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May 2009
Can you Bennu? 24-hour coffee on the East Side
Just before finals started at the University of Texas this spring, Stephanie Hogue and Steve Williams opened Bennu Coffee on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard just east of Chicon street.
With her background in social work at Austin’s LifeWorks and his coffee-slinging days at Mojo’s Daily Grind, SpiderHouse and other wired wonderlands, they set about turning the former antiques store into a 24-hour living room with baristas.
They stocked the place with couches, side tables, high-backed office chairs and conversation pits from Craigslist and brought in coffee and food from a who’s-who of Austin vendors: Texas Coffee Traders, Torchy’s Tacos, Russell’s Bakery, Jake’s Granola, Hoboken Pie, Hot Jumbo Bagel, the Green Cart, Cielo Water, Fricano’s Deli and more.
Then the students showed up. In those first weeks, Hogue said, their initiation included staying up 43 hours straight, selling French press coffee (up to 10 varieties a day, at $2.50 and $3.50) and seven designer mochas named for classic novels ($3.75 buys a “Pride and Prejudice”).
The shop is named for a fabled Egyptian bird of rebirth, Hogue said, fitting for a wakeup-juice concesson and for the start of a new business and life together. The owners plan to get married in October.
(Bennu Coffee is open 24 hours a day at 2001 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 487-4700, www.bennucoffee.com.)
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Annies joining cafe society on Congress
When Apple Annies cafe lost its lease in a bank tower on West Sixth Street last year, owners Love Nance and Sherry Jameson lost little time leasing kitchen space to keep their catering operation going.
On Monday (June 1), they’re set to return downtown in style with a mid-priced, full-service restaurant called Annies, featuring farm-to-table cooking from Mark Schmidt — the former chef-owner of Cafe 909 in Marble Falls — and longtime Annies chef Tony Amplo.
For several weeks, Annies (319 Congress Ave. 472-1884, www.appleanniescatering.com) will be open for breakfast and lunch daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., leading to a full-scale reopening on June 20, with dinner, full bar service, late-night hours, sidewalk seating and a Sunday brunch.
Breakfast choices will include brioche French toast, cage-free eggs and housemade jams and pastries. Lunch will range from Annies renowned tomato-brie soup to a dozen salads, plus a grill to handle more substantial main courses.
After June 20, hours will be 7 a.m. to midnight Mondays through Wednesdays, 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays.
(American-Statesman photo by Mike Sutter)
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Burgers and beer at the Black Sheep
The buzz about the Black Sheep Lodge since it opened May 15 has centered on one thing: free beer.
Until the liquor license comes through (which could be any day now), the burgers-and-beer bar over by Bird’s Barber Shop on South Lamar Boulevard is giving away a draft pint or a frozen margarita with food purchases.
And kitchen manager Troy Nelsen (above) has the from-scratch menu to back it up: fresh-beef burgers with custom-baked buns (6.99 with a side of sweet-potato fries), roasted garlic sliders with gorgonzola butter ($7.49 with a side), hand-battered Nathan’s corn-dog bites ($5.99), a portobello mushroom cheesesteak ($7.49 with a side), housemade beer mustard and curry ketchup (75 cents each).
Once the bar’s at full speed, the lineup will expand to include mixed drinks and 18 tap beers, said Keith Sandel, who owns the Black Sheep with Brian Pacheco and Troy Moore.
The early buzz that packed the dark-wood interior and the picnic area in front has given the place the embracing feel of a bar that’s already been there 20 years. And that was enough to draw in actress Drew Barrymore on opening night, Sandel said.
2108 S. Lamar Blvd., 707-2744, www.blacksheeplodge.com. The hours are 11 a.m. to midnight Sundays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturdays.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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High fives for ‘Give $5’
This news from the ubiquitous Armando Rayo, the deacon of the TacoJournalism evangelical street team. Mando’s day job is getting people involved in the great things United Way does to help out around here.
Throughout this Memorial Day Weekend, these local restaurants are donating part of their profits to the Capital Area United Way as part of its “Give $5” drive.
34th Street Cafe (1005 W. 34th St., www.34thstreetcafe.com)
Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar (www.applebees.com)
Bennu Coffee (2001 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., www.bennucoffee.com)
Blue Star Cafeteria (4800 Burnet Road, www.bluestarcafeteria.com)
House Wine (408 Josephine St., www.housewineaustin.com)
The Hub (3815 Dry Creek, www.thehubaustin.com)
P. Terry’s Burger Stands (donating 100 percent of profits on Saturday. www.pterrys.com)
Paciugo Gelato (241 W. Second St., www.paciugo.com)
Santa Rita Cantina (1206 W. 38th St, www.santaritacantina.com)
Tiff’s Treats Cookie Delivery (www.cookiedelivery.com)
Viva Chocolato! (3401 Esperanza Crossing at the Domain, www.vivachocolato.com)
More information at www.give5centraltexas.org.
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Starting over: California’s Emeritus man
“Does the world really need another chardonnay?”
That’s an unexpected question from Brice C. Jones, the man who made Sonoma-Cutrer a benchmark chardonnay house before selling the operation to Brown-Foreman in 1999.
But that same year, Jones bought a Sonoma County apple orchard with the idea of planting pinot noir grapes there. A cadre of Cutrer loyalists soon mutinied to his side, and the Emeritus label was born, marking its first vintage in 2005. Available only via e-mail through www.emeritusvineyards.com (the William Wesley pinot noir, $50) and in select restaurants (the Russian River pinot noir, around $58), the wines shimmer with fruit, nuance and balance in the style of a Bordeaux red.
I met Jones at Taste Select Wines this week, along with Austin Wine Guy blogger Rob Moshein, whose newsletter from his days at the Cellar on Bee Cave Road was as much an educational text in world styles as it was a sales tool. I won’t claim to know half of what they talked about: soils, styles, distributors, the old exclusivity of the Sonoma-Cutrer brand before Brown-Foreman turned it into a supermarket staple. But I could appreciate Jones’ sensory (and sensible) approach to winemaking, his stories about meeting French winemakers whose pride lay in their soils instead of their technology, his midlife switch from successful California pioneer to small-label renegade.
To give you a sense of how Emeritus looks at winemaking, I’ll tell the story Jones told us about Emeritus winemaker Don Blackburn. At a conference with other growers and vintners, Blackburn put six glasses of wine in front of his colleagues, along with a grid showing the wines across the top and classical-music pieces down the side. He played the music and asked the tasters to pair the wines with the music that seemed to go best with each wine. Jones said the consensus among the match-makers was surprising.
The man who described wine with music died just two weeks ago, and the pain of that loss shows on Jones’ face when he talks about Blackburn. And it makes you believe the man when he talks about the three-legged stool upon which the best wines stand: soil for character, climate for personality and the hand of man to give it esprit. Nature versus nurture. To that end, Emeritus Vineyards dry-farms its grapes, forgoing irrigation except in the most extreme conditions, letting the grapes develop terroir, the true taste of where they come from.
Before he died, Blackburn cultivated Nicolas Cantacuzene as his winemaking successor at Emeritus. Jones has complete faith in him. I don’t know Cantacuzene, but from what I know about Jones, I’m betting the wine will reward that faith.
The list of Austin restaurants that carry Emeritus pinot noir includes Cool River Cafe, Cru: A Wine Bar, Eddie V’s, Hudson’s on the Bend, III Forks, Jeffery’s, Kenichi and Truluck’s, as well as Cheeves Bros. Steakhouse in Temple.
(American-Statesman photo by Mike Sutter)
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Hilton Austin joins TSD at the chef’s table
Students from the culinary arts program at the Texas School for the Deaf will team with the staff of the Hilton Austin hotel for a multicourse dinner with wine pairings Tuesday (May 19) at the hotel.
Hilton executive chef Mark Dayanandan and volunteers from his staff will help the student chefs prepare a menu that includes smoked-tomato-and-scallop soup, lobster cappuccinos, lamb curry, samosas, cheese truffles, oysters mignonette, bouquet salad and Tex-Mex Wellington (filet with wild mushroom and poblano duxelle in puff pastry with chipotle demiglace).
The food will be paired with wines and followed by a chocolate-sampler dessert.
Tickets for the event — a fund-raiser for the school’s outreach programs — are $85 per person/$150 per couple.
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Coal-fired pizza comes to Round Rock
Pizzeria Corvina Wine Bar & Marketplace has opened in Round Rock, offering pizzas, pasta dishes and roasted main courses of beef, chicken and fish cooked in an 800-degree, coal-fired oven.
The restaurant, named for an Italian wine grape, fittingly offers more than 100 wines, favoring Italian regions, with 16 reds and 14 whites available by the 250-milliliter carafe, from $6 to $25, with 16 beers on tap, including Italian favorites Peroni and Moretti.
Corvina specializes in house-made ingredients, including mozzarella cheese, fettuccine pasta, pizza dough, sauces, meatballs and breads. Pizzas start at $10, pastas at $11.
Round Rock Crossing shopping center at 3107 S. Interstate 35, Suite 840. 512-310-2625, www.pizzeriacorvina.com. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays through Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays.
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Pastrami and coffee at Walton’s Fancy and Staple
Walton’s Fancy and Staple, Sandra Bullock’s new florist-deli-bakery-coffee shop opened Friday morning at 609 W. Sixth St.
The trickle of first-day customers included Skip Avis, a resident of the nearby 360 Condominiums tower who said he’d been calling almost daily to find out the opening date. After a breakfast of coffee and a croissant, Avis said he liked the shop’s French cafe-style look. Rollingwood resident Josh Bernstein (above), who works downtown and used to live near Walton’s, said that after months of seeing the building under construction, curiosity lured him in.
Choices in the case Friday included a scone with tasso ham and caramelized onion for $1.75, a compact blueberry muffin for $1.25 and a strawberry-kiwi tart with custard for $3.75. A list of 20-plus sandwiches included lean pastrami stacked on thick slices of fresh, seedless rye bread for $6.25.
Bullock did not attend the opening because she was in New Orleans for an awards ceremony recognizing her charitable contributions after Hurricane Katrina.
Read more about Walton’s and Sandra Bullock’s investments in Austin on Sunday in the American-Statesman.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Fryer-tripping with Eddie Van Halen
My heavy-meta moment came at about 9:15 on the Monday morning I worked a shift at P. Terry’s Burger Stand for the “Burger-nomics” story in today’s Life & Food section. I was cleaning a grease filter with paper towels behind the restaurant when Van Halen’s version of “You Really Got Me” cranked through the sound system. I looked up and shook my head at Ashton Hecker, the operations director whose sorry job it was to train and humor me. “I was doing this same exact thing when this song was on the radio for real,” I said.
In white pants, white shirt, red apron and black P. Terry’s ball cap, I was a better-dressed version of the polyestered kid who started working for Jack in the Box in 1979. But I was still doing the grunt work. Draining, cleaning and refilling the fryers was the dirty job we would’ve saved for Mike Rowe back then, so disfiguringly hot and sludgy was the spent shortening. The oil had to stay hot even as we drained it, or it would congeal its way back into the 50-pound bricks from which it came, studded with scraps of charred food.
Changing the fryers at P. Terry’s, I didn’t even get my white pants dirty. Liquid canola oil can be drained from and poured into sleeping fryers, and the fryers here are treated with respect, filtered often and cleaned on a regular schedule, even when there’s no new guy to pick on. This leaves more time for the new guy to do potatoes, which I have to say is better than hand-chopping the cafeteria-sized cans of pickled jalapenos to put on one out of every seven burgers the restaurant sells.
“Remind me to tell you about jalapenos and bathroom breaks,” Hecker said. When he smiles, he’s a dead ringer for George Clooney 10 years ago. “I learned that one the hard way.” Thanks, Boss. All right if I stick with the potatoes for now?
I’d never worked with an actual potato on the job. Just bag after bag of frozen fries, onion rings, tacos and anything else a fryer could turn into crunchy gold cash. Hecker set me up with a 50-pound box of Idaho spuds, the idea being to inspect, wash, slice, soak, spin-dry and fry them to fill a fraction of the $1.45 orders of french fries that P. Terry’s sells by the hundreds every day. When a restaurant sells “hand-cut fries,” the assembly line runs all day long, and not much is more terrifying than falling behind on the line.
After scrubbing the last of the crop dirt from the potatoes and shearing off the stray black spots, I moved to the slicer, which looks like one of those handled piston machines that squashes aluminum cans. Except that this steely monster — hammered down 80 times per box — can break bolts off the wall. I ratcheted my way through 50 pounds in six minutes, then watched a veteran spud-cutter do the same thing in less than two.
When the lunch rush kicked in, Hecker put me on fryers to wrangle eight baskets across four deep vats, timing the double-dip cooking technique so that one basket at a time was ready to pour for the bagger, who got pitying eye-rolls from her colleagues and suffered at least one spatter burn at my hands.
More than once and without a word, I saw her scoop my finished product into the trash. If you ordered fries that afternoon, rest assured she did not let me screw them up.
(American-Statesman photo illustration by Mike Sutter)
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Max’s Wine Dive opens downtown
Max’s Wine Dive — which opened Tuesday at 207 San Jacinto Blvd. — has its roots in Houston, but this home of upmarket comfort food (the fried chicken shown above, a “haute” dog with venison chili, Kobe beef burgers) and a 180-label wine list already has made strong area connections.
But for chef Steve Super (at left), the best local connection has been the people. “I’ve been so impressed with the staff so far,” he said. Super, who comes to Austin from Max’s sister operation in Houston, the Tasting Room, and his own restaurant in Vermont before that, should fit right in here: He was a touring musician for almost three decades.
Max’s Wine Dive (904-0111, www.maxswinedive.com/austin) is open 4 p.m. to midnight Mondays through Wednesdays, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to midnight Sundays.
(American-Statesman food photo by Addie Broyles)
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Uchi announces a second location: Uchiko
What to do with a restaurant so consistently good at what it does that the biggest complaint is how hard it is to get a table? If you’re Uchi, you give the people what they want: more Uchi.
On Monday, chef-owner Tyson Cole announced he’ll open Uchiko in the spring or summer of 2010 in the former Seton Hospital office building at 4200 N. Lamar Blvd. (pictured above in a rendering from Cencor Realty), just north of Central Market.
We’re told the name translates loosely as “child of Uchi.” the sushi and Asian-fusion restaurant that’s been drawing accolades since it opened in 2003 less than five miles away at 801 S. Lamar Blvd., including a James Beard nomination for Cole this year, the top spot in the Zagat Austin restaurant guide and a place on Bon Appetit magazine’s Hot 10 sushi places in the country.
Cole said Uchiko will be “identical to Uchi in almost every way,” including the menu. The new location will include a room for reservation-only seating, a commodity in short supply at the original restaurant, where wait times can run several hours even on a weekday night.
Michael Hsu — whose name is attached to Austin restaurant projects from P. Terry’s to Olivia to La Condesa as well as the original Uchi — will design Uchiko to be “engaging without being showy,” he said in a press release.
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Sandra Bullock’s new Walton’s to open May 15
Sandra Bullock would like to clear something up: Austin isn’t just a hobby for her and her family. It’s home.
On May 15, the newest public expression of Bullock’s presence here will open in the form of Walton’s Fancy and Staple, a European-style florist, takeout deli, coffeeshop, caterer and bakery at 609 W. Sixth St. “A bride can come in here and get everything she needs, except the dress,” says general manager Jerald Rhodes. The shop will be open 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
The historic building has been renovated from the plumbing up, keeping the architecture, wood and brickwork intact, down to the faded ads painted on one of the inside walls. The renovation follows a template established at other Austin properties owned by the actress, including the Stratford Arms building across the street, which houses Bullock’s restaurant Bess, and the building at 400 Nueces St., which plays host to Mellow Johnny’s, the bicycle shop in which Lance Armstrong is a partner.
Curiosity about the business was clear on a recent Thursday night, when the shop’s picture windows were filled with lights and restaurant people for a photo shoot. Passers-by pressed their foreheads to the glass, checking out the cases of baked goods, the tagged home-decor pieces and the bustle of photo activity, some clearly looking for Bullock herself, seeing as how Walton’s is one of those hush-hush ventures that everybody already seems to know about. Chatter began the day the first shoulder-high Hobart mixer showed up in the darkened building last fall.
Looking closely that Thursday, the window-gazers might have seen Bullock’s sister, baker and writer Gesine Bullock-Prado (in the photo above), who came from Vermont with her coffee-expert husband, Raymond Prado, to consult on the bakery and coffee operations. When she moved a table onto the sidewalk after the photo shoot to give away samples of croissants, fudge and macaroons, the scene turned almost to comedy, with skeptical people wondering why this shiny new place would be giving things away.
Come Friday the 15th, everybody can get a taste.
Look for more details and an interview with Sandra Bullock in the American-Statesman next week.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Restaurant obituary: Fiddler’s Hearth
Bang the drum slowly and play the pipe lowly, Fiddler’s Hearth in Austin is no more.
By now, the diehard fans of this pan-Celtic home of stuffed boxtys, Scotch eggs, shepherd’s pie and superior fish and chips already knew that. But I’ve been trying to get the Meehan family’s side of the story before reporting on the closing. But they’ve got bigger (or no) fish to fry, so I’m regarding the sign on the pub door at 301 Barton Springs Road as an epitaph: “Closed. Fiddler’s out of business.”
In my Christmas review of Fiddler’s Hearth, which opened in November to soccer stadium-mob cheers, I said good things about the Euro-brew tap wall, the pub-size helpings of hearth-warming Irish food and a white chocolate bread pudding with an eye-crossing whiskey sauce.
I also included this knucklehead excuse for a sendoff line: “Considering that the reliable faux-Irish pub cheesiness of Bennigan’s endured at this intersection for many years, surely there’s an equally enduring demand for authentic (and local) Celtic hospitality.”
A prophet is what I am. A prophet in need of something to drown my sorrows and one less place in which to do it.
(American-Statesman photos)
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Fabi and Rosi: At home in Zoot’s former house
When the renowned Austin restaurant Zoot moved to Bee Cave Road from its little house on Hearn Street at the end of 2008, people wondered what would happen to the original location.
The answer is Fabi and Rosi European Kitchen, owned by Austin native Cassie Williamson and her husband, German-born chef Wolfgang Murber, who plan to open the restaurant on Friday, May 8.
The couple met two years when Murber was a chef on a private yacht in Spain after studying in Germany and cooking in Italy, Williamson said. Murber moved to Williamson’s home in the Clarksville neighborhood, and the couple began searching for a cozy old house where he could put his multinational experience to work. They saw Zoot’s old home lying vacant and worked out an agreement with the landlord.
The menu at Fabi and Rosi (pronounced “fab-ee and roe-zee,” named for Fabio and Rosalie, the couple’s nephew and niece) is an ambitious one-stop tour of European cooking: escargot, charcuterie, short-rib Bolognese, paella, schnitzel and more, with main-course prices from $12 to $21. Until the liquor license comes through, the restaurant allows beer and wine to be carried in.
(Fabi and Rosi European Kitchen. 509 Hearn St. 236-0642, www.fabiandrosi.com. Hours: 5 to 10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 5 to 11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, closed Sundays — except this Sunday, when the restaurant marks Mother’s Day with a brunch menu that includes a croque monsieur, brioche French toast, sweet or savory crepes and a goat-cheese-and-spinach quiche. $8-$14. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.)
Look for photos of Cassie Williamson and Wolfgang Murber and their new place in next week’s Food & Life section in the American-Statesman.
(Photo by Bret Gerbe for the American-Statesman)
