Thai Beef Salad

Thai Beef Salad, my dinner tonight, pictured with a wicked hot Thai pepper out of the garden

I love this, and it is a perfect way to prepare leftover sirloin, which is common in my house because I love grilled steak. (My other favorite way to use leftover steak is a steak sandwich with mayonnaise on squishy white bread. And potato chips.) Most of the ingredients are right in the Central Texas garden in fall and winter.

Chopped up hot pepper, onion, mint, sacred basil, cilantro, and cucumber

You will need:

Leftover grilled sirloin, rare (buy grass-fed if you can find it. It has TWICE the flavor of conventional, and more omerga-3 oils, and JUST DO AS I COMMAND!)

Lettuce

A sweet onion (a 1014 or a Bermuda or a few shallots)

10 strands (or more) of Cilantro

A fat sprig or two (or four) of Mint

Sacred Basil if available, one sprig (or 3)

A cucumber

A carrot

Fresh hot peppers (2) or ONE SMALL THAI pepper (!)

Pickled hot peppers if you don’t have fresh

One clove of garlic

Fish sauce (one or two teaspoons)

Lime or lemon or Meyer lemon (all the juice of one)

Tablespoon of sugar

Adding the sliced rare sirloin

This salad is fun to make because everything is cold, there is no rush and no worries about overcooking anything, you can just kind of zone out while you are chopping.

Thinly slice clove of garlic and fresh hot pepper. Then thinly slice roughly a quarter of the sweet onion (less if it is big) and the cucumber and toss all the chopped up things in a bowl. Add pickled hot pepper if your fresh pepper isn’t spicy.

(HAVE I MENTIONED THAT ONE SMALL THAI PEPPER IS ENOUGH TO MAKE IT VERY, VERY HOT?)

A bed of just-picked Red Oak Leaf and Buttercrunch lettuce

Put the carrot through the fine grater and add. Deleaf and chop up the cilantro, mint, and Thai basil and add. Slice up the leftover sirloin as thinly as you can without undue strain, and toss in the rest of the stuff. In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, lime juice, and fish sauce. Pour over the salad and toss. Serve on a bed of lettuce.

My Reward: The Best Meal of 2009, and maybe OF MY LIFE! at UCHI

THe UCHI Sign

After I had completed my HERCULEAN task, I thought to myself, what do I want to EAT?

Now, I have had a $25 gift card to UCHI, that I got in my Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival Swag Bag, since April. $25 at UCHI, normally, I think will get you 2 sushi rolls and a water, which is why I didn’t use it yet, and just kept HOARDING it: I knew that on THE PERFECT DAY it would be THE PERFECT TREAT for ME. That I would go to the UCHI sushi bar, at like an “off” time (like first thing when they open at 5) and sit there in the cool dimness of the air conditioning and delect my $25 away.

I decided that using my hoarded gift card would be a JUST reward for my HERCULEAN WEEDING.

The very nice apprentice Sushi Chef directly in front of me

I got there around 6 (after stopping to photograph rain lilies on the way) and my eyes could barely believe it: it WASN’T BUSY! This has never happened to me! I was seated at the sushi bar (because you know, I was figuring to get 2 rolls and a glass of water). I had idly wondered if they had a Happy Hour on the way there (in which case my $25 could go farther) but I figured not, because, it’s UCHI, they have a three hour wait, they don’t need no stinking Happy Hour!

My New Friend JODY who is friends of TRISH

My server came over and I felt bad about just ordering a water, but, you know, $25! Her name was JODY and she was really nice about it.  First they gave me a hot towel (so fancy! YAY!) and then a tiny bowl of cucumber sorbet. Naturally I relaxed into a totally mellow and sensual Freak-Out, plus, it was actually kind of quiet and dim in the dining room, like in my FANTASY (it is usually quite loud because they are always packed, plus, since it is the Best Restaurant In Town, lots of Yahoos like to bring their dates to UCHI because their heads are too empty to think of any OTHER way to impress a date. These sorts of Yahoos are usually LOUD, in my experience. So, usually totally full, plus a certain percentage of Yahoos).

Cucumber Sorbet to BEGIN THE EXPERIENCE WOOOOOOOOOO

Then Jody came over again and said, weren’t you at OLIVIA the other day?

I said “Yes” and Jody said, “I was there too! I was with Trish!” (Trish is the lady pictured in the picture “My New Friends”) Jody told me all about UCHI’s HAPPY HOUR: there was 4 things half price (or greatly reduced). I ordered two of them:

SHIROMI NABE (seasonal tempura whitefish with shiitake mushrooms, fresh ginger and japanese eggplant frites) and the CRUNCHY TUNA ROLL. Then I just sat back to enjoy my sorbet and my glass of water in pleased anticipation, also figuring that since my order was of REDUCED PRICE HAPPY HOUR stuff, I might could get one more thing.

The SHIROMI NABE, when it arrived, was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my entire GODDAM LIFE. The tempura Striped Bass filet and Japanese eggplant sticks were so light and hot that they levitated up out of the bowl and solemnly danced before my eyes, and I had to snatch them out of the air to dip them in the hot ginger and mushroom sauce. Outwardly I preserved my “Austin Geek with Bad Hair” nonchalance, but inwardly I wept tears of adamantine and beat my fist against the sushi bar, groaning “I CANNOT LIVE! I CANNOT LIVE!!!”

Then, Jody brought me an order of KAI JIRU (maine mussels٠tomato water٠celery٠basil blossoms) ON THE HOUSE!

Brooks

(A word about Getting Stuff For Free: Long ago in the late 80′s, when I was a young rock star, I went to Liberty Lunch one night to see the band Doctor’s Mob. At the long and busy bar, I ordered a Shiner Bock (this was The. Beer. to order in Austin in the Eighties, because it was made by the Shiner Brewery in Shiner ,Texas, which was, at the time, (this was LONG LONG before the microbrewery explosion) the One and Only INDEPENDENT BREWERY in all of Texas (Lone Star and Pearl having been bought up by conglomerates.) So, ordering a Shiner was a SUBVERSIVE ACT in favor of the Little guy. Also, a great  and tasty beer, and not expensive.)

And the bartender handed it to me and turned to help someone else. I got their attention again and said “I’M NOT PLAYING TONIGHT!” thinking that the Free Beer had been an error, that the bartender must have thought my band was on the bill (and thus entitled to a couple a free beers as partial payment.) The bartender said “I KNOW“.

I turned away in wonder. I don’t remember if I figured it out myself, or if I had to ask someone about this strange experience and have it explained to me, but ultimately the upshot was: Liberty Lunch gave me a free beer because I was a celebrity and they wanted me to hang around at their club because my very presence made the place COOLER!

Can you even IMAGINE how great that is? Every free beer I got anywhere for the next decade was like a loving hug, and yes, it was sad when that era ended.

Maine mussels in Tomato Water with Celery and Basil

But now! Now I got a FREE BOWL OF MUSSELS IN TOMATO WATER! Not for being a cool celebrity, but probably because I was friends with Trish from the OLIVIA party, but still! IT WAS AWESOME.

And the mussels in tomato water were awesome, too. There were so fresh that I felt like I was in New England; they were perfectly cooked and chilled, and the flavors of the sweet local tomatoes and crisp celery and basil was marvelous and so summery. It was by far the Best Mussel Dish I have ever had!

Sometime in there my friend Brooks came over (he works there) and shot the breeze with me for awhile. We used to work together and once everyone saw us chatting the rest of the staff warmed up to me a little more, because they realized I am a member of the Restaurant Worker Club. ( I bussed tables for Twenty Years (yes twenty years) and waited tables for ten, and have also worked as a baker and line cook and dishwasher and hostess and night manager at various times.)

The Tuna Roll

Then Jody brought me my Tuna Roll, which was perfect and crunchy, with squid ink on one side and spicy mayonnaise on the other. I could have eaten two, and I actually thought about ordering another, when what happened by CHEF TYSON COLE walked by behind the Sushi Bar, and I waved “HELLO!” at him.

And then HE gave me a food gift too! He had a special sashimi plate prepared for me:

Tyson Cole!

Special Sashimi with Fresh Local Tomato

It was a wonderful and special and tasted like summer itself. Plus, now I was really getting the Royal Treatment! The CHEF recognized me and gave me a free item, just because he KNEW I would PROPERLY APPRECIATE IT!

Octopus Pops

At this point I was in such ecstasy (and really patting myself on the back for deciding to use my Gift Certificate THAT VERY DAY!) that I ordered ONE more Happy Hour item: the Octopus Pops. These are tiny grilled octopi on skewers, just a tidbit, but the delights I was eating were paced so perfectly that I still felt a little hungry. The Octopus Pops were slightly crunchy, slightly chewy and just delicious.

Feeling like a Roman Emperor, I asked for the bill (plus it was getting to be late, and I had just stopped in for a quick treat initially.) THEN! THEN! I was favored with FREE DESSERT ON THE HOUSE TOO!!!

OKASHI (olive candy٠grapefruit sorbet٠yogurt caramel) The description doesn’t do it justice; the grapefruit sorbet was, alone, divine. I was instructed to be sure to eat all the components simultaneously, which I did, and I found that the candied olives, caramel sauce, and rosemary rice cake complemented the sorbet (and one another) in ways that could never be predicted. It was sublime, and unforgettable.

OKASHI (which probably means "DESSERT")

Eating Out in Fort Davis Texas: The Hotel Limpia Dining Room

The rustic authentic West Texas feel of the DINING ROOM

I know, I know, the TITLE of the blog..no wait, the SUBTITLE of the blog is “Organic Gardening, Cooking, and Dining Out in Austin Texas”, but I owe it to my readers to inform you about places I eat when I am traveling!  Because, let’s face it, it is fairly easy to dine well in Austin, but when you drive out of this Food Mecca,  finding a decent place to eat can be A TRAUMA.

Honestly, HONESTLY, I am well traveled, and not a big SNOOT ( I am NOT!) but quite often when traveling, the best one can hope for is a decent truckstop. A decent truckstop is, A DECENT TRUCKSTOP, something to be wept tears of joy over, after a few days of fast food “breakfast sandwiches”. (Lawton, Oklahoma, I am LOOKING AT YOU!)

So I was totally thrilled (as is COULD NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT) when, on our recent long weekend in Fort Davis, Texas,  we tried out the Dining Room at the Limpia Hotel (where we were staying) and found that it was Excellent.

I imagine that there was a time, in the Olden Days, when going out into the country meant getting “farm-fresh” food prepared by hand, because, well, that is all there was and that was the only way people knew. Now, in these Upside-Down Modern TImes, it is the City Folks who are more likely to be insisting on farm-fresh ingredients prepared by hand, and out in the country one is a lot more likely to find canned, frozen and microwaved-in-a-bag offerings.

But not at THE HOTEL LIMPIA! Everything they do at the Hotel Limpia is done Properly, so it shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise that the Dining Room was no exception. But it was a surprise, to me anyway, because I have been disappointed so many times before. Everything we ordered was fresh and handmade. Everything.

Freshly tossed bowl of salad and handmade biscuits

The salad was freshly cut and tossed at the table, and served with fresh handmade biscuits. (A note about handmade fresh biscuits: this is a quick bread that is so easy to make that virtually every housewife in America made them daily. Now, they are so rare, even is restaurants, even in fancy restaurants, that people often can’t even identify what they are, and mistake them for cornbread, even though they contain no corn meal. I should do a post on Biscuits! Everyone is America could have fresh hot biscuits for breakfast everyday if they chose to, they are THAT EASY!)

The menu had many interesting choices. I had a difficult time choosing between the Rio Grande Chicken (made with fresh local chickens!) and the Chicken-Fried Beef Tenderloin. Since the Chicken-Fried Beef Tenderloin had been written about in a magazine (Texas Highways, I think?). I opted for the beef.

Ice tea, biscuits, chicken-fried steak, steamed vegeatabels and mashed pertaters

It was everything it should and possibly COULD be! The beef was fork-tender, battered lightly, and the gravy was perfect: rich and flavorful and real. A side dish contained fresh mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and carrots, all fresh and deeply flavorful.

Mr. T. had the Vegetarian Dinner: the same salad, biscuits, mashed potatoes, carrots, and broccoli that I enjoyed, plus marvelous grilled tomatoes. Since he hates tomatoes, I got them, too!! They were outstanding.

The Hotel Limpia Dining room was so fantastic, I wanted to eat there every night we were there. But I owe it to you, my readers, to try many restaurants when I travel, to screen them for you and advise you. So the next night we ate at THE LION’S DEN, or, as it is known in Espanol: Cueva de Leon. Review forthcoming!

Gumbo’s on Colorado Street

Crab Cake with Chipotle Aioli

Well, as we head into the Autumn…what am I saying? It was 104˚ today and it is merely the beginning of August! Autumn is MONTHS away in Central Texas!

(Ahem) As the rest of the country looks toward Autumn, the Food Blogger Events are starting up again. I have to admit, in the middle of the summer, my interest in eating waned; I was glad there were no events. But this week it sounded like fun again, and good thing, because the invitations are piling up. Tonight was GUMBO’S Food Blogger Happy Hour, and they did it up in style.

It is a wretched aspect of human nature, but the better you are treated, the higher your standards get. Nowadays, in order to feel fully feted, I expect a free drink IN ADDITION to the free food. Although all I had at GUMBO’S was 1/2 a glass of white wine, I really appreciated that half-glass.

But even in addition to this, GUMBO’S raised the bar even higher: they provided FREE valet parking. Any restaurant that does not have sufficient parking who does not offer this, I am afraid, is going to compare unfavorably to GUMBO’S in the future. (In my wee brain, that is.)

Redfish Francine

We were treated to five different menu items:

Blackened Beef Tenderloin topped with Crab Bernaise

The Crab Cake: served with chipotle aioli and jicama slaw. These were all gone when I got there (except the one in the photo that was reserved for photographic purposes) so I didn’t get to taste it. It was the favorite of several bloggers I spoke to, and the jicama slaw and chipotle aioli were praised.

Oysters Rockefeller: This was my personal Fave; an oyster shell filled with a dollop of creamed spinach with just a hint of Pernod, topped with 2 fried oysters and Parmeson cheese. Really well done, all the flavors in great balance. The fried oysters were a clever twist, and the soft spinach provided the missing mouthfeel. LOVELY!

Redfish Francine: Blackened redfish served over crawfish tails in creamy tarragon sauce. The redfish was perfectly cooked, however, I found the sauce a little too bland and the crayfish tails a little to0 small and hard.

Oyster Rockefeller: AWESOME!!

Tenderloin George: Blackened Beef Tenderloin topped with crabmeat in Bernaise, in a red wine reduction. This tenderloin was so tender I actually DID cut it with a spoon, and it was just delicious. The red wine reduction was insufficiently acidic; it could have been reduced a good bit more for a more robust flavor. I would, however, happily eat a platter of these tenderloins!

South Louisiana Bread Pudding: Lovely presentation and I particularly liked the ice cream/bread pudding combination. The pudding was a little dense, I think due to the sort of bread used (it may have been whole wheat).

All in all, the refined atmosphere, white tablecloths, warm woodwork and freezing air conditioning, coupled with the not unduly spicy cajun-influenced menu, makes GUMBO’S the kind of place that is perfect to take your folks or any other group when you want to go somewhere “nice”, but you don’t want the food to be unduly spicy or unfamiliar. The staff is excellent as well.

Baking the Bread Puddings in Tiny Muffin Cups was Clever!

Parkside Food Blogger Happy Hour

Chef Shawn

Chef Shawn Cirkiel at Parkside invited the Blogitariat down to his place for a Food Blogger Happy Hour to showcase an 8-course tasting menu. I have read about Parkside (particularly M.M. Pack’s Review, which interested me greatly) and I knew it’s general location, but I have never been. Based on the tastes of their menu I enjoyed tonight, Parkside completely lives up to the hype; this place is a real contender.

The concept of the restaurant is one of simplicity: like a white plate, the bare-bones decor and airy basic-ness of the rooms serves to put the emphasis on the food itself. Even the descriptions of the “tastes” (“fluke, lemon, almonds”) were so simple that I wasn’t sure whether I was going to taste one thing, or three. I gather that the regular menu is also strangely plain in style.

"fluke, lemon, almonds"

But, on to the tastes! First we sampled “Fluke, lemon, almonds”. It came in a little ceramic spoon, and it was very mild, simple, and delicious.

Next, Crab Balls. These were served with fresh herbs, Greek oregano and tarragon, and a remoulade sauce. I very much liked the Crab Balls, mainly because they had an interesting texture: the outer fried shell was chewy, and the inside rather airy, which made a delightful contrast. 

Crab Balls

Next was the Hit of the Evening: Green Garlic Soup with Duck Confit. Unassuming at first, the creamy, mild soup developed in flavor as it was consumed, and at the bottom of the cup were tiny splinters of Duck Confit, just salty and savory enough to intrigue the palate. Many of us agreed that we would crawl on our bare knees back to Parkside to have it again. This soup is a real triumph!

The Biggest Hit: Green Garlic Soup with Duck Confit

Next, salami with house pickles. This was a perfectly nice little mouthful, but what I REALLY loved were the pickles. Wee slivers of carrot, but pickled with unusual spices, in what I believe to have been Rice Wine Vinegar; I thought I detected the flavor of lemongrass.

Salami with house pickles

The next taste was salmon, green beans and Linguica: this was one of the more entree-like tastes, a fairly substantial piece of salmon. The combination of green beans and the bacon-like flavor the the Portuguese sausage was quite Southern, and the flavors worked quite well with the salmon, which was perfectly cooked.

The Salmon

Lamb Belly in the Blue light of Evening (this is natural light!)

Lamb Belly with sweet potato puree and chili oil was the next taste; “belly” is very trendy right now, and I have had some wonderful pork belly dishes; but this was my least favorite of the tastes, mainly because the lamb belly was quite fatty and the sauce too mild.

Bar Steak with Crispy Onions

Bar steak with mushrooms and onions was next, and it was classic. What can be better than steak with mushrooms and onions and red wine? The mushrooms in question were Hen-of-the -Wood, a particularly awesome and relatively rare mushroom (Kitchen Pride grows them, but they ain’t cheap) and the onions were fresh-fried in skinny, darling little floppy rings, just the way I like ‘em.

Dessert was the OTHER big Hit of the Evening (for me, anyway!) Described simply as “Petite Chocolate Crunch”, I have to say it was one of the best desserts I have had in recent memory: a bar of alternating layers of chocolate and crunchy wafer, melded together so seamlessly that you aren’t even sure what the crunchiness you are experiencing comes from! A very delicate crunch, too, like that of rice crispies, if they were as thin as tracing paper. On top, a tiny scoop of banana ice cream, topped with a disc of chocolate wafer. OUTSTANDING!

Banana Ice Cream melts over the Chocolate Crunch

The dessert chef, Callie Whigham,  is apparently quite a star, and the other bloggers also discussed the excellence of her Donut Holes. Mmmmm. Donut Holes. I am going to have to go back!