Foreign & Domestic

From the get go, I have heard nothing but high, high praise for the new eatery Foreign and Domestic up on 53rd (North Loop) and Avenue H. (Also named newcomer of the year by the Statesman.) I've tried to go once or twice before, but the plans fell through. Finally, the stars aligned! The plan was to met a friend there at 5 pm, right as they opened for service. I arrived a hair before, and discovered she was already there, and while not officially opened, they graciously welcomed both of us in and sat us. The place has a homey, but stylish, diner feel. It's not a very large space, I am thinking back now, about seating for 40, plus some at the counter. The wide open kitchen is straight ahead, and the chef's activities are the focal point of the room.

I will certainly need to go back and try an entree (and as luck would have it, I should be there next week for dinner with a BFF!), but I was beyond thrilled with all of the appetizers we had. Furthermore, their wine list is very decently priced, so we got a bottle of Vino Herminia, a tempranillo/grenache blend. Foodwise, we started with the Gruyere popovers, which come two per order, and are about as big as your head! They come hot, with a fine shaving of Gruyere on top; nice and crusty on the bottom where they sat in the pan, and light and eggy inside.

Now, while the little quilted canning jar and rye bread may not look like much, it was a thing of beauty! If I remember correctly, the waiter said it's about 70% foie gras with the remaining 30% chicken liver mousse combined together to make a velvety spread, with a port gelee and a "crust" of toasted hazelnuts. I don't know if the chicken livers were already in mousse form when blended with the foie, or if the liver + liver = incredibly smooth, succulent, tasty concoction, but THIS is how I'll eat liver! The sweetness from the port gelee plays off the richness of the foie, and combined with the hazelnut crunchies (they called it hazelnut crumble, not sure what it was combined with, but it worked), the texture, mouth feel and not to forget flavor, was truly fantastic. But darn if I had to share it!

Next were what looked like tater tots sleeping under blanket of ham.What they were, were squash fritters. What kind of squash, I am not sure, as it wasn't named on the menu, but I'd guess butternut in this case. So a puree of squash and ricotta salata (an aged, lightly smoked cow's milk cheese), made into tater tot form and fried, sitting on an apple cider reduction with Speck ham on top. The menu mentioned dried shrimp, which I didn't detect, either in the squash or on the plate, but it could have just been there to give more depth and umami-like qualities to the fritters, as opposed to a shrimpy flavor. Nicely fried, good contrast of flavors with the natural sweetness of the squash, the saltiness from the ricotta salata (and perhaps the dried shrimp) with the savoriness and saltiness from the Speck and finally the sweetness from the cider.

And of course, there is always room for dessert! And when bacon is featured, chances are pretty high that I will go for it! So a chocolate root beer float with bits of bacon in it, a chocolate-covered strip of bacon as your garnish, and a fried pork rind on top. That's right, you read it correctly. And it was heaven. Thick and creamy. Nice pieces of bacon in it (tasted like a good quality smoked bacon, not unlike Nueske's, but something tells me F & D probably smokes their own). Not too sweet. Very unusual and very delicious.

Our waiter Ben was very attentive.  Granted we did get there early, and were the only ones in there for the first 15 minutes, but even as things picked up, he would come peer over my companion's shoulder every few minutes to see if any beverages needed refreshing or plates removed. F & D's menu sometimes leaves you guessing at the complete descriptions of the dishes (case in point, the foie gras & squash fritter dishes), which I think is probably intentional on their part. Gives the dishes some mystique. But use your waiter to your advantage -- I asked about the foie dish, and he told me how it was prepared, and the ratio of foie to chicken liver, and I should have asked what kind of squash the fritters were made from. Regardless, everything was delicious. Maybe for dinner, we'll sit at the counter and watch them cook. Either way, I know the future meals will also be fantastic.

La Patisserie

Earlier this fall, I heard a new French bakery would be opening. And then I found out it would be just blocks from my house! I found La Patisserie on both Facebook & Twitter, and anxiously awaited news of their grand opening. So I was thrilled last night to see that they would in fact be up and running this morning. They open at 7 am, and I walked over around 8 am, and was immediately greeted by a trio of friendly women behind the counter, including pastry chef and owner, Soraiya Nagree.

Located on Annie Street, just off South 1st, La Patisserie is in a converted old house, most recently a chiropractic office. The front two rooms are set up cozily with seating areas, an enclosed play area for the babies, and some commercial sweets & treats as well. The light-filled back room is the bakery counter, with work space off to the left. (They do the actual baking in their commercial kitchen space in East Austin they said.) Coffee, espresso, hot chocolate, and tea are all available too.

Everything looked good enough to eat! Ha ha ha.... Seriously though, I had a hard time deciding WHAT to get. I asked what the "morning buns" were, and Soraiya told me they were one of her favorites. It's like the French version of a cinnamon roll. Yes, please! And an almond croissant, and a mini-palmier, and 3 different macaroons, and she threw in a cookie that I would have called a madeleine, except it doesn't have the ridges... I can't remember what she called it, but I do remember she said brown butter. So she put everything in a box, and I headed back home.

I dove right into the morning bun. I don't think I've ever had anything quite like it! It is like a cinnamon roll in that the dough is covered with cinnamon & sugar, and rolled up though not as tightly as a traditional cinnamon roll. These appear to be baked in large-sized muffin tin, and there's a little bit of a hollow space created by the loose rolling. It's lightly crunchy on the outside from the caramelized sugar, and as you peel back the layers, you see the multitude of them, though not flaky like a croissant. As you get towards the center, it's that squishy, tender just-barely-baked dough core. The whole thing is a wonderful contrast in textures, and you don't come across this kind of flavor by using margarine. There will most certainly be more morning buns in my future.

Almost four hours later, I am still full from my morning bun, but I have managed to nibble on the some of the others for the sake of getting this blog post done! The palmier -- nicely flaky and very light. All three of the macaroons have really distinct (in a good way!) flavor to them: the peppermint chocolate, cardamom orange honey, and caramel fleur de sel. The cardamom probably surprised me the most; I absolutely love the flavor of cardamom, and am usually disappointed because I find the flavor isn't prominent enough in things like this. Not in this case. It took a moment, but the cardamom really pops through. The brown sugar thingy is barely crisp on the outside, with a solid, yet tender crumb. It would be a great tea cookie. I only nibbled on the end of the almond croissant, but it's nice and crunchy on those outer tips, and there seems to be a multitude of almond paste inside! Hopefully, I can save it for breakfast tomorrow.

And there's a multitude of things to go back and try! Opera cakes, madeleine, brioche rolls, eclairs....This is going to be very, very bad, so close to my house! Congratulations to La Patisserie on their opening today, and here's to years of sweet success!

A closer look at some of the sweets:

East Side Pies

As with (dessert) pies, a crust can make or break the deal. Pizza pies of course can be your deep-dish Chicago-style, your more average "regular" crust, or a thin crust, often very hard to do right. East Side Pies has perfected the art of the thin crust pizza. It's practically wafer thin, and it stays crispy all the way through, from the edge of the crust to the center point of your slice. And it stays crispy through the duration of your eating an entire pie. My fourth (and final) slice of the evening was just as crisp as the first one that I slightly burned the roof of my mouth on. Go figure.

The place could best be described as a dive. There's a door with an opening, and yes, you're inside the shop, but only about 3 or 4 people can fit in the space. The counter/case to your left has pizza by the slice for sale, and it's where you place your order for whole pies. Not like the other guys in the shop couldn't hear your order, because I don't think the whole interior is much bigger than 150 square feet, with the big oven taking up much of the wall opposite the doorway. There's seating out on the patio, where a window opposite the above-mentioned counter is stationed to hand out the re-warmed slices.

There's a lot of pizza options. Either build your own, or their creations. Now, they have some things that I just don't think belong on a pizza, such as hummus and spinach curry, but I guess don't knock it til you've tried it. We got the Lu' -- with pineapple, bacon, ham, & jalapenos, and we added feta cheese. We sat at a table under the covered patio, listening to the buses on Rosewood whiz by, and the brief stoppage of one lady, trying to beg off some food. I was amused by all the posters & fliers that were up on the walls. Most were for past/upcoming music shows, but then there was the dichotomy of a poster for a lecture by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and a show called "Spanksgiving". We'll just say one looked a bit more clean cut than the other!

The pizza pie itself was quite lovely. Again, a wonderfully thin crust (my father would approve), an appropriate amount of tomato sauce, that did have some flavor, but did not overpower, and our toppings of choice. I realized that since the crust was so thin, I could eat four pieces, as I wasn't filling up on bread dough. My friend swears by the Moontower Pie, their white pizza with ricotta, mozzarella, romano, feta & goat cheeses.

A lot of their business is carryout. It was a nice November evening to sit outside, but in chillier or hotter weather, it may not be the best spot. I asked, and they crank the oven to 575 - 600 degrees; I'd imagine it takes about as long to build the pizza as it does to sear it in the oven. East Side Pies did just open up a location on Airport Blvd. & 53rd Streets, but a south location would be fantastic. And it's another spot where you can use your Go Local card for a free drink. So if you need to experience the perfection of a thin crust pizza, head east.

Trailer Travels -- Holy Cacao

A high school friend I had not seen in 20 years was in town over Thanksgiving, and I wanted to show him a bit of our food trailer scene. We met at the Torchy's Trailer Park on South 1st, where I devoured the Turkey Mole (taco of the month) and the Trailer Park tacos. It was a beautiful crisp, sunny afternoon, and as we finished the tacos, our attention turned to Holy Cacao, one of Austin's original cake ball establishments.

Holy Cacao has a variety of cake balls, coffee, hot chocolate, and chocolate shakes. Still being a bit stuffed from the tacos, I got three cake balls to eat for later. They are $2 each, or 3 for $5, and since I am a proud Go Local cardholder, my three were $4.50. Yeah, Go Local!!!

My selections:

• Brass Cake Ball -- peanut butter cookie dough dipped in more peanut butter, and coated in chocolate & crushed peanuts. This was my favorite; I really liked the consistency of the ball & it had great peanut flavor.
• Rabbit Cake Ball -- carrot cake with cream cheese dipped in white chocolate & crushed walnuts. Mmmm, walnuts!
• Diablo Cake Ball -- chocolate cake mixed with ancho/cayenne cream cheese frosting, dipped in dark chocolate and topped with cayenne & cocoa toasted walnuts. You definitely taste the cayenne!

Tasty little treats!!!

Miscellany... as in, I'm behind in posting

About 10 days ago, I had lunch at Cafe Josie, the Caribbean-inspired place on West 6th, just past Sweetish Hill, that's been around for years. My BFF and I split the lobster cakes, calamari, and each had our own small spinach salad.

The lobster cakes were delicious (in the back of the picture) -- a concoction of mostly lobster, and not too many breadcrumbs. And served with their incredible chipotle aioli (which I have bought jars for years at Central Market). The calamari was good, larger rings, maybe not quite as tender as those at Enoteca, one of my gold-standard places for calamari in town. 

The salad was tasty, with an ample amount of candied walnuts, and a nice passionfruit vinaigrette. The only odd thing was the manchego cheese, which was very finely shredded on top of the salad; seems like you loose the flavor of it that way.  Good meal though. And nice to see that earlier that week, Cafe Josie had received a very nice write up in the Statesman.\

Onto my trailer food quest! I knew I would be headed to East Austin last Saturday to check out some of the artist studios that were part of the E.A.S.T. tours. I've been DYING to try the Coolhaus ice cream truck, and was hoping they'd be on the east side as well. As luck would have it, they were! Checking out their Twitter feed, I found out they were leaving their spot near UT (football/game day crowds) and headed to a spot on Cesar Chavez, which is where I found them. When I got there, there was one small group in front of me, and the truck was still being set up. Their concept is simple (yet genius!) -- you pick your ice cream and your cookie, and they make you an incredible custom ice cream sandwich. 

Of COURSE I've been dying to try their candied bacon & brown sugar ice cream, and it was completely worth the wait. It was heaven.  Oh, and I had it on a good ol' chocolate chip cookie. And they're big!  I was also tempted by the balsamic fig & mascarpone as well as the mint chip, so future plans must be made!

The driver/scooper, Amelia, was telling me their truck is a retrofitted old mail truck.... the steering wheel is on the right hand side, and they've put a deep coffin cooler inside for the ice cream.  The pictures of the cookie & ice cream flavors on the side of the truck are all magnets. So like my new favorite the Peached Tortilla, Coolhaus is a roving truck -- best to keep up with them via Twitter or their websites.

Finally, Thanksgiving. I was invited to a friend's house, and was asked to bring bread/rolls. In the November issue of Saveur magazine, was Tom Colicchio's Parker House Rolls recipe, and I do love the white flour and carbs! ;) I made two double batches, one Wednesday evening, and the other, I made the dough Wednesday night, and let it do it's first rise in the fridge overnight. The recipe calls for barley malt syrup (which is preferred) or dark corn syrup. It uses such a scant amount (one teaspoon per batch), that I opted for the less expensive corn syrup, and I think it was perfectly fine. 

If you make this recipe, bake them at 375, not the 325 as stated in the recipe, especially if using cast iron. I don't know if they will ever brown properly at 325. After almost 25 minutes in the oven at 325, I cranked it to 400 and they browned pretty quick, though a little crusty on the bottoms. For the second batch, I just did them at 375 the whole way through, and they were done in about 27 minutes. 

Above pic, after the first rise & rest; dough portioned out into 1 oz. balls, a little bit smaller than the recipe called for. (I wanted to make sure I'd have plenty!)

 About 2 hours later, the second rise.

And out of the oven and cooling. You  brush melted butter on them before they go in the oven, and immediately when they come out, more butter and a sprinkling of sea salt. 

If you look at the comments for this recipe on Saveur's website, a lot of people didn't have positive experiences. I followed the recipe to the "T", except for the oven temp, and I thought they came out fabulously. Don't be deterred!