What I Ate: March 2, 2010 (Green Pastures)

Dinner: We went to Green Pastures (811 W Live Oak St, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 444-4747‎) for our first Austin Restaurant Week dinner of Spring 2010. We didn't get to see it very well because our dinner was after dark, but the land around the restaurant and the Victorian home that Green Pastures is housed in looked beautiful.

Green Pastures' Austin Restaurant Week menu looked so good and was such a good deal ($25 per person) that we couldn't resist ordering three meals instead of two. We tried everything on the menu except for one of the appetizer courses (we didn't order the South Texas Trio: A Little Quail, A Little Pork, and Some Chicken Bacon-wrapped jalapeno-stuffed Texas Quail; Pasilla-Nutmeg Pork En Croute; Ancho-Garlic Goat Cheese Chicken Sausage) because neither one of us wanted to share our lobster tail. The lobster tail - Breakfast in Vegas A Tempura Lobster Tail with Wasabi Mashed Potato, Coconut-Ginger Butter, Guajillo, Corriander [sic] and Crispy Basil - was rich (you'll see this an an ongoing theme with this dinner) and delicious. I loved the crunchy and well-seasoned tempura shell around the generous portion of lobster. Tina found the fried batter to be distracting and wished the lobster hadn't been fried so she could taste the lobster more.

A Soup, A Sandwich, and A Two AM Snack Cauliflower with White Truffle and Romano; Brie Sandwich with Mushroom Duxelle and Caramelized Onion Preserves; Garbanzo Cake with Avocado, Goast Cheese, Cured Tomato and Chimichurri. The brie sandwich was rich and flavorful with great textures - toasted exterior and warm gooey interior. Overall, it was quite sweet - for one person to eat both halves seemed like a bit much.

The garbanzo cake's flavor was milder than the brie sandwich. There was a nice interchange of acidic, earthy, and smoothness (from the goat cheese and avocado). The cauliflower soup was the mildest of the trio and deserves to be eaten first so the subtle flavors can be appreciated. The white truffle was subtle and lingered long after the soup was done.

Black Pepper and Red Chile Dusted Flat Iron Steak With Artisan Blue Cheese, Espresso Sausage, Hoisin, Grains of Paradise, Pecan Green Beans, Crispy Onions and Merlot-Spiced Apple Ring. At this point, I want to mention just how dark it was in the restaurant. In several cases, I couldn't see the food well enough to properly frame and compose my photographs (often cutting off parts of the food accidentally and relying on the image review screen to recompose the shots). As such, a couple of the dishes just didn't look very good, so I'm including more than one photo to give a better overall picture of what the food looked like (or would have looked like if we could see better). The lighting level was similar to Paggi House and brighter than Eddie V's. Speaking of Paggi House, we found Green Pastures to have a traditional / old-world take on fine dining when compared to Paggi House's contemporary style. The bonus that comes with the traditional dining experience is the relative quietness to the dining environment - it's not whisper quiet (like Chez TJ or Manresa in the San Francisco Bay Area) which I find a little uncomfortable, but conversations can be had without half-yelling.

The steak was perfectly cooked medium-rare (as we requested) and incredibly tender and had a strong grilled beef note throughout. We've had flat irons steaks before and this has got to be the best (and largest) flat iron (top blade) steak that we've had in a restaurant. The steak was large enough that it fed both Tina and I with a couple ounces left over (we did have some gnocchi and a few bites of the trout as well as the appetizers). They served about half of the top blade steak and, most notably, without the connective tissue / gristle that typically runs through this cut. The only "complaint" that I had was the seemingly excessive amount of blue cheese. The beef had a strong flavor which held up well to the sweet hoisin sauce but there was so much blue cheese that at times we could no longer taste the beef. Knocking down some of the cheese made it much more balanced.

Clove and Long Pepper Gnocchi with Exotic Mushrooms Roasted Chayote, Carrots, Parsnips, Asparagus, Pumpkin Seed Pesto, Navajo Bread and Shiraz-Comino Jus. This vegetarian course was surprisingly heavy. Of all the courses, I felt this one needed a hearty red wine to help cut some of the richness and keep the palate going. There were only a few pieces of the large chunk gnocchi made of smashed potatoes (which had small chunks as opposed to a finely riced potato) which didn't have any of the gumminess that I generally dislike about gnocchi. The vegetables were delicious (especially the chayote), but were so rich we couldn't eat much. Both Tina and I tried to eat as much as we could, but we quickly reached a point where we had to turn to what we considered a lighter dish - the steak! The serving portion was insanely large - our leftovers is probably enough to feed one of us for an entire meal (if we ate nothing else) or to split as (major) part of a meal.

Garlic Fennel Pollen Trout with Butter Poached Shrimp Morels, Lobster-Brandy Mashed Potatoes and Grilled Asparagus. This was the only dish that was not well executed (even if the others were a little strong or a bit rich for us, they were still wonderfully prepared). The trout and shrimp were underseasoned and the melted fat (butter?) on the plate wasn't flavored enough to help even when dragged the fish through it. Strangely enough, our attentive server decided to not show up for a while at this point in the meal, so we never got the opportunity to ask for some salt and pepper. Both the fish and the shrimp were a tad overcooked with the proteins just a little over tight and providing a little too much resistance.

Another angle on the trout and shrimp.

Texas Pecan Ball Large Scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream Rolled in Crushed Pecans and Homemade Fudge Sauce. Their fun presentation of a ice cream sundae provided a tasty baseball of vanilla ice cream with a tasty fudge sauce. Unfortunately, the pecans were soft (soggy?). I would have preferred it if the pecans were toasted or even candied - more flavor and better texture.

Cheesecake Rich and Velvety New York Style Cheesecake with Raspberry and Blackberry Sauces. I found the cheesecake to be quite sweet and nicely tangy. The texture was very light and fluffy - I expected (and prefer) a denser cheesecake.

Green Pastures Bread Pudding Traditional New Orleans Style Bread Pudding with White Chocolate, Pecans, Cinnamon, and Nutmeg. Served with Jack Daniels Sauce. I really liked this bread pudding - but then I love most bread puddings. The flavor was a good mix of pleasant spices with rich, creamy pudding. The Jack Daniels Sauce was very flavorful (but became a bit too much during the last few bites which had more sauce).

Naturally, after tasting all the food, we had plenty of leftovers due to over ordering and the tremendous portion sizes. They packed all our food for us in biodegradable containers, but couldn't provide us with a bag. We had to balance this stack all the way home.

Overall, for food this rich, portioning could have been reduced to balance the meal (even though we ordered three meals, Tina and I finished only about 1.5 meals). For big eaters, this Restaurant Week menu is a bargain - I'd recommend ordering the lobster, steak, and bread pudding for your meal.

Lunch: Reheated frozen Chicken McNuggets by microwaving for a few seconds to heat the interior followed by a few minutes in a convection oven to crisp the exterior.