As new restaurants pop up across from Texas A&M, a pattern emerges: counter-service meals that defy the fast-food stereotype. Most recent is Piada, a mostly Midwestern chain fairly new to Texas. Don’t let the “Italian” label fool you: this isn’t a spot for lasagna and garlic bread. Instead it offers a variety of salads, grain-and-veggie-filled power bowls, pastas, and its namesake Piada flatbread wrap. Our Harvest Grain & Apple Salad combined a plethora of fresh tastes and textures, with its Granny Smith apples, farro, cranberries, field greens, and sweet potatoes.