The Good Knight

Through the dimness, rustic food and grown-up cocktails from another time

By Mike Sutter
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Good Knight is a study in mixed metaphors.

It's deep and dark like a tavern scene from `Lord of the Rings.' Talking to colleagues about this review, I kept calling it the Dark Night, so drastic was the transition from the late-afternoon sun to the candle-watt dimness of the modest one-room dining area and bar inside.

It pours a white-collar list of cocktails from a bygone era when big drinkers didn't talk about `AA'lcoholism. They just drank. But given the Old English vibe of the big room with conspiratorial, curtained-ringed booths and stout wooden furniture, I'm not sure if Harvey Wallbangers, Sazeracs and old-fashioneds would be considered retro or futuristic in this environment.

And the Good Knight inhabits a sturdy brick building in old East Austin at East Sixth and Attayac streets painted a harlequin's palette of red, green and purple, a guaranteed attraction for hipster youths looking for a retreat into something that hits an ever-shifting target of authenticity.

The food is simple and substantial enough to move you down the cold road ahead. If only it were February all year long. On a June night, the yeoman's food only compounded how uncomfortably warm the place was.

From a menu with fewer than 15 items and a few specials, we started on some surprisingly nimble notes, including a Thai-inflected ballotine of boned chicken rolled with lemongrass, lime, cilantro and peanuts (one of the house pâté choices for $7.50). It came with lightly toasted bread so soft and dense it was like cake. A Basque soup blossomed with the subtle, well-married flavors of roasted butternut squash, carrots, white beans and cabbage in a vegetable broth ($7).

Those two things, plus fat slices of lightly fried red and green tomato with lightly dressed greens ($7.50) made a nice base camp for exploring the cocktail menu.

We tried the Pimm's Cup for $6, a sweet and unimaginative blend of ginger ale and the gin-and-juice concoction Pimm's No. 1, garnished with cucumber. My whiskey-partial guest liked her Good Knight, made with rye, Paula's Texas Lemon and bitters ($8). But neither of us could get behind the sharp, grassy sting of the $10 June Rose, a vegetal muddle of basil, gin, grapes and bitters in a glass topped with cucumber and more basil. Nothing that couldn't be cured with more food.

A special of shepherd's pie ($12) came in a cast-iron baking dish with grilled bread on a delicate china plate, a fieldworker's stew of curried lamb topped with mashed potatoes and fragrant white cheese in a dark, aromatic gravy. It's not part of the regular menu, but you've got a fair chance of catching the dish. Judging from the Good Knight's specials (posted daily at twitter.com/thegoodknight), it makes the rounds fairly often, and rightly so.

In this throwback den of a place, fortifying food served on delicately mismatched china creates a kind of dancing-bear ballet, choreographed best in the chicken pot pie, a $10.50 crock of thick, bubbling herbed gravy full of carrots, potatoes and tender chicken topped with a whispery crown of puff pastry.

Blown way past gluttony by the flush of it all, we tried both of the Good Knight's desserts. Neither was transcendent, but true to our waiter's prediction, we came down 50/50, one favoring buttermilk pie ($5) - a sweet slice the density of bread pudding flecked with coconut, lightly caramelized on top and crowned with blueberries - the other one partial to a dense pot de crème of chocolate and Earl Grey (served in a teacup) for $6.

We couldn't settle on whether the Good Knight was more of a bar with decent food or a restaurant with an above-average cocktail menu, all suspended in time. The bonhomie of the big man behind the bar was timeless, though, just like the conversational manner of our waiter, who worked the whole room with fluid ease and let us take our time through multiple courses and cocktail interludes while the Pogues sang suicidally cheerless Irish folk songs from the jukebox, a dark-night soundtrack for the irony-rich environment .

msutter@statesman.com; 912-5902

The Good Knight

1300 E. Sixth St. 628-1250,

www.myspace.com/thegoodknightaustin

Rating (casual dining): 7.1 out of 10

Hours: 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily. Food served until midnight.

Prices: Salad $6.50. Soup $7. Starters $7.50 (pâté, mushroom caviar, fried tomatoes) to $9 (cheeses with honey, marcona almonds and grilled bread). Main courses $10.50 (chicken pot pie) to $12 (Angus meatloaf, vegetarian cheese-and-nut roast). Desserts $5-$6.

Payment: All major cards

Bar: Cocktails your dad (or his dad) used to make: Harvey Wallbanger, old fashioned, grasshopper, golden nail, bees knees, sidecar, Pimm's Cup and more, from $6 to $10. Four red wines, one rosé, three whites, a sparkler and a port, priced $6.50-$10 a glass, $23-$37 a bottle. Beers on tap during a recent visit included Victory Prima Pils, Murphy's Irish Stout, Dale's Pale Ale and Köstritzer Schwarzbier.

Wheelchair access: Yes

What the rating means: The average of weighted scores for food, service, atmosphere and value