dozen states who have eaten fresh spinach, most of which originated in central California, have been sickened by E. coli bacteria, fresh spinach has been disappearing from supermarket shelves and restaurant menus across the country.
   A recent story in USA Today reveals restaurateurs substituting asparagus, romaine lettuce and broccoli for spinach in vegetable medleys, or in breakfast dishes like Eggs Florentine and Eggs Sardou. McDonald's reportedly has been adding more lettuce in place of discontinued baby spinach in its premium salads.
   A quick, nonscientific survey of central Arkansas restaurants reveals that:
   At Koto "Bistro-Teppanyaki-Sushi," a new Japanese fusion restaurant on Chenal Parkway in west Little Rock, they've stopped serving their Spinach Tofu Napoleon appetizer (tofu layered with shredded raw spinach topped with a spicy miso dressing). In fact, they've stopped ordering or using spinach altogether until the crisis passes.
   Chris Dickens, general manager at Juanita's on Main Street in downtown Little Rock, says his kitchen continues to use spinach to make spinach enchiladas and spinach quesadillas, and has seen no fall-off in orders. In fact, he said, staff members from the health division of the state Health and Human Services department were at his restaurant the other day and even they ordered spinach enchiladas.
   At Bruno's Little Italy, on Bowman Road in west Little Rock, chef Vince Bruno says he has temporarily stopped serving Italian wedding soup, a previously popular soup of the day, because customers had been concerned about the tiny bits of spinach in it.
   "The only other place we use spinach is in our vegetable manicottis," he says. His current batch was made before the spinach scare (they keep well in the deep freeze), and he's considering substituting some other green or leaving the spinach out altogether. He acknowledges "veg mani" sales have been down slightly.
   At Pia's Ristorante Italiano in Conway, the kitchen uses frozen, packaged spinach in its spinach-and-artichoke dip and hasn't been affected by the spinach scare. A spokesman says she hasn't seen nervous customers passing up the dip.
   "We haven't used any spinach since it was recalled," says Brenda Hale, who handles catering for Daddy's Deli, in the Breckenridge Village Shopping Center on Rodney Parham Road in west Little Rock. The deli has been substituting Romaine lettuce for the fresh spinach (along with the smoked turkey, provolone cheese, tomatoes, black olives and a sun-dried tomato pesto on muffuletta bread) on its Tuscany Turkey sandwiches.
   A sign at Your Mama's Good Food on West Fourth Street in downtown Little Rock alerts lunchers that all the spinach in its dishes is frozen and cooked at 212 degrees, the boiling point of water, supposedly hot enough to kill bacteria. Dish is a monthly look at the business end of the central Arkansas restaurant business. Send ideas, notices of new restaurant openings, closings, menu and staff changes to Restaurants, Weekend Section, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203; call (501) 399-3667 ; or send e-mail to:
   

eharrison@arkansasonline.com

This story was published Friday, October 06, 2006