I like to unearth little gems all on my own, so when there’s when mad talk about a trendy new restaurant, I lose interest and head off in a different direction.

Hence the reason it’s taken me a while to try Frasca, 3358 N. Paulina, the new pizzeria and wine bar in my Roscoe Village ?hood.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t tremendous portions, soul-satisfying flavors and a good wine buzz to go along with it.

It was easily the most stimulating meal I’ve encountered this year.

I like to unearth little gems all on my own, so when there’s when mad talk about a trendy new restaurant, I lose interest and head off in a different direction.

Hence the reason it’s taken me a while to try Frasca, 3358 N. Paulina, the new pizzeria and wine bar in my Roscoe Village ?hood.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t tremendous portions, soul-satisfying flavors and a good wine buzz to go along with it.

It was easily the most stimulating meal I’ve encountered this year.

While I’ve enjoyed Moroccan food all over the world, who knew that Chicago’s take on the difficult-to-prepare cuisine could be found at Andalous Moroccan at 3307 N. Clark St.

This cozy storefront is easy to miss because of the many popular haunts surrounding it. That’s why I loved it: Very few crowds and loads of attention from the barely-speaks- English staff.

I’m a big fan of appetizer samples, which allow me to taste several different house favorites. I started out with the incredibly fresh Andalous Combo Deal at $8.50, a total steal.

Ever since I was just a sprout living in the Tennessee mountains, I’ve had really good pork all across the world.

But it wasn’t until I worked on a Latin-themed movie on the South Side that I ran across La Michoacana, 2049 W. Cermak, where their bloody delicious pork threw me straight back into my potbellied childhood.

My dad owned and operated a no-frills BBQ restaurant called Choo-Choo BBQ. Every day he made pound after pound of glorious chopped pork and laced it with his own spicy homemade BBQ sauce.

DDB chief creative officer Ewan Paterson reached out to his native London for his first creative hires since joining DDB Chicago from serving as ECD and managing partner at CHI & Partners, London.

Digital/integrated writer Alistair Robertson and art director Alex Braxton are the newcomers from AMV BBDO, London, which they helped diversify from a TV-centric agency to one with digital and integrated chops.

I didn’t go to NAB 2008 in Las Vegas this year for the first time in many years.

It now seems like I wasn’t the only one to stay at home and follow the biggest show in broadcasting while sipping a Margarita and navigating the show floor over the web.

Along with previously announced “no-shows” at NAB 2008, such as Avid and Apple, general attendance was down more than 5% from last year, to around 105,000 total visitors and hallways were sometimes nearly empty.

There was an even greater dip in U.S.

Chad Hutson’s trademark could be the jazzy visual projects he spices up with musical numbers, like the impossibly catchy Jens Lekman tune, “A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill,” found on the demo reel of creative shop, eatdrink.

Hutson’s marketing work in Las Vegas for Audio post house Soundelux and earlier experience in sales and marketing in Nashville helped establish music industry contacts.

That knowledge helped eatdrink land visual design projects for clients like Warner Bros., Island and Capitol Records.

Fast on the heels of its smashingly successful fund-raising gala comes IFP/Chicago’s 16th annual Midwest Filmmakers Summit the weekend of Oct. 19.

“We’re just recovering from the gala,” good-naturedly moaned IFP executive director Elizabeth Donius who, with development director Colleen O’Neill and staff put on one kick-ass event.

A full house of 300 guests jammed Salvage One Friday, Sept. 28 to party, meet other indie filmmakers, bid on a slew of neat auction items, and leave IFP approximately $20,000 richer to use for programs throughout the year.

For weeks, my pal Lisa waxed poetic about a small Mexican restaurant that co-mingles the hearty influence of Lebanese cooking with the rustic bliss of homegrown Mexican cuisine.

Finally we made it over to a bleak section of North Ave. and Taqueria Puebla, 3619 W. North Ave. the only restaurant of its kind in Chicago.

The Puebla region just south of Mexico City has the influence of Lebanon blistering all of its dusty hills and many thanks to owner Tony Anteliz for bringing its fierce flavor to the rough streets of Chicago.

At Jerry’s Sandwiches & Deli, 1045 W. Madison, you get more than 100 delicious options to chose from, or you can create your own from the plethora of ingredients.

My fave is the Sheila G. It’s packed with a hunk of roasted salmon, avocado slivers, soft grilled onions, shredded lettuce, sliced tomato and oodles of Southwestern mayonnaise.

Caf? con Leche, 2714 N. Milwaukee Ave., was hectic. The tiny restaurant featuring cheap cuisine from South of the Border (Mexico with a splash of Cuba) was throbbing with activity.

Although it seemed to be the hub of all movement in central Logan Square, it somehow maintained an airy, open feel.

While I was standing in line to place my order, I inadvertently stepped in front of an older gentleman to ask the counter server about molletes (think mini Mexican pizza).

Once I realized that I had broken rank and he hadn’t ordered yet I apologized profusely.

While I was in Bali on a recent shoot, a sun-blistered fisherman suggested which red snapper I should buy for lunch from among the several he’d caught a few hours earlier from the Indian Ocean.

I returned to my oceanside hotel and handed my one pound, 50 cent bounty to the chef and asked him to whip it up Balinese-style for me.

The tab for the entire char-grilled fish, a mound of white rice and tossed salad cost less than $2 two-dollars and was quite delicious. But after a few bites I was stunned to realize that the red snapper I’d enjoyed at Avec, 615 W.

Lisa, a foodie buddy of mine, told me about Calvin’s BBQ, 2922 W. Armitage, a tiny shack on the outskirts of Logan Square.

She’s always on the hunt for rough-hewn places that look like they might churn out good grub. BBQ joints are always good for homey sides, too, so I decided to give it a go.

I arrived 15 minutes before Calvin’s opened, but a jolly fella who runs the place invited me in when he saw me shuffling around in the parking lot.

Some meals haunt me for years and I’m always on the hunt for something similar to those I’ve devoured in out of the way places, like the fresh coconut-coated jumbo shrimp served at a shack of a restaurant on the azure Sea of Cortez in Baja, Mexico.

Where’d I find it? Practically in my own backyard, of all places.

El Nuevo Mexicano, 2914 N. Clark St., is a lovable little restaurant that I always walk past and make a mental note to remember to visit sometime. Last week I just knew it was the place to meet a few friends and swill some margaritas.

Moon’s Sandwich Shop, 16 S. Western, has a sign outside that’s barely readable after decades of city wear and tear. But as we all know about the best holes-in-the-wall, like a book, we never judge it by the cover.

It turns out that Moon’s is hands-down one of the best diners in the city, possibly even the Midwest.

Moon’s is a bona fide chop shop in a city full of dinky imposters and one that’s usually packed to brim with saucy characters.

WHO SHE IS. Film and TV veteran, show producer/documentarian Barbara E. Allen of Middle Passage productions. She’s an eight-time Emmy nominee and two-time winner, a.k.a. “BA.”

CREDITS. The recent PBS doc, “Paper Trail: 100 Years of the Chicago Defender,” children’s program “TechKnow Kids;” the cultural travel series “D-Tours;” the home decorating show “Urban Suite.”

HOW SHE VIEWS HER JOB. “I have a deep and abiding interest in the history and current issues facing Black peoples all over the world.

Ever since I blew through the Greek Islands on a solo-backpacking trip a few years ago, the sinful tastes of Greek village food have haunted me?until I found a place here that’s the next best thing.

It’s Venus Greek-Cypriot Cuisine at 820 W. Jackson, just off the grid from the standard slew of Greektown restaurants.

Partners Costas Stylianou and Gina Karatasios have created a lovely where-village-meets-sea haven. There you can sit a spell and sample your way through rustic village cuisine, one meze (small appetizer-style plate) at a time.

Patrick Read Johnson’s teenage visits to the visual effects stages of “Stars Wars” and “Close Encounters” launched him on a 20-year career as Hollywood effects technician and studio writer/director.

His credits include “Spaced Invaders” (writer/director, 1990), “Baby’s Day Out” (director, 1994), “Angus” (director, 1995), “Dragonheart” (writer, 1996), and “When Ghouls Go Bad” (writer/director, 2001).

Then he moved back into the house where he grew up in tiny Wadsworth, Ill.

From his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Guy Maddin has staked out his territory as the leading practitioner of a style that applies lyrical silent film grammar to aggressively disturbing themes.

LOOKING GOOD. SPI-tv Media Group produced a 20-minute video for the Anti-Aging and Cosmetic Institute of Chicago that plays throughout its West Loop facility on video kiosks and monitors. The video budget was around $15,000 and took a little over two months to complete, said cameraman/editor Rogelio Gazga, partner with Jim Demas in SPI-tv.

Marty Peterson was the on-camera host. Andres Lombana handled the Steadi-Cam; graphics artist Ryan Duff created the 3D animation explaining certain surgical procedures from breast augmentation to chemical skin peels.

Filmmaker Misty Tosh and her friends are adventurous souls who also love to eat out in offbeat restaurants and cafes they find in unspoiled locales.

They combined their shared interests and “obsession with food” in a TV pilot “that takes people on a food adventure around the world,” said Tosh, the writer, director and editor of the self-financed show.