As I said below – we will indeed be serving dinner tonight. What does Ben know, anyway??? Salade lyonaise is back on the menu, and we’ll have coq au vin this evening if I have anything to say about it.  (Oh – also we’re closed tomorrow, but we’ll be open again on Friday.)

Who knows, maybe – as the cork says – you’ll get lucky (or is that Lucy?). Well, either one of those should be good, right? Anyway – hope to see many of you this evening.

Bon Appetit,

murph

We’ll be open for Dinner until 10pm tonight.
Wednesday: 7am – 9pm (yes, we are open for dinner, but will close a little early)
Thursday: closed.
Friday/Saturday: 8am – 10pm
Sunday: 8am – 5pm

greens are in – salads are back. will have pics up soon.

Coq au vin, that most quintessential of French dishes.  A fricasee (that is, the chicken pieces are seared at high heat before being slow simmered in a sauce or broth) is paired with button mushrooms, pearl onions, bacon lardons — and of course wine.  The origins of the dish are said to come from bygone days back on the farm when a tough old bird, maybe a rooster, was retired to the dinner table.  First he was marinated for a few days in the local plonk to tenderize him, give him a little flavor.  (You can sort of imagine an old cook in the French countryside looking around for something palatable to pair with a chicken.  What would be good with chicken, what would be good with chicken, what…oh, I know.  Wine!)  Then he is braised in the marinade.

In America most people think of coq au vin as a dish involving a marinated bird and a deep, dark red wine sauce.  In fact, there are all kinds of versions — with all kinds of wines.  And in fact, to my palette, I find this style a little bright, acidic and generally, well, pretty winey.  There is another prominent style which involves making a rich sauce with shallots, tomato paste, cognac or brandy and red or white wine first — and then simply cooking the bird in the sauce.  The result is thicker, richer, with more depth of flavor and a more amber color.  If you had our coq last year, this was the style we worked off of — based on an early Julia Childs recipe.  When temperatures started to drop a few weeks ago and our thoughts turned to coq, we thought….why not combine them?  The best of both?  Stack the deck, gild the lily. Go for broke.  So for our first batch of coq of the autumn  we have marinated our chicken in red wine, aromatic herbs and vegetables – - but we’re finishing the sauce with a little cognac and tomato, a la JC.  We’re searching for perfect middle.

when, I’m not thinking about our menu – or … other stuff.

Well – it’s that time of the year again – lettuces are finally growing in central Texas and we’ve got them on our menu. I know – it’s 55 degrees, half raining, and windy out there. Now I’m sure some of you might be thinking that you’d have preferred to have your nice cool salad when it was hot – say, back in August. Sorry. That’s not our lettuce schedule round these parts. Look at the bright side – we get Barton Springs, cold beer, the hill country, (did I mention cold beer), and a scant need for outerwear most of the year – but this ain’t France. The cool leafy green stuff won’t grow when it’s 100 degrees in the shade.

And as you know – Ben & I have made it our mission to seek out the good stuff – as fresh and local as we can get it. (And it’s still going to be our mission no matter how many times Laurence Miller inquires about which bend of Lake LBJ the Sardines are fished from. Dude – your salad is ready now – you can pipe down already.) Anyway – for any of you who’s delicate constitutions leave you with concerns about consuming salad in this cool weather – we have a lovely warm curried pumpkin soup just for you on the menu. Or you could just wait and come in this weekend – I’m sure it will be hot again by then.

Anyway – starting tonight Ben will be crafting a lovely salad made from stunning baby green lettuces grown by two of our favorite local farmers – Jo & John – at Angel Valley Farm. But when I say “baby” – check the pictures. These are not some squirrely, characterless greens grown on a mega-farm and hustled off to the supermarket already wilting. These lettuces are big, brassy, and beautiful – full of confidence and sass – like young, voluptuous, nubile… oh never mind. (But they are sexy dammit.) Anyway – we’ve got leaf lettuce, along with bib and romaine. We’re going to throw in a little shaved radish and blanched Romano beans from Boggy Creek Farm – and then toss the whole thing with a mustard & extra virgin vinaigrette. Guess the secret ingredient and you win a prize (I haven’t decided what yet, but it’s going to be really good).

We’re in that last couple of weeks of late summer before we begin to see fall lettuces, greens and so forth, but we’ve got a couple of new things on the front burner regardless. First, beginning tonight, we’ll serve a very simple shrimp soup. Basically, it’s a shrimp broth, made from the little guys’ shells, a few fennel bulbs, along with some orange and tomato. We simmer that until it reduces a bit and then serve it with a handful of quenelles (those are some fancy dumplings made from the shrimp proper). Should be really good.

We were also looking for something else to do with late summer zucchini, and Ben stumbled on a Joel Robuchon recipe that looked promising, but needed some work. Our general feeling was – this guy Robuchon seems to have restaurants everywhere – you know, New York, Paris, Macoa, Vegas – not to mention about 10 cookbooks. Other than that, he really hasn’t done all that much. So Ben figured he’d kind of help the guy out, and tweak his recipe for warm zucchini w/ house made curry, blanched almonds, and fresh mint. So Ben added a bit more lemon to ours. Wow – what a vast improvement. We tried to call Mr. Robuchon, to let me know, but he didn’t seem to be taking calls… oh well. Live and learn. Our thought would be – if you can’t dine in Macoa tonight, come try the new zuchini dish at TFB.