What I Ate: July 9, 2010 (ASTI Trattoria 10th Annual LobsterFest)

Lunch: We went to ASTI Trattoria (408 East 43rd Street, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 451-1218‎) to try their lobster roll (available only on July 9th this year) which was a lunch special kicking off their annual LobsterFest. Before we had the lobster roll, they brought us a little amuse of crostini with gorgonzola and honeyed grains.

After speaking to Emmett Fox (owner of ASTI Trattoria and FINO), we tried their Grilled House-made Sausage & Tomato Sauce Fresca Polenta which was one of the best tasting polentas I've had. The Anson Mills Organic Corn Meal was cooked until it was soft and springy and had enough strength in flavor to be well matched with the savory and spicy sausage and the tart tomato sauce.

Mr. Fox also brought us an extra serving of their House-made Sausage which had a somewhat loosely packed, moderate ground texture that I really enjoyed.

The special arrived next - Maine Style Lobster Rolls with Housemade Potato Chips. The lobster roll had some good points and some bad points, which I think could have been worked out over time, but having a special for one lunch only makes it tough to get perfect. The lobster itself tasted fresh and pleasant except for one part of claw meat that Tina got which was unusually fishy. The saucing of the lobster was a bit heavy handed with considerably more runny mayonnaise dressing than was necessary. The dressing itself could have used a little more scallions and a lot less lemon juice. In fact, the acidity of the dressing was so high that halfway through our rolls, Tina and I had to extract the lobster meat and scrape off the excess dressing before we could eat more. The last problem with the lobster roll was the excessive butter flavor on the toasted buns. Butter is essential for making a lobster roll with the right combination of flavors, but when there's too much, it overwhelms the lobster salad inside the roll. Since lobster has a naturally mild flavor (a gentle sweetness) that you don't want to mask, it's best to make lobster rolls with a flavorful, but balanced dressing and mild butteriness. In this case, I felt the lobster roll was predominantly butter and acid with the lobster taking backstage.

The chips that came with the lobster roll were also a bit of a mixed bag. Some chips (the darker ones) were very crispy and crunchy. Others, the blond ones, were too lightly fried and still limp and in some cases soggy with oil. In addition, the salting wasn't evenly distributed from chip to chip with some over seasoned and others not at all. There were several perfect chips (well-fried and moderately salted) which made me glad that they came with the lobster roll and that I had the opportunity to eat them.

Lastly, we tried their Simply Tomato, Mozzarella & Basil Leaves Pizza with prosciutto. The pizza crust was relatively crispy but not as thin as we were hoping. I found the pizza a little over-topped for its thickness and this style. I prefer my tomato, mozzarella, and fresh basil thin crust pizzas to be light on the heavy substances - melted low-moisture mozzarella and tomato sauce - to balance with the refreshing lightness of the basil. (It's even easier when using fresh mozzarella since the flavor and texture of fresh mozzarella is bright and refreshing which pairs well with fresh basil and acts as good a counterpoint to the heavier olive oil based tomato sauce.) In this pizza, I felt that there was a tad too much olive oil, tomatoes, and mozzarella for the crust to support resulting in toppings that slide off and a soggy center. It's possible that simply cutting down on the mozzarella and draining the tomatoes could solve this problem, but that's just conjecture.

Dinner: Tina cooked fried rice with left over white rice, eggs, peas, carrots, and Kiolbassa-brand Mesquite Smoked Beef Sausage. She also sauteed broccoli rabe to accompany the rice.