South Lamar Trailer Bazaar + Bits and Bites

-- The South Lamar Trailer Bazaar sponsored a media tasting this week. It was a great way to check out all five of the trailers that sit on the lot just south of Red's Porch.  

     -- Collie's Burgers -- 1/2 pound hamburgers with very freshly ground meat! The apple fries were unique and really amazing! Nice burger variety on the menu.

    -- La Guera's Tacos -- inexpensive breakfast tacos, with a ton of possible combinations. We had two samples, a beef fajita meat with egg, and an al pastor with a red sauce. Their creamy green salsa was fresh and had a big kick to it!

   -- Boxcar Bistro -- a REALLY nice, almost light, chicken salad with tarragon, green apple, and walnuts. You can get it as a salad or sandwich. Also had a croque monsieur one of their signature dishes.....what's not to like about fancy grilled cheese?

  -- Tri Mai Thai made an incredible tom kha soup, one of the best things I tasted all night! I have always been a fan of this coconut milk soup from Madam Mam's/Sap's, but the broth on this one was less coconut milk-y, but still tons of interesting flavors -- kaffir lime, galangal, straw mushrooms, chicken, shrimp....Also on the plate, from left to right are a crab rangoon and pork dumpling, pad thai noodles, and pineapple fried rice. To me it's sort of curious that a Thai trailer is making Chinese-style apps with the rangoon and dumpling, but the rangoon (made with real crab), particularly was delish.  Also offering free beer!

  -- Honky Tonk Hot Dog uses nice all beef Vienna dogs, and they toast their buns! This was the Scott Dog, their take on a Chicago dog, and named after trailer owner and local musician Scott Angle. It's a fun looking menu with the various dogs named after honky tonk musicians. Scott and others will play music from time to time, which increases the South Austin vibe.

So go check these fine trailers out! They've done a real nice job fixin' up the area, enclosing it with a fence, adding a play area for the kids, a small stage, covered seating, and most importantly, good food and real friendly people! 

 Other upcoming events:

-- Roll On Sushi Diner celebrates their first anniversary next week with drink specials and promos. On August 16, there will be happy hour specials all day, and for each item sold containing produce from the Grow Together Community Gardens, Roll On will donate $1 to the Gardens. August 17th has $1 drink specials and a portion of the proceeds goes to the Flatwater Foundation. On August 18th, more drink specials and proceeds will benefit the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM).

-- Olivia's next special dinner from Chef de Cuisine Andrew Francisco will be August 22, $110/person, with 11 courses and wine pairings.

-- Con Olio will be hosting Tom Mueller who wrote Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil for a book signing on August 25th. Arboretum location, 11a - 1pm, Lavaca location 2:30 - 4:30 pm.

-- Zhi Tea will celebrate their fifth anniversary in early September with some special classes and events. For more info, check them out here. 

-- Tickets for the Texas Craft Brewers Festival, to be held on October 6 at Fiesta Gardens, have gone on sale.

-- Very excited to see that LuLu B's has (finally!) extended their hours! The Vietnamese trailer at Lamar and Oltorf is now open  on Saturday evenings from 6 - 9 pm, and they appear to be offering some specials then as well. Hope this dinner thing will work out for them!

-- And finally, congrats to both Lenoir and Elizabeth Street Cafe, two hot spots that both opened right around Christmas, have both been recognized by Bon Appetit magazine as top 50 new restaurants.

Also excited to be going to a tasting for a possible new kabob trailer tonight! Stay tuned!!

·

Lenoir

My area of Bouldin Creek is becoming quite hip, and I am over the moon with the explosion of new eateries in the area. Now adding to the mix is Lenoir, in the old home of Somnio, on South 1st between Annie and Mary Streets. The prix-fixe restaurant is the work of Todd Duplechan, formerly of Trio at the Four Seasons Hotel, and his wife, Jessica Maher, a pastry chef and recent member of the Dai Due team. 

Like La Patisserie and Elizabeth Street Cafe, Lenoir has taken one of the neighborhood's cottage houses and transformed it. As I had seen previously written, the interior is a combination of dark masculine wood when you enter, surrounded by the more feminine feel of off-white gauzy/lacy curtains. The tables and chairs are wooden, painted in a light coat of white, so the grain of the wood is visible. The taller, cocktail-style tables have leather and brass stud accents on the corners, while the ten-seat community table in the middle of the room sits under a bank of lights, giving it a modern chandelier look. I believe I counted a total of 33 seats -- 9 at the bar, 10 at the community table, and 14 at the 2 and 4-top cocktail tables. It's not very big at all. Our waiter and his witticisms was always present, but not hovering.

Lenoir's menu is divided into four areas: field, sea, land, dream (dessert); you can pick any three dishes for $30, and additional ones are $10. The menu changes with what's available seasonally and locally.

My first course was the upma polenta with Brussels sprouts and carrots. It's actually a semolina (wheat) polenta, as opposed to the traditional corn. (May be a problem for gluten-free eaters, as it's not listed as wheat on the menu.) It had a nice late-hitting spiciness to it, from mustard seed and I am not sure what else. The baby Brussels were seared, and the carrots tender.

The second dish I had was axis venison in a spiced broth with haikurei turnips, sunflower sprouts, daikon radish (they were cut very thin, like angel hair pasta), and rawa noodles, made from toasted wheat. I would call this their take on a pho bowl. The venison was cooked beautifully, and the broth really had a nice flavor to it, and the two together were wonderful. While the waiter named cinnamon and star anise as being in the broth, the lingering flavor was the heat from the Balinese long peppers (they look like miniature, long pine cones), a  relation to black peppercorns.

For my third course, I had the chaubier cheese with almond nougatine, and grapefruit preserves from the local maker Confituras. And I apparently forgot to take a picture! Chaubier is a wash-rind, semi-firm goat and cow's milk cheese from France; I'd say a medium-strong cheese. It's creaminess was nice with the candied almonds and tart jam.


Other dishes my friend's had.... gulf shrimp with kabocha squash, kale and xo sauce. I was not familiar with xo before; it's made from dried fish, shrimp, scallops, along with chile peppers, garlic and other spices, and is often used in Cantonese foods. Lenoir is making their own, and it was fantastic. It really elevated this dish, giving it a great depth of flavor. (This dish was about to come off the menu, as kabocha is about out of season now.)

The chickpea panisse (like a polenta), oyster mushrooms, wilted winter greens, and a poached egg.

Red curry short ribs with scarlet runner beans

Chicken, shitake mushrooms, lettuce, carrots, and peanuts. While you wouldn't know it from it's description, this was a take on lettuce wraps.

Leftovers were packaged in a swan boat! (Maybe we'll call it a grackle instead...) On the table behind the swan was a black holder for a small vase of flowers, and also a salt cellar, with a flaky sea salt with lavender and herbs in it. It looked more like decoration until I looked more closely at it, and then tried it.

It's sort of hard to pin down the specific type of food that Lenoir is serving, and maybe that's their point. They have described themselves as making "hot weather food" -- spicy and acidic, and the Asian influences from the dishes I tried can attest to that. The name Lenoir refers to a varietal of French black grape, brought by the Spanish to Central America, and well-rooted in Texas, a parallel to the owners' own culinary journey. Glad their journey has brought them to our little neck of the woods.