Recent Eats

Here's a little recap of places I have been in the past month.

El Chile
I was invited by El Chile to check out their newly reopened original location on Manor Road. I love what they've done with the interior decor; they're using the same light blue and white that the South First location has, and it really makes it so much lighter and airier inside. And the food is still as good as ever.

We had the queso flameado with chorizo, which gets so nice and gooey! Caution: the pan is really hot, so it helps to have one person hold it, and the other to scrape the yummy stuff onto a nice thick tortilla chip.

My friend had the cochinita pibil; the picture was taken after the banana leaves were removed from the traditional Yucatecan pork. (Think Mexican pulled pork -- delish!)

And I had the pescado al mojo de ajo, or fish with garlic. A fabulously huge piece of grilled black drum, with garlic and a mild chile kick. After consuming a bunch of the queso, I ate half of this and saved the rest for the next day, and it comes with beans and rice -- a nice healthy dish.

Smart move by El Chile to reopen. They said they got so many calls from the neighborhood asking them to reopen, they ultimately decided to do so. Great service and food, and a great neighborhood restaurant, whether you're on Manor Road or South First Street.

* I was invited for a meal at El Chile, I was not paid for my review or opinion; no money was exchanged.

Together Korean
This ended up being a great food blogger evening! Mad Betty and husband Craft Taste, Sushi in the ATX, Tasting Buds contributor SuperTsai, and his Korean fiancee MJ, plus a few others. MJ is friends with the owners of Together, and the place is considered a bar by Korean standards, located in a strip mall on North Lamar. The owners only speak Korean, so MJ pre-arranged the meal; when we arrived, the table was set with all kinds of fermented dishes (banchan), and grills at either end of the table.

The owner brought out plates of pork belly (called fresh bacon on the menu), and you place them on the grill tops (griddle?) to cook (and the fat drains down the center into a collection cup), before cutting them into pieces. There's also cloves of fresh garlic and sliced jalapenos that can be grilled as well. When you remove your meat from the heat, you dip it in a little bowl of sesame oil with salt and pepper, and place it in a piece of lettuce that you also smear with a little bit of fermented bean paste. They are extremely tasty, and relatively light, since you're not filling up on rice.

We had a couple other dishes, one that I can best describe as the Korean version of sweet and sour pork (on the left) and then a kim chee and green onion pancake variety. The pork dish was extremely well-fried (not greasy), and the sauce had wonderful flavor to it.

There was also a kim chee udon noodle soup with dumplings, that was a little spicy and very slurp-worthy.

Together is a cozy mom + pop place, with very little English on the menu. I think all the other clientele were Korean. It was ideal to have a native speaker taking charge of all the ordering, though I *think* I could go back and order sufficiently. (Or maybe just point to the pictures on this blog post!)

Pieous
I've been to Pieous (out Hwy 290, on the way to Dripping Springs) once before; that full blog post from April is here.  It's a great family-run place, serving up tasty homemade foods, from the doughs to the mozzarellas. Here's the Fat Queen pizza:  

And their near-legendary pastrami.

 

They often sell out, but they're good about using their Facebook page to alert customers. Worth the drive! (Really, it's only like 15 minutes from South Lamar and Ben White if the traffic isn't bad)

Blue Dahlia
I spent the better part of two Saturdays in East Austin checking out various venues during the EAST Art Tour, which was tons of fun. We started one day out with breakfast at Blue Dahlia on East 11th.  They don't have a huge breakfast menu, and I was surprised they don't have any breakfast meats like bacon or sausage, and I didn't feel that prosciutto would be the best accompaniment to my waffles. (Though maybe it is! I've been wrong before.) The waffles were okay, I like mine a little more browned and crisp, the fresh berries were a nice touch, and the pots of chocolate hazelnut spread on the table were a big tease! And it definitely improved the waffle.

Asia Cafe
On one of those recent cold November nights, friends and I headed to Michi Ramen; my friends SWEAR their dumplings are delicious. Well, everyone else had the idea for hot soup that night because there was about a 30 minute wait, so we decided to go up to Asia Cafe at Spicewood and 183. Fortunately, when we got there, there was no wait, and a very large gathering of what appeared to be college students was leaving.

Their dumplings were not spectacular; the dough is not right, too doughy and gummy. I think I've had them before there and I wasn't super in love with them then, so I need to remember this is not one of their better dishes. We had the stir fried pea leaves (#815), chicken with cilantro (from the specials menu), and Asian eggplant with ground pork (I think it's #835). It wasn't until I was going through my pictures for the post that I realized the steam from the first two dishes totally fogged up my camera, so the shots are not worthy of posting. The pea leaves are always good, nice and vibrant green in color, with slices of garlic. I wasn't as much in love with the chicken dish, as I thought it kind of lacked some kick, but the dumpling sauce helped out.

This is the eggplant dish; they seem to take two rounds of eggplant, and shove some ground pork (sausage?) in between them, batter and fry them, and then toss it in this lovely twangy chile sauce. I think it's #829, eggplant with garlic sauce that I've had before there, and that's been delicious too.

Asia Cafe has some of the Americanized Chinese standard dishes, but this is such a great place to get authentic dishes, from Szechuan to things like pork intestines. And the servings are large, and the prices are extremely reasonable. Don't be intimidated; go in get a menu, and have a seat wherever. When you're ready, order at the counter, but also be aware they have lots of specials posted up there as well. The place is also always filled with Asians, a very good sign!

And finally, on to dessert.

The HEB Cronut (select stores, weekends only)
The cronut craze. (For those of you who don't know what a cronut is, it's a cross between a croissant and a donut, made famous by a bakery in NYC this summer who charge an arm and a leg; now being imitated across the country.) I am OVER it. I've had La Patisserie's "crobrio" (croissant/brioche cross), which was okay, but tough (chewy) and underwhelming for $6. And now HEB is jumping on the bandwagon. For $1.68, you get a boxed confection of artificially flavored sweetness. The white on top is icing, the yellow glop in the middle is "Bavarian" pastry cream.  They're using margarine in the dough, which sure as heck isn't buttery goodness, and their pastry cream reeked of fake vanilla. Really and truly, it was gross, and I don't understand why people are going nuts over it. Oh yeah, there's NO accounting for taste! Save your calories!

Pecan Pie
To me, Thanksgiving foods are all about the stuffing and the pecan pie. My grandparents were farmers in Las Cruces, NM, and one of the things they grew were pecans. I feel New Mexico pecans are superior to Texas ones, and I was thrilled to find a bag in my freezer!  I love making pies.... this crust was a combo of butter and vegetable shortening, but I like using Dai Due's leaf lard too.

What tasty places have you been to recently?

Asia Cafe

Another good authentic Chinese spot is Asia Cafe, formerly inside of Asia Market at 183 and Spicewood Springs. Sometime last summer they moved the restaurant into the space next door to the grocery store. I had been to the old location, I think twice, but not for probably close to two years. I remember the pea shoots and crispy whole flounder as being fantastic.

So I met two friends up there for lunch yesterday. Both foodies, and both much more into the organ meats than I. One ordered stir fried beef intestines (though I don't see it on the menu... somewhere in the #787-790 range, though those are all pork, I thought he ordered beef), and another dish that I don't see listed online, which was essentially pieces of coagulated beef blood; both dishes done Szechuan style, with lots of Szechuan peppercorns & chiles. I did try them both, and honestly, they weren't bad, but I am not sure I could eat a whole bowl of them. It was sort of amusing, because after about 2 bites, both my companions looked at the intestine dish and said "that's not tripe that's tongue." Where there was a brief break in the line to order, he asked the order taker, who went to check it out with the kitchen. She came back to our table and said they were out of tripe, so they substituted tongue, probably thinking the Caucasian dude wouldn't notice, but of course he did. He still ate it all.
My other friend ordered what I believe is #699, Combination Seafood Pot with Pork Intestines. It was a HUGE pot. Think mixing bowl. There were a few stares from both Asian & Caucasian people who were waiting in line to order. There was cabbage and broth in the bottom, and just covered with tripe and nicely battered and fried pieces of white fish throughout. Also lots of peppercorns & chiles, but very flavorful. We shared the #129, Zhong dumplings, which are probably some of the best I have ever had. They made their own dough for them, and once steamed, it comes out to be a really soft, tender, lightly chewy dough, that is perfect with the pork filling. They come bathed in a garlicy soy sauce, which is I think what makes them "zhong". I really love pan-fried dumplings, so on my next visit, that's what I want to try, assuming they are also done with the homemade dough.
We also got #675, the salt & pepper fried squid. A great light batter (rice flour?) around slightly thicker pieces of squid tubes, they kind of looked like gnocchi/fried cauliflower, and were delicious. Would have been nice if they came with a little sauce to dunk them in, but there were plenty of broths & oils on the table to do so. I ordered #568, spicy & sour sweet potato noodle, which turned out to be one of my least favorite items. It was okay....a broth of mostly chile oil, with the cellophane sweet potato noodles, a bit of ground beef, and fresh water spinach leaves. Hard to eat (at least politely), and the broth didn't have the depth of flavor that like the seafood pot or even the intestine/tongue dish had. But I could have eaten a plate of those dumplings!

A couple of notes: we got there at 11:30am, and by about11:50am there was a line at the register where you order that pretty much didn't stop. They give you a number when you order, and then call it out when the food arrives. Sometimes difficult to understand the man calling out numbers & dishes. Also, if you're not accustomed to Szechuan peppercorns, don't be alarmed if your mouth and/or tongue goes numb while eating and everything tastes a bit different than normal. It goes away once you're done eating. Finally, there's a cupcake place down to the right of the restaurant.... what's the name? Begins with a "C"... anyway, I got one cupcake to go (quite tasty, but no Sugar Mama's), which was packaged in what looks like to be an inverted sundae container. It seems to be the perfect way to contain one cupcake, rather than risking it tipping over in a paper bag. Kudos!

Asia Cafe is in the same shopping center as Chen's Noodle House. Both places are supposed to have killer lamb dishes... need to do a taste test and find out for myself!