Not that one needs an excuse to visit a fine dining establishment, but it helps when you're in the company of fellow food bloggers, and when one of them is a regular and knows the chefs. Such was the stage, or rather, table, as I joined Epicuriosities, From Maggie's Farm, Girl Gone Grits and Tequila Tracker at The Carillon (at the AT+T Conference Center on the University of Texas campus) to celebrate the birthdays of two of our foodie crew.
Through September, the Carillon was offering a $29 three course prix fixe menu from 5:30 - 6:30 pm, and they are continuing it in October, with a different menu. We decided on a 6 pm reservation to take advantage of this special. And we would have been fine with this menu alone, but Patrick Jones, the Beverage Manager took good care of us. He selected a bottle of Domaine du Piaugier Gigondas 2009 from the southern Rhone Valley, a Grenache-based wine that complemented every dish extremely well.
The food started with an amuse bouche, a corn soup that was so smooth and buttery, we all wanted to stick our fingers inside the glasses to get to the bottom.
The first course was the seared scallop, with jazz apple, fennel jam, goat cheese. That's a fennel chip standing up in some goat cheese in the back. The sweetness from the sauteed fennel "jam" and the goat cheese were perfect with the large scallop, which was seared nicely, but not overdone, leaving the sweet ocean flavor intact.
The next course was a complete surprise -- a complimentary course from the kitchen! -- and one that we all swooned over: foie gras with whiskied cherries, mushrooms and toast points. Totally divine. A perfect size, perfectly seared, and sheer perfection with the sweet/tart of the cherries to cut the fat/creaminess. (The Carillon offers one of the best deals in town off their bar menu -- a hamburger with a nice piece of foie for $12 -- shhhhh, don't tell!)
The main was pork jowl croquettes with sauteed jazz apples, fried lobster mushrooms, and the little creamy dots are pawpaw pudding. What is a pawpaw?
It's a fruit native to the eastern US, including east Texas, with
flavors of mild banana and mango. It has an interesting flavor, not bad at all, though I don't
know if it lent a great deal to the dish.
The dessert on the prix fixe menu was a feta cheesecake. However, since we were celebrating birthdays, they switched it up. On the right is a pannacotta and on the left a browine/cake concoction with a fruit sauce with chipotles, I believe. Totally elegant.
It's always a trip going out to eat with fellow food bloggers, because we all sit there and photograph everything! I feel like I get better food shots because we're all doing the same thing; I am not rushing a photo because others are waiting on me to take my pics so they can eat! So with apologizes to my other friends, I need to be more patient like this for future endeavors, because I am happy with how all these photos came out. I don't think I will ever be one who carries a tripod or my own light source, but being able to shoot a few frames from different angles was really helpful. Otherwise, we had such a good time talking and eating that I have forgotten the details of what all was on the dessert plate!
Again, a wonderful evening, and thank you to Patrick and the chefs for serving up a delicious meal!
-- The Fall issue of the Austin Beer Guide was released on September 27;, which highlights the area's growing craft beer movement.
-- The HOPE Farmer's Market will be celebrating their meat producers with a special meet and greet at the market on October 7. HOPE will also have a presence at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, where they will have representation by several of their vendors in the form of picnic basket and salads as a healthy food alternative! Look for them next to the main food court.
-- Fonda San Miguel will host a book signing in honor of Marilyn Tausend's new book, La Cocina Mexicana: Many Cultures, One Cuisine. October 7 from 12 - 2pm. She has previously authored a cookbook with chef and Fonda co-founder Miguel Ravago.
-- The Austin Food Fight, an online silent auction benefiting Les Dames d'Escoffier for culinary scholarships and other garden-to-plate initiatives, will take place October 8 - 19. Auction items include a sweets sampling from area bakeries, dinner for four prepared by Hillside Farmacy's (and a Dame!) Sonya Cote, and a trip to Cypress Grove Creamery in California.
-- Jack Allen's Kitchen and Pepe's Tequila are hosting a party on the JAK patio, October 16, 5-10 pm with $5 tequila specials.
-- The Austin Food and Wine Alliance is hosting their second Wine and Swine pig roast event, November 2 from 1 - 5 pm at Pioneer Farms. Local chefs will prepare a pig in their own style, and guests will vote on their favorite swine eats! Tickets are $75, and available here. (Early bird tix are already sold out!)
-- Wine Enthusiast Magazine is sponsoring a contest with Tito's Handmade Vodka. All you have to do is enter via Facebook or email for a chance to win airfare for 2 to Austin, a tour of the distillery,a private meet and greet with Tito himself (and yes, his real name is in fact Tito Beveridge!), a weekend stay at the San Jose Hotel, and a variety of area restaurant/bar gift certificates worth $500, so tell your friends who want to come and visit!
Open
-- Bar Mirabeau from Parind Vora
Closed
-- Arkie's on east Cesar Chavez, which has been "closed for remodeling" for months. Apparently it's been bought or the property is being taken over by the people who did Hillside Farmacy and East Side Showroom.
-- Maria Maria on Colorado Street, a victim of the constant construction and road closures downtown.
"The Fire who?", you are asking. Well, I had never heard of it either until a friend and I booked a spa visit for massages to the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort and Spa east of Austin-Bergstrom Airport, on the way to Bastrop. We had purchased half-price hour-long massages through a Travelzoo coupon offer, and figured if we were driving all the way out there, we better make a check out as much of the Hyatt's facilities as possible. Once you turn off Highway 71 onto the Hyatt's property, it's a scenic 2
mile drive through the piney woods til you reach the facility. We arrived around 11:30 am, and after wandering around the main hotel building (neither of us felt that locations were well marked inside, nor did any of the limited number of staff we passed offer assistance), we found the Firewheel Cafe, their less-formal dining restaurant.
The dining room is a large open space somewhat resembling a barn, nicely filled with windows and light. There are large stained glass windows depicting regional wildflowers, of which the firewheel is one, and the windows were made by a local Bastrop artist. Aside from us, there was one large table of about ten people and a mother and child at another table; they were not busy. I don't know if the banquet food for meetings and events at the hotel comes from this kitchen or a different one; the hotel parking lot was filled to the brim with cars for a Texas travel conference, but we never saw many people, so they must have been in sessions.
I was drawn to the BLTG sandwich -- bacon, lettuce, tomato and Texas goat cheese, with sweet potato fries. It was prepared on sourdough bread, and I asked our waitress if the bread was toasted and she said yes, it was. However, when the sandwich arrived, the bread was not toasted, as I would have preferred, but fortunately, it was not a tough and chewy sourdough. The "L" was really arugula, that was heavily tossed in a vinaigrette, which dripped everywhere. And while the menu description says tomato aioli, I couldn't really taste any. It was a good enough sandwich, particularly the honeyed bacon, but it didn't totally resemble it's advertised description.
My friend ordered the Angus beef burger, with red onion jam and horseradish sauce on a brioche bun. She asked for it to be cooked medium, and it was more like medium-well, so it was drying out. We split our sandwiches, and I don't feel there was anything special about the burger. There was a three compartment dish with ketchup, mustard, and mayo, and I am fairly certain that was straight mayo, not the horseradish sauce. I didn't realize it was supposed to have a horseradish sauce until I went back to review the menu for this write up.
Overall, I'd say it was decent for hotel food, but nothing out of this world. The spa was very nice, and there were very few people there. We used the shaded hot tub before our massages, and then sat by the pool afterwards. A nice relaxing afternoon!
Real quickly....
-- Austin Restaurant Week is underway!
-- Banger's Oktoberfest is underway, September 22 - October 7 -- so 16 days of German beers, games, and drinking traditions! Lederhosen encouraged.
-- The Austin Cellar Classic will be October 5 and 6, benefiting the Austin Food and Wine Alliance. The dinner on the 5th is a five course wine pairing dinner ($125) with food from Max's Wine Dive; the grand tasting on the 6th features about 80 different wines ($45).
-- Hops and Grain will celebrate their first anniversary on October 7, with special access to beers, food, the tap room, commemorative glasses and more for $35/person.
-- Snap Kitchen opened their fifth location, at 6317 Bee Caves, just past 360 next to the Grove. Still no south locations though!
There are some places that you just can't help but smile at hearing the name, and clearly Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun Soul Food is one of those places. I have always been intrigued, but never managed to go -- until this week. I made plans with a friend to go to lunch, and asked where she wanted to go, and she said "Anywhere. You pick." So off on an adventure we went!
Nestled over at the corner of Rosewood and Chicon in this slowly gentrifying part of East Austin, is a building with two doors, side by side. The door on the left is painted with the Queen Lola name, so that had to be it! We opened the door which hit a clanking bell, and were greeted by a sea of sparkling Mardi Gras beads hanging from the ceiling. Alerted by the bell, Lola herself poked her head out from the back, gave a warm smile and said to sit where we liked.
If the Mardi Gras beads were any indication, the decor is eccentric. There's a large "Last Supper" painted mirror, with a couch underneath it, some college football memorabilia, and various Cajun and African-themed tchotchkes. On the tables are slips of paper for making a donation to help Lola with one of her passions -- feeding the homeless. She's well known in the community for opening her doors to the less-fortunate on Sundays, where she cooks up her Cajun delights. And without a doubt, she's a woman of faith. {Take a look at her website and see the article that had been written about her in The Austin Chronicle.} We even got invited to a Jesus party this weekend!
Then there's the food. Austin doesn't have many soul food places, and you KNOW that Lola is overseeing everything that's going on in the kitchen. Being a Tuesday, I opted for the daily special -- five fried chicken wings with rice and choice of two sides, so I had butter beans and yams. The chicken was super-hot (temperature wise) with not a lick of grease. They must be frying in 500 degree oil! The batter for the chicken has Cajun seasoning in, and boy, that chicken was FINE! The skin (yeah, it's the best part) was so crispy and flavorful. Wish there had been more butter beans, because they were fine too! The yams are very sweet, and you can taste the cinnamon and a bit of clove in them, and you know you're in the south because the cornbread is sweet too. (I ended up taking two of the wings home; even when I reheated them in the toaster oven, they did not give off much grease at all.)
One friend had the fried pork chops with the butter beans and yams. The chicken wings and pork chops probably have the same batter on them, and the chops were also fried perfectly and were moist and tasty. What they need is a touch of cream gravy! ;)
Our other friend had the catfish etoufee which tasted real good too! The collards also have the Cajun seasoning in them; surprisingly, I
couldn't really tell if they were cooked in bacon fat or had any pork product in
them. They were a touch salty but had a nice little kick from the
seasoning. The servings are generous; we asked the table next to us what they were eating because one guy had this HUGE plate of food -- it was one of the po-boy sandwiches. And we all had what I believe is the Cajun tea, kind of a combination of Kool-Aide and sweet tea.... or cava-tea, as another friend calls it!
Lola and another female (she was wearing an apron, so she may have been the main cook) would come back and forth from the kitchen to the dining area bringing food and drinks; I think they were the only two people working there. She greeted everyone with warmth, and the place appears to attract quite a range of customers, both in age and race. When we were ready to go, we collected our money and handed it to her (they are a CASH ONLY place, FYI), and told her while we hadn't filled out the paper to "formally" make a donation to help with meals for the homeless, we did leave a little extra for it. She seemed genuinely appreciative, and came around and hugged and blessed each one of us.
No matter what your religious affiliations, you know that Nubian Queen Lola will warm your soul with her cooking and her spirit. Go get you some!
