Cannon + Belle: Texas Food for Everyone

Cannon + Belle, the main restaurant at the Hilton Austin downtown invited Michelle of Foodie is the New Forty to a media dinner, and she invited me to accompany her! A big thanks to Cannon + Belle for having us, and to our waitress Lindsay who was fantastic. I was not monetarily compensated for this blog post and all opinions are my own.

Calling their style "Texas fresh: chef-crafted flavors in living room style comfort," Cannon + Belle has an extensive number of local farms and purveyors that they work with. Open daily from 6:30 am - 10 pm, with brunch on Sundays as well. They will be offering an Easter brunch special on April 1st, 11 am - 3 pm. Here's the rundown of what we tried.

Cocktails to start! The Metabolic Mule and Angelina's Punch are just a few options from their creative bar program.

The white pizza with fresh oregano leaves. This was SUPER cheesy and also loaded with garlic, yum yum!

The Honey + Black Garlic chicken wings with a white barbecue sauce. These were outstanding!

The Sweet Pea Cake, their version of a veggie burger. Attractive presentation with a savory yogurt sauce and rainbow veggies, but a bit tough and salty overall.

Beautifully seared scallops in a brown butter sauce, these were cooked to perfection, as were the green beans, which still had a snap to them. And honestly, for $27, not badly priced for a hotel restaurant.

Peach and blueberry crisp, with a nice amount of crumble on top.

The salted caramel chocolate stack cake, the decadent and amazing finale to our meal! This is a good size piece of cake, and we couldn't finish it. Layers of chocolatey goodness and buttercream frosting with salted caramel on top. Pure bliss for the chocolate lover.

So whether you're a local Austinite looking for a fun place or a visitor staying at the Hilton, Cannon + Belle has plenty of Texas comfort food for everyone.

Liberty Tavern

For a restaurant/bar located inside a corporate downtown Austin hotel, Liberty Tavern  has done a nice job of representing Texas.  Located on the ground level of the Hilton, Chef Carlos Cruz has redesigned the menu to feature "classic pub fare with a Tex-Mex twist," including a number of Texas beers on tap. I was recently invited to come and sample some of the new breakfast items on the menu; I was not paid for my opinions.

The kitchen selected dishes for my brunch companion and I to try. We started with the Texas Short Rib Benedict, a 72-hour short rib on toasted sourdough bread topped with caramelized onions, poached eggs and chipotle hollandaise. Tasty short rib!!

Next up was the Heavenly Hash, with jalapeño smoked sausage from Fredricksburg, red potatoes, onions, Serrano peppers, and  topped with a panko-crusted poached egg. Nice big pieces of potato with medallions of sausage, all under a runny egg.

A HUGE plate of  Texas Oatmeal Pancakes, with toffee sauce and candied Texas pecans. I have to say, I generally prefer the little silver dollar pancakes with the crispy edges, but these were nice and fluffy, and the toffee sauce instead of syrup was a great twist! And the generous sprinkling candied pecans made each bite a great textural combination of soft and crunchy.

And as if we weren't already full, the chef sent out the Caprese Salad from the lunch menu for us to try as well. You can also see in this picture the beautiful dishware Liberty Tavern is using; the Benedict was served on this same oblong plate, and the hash was served on a similar round dish. (I really wanted to stick this plate in my purse, but I swear I didn't!)

Many thanks to the staff at Liberty Tavern for welcoming us and feeding us extremely well. They are open daily from 6 am - 11 pm, with a reverse happy hour from 9 - 11 pm, daily. If you find yourself downtown and are in need of a little (or big!) pick me up, Liberty Tavern is a great place to find it. Their street entrance is on the south side of the Hilton on 4th Street, just across from the light rail station and the Convention Center.