Flour and Vine

Last week, I did a tasting at Flour and Vine (next to Zach Scott Theater on South Lamar) that highlighted several dishes that will be part of their Gypsy Moon New Year's Eve celebration. The big glass windows and the late afternoon light made it perfect for photographing these gorgeous plates by Chef John Kramer. And tasting them was even better! (Items with an * are part of the New Year's Eve menu.)

Beef Wellington with purple potatoes. We were all struck by how beautifully the beef was cooked and the gorgeous contrast of the potatoes.

Pork chop with apple sauce, chard, and sweet potato patty. I often find pork chops to be dry, but this was very juicy (perhaps brined?), and the sweet potato was encrusted with panko bread crumbs, giving it a light crust.

Chicken with marsala mushroom sauce and blue cheese potato croquettes. One of the most lovely marsala sauces I have ever had. Local free range chicken too, and the potato croquettes were very crisp, well-fried, and not too strong on the blue.

Roasted duck breast with cippoline onions, pickled cabbage, and port cherry sauce.* Very nice contrast of the savory onions and cabbage with the sweet/tart of the cherry sauce.

Quail stuffed with chicken mousseline.* I have no idea how you stuff a tiny quail, but it was very tasty.

Roasted striped bass with gnocchi, roast tomatoes, and meyer lemon beurre blanc.* The skin was very nice and crisp, and what's not to love about a beurre blanc?

Braised short rib with Cabernet demi glace.* The meat absolutely fell off the bone, and combined with the demi glace, it was an incredible bite.

Very vivid decor, from the red walls to the wavy paintings on the ceiling. All the artwork are pieces by the Zach Scott Theater family. Nice high-back leather chairs give it an extra touch of class, but the wooden tables keep Flour and Vine homey and comfortable.

Flour and Vine's New Year's Eve celebration is $49/person or $75 with wine pairings. It includes an amuse bouche of smoked salmon and caviar. Course one, your choice of a beet and goat cheese napoleon or butternut squash soup. Course two, choices are: gulf shrimp, stuffed quail, or polenta cakes. Course three: short ribs, duck breast, striped bass, or mushroom risotto, followed by dessert. Call the restaurant at 512/474-4846 to reserve!

*I was invited by the restaurant to try their food, but was not paid for my opinions. No money exchanged hands.

Fabi + Rosi

Tucked away on a side street of Lake Austin Boulevard, in a quaint bungalow lies Fabi + Rosi, serving traditional European foods with a more modern flair, brought to you by a German chef. They will celebrate their third anniversary in May, and I don't know what has taken me so long to get there! I had a really lovely happy hour/dinner experience with some food blogger friends last week, and now I can't wait to go back again!

Thursday happy hour, bottles of bubbly are half price; I think their wine list is quite decently priced to begin with, but it was a no-brainer in picking a libation to go with our collection of appetizers.

Beginning with the Metzger Platte, chicken liver pate, wagyu beef tartare, and smoked duck breast with grainy mustard and cornichon. The pate was sitting on a mound of little wine jelly gems, which cut the fattiness nicely. I didn't get a whole lot of impact from the beef tartare, but the duck breast had a nice mild smokiness. Oh, and the aioli with the bread? Pure heaven.

The P.E.I. mussels were delicious, largely because the broth was so incredibly flavored with pinot grigio and garlic. (As opposed to the bowl of mussels I recently had at a popular seafood restaurant on SoCo....)

The escargot were ok, probably the least exciting thing that I had, and they weren't bad at all, just not as buttery and garlicky as I had hoped for. Maybe all the garlic went to the mussels and aioli!

The cheese board was a pretty simple, straightforward presentation, with a brie, a blue (valdeon), a semi-firm with a mild truffle infusion (sottocenere), and a sheep's milk (manchego). This board was a good example of selecting cheeses of different textures and types of milk.

For main course, I had the Loncito's Lamb Ragout. Cheese ravioli with the lamb, which had been simmered in a light tomato sauce. The pasta for the ravioli were a little dense, but the flavorful local lamb was outstanding. I've bought Loncito's at the farmer's markets before, and it never disappoints.

Three of the five diners at our table had the spatzle and schnitzel, because it is THAT good. Sorry that you don't really see the incredibly light spatzle in the picture, but trust me, it was delicious. And I can totally see ordering that in the future.

Our fifth diner had the Ich Liebe Tiere, or mushroom strudel, which really had a great meatiness to it. The cauliflower puree was so smooth, you really would think it was potato unless you knew better.

We split two desserts: crack pie with hooch cream and chevre cheese cake with gingersnap crust and candied lemon peel. The crack pie is like a cross between buttermilk or chess pie and a blondie; sweet and tasty, though a bit heavy. The goat cheese concoction, was really lovely, especially the lemon peel, which weren't bitter at all.

I think restaurants in old houses have such a charm to them, and Fabi + Rosi is no exception. There's also some tables out front, which, if the weather were warmer, would be a great spot for a cocktail. Our service was outstanding, and all the dishes were timed well. They are also committed to serving locally raised, sustainable, and organic-when-possible items. They have a garden for some of the greens, as well as chickens for their eggs; they also compost and recycle as much as possible.

And the name Fabi + Rosi? Chef Wolfgang Murber's nephew and niece back in Germany, Fabio and Rosalie. How lucky they are to have such a fine establishment named for them!

Oh, Olivia!

** Editor's note: closed by the restaurant group in Fall 2016, and repurposed as Lucy's On the Fly, a carry out fried chicken spot.

I am so fat and happy right now (and very slightly buzzed), that I don't even know that I can write properly about one of South Austin's newest establishments, a fine dining one at that, in every sense of the word. Olivia's, a quasi-Frenchish (with heavy Italian influences) bistro sorta place opened on South Lamar, just north of Oltorf, in early August. I pass it every day coming home from work, and saw it being constructed from the slab on up. So two plus months later, I check it out. What a treat!

We arrived a mere two hours ago, just before 6:30 pm, beating any Friday night crowd that may have swarmed. The interior design of the place is, I think, fairly stunning. High angled ceiling, very clean, modern lines. Flower arrangements with whole apples in the vases added to the visual appeal. Seating includes booths, benchs, 4-top tables, and a small bar area, so something for everyone. See their site for pics.

First the wine... or bubbly I should say. Alne Prosecco, which for me was perfect! Not very dry, but definitely not real sweet, bit zippy, fruity. It complemented everything nicely. Our first course was the Tarte Flambe, essentially a pizza, with creme fraiche, caramelized onions, bacon and calvados. Bacon was tasty! (Duh.) Not sure I tasted any calvados. The crust on ours was a bit blackened around 3/4 of the edges, but not terribly offensive. We both agreed the crust was a bit doughy/yeasty, like a fluffy pita without the pocket. The second course was the beet salad, which they nicely plated separately for the two of us. Very thin slices of beets stacked with some onions and a milder feta cheese with a vinaigrette that had twang, but not noticeably so.

For the main entrees, we had the herbed ricotta ravioli in Prosecco brown butter, which was dusted with amaretti cookie crumbs, and accompanied by starkrimson pears. The pears are a smaller red variety that our waitress said were local (neither of us have heard of them), as they've been getting them from the farmer's market. Tasted like a pear... The 6 large ravioli were tasty, and nice with the pears, but could have used more contrast in flavor and texture. Nuts? More amaretti? The other dish was the grilled ribeye.... mmmm, steak! Menu says molasses bacon butter.... certainly got the bacon, and looking back on it now, I guess any sweetness I was tasting I thought was from caramelzation, not from molasses. It was a huge cut of meat, and done a perfect medium rare.... a good deal of fat, but we know that fat equals flavor, so what hasn't already rendered, just cut around it! The meat was extremely tender, and almost filet mignon-like in texture; it's served with sauted fingerling potatoes and some hearty oyster mushrooms.

Not that we weren't stuffed already, but we had to look at the dessert menu. It was a tossup between an apple pie thing (the exact name now escapes me) and the sticky toffee pudding with creme fraiche ice cream. Our server voted for the sticky toffee, and that's probably one of the best restaurant desserts I've ever had (and yes, I've had a few!). It was a generous sized piece of tender cake, generously covered in a wonderful deep toasted toffee sauce... you could taste the butter and brown sugar, as your eyes rolled back in your head. The ice cream was a great foil, and little bites of the cold ice cream and the warm cake and drippy sauce were like heaven. And I am totally stuffed.... we only ate half the torte flambe (lunch tomorrow!) and if we ate half the ribeye, I'd be shocked...though it was going home to a husband who by now has probably demolished it, if he can keep 3 dogs away.

It's rather exciting that there's such a good mix of food close to my house! The previously written about Lulu's Vietnamese is about 150 yards south of Olivia's. So trailer to fine dining, Lulu's to Olivia's....keep it coming!