Category: Dish of the Week

This restaurant has experimented endlessly with quail throughout its 28 months of existence. The dish has appeared on the menu in several iterations. I’ve had a cowboy comfort food version of the bird with buttermilk biscuits and pinto beans, a ancho-mustard glazed version, and a recent brunch incarnation was pancake-battered, fried and served with maple and hot sauce in egg foam.

The most recent version, currently available at dinner for ($18) includes a creamy egg salad and a savory Japanese-inspired soy caramel, made on one visit with fish and lamb bones and on another with smoked chicken feet. The whole bird is dredged with pumpkin and sesame seeds and fried to a clean, crunchy finish in sunflower seed oil, with pickled jalapeno slapping some puckered tang on the dish.

MyStatesman.com readers click here to find out where to get this whole fried quail.

 

These goat sliders deliver juicy, gamy flavor wrapped in puffed naan ($12). Flecks of roasted jalapeno put their aggressive stamp on charred patties the size of smashed golf balls, with pickled white onions adding pucker to the flavorful sandwich. Crumbled feta ($2 extra) tempers the sliders salty sting. I eat the garnish of fresh greens and tomatoes separately as a side salad, allowing the goat to shine with little adornment. My only complaint: I wish I got three little sliders instead of two for that price.

MyStatesman.com readers click here to find out where to buy these savory blasts.

You think Austin and San Antonio have beef over tacos?

The origin of the pupusa led to a minor international incident between El Salvador and Honduras during the negotiations of the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement in 2003, with each country wanting to claim the doughy treat as its exclusive export. The crisis was narrowly averted and a couple of years later the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly named the pupusa the country’s national dish. Problem solved?

The soft rounded stuffed masa at this East Austin restaurant come in several varieties. A creamy version at a recent lunch included quesillo cheese and a fatty paste of ground pork (chicharrón). The mixture is spread on the dough, which is then folded over and cooked (likely in pork fat) on a flat-top grill to a sunglow finish. A side of chopped cabbage in a pool of vinegar (cortido de repollo) gave a crunchy, acidic bite to cut the fat.

MyStatesman.com readers click here to find out more about the pupusas and where you can find them.

 

 

Gently sweet grilled pork? Check. Tangy, crunchy pickled carrot and daikon? Check and check. Floral cilantro, fierce raw jalapeno and homemade mayonnaise? Check, check and check. Housemade French baguettes? Well, seven-and-a-half out of eight isn’t bad.

This stuffed banh mi sandwich is one of my favorite of its kind in town. There’s probably more chargrilled pork stuffed into that soft roll than any banh mi I’ve had in town. No, the bread is not completely homemade, but they do finish the product they receive par-baked from out of state. Not bad for a trailer.

MyStatesman.com readers continue to find out where I got this great sandwich.

 

 

 

I had a little ritual my first few days in Tokyo last spring. Each morning I’d go to the mom-and-pop coffee shop next door to my AirBNB rental and enjoy a cup of coffee, hardboiled egg and fluffy Japanese milk bread. Flossy, feathery, plumped and slightly sweet, the bread reminded me of Texas toast on steroids.

On one piece I’d spread strawberry jam, the other came with a slice of ham hugged to the bread by melted cheese. We left that neighborhood after a few days, but I continued to savor variations of the bread throughout my trip to Japan.

I have finally found the fix for my Japanese milk bread cravings. This piece of nori tama toast comes topped with crumbled egg spread across the bread’s ivory expanse, with a melted layer of mozzarella holding it in place. The creamy and irony mixture is spotted with green onions and the oceanic flavors of dried seaweed bits.

Who needs breakfast tacos when you can have this?

MyStatesman.com readers follow the link to find out where to find the toast, along with some very good chicken katsu.

They stand sentry at the entrance to Walgreen’s. You work with their marketing directors, err, parents. Or, you are their parents. From mid-January to late-February the Girl Scouts and their tempting cookies are unavoidable.

At the threat of heresy, I will go on the record here and say that I am not a fan of the beloved Thin Mints. My GS cookie preferences lean towards the Samoas, though I won’t turn down a cold Tagalong or an almost-stale Do-Si-Do. Heck, even the gluten-free Toffee-tastics are pretty swell.

One local pastry chef has draw inspiration from the outfitted sugar dealers to create this marvelous take on the Samoas.

The chocolate-dipped cookies are topped with a slightly salty miso-butterscotch caramel and flakes of toasted coconut. It is the perfect combination of gooey and creamy, with a hidden crunch.

MyStatesman.com subscribers click here to find out where you can get these artisan treats.

• Related: Uproxx.com offers its “super scientific ranking” of Girl Scout cookies

 

 

When you order steamed fish dishes, especially ones soaking in sauce, you worry about sogginess. Will the fish hold up? Will it maintain springiness while absorbing its broth? The spicy jumping fish filet I recently ate did.

The restaurant says it uses flounder, and though a friend of mine swears it is the Vietnamese river fish swai, the quibble is unimportant. Swimming in sauce and covered in a shower of green onion and a confetti of red pepper, the chunks of white fish absorbed the sauce’s soy-fueled umami blast while maintaining a tender but firm consistency.

Find out where I got had this dish and read about a few more dishes from this South Austin restaurant on MyStatesman.com.

 

Tangy, tart, crunchy and creamy with a citrus-spritz iron punch of spinach, this week’s Dish of the Week is a longtime brunch standout.

Click here to read more and find out where to get it.