The Good Knight

RIDICULOUSLY good salad!

This is a review I wrote for the Austin Chronicle. But when I post it on my blog, I can put Photos!

The Good Knight

1300 E. Sixth, 628-1250

Tuesday-Sunday, 5pm-2am, food until 12mid; Mondays, closed

The Good Knight is easy to miss as you drive down East Sixth; the sign is not particularly well-lit, and the restaurant is on the ground floor of a two-story brick building with a forbidding, Prohibition-era blind front. Part of the Good Knight’s allure is its hidden-gem ambiance; it feels like an anachronistic neighborhood bar, kept secret by the locals. Parking is a breeze. The decor is Fifties dive-on-a-budget: stained plywood partitions, good quality chairs and tables, and very dim lighting. It reminds me of the nightclub where Dorothy Vallens performs in the movie Blue Velvet, a theatrical version of the 1950s, not unlike a movie set.

It’s also a perfect place to wear your vintage cocktail dress. The Good Knight specializes in cocktails and boasts a comprehensive and absolutely fun list of house specialties including Pimm’s Cup and Grasshopper, along with the more mainstream Harvey Wallbanger, Sidecar, Manhattan, and Old Fashioned. The cocktails are $6, $7, and $8, making this a very popular watering place, as the quality of the mixology is superb, and the price is right! Six rotating, select draft beers are also available, as is wine; there’s a strong sense, however, that the wine is intended to be enjoyed with the food.

Fried Red and Green Tomatoes

The food here is anachronistic, as well: It is extremely good, even though you are in a bar. The focus is tight: The menu is a mere 14 items, and substitutions are not encouraged. Though the menu has been described as “rustic Conti nental,” it’s actually a mixture of classic Amer i can dishes, such as chicken potpie and meat loaf, and Gallic ones such as pâté and mush room caviar. But everything is prepared with such skill and with such superfresh, locally sourced ingredients, that it seems Cont nent al. It is the opposite of “bar food”; it is cuisine.

Chicken Pot Pie topped with Puff Pastry

There is but one salad ($6.50): an airy pile of achingly fresh, tender local greens, tossed with house-made butter croutons, cashews, and pickled mushrooms, dressed with a simple balsamic vinaigrette. I knew once I tasted it that everything I was going to eat that night was going to be wonderful; it is a perfect salad. There is only one soup, as well ($7), a soup of the day that changes with the seasons; this evening it was a hearty lentil and vegetable. The fried tomatoes ($7.50), a large appetizer featuring thick slices of breaded red and green tomatoes, crisply fried and reposing in a small pool of garlic aioli, is the best version of this Southern favorite I have yet experienced. The popular chicken potpie ($10.50), a sturdy bowl of thyme-seasoned chicken, Yukon Gold potatoes, mushrooms, and carrots suspended in thick gravy, is topped with whisper-light, golden puff pastry. The meat loaf ($12), made of pure Angus beef and topped with whiskey gravy, is accompanied by rich, dense mashed potatoes and the perfectly cooked vegetable of the day, a carrot and kale mixture that was just as good as, well, everything else on the menu. There are two desserts: an Earl Grey-infused chocolate pots de crème ($6) and a crustless buttermilk coconut pie with blue berry compote ($5). I chose the pots de crème, and it was dense and creamy, with deep chocolate flavor and just a dab of fluffy white hard sauce on top.

Mmmmm Chocolate Pot de Creme with HARD SAUCE....I said Hard Sauce...heh heh

There is a definite sense that the kitchen purposefully limits itself to what chefs Christopher Concannon and Lisa Newmeyer know can be done consistently to perfection, even on a busy night. If ever an Austinite sent up a prayer that there might be a civilized place to get both a decent cocktail and a decent meal, the Good Knight is the answer to that prayer.

Balance

Because this week was a full calendar of “Eatin’For Free” (two restaurant reviews, the Farm to Table event, and two restaurant opening parties, and the Thai+Cocktail class), I have striven, when eating breakfast, to eat absolutely fat-free. liver-cleansing HEALTHY HEALTHY HEALTHY food. Here is what I had for breakfast yesterday: swiss chard, red pepper, and leeks braised in stock, topped with poached eggs. For an egg dish made without butter, it was more than tolerable.

Harvesting the Artichokes

Seven Artichokes Today

Unlike my other ongoing series “Things to do with Spinach” and “Things to do with Carrots”, there is no creativity involved with artichokes: you cook them, you eat them. (I suppose if you had unbelievable shitloads you could pick them small and pickle them, or throw most the it away and just use the hearts in various dishes; but I don’t think I could stand to be that wastefull!)

This one is Fixing to bloom

I am growing a LOT of artichokes this year (I have ten plants), but both of my neighbors adore them, so I am never going to be burdened with too many.  The major variety involved with artichokes, for me, is whether to eat them hot or cold. But in the weather we have been having (low 90′s and 2000% humidity) I have been favoring COLD.

Tipsy Thai

Jam Explains Thai Cooking Principles

The Tipsy Texan and Thai Fresh are getting together to offer cooking classes that combine Jam Sanichat’s amazing Thai appetizers with David Allan’s classic cocktails. The Blogitariat was invited last night to preview the class, and, as anticipated, it was the cat’s pajamas!

Corn Fritter Batter

The first class of this type is going to be offered next Wednesday (May 13th) and I really can’t recommend it enough! Not only because no one’s Thai cooking skillz can touch Jam’s, but also because  you are not going to get a better cocktail than from the Tipsy Texans. It is a Foodie’s Delite!!

David Allan

(Not surprisingly, both of these local maestros are going to be contributing to the prestigious Farm to Table Dinner tonight at the Barr Mansion. The dinner is SOLD OUT, which is wonderful, as all the proceeds go to the Sustainable Food Center.)

First David Allan demonstrated the correct way to make a Daquiri: fresh lime juice, white rum (he used our local Treaty Oak brand) and simple syrup. In fact, most of the cocktail demonstration was the (in my opinion) rather common-sensical stressing of the fact that one should make one’s cocktails out of REAL INGREDIENTS, rather than fake chemicals and mixes. But I live in a little Foodie Paradise where I wouldn’t dream of making anything out of chemicals and mixes; there are, in fact, many people who DO! Well, this class will show anyone who uses a chemical mix the error of their ways.

Mojito! This is a Mojito, not a Mint Julep!!

In the course of the lesson in mixology, we learned the Proper Way to make a Mint Julep, a Margharita, a Daquiri, and we previewed the cocktail Allen has created for the Barr Mansion event tonight. Of course, each cocktail was sampled, making for a very merry class!

About halfway through the cocktail lesson, Jam took us into her kitchen and we learned how to make the classic Thai appetizer Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce and Cucumber Salad. Although it is an appetizer with many nuances and seems terribly time-consuming and fancy, it really isn’t that hard, and can easily be made at home.

Thai Cucumber salad with Shallots, Jalapenos, and Red Peppers

Strawberry Margharitas made from Fresh muddled strawberries, lime juice, agave nectar and tequila

Jam also shared with us a recipe she developed for Corn Fritters, made in the manner of Thai Fish Balls (but vegetarian.) Oh My God!!  SO DELICIOUS!!!!!  Jam said that when she was developing the recipe, she made a plateful, and a customer asked to try one, and then bought the whole batch. I have no doubt at all this is true, because left to my own devices I might have eaten the whole platter. Wonderful texture, wonderful flavor.

The Fritters

Without a doubt, one of the finest cooking classes I have taken, and one I would pay to take again.

Sunday Fair

Massive lines to jam yourself into the packed tents

The final event of the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival is a shebang called “Sunday Fair”, which takes place on the last day of the Festival. Last year it was staged at a big, shady park in Georgetown; this year it was held at the Vineyard at The Salt Lick in Spicewood. I think it always MUST be held outside of Austin, because it must be held in a big field where multiple enormous tents can be put up, and there has to be ample parking for thousands.

Ann and Sam

I went to Sunday Fair with fellow food writer Ann Guidry and her baby Sam. The weather was PERFECT: In the low seventies and breezy and sunny. So perfect, in fact, that I believe attendance was greater than anticipated. The event was MOBBED!  The Vineyard at the Salt Lick was not as nice as the park in Georgetown; there was no shade at all, and one could not sit on the ground because it had recently rained and the ground was muddy. (So muddy that hay had to be distributed to prevent some areas from becoming enormous mires.) There was  a prohibition on bringing in collapsible chairs, so essentially, once you got there you were sentenced to be on your feet for the duration. 

Sunday Fair  works like this: for $40 each attendee gets to try all the Texas wine he/she cares to sample, with some free food samples as well. I have only attended twice (this year and last); last year the food samples were noticeably outnumbered by the wine samples, and this year the food vendors were even more rare. It would be a gross exaggeration to say that there were only 4 vendors serving food; but that is what it SEEMED like. All the lines for food were long and slow, and the food-dealing vendors seemed overwhelmed.

Sullivan's Steakhouse gives out the grub

I don’t think this was an oversight by the Festival or anything. I think it is just a function of giving away food being far more costly than giving away wine, and the rewards of doing so being less. After all, if you want people to try your wine, it’s great marketing to give a lot of wine fanatics free tastes. Chances are you are going to recruit some new customers.

Food, on the other hand: even if people really like your food sample, it doesn’t mean they are going to come to your restaurant. People who are sampling a lot of wine are going to be seeking out food, partly to offset the effect of the alcohol, and also because alcohol stimulates the appetite. They are going to be glad to get some food, but the likelihood they are going to seek any specific food item out again is low, especially if it is from a restaurant that is generally out of their price range. I do not doubt the food vendors in the past have found participating in the Sunday Fair to be a losing proposition. In the future, I think the Festival may have to at least make it a break-even proposition for the food vendors.

Sullivan's Prime Rib, Potatoes and Beans

 I was there for the duration, and I am pretty sure thousands of people attended. Feeding a couple of thousand (or more) people has got to cost a fortune! One restaurant that was cheerfully dishing out a tremendous amount of food was Sullivan’s Steakhouse; they gave each person a fairly nice serving of prime rib, mashed potatoes and green beans. I noticed that their signage said “$5 Martinis for Happy Hour!” (the same price as 3 Forks Steakhouse) which leads me to believe there is a Martini Happy Hour Price War going on Downtown!

The line for Barbeque

The Salt Lick also handed out vast amounts of barbeque, and also, being the very first thing attendees came to, not a single person declined.

One of the standouts in the food department were The Leaning Pear Cafe of Wimberly, who offered an outstanding pumpkin soup: creamy, balanced, and perfected seasoned. It is one of their rotating soups; I would happily drive to Wimberly to have it again, it was that good.

AWESOME Sweet Potato Soup

Pure Luck Goat Cheese impressed me YET AGAIN, as well. They have introduced a new Bleu goat cheese, creamy and not too strong, that I have tried to buy in the store twice now since Sunday Fair, but it is always sold out. I would have to say it is the best local Bleu I have tasted, not unlike a Cambazola. Once all the local chefs taste it, it will be impossible to get, if it isn’t already. It’s fantastic.

Pure Luck outdoes itself AGAIN

CAKE BALLS!

I was also thrilled by Cake Balls! Apparently, Cake Balls have been around long enough to be passe (they are beloved of brides, because they lend themselves to buffet dining.) Well, I missed the memo, because I had never heard of Cake Balls before and they are charming. Also: never dry. Of the many varieties offered by Cake by Bridges, my favorite was the lemon.

After swilling down many tastes of Texas wines, all of which hit the spot, I arrived at home still hungry, and made myself a couple of tacos. The few tastes of food provided really weren’t enough to last a person from noon til 5 PM.

Chicken, cilantro, goat cheese, avocado and japapeno taco