Launderette Brunch

I hadn't been to Launderette in about three years, and my friend and I were excited to catch up over Saturday brunch. It did not disappoint as it was pretty much an exquisite meal all around!

Mimosa + Bloody Mary cocktails to start

The crispiest potato latkes I have ever encountered! 

The English muffin sammie, with avocado, cheddar, egg, romesco and the true star of the show, fennel sausage, with incredible fennel flavor.

The fried chicken sammie, which I heard no complaints about. Also, it was recommended by our waiter. 

I had been eyeing this coffee custard tart since I had seen it on their Instagram page after we made our reservations. Firm crust, creamy ice cream and delicious on it's own. However....

The frozen honey nougat parfait was different and we both really loved it, somewhat surprising myself as I am always a chocolate fan. A creamy but not too cold texture with passion fruit caramel and candied honeycomb on top. Very unique + very glad we went for two desserts!

Don't skip dessert!

Old Thousand Dim Sum

These photos of dim sum brunch at Old Thousand came out well, so thought I'd share! Oh, and the food was every bit as good as it looks!

Potstickers

Trout Rangoon

Brisket and Chinese Sausage Fried Rice

General Tso's Chicken 

Chicken + (Bubble) Waffles

Churro with Pandan Cream

Kemuri Tatsu-ya

I now know what all the fuss is about. In less than six months, Kemuri Tatsu-ya has landed on the Best of Austin lists for both the Austin American Statesman and the Austin Chronicle. And now I totally see why. I was there for dinner about two weeks ago, and it was by far the best meal I have had in a very long time.

Texas meets Japan is the theme of Kemuri, which opened on East 2nd and Pleasant Valley Streets back in January. It's pedigree? From the owners of Ramen Tatsu-ya, probably my favorite ramen spot in town. The place is an izakaya, or Japanese style gastropub; lots of sake, sochu, and funky cocktails to help wash down your small plates of food (good for sharing).

Kemuri decor

I've eaten natto in Japan, and it certainly has that funk factor to it! We didn't order anything from this menu on this visit.

Crispy Hot Pocketz with smoky brisket and gouda; each one is small, like a deck of cards and you feel like you could eat a bunch of these.

Called Dank Tofu, this was the most wonderful thing! Blue cheese is infused in the tofu, and it's served in a soy glaze with shiitake mushrooms and pecans. So much amazing flavor and bursting with umami mouthfuls! I am SO in love.

Chicken Karaage with kewpie mayo

Pork belly and scallop yakitori... these both could have been cooked just a touch more.

Soft shell crab bao, from the evening's specials menu, with cilantro chimichurri. Great contrast of textures from the lightly crispy crab to the softness of the bao. Totally delicious.

Onigiri, or rice balls, are a dime a dozen in Japan. Every convenience store sells them. This was the most interesting and flavorful onigiri I have ever had. Filled with salmon, the rice ball (triangle, really) is lightly fried (?) with what I think is a soy glaze. Super crisp on the exterior, and nice an soft on the interior. 

Tokyo Street Corn... a bit messy to eat!

Also one of the evening specials, an heirloom tomato salad with watermelon, cucumbers, queso fresco and yuzu honey dressing.

The barbecue unagi (eel), also amazing!

Apart from the yakitori skewers which were a touch underdone, my only other issue was that the small water glasses went unfilled for longer periods of time, and the reason I noticed it is because I wasn't drinking anything else. But the food was amazing, the atmosphere was fun, and I can't wait to go back to Kemuri! If you only eat chicken teriyaki when you go to a Japanese restaurant this may not be your cup of matcha tea, but if you're open to exploring some new dishes and even some familiar ones just prepared differently, head over to Kemuri.

Update  9/2017
I went for a second visit last month and had the chicken thigh yakitori as well as the smoked banana pudding for dessert.

I could eat about ten of these chicken thigh yakitori, the meat was incredibly juicy. The beef tongue on the left wasn't bad either, but the thighs were killer.

Smoked banana pudding with miso caramel

Three Little Pigs

I have been wanting to go to the Three Little Pigs trailer for over 2 years. Somehow other things always come up, and I never made it over to East 11th and Rosewood, where it's parked behind East End Wines, on the north side of the Texas State Cemetery. Then on a recent Saturday, I got a message from friend and blogger Mad Betty asking her if I wanted to go with her that evening, as she had set up an interview with owner Raymond Tatum for a future edition of Austin Foodstyle magazine. I ditched work a little early and jumped at the chance!

Since we were there early, they weren't too busy, and Raymond came and sat with us for a little while. He's a native Austinite, and was at the helm of Jeffery's during it's late 1980s/early 90s heydays. He thinks pigs are the perfect animal, because you can use every part of them to cook with; I think he's done "nose to tail" cooking before it was *cool*. He's done some dishes at the trailer like pig tripe, which he knows doesn't have mass appeal, but it's something he loves, even though it takes days to rinse and prepare the tripe. You can feel the passion for the food oozing from him. He also draws a lot from Asian cuisines, as was evidenced by the three dishes he made for us which were on that night's specials.

First was the pork belly with kim chi. Bite-sized pieces of pork belly that have been cooked so nicely, each piece was good and crispy, and the kim chi had a nice kick. His Korean friends have taught him which is the best kim chi to buy at the Korean grocery store on North Lamar and Justin Lane. For people who may not like pork belly because of its fattiness, this is a great way to try it.

Next was pork tongue with noodles, leeks, and a spicy black bean sauce. I had never had pork tongue before, and it was really good! I doubt I would have known I was eating tongue, because it had a good texture, kind of crispy, but not tough. The black bean sauce really added a nice savory dimension to the dish.

And braised pig cheeks with pineapple jalapeno chutney. It's a very close call, but I think this was my favorite, in part because of my love for sweet and savory combinations. The cheeks were really meaty and incredibly tender, the plastic fork just sliced right through them.

Here's a shot of the menu. They've got their Twitter and Facebook pages linked to their main website, and they're good about updating them with the daily specials. I aim to get back there soon. Even the regular menu items sound fantastic. Good people, good food. New favorite trailer, hands down.

Two New Italian Eateries -- Patrizi's + Umami Mia

In the past two weeks, I have attended two soft openings for Italian places, one a trailer, and the other brick and mortar. Both had their high points and a few things to work on.

Patrizi's is a trailer adjacent to the Vortex Theater on Manor Road; it is run by Nic Patrizi, who also runs the Jalopy trailer downtown. He's very welcoming and passionate about his food, and is sourcing from local purveyors as much as possible, like Salt and Time, Milking, Antonelli's, and Coyote Farms.

His family ran the original Patrizi's in Beaumont for years until they closed, and he has all the family recipes. He's got a nice set up at the Vortex, with a covered seating area, and planter boxes for a garden.

On the trailer itself, he invited local artists to come and paint, and then he's framed them all, including the menu. I loved the eclecticness of the paintings! The one below is actually done by one of my very talented co-workers.

Our tasting started off with a perfectly dressed Italian salad, and some antipasti, which included garlic cloves, confited in olive oil, white anchovies, a giardineria puree, and some tasty bread. Nic then brought us the first pasta dish -- the pomodoro with meatballs. Let me be clear: the meatballs were AMAZING. Some of the best meatballs I have had anywhere. Tender and moist and flavorful, made from pork trimmings and beef. I am still thinking about those meatballs!

Next was the Roma tomato sauce with fresh made ricotta with lemon zest. It was a nice heaping mound of creamy ricotta.

And the third, cacio e pepe, just your basic, clean dish with Parmesan and lots of fresh black pepper.

Nic told us upfront that the pasta we were being served was not the pasta that he would be serving once the trailer opened. He just got a new pasta machine that he hadn't even taken out of the box yet; the pasta we had was certainly on the dense side, but I heard from other bloggers who went to the next night's tasting that the pasta was really good.

I have high hopes for Patrizi's! The hospitality was all-around great, there's parking (at least when the theater isn't in session), and recipes that grandma used to make. Will certainly go back for the meatballs and I spied carbonara on the menu too!

Then last week, it was the media tasting for Umami Mia, in the old Romeo's on Barton Springs. Fun, funky design, but a lot of concrete inside. Clean lines, little pops of color.

The cocktail menu was spectacular as were the drinks themselves! From left, we have Hibiscus Nectar Cosmo, Thyme Will Tell (I think) and the Blackberry Italian Soda, adult-style.

Once we were seated, the owners and chef introduced themselves and talked about the concept of umami -- that somewhat elusive fifth taste (along with salty, sweet, sour, and bitter). It's sort of hard to pinpoint WHAT umami is, but it's that savoriness, that flavor that just fills your mouth and makes you want more. It's found in foods that are high in glutamates, things like mushrooms, dairy (particularly cheeses), meats, nuts, and so on. Umami Mia wants their dishes to be an "umami bomb" in your mouth. They are also trying to source local, like Vital Farms Eggs and Johnson's Backyard Garden, and practice nose to tail butchering.

We started off with a roasted peppers and coppa salami appetizer, which had nice big shavings of Parmesan and white anchovies. This was a good dish! Great flavors, and you really can get the umami concept with this one.

Next up was the Italian Salad with large slivers of watermelon radishes, and hiding under there was some crispy pancetta, fried croutons, and a very light salad dressing; I would have liked a touch more of the dressing on it to bring everything together.  Love that they use sheet trays to serve some of the dishes.

The meatball sandwich with mission fig sauce and Gorgonzola cheese was a bit of a miss for us. For starters, ours came without the Gorgonzola, and the fig sauce was too sweet for this particular dish, though perhaps if it HAD had the salty cheese, it would have been a better balance. And while they're using oak to grill their meatballs, it just couldn't compare to the one I had the previous week at Patrizi's.

The pizzas were a little bit of a mixed bag. They are cooked for 4 - 5 minutes in an oven that runs about 600 degrees, and they will have a "slice window" for walk-up customers.  Their crusts are soft and a bit chewy. My hands-down favorite was the prosciutto and fig with Gorgonzola, with it's copious amounts of arugula. You really got the umami bomb flavors here, though I would have loved loved some extra Gorg on top to really kick the umami up! 

The mushroom pizza with shitakes, creminis, and caramelized onions might be a good option for the vegetarians, but it seemed a bit heavy. That's balsamic glaze drizzled across the top along with goat cheese.

Our table found the Mexican pizza to be a bit strange. Described as their house adobo sausage with corn, tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, lime, and queso fresco, there was WAY too much going on here, but not enough flavor, especially from the sausage to associate it with Mexican foods.

Now the pasta itself was really nice -- thin, uniform strips that easily twirled on your fork. But when I think of carbonara, I really want the pancetta, egg, and Parmesan to shine, so the pine nuts, lemon, and herbs were a bit of a different take on it for me. It was hard to find any pancetta in this dish, though it tasted good. I don't know if this is the actual serving size you would get if you ordered it; I think for the price ($16) I would be a bit disappointed in the portioning of this dish.

And finally, the desserts. It's almost better if we don't go there because these were both very strange. I am noticing they do not have desserts listed on the menu that's on their website, and these were not the desserts that were originally planned for our meal (Citrus Prosecco Jello with Poteet Strawberries and Pop Rocks). What they served was a tiramisu with matcha tea powder and I believe chestnuts or hazelnuts inside, and then a chocolate pot de creme with orange, malted milk balls, golden raisins and togarashi, a Japanese condiment of chile flakes.  The tiramisu seemed like heavy whipping cream with squishy nuts mixed in; the matcha flavor was pretty minimal and got lost with the dense mouthfeel of the cream. I am not a huge fan of chocolate and orange together, so that was strike one, but it had a granular texture for strike two; pot de creme should be silky smooth. I hate to say this, but someone is trying WAY too hard with the desserts. Maybe the matcha and togarashi are a nod to the Japanese researcher who scientifically discovered the taste of umami, but I was not a fan. And it's not to say that Italian-themed restaurants all have to serve standard tiramisu or cannolis, because they don't, but golden raisins (strike three), really?

The waitstaff at Umami Mia hustled throughout the night, and were very professional and friendly. There will be an outdoor bar, as well as an herb garden, and the aforementioned slice window -- lots of possibilities there on Barton Springs!

So please take both of these reviews with a grain of salt because they were both soft openings. Patrizi's and Umami Mia both have tons of potential and once they each have a couple months to shake things down, I will happily go back to both and try them again. And while they are both Italian, they have very different focal points, and should both do well.