XL Food & Drink: The Main Course

Café 909

Inspired fare in the Hill Country

By Dale Rice
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Thursday, July 06, 2006

Café 909 is less than 3 years old, but it's already strikingly mature.

The small, upscale restaurant in Marble Falls recently added a sixth night (Monday). The staff is large enough now that co-owner and manager Shelly Schmidt has to compile a schedule, rather than just figuring out how she and husband-chef-co-owner Mark Schmidt can cover everything themselves. And now they've hired sous chef Bryce Gilmore, who can cover for the boss, as he did on a recent Saturday night when Mark Schmidt was cooking in

Aspen, Colo.

"We're starting to feel like a real restaurant now," Shelly Schmidt said.

For its customers, Café 909 has felt like a real restaurant since the day it opened in October 2003, bringing creative, artistic cuisine to Marble Falls and demonstrating that Central Texas' Top 10 restaurants aren't restricted to Austin.

A recent Saturday dinner emphasized that nothing has changed at Café 909.

The amuse bouche, the complimentary starter now offered by most of the top restaurants, was a small glass of chilled cantaloupe-sparkling wine soup garnished with vanilla oil and basil oil. It did exactly what it was supposed to do: deliver intriguing flavors that signaled what was ahead.

In a starter ($10) that seemed almost incongruous, Mark Schmidt combined roasted baby carrots, candy-striped beets, sliced kumquats, shaved fennel and horseradish. With its alternating sweet, sour and pungent notes, the dish was inspired and refreshing.

A second appetizer, sauté of veal sweetbreads ($13), had a barely crisp, fried exterior. They joined Sweet 100 tomatoes, foie gras, enoki mushrooms and crawfish tails in veal jus in a combination as rich as it was compelling.

For the main course, the duck breast ($26) was seared to medium rare, sliced and fanned over pearl onions, asparagus and duck livers with a topping of fig mostarda and a side of fried polenta. The aroma alone was so enticing it would be difficult to pass up that dish on a return visit.

Another entrée, the seared halibut ($27), reflected the years Mark Schmidt spent in Santa Fe, N.M. The fillet, heavily seasoned and crisp on top yet still flaky, rested on a bed of green chile posole that covered the bottom of a shallow bowl (and prompted me to ask for a spoon to enjoy the thick, zesty broth). The halibut was topped with guacamole, an unusual garnish that paired delightfully with the spicy posole.

The dessert menu included two sophisticated choices: the vanilla poached figs ($7) and the pistachio parfait ($7).

The figs were paired with a blue cheese sabayon that was more of a heavy cream sauce than light, frothy sabayon. The strong cheese so dominated the figs that it turned the dessert into a savory finish to the meal. In a sense, it was closer to cheese plate than confection.

The frozen, cylindrical pistachio parfait ($7) was accented with crushed pistachios and a burnt honey caramel that offered just a hint of bitterness to offset the immense sweetness.

Service at Café 909 met the same high standards diners have come to expect, along with well-articulated knowledge of the menu's wide variety of ingredients and cooking styles.

That's one more reason Café 909 should be a destination for more than Hill Country residents. All fine-dining aficionados in Central Texas should have this inviting spot on their must-visit lists.

drice@statesman.com; 445-3859