Sandbar

John and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Friday. To commemorate this, we went to Sandbar, Andrew Weissman's seafood restaurant in the Pearl Brewery.

We've been to Il Sogno, Andrew Weissman's Italian restaurant at the Brewery, many times. We'd been to Sandbar once before, when it was next to Le Reve (back in the old days before I had this blog). We've gone to Le Reve, before it closed, and Big'z. So yeah, we're fans of Andrew Weissman and his food. And we hadn't gone to the new Sandbar location yet. And it was our anniversary, which is always a good excuse to eat excellent food.

We went early, because they don't take reservations and it's a small place. And we're old. We immediately got a table. When the hostess seated us, she told me I could put my purse on the tiny ottomans, which I recognized from Le Reve.

We started with some sashimi of the day (hamachi) and lobster bisque. I've heard great things about their lobster bisque, but they frequently run out of it, so we jumped at the chance to order it.
I got the skate wings in coconut curry sauce and jasmine rice. I love curry, so I knew I would like this. I think the red thing is a sweet potato. The fish was very crisp and buttery.

John got the wild bass with potatoes and bacon. I knew he would because it has bacon in it. I had a bite of his, and it was very good, moist and not overly fishy. Nice char on the fish too.

I'd heard that we should get the box cake, which is literally cake mix from a box. But I think they make it with sweetened condensed milk, because it tastes very moist and sweet. The icing is ganache. I don't know if you can tell, but the cake is enormous. They serve it with shots of milk. It's so big, we barely made a dent in it and had to take it home to eat for breakfast the next day.

Now, I'm going to rant a bit. Andrew Weissman does great food, but he doesn't put enough effort into marketing. I mean basic things, like a website. There's no website for Sandbar. There's supposed to be a page on the Pearl Brewery site, but nothing happens when you click on it. Il Sogno has a website listed on their matchboxes when you go there, but there is no website. Le Reve has a website, but it's not freakin open anymore. This is 2010. How can you not have a website? This is very irritating to me as a customer, when I can find many high-end restaurants on the Internet. Sure, I could go to Yelp and Urbanspoon to find the hours and whatnot, but those are not reliable sources. This just frustrates me because I know Andrew Weissman is making good food and it doesn't seem to be hurting his business to not have a website, but it makes it harder for consumers like me to talk about his restaurants since I have nothing to link to.

Anyway.

It was a great dinner and we enjoyed looking at all the Alamo Heights cougars trying to emote through their Botox. We had a good time and we'll be back!

Molecular Gastronomy at Bin 555

Chef Jason Dady tweeted the other day that he now has liquid nitrogen to make food with. Of course, I had to be there to witness this. Melissa and I ventured out to Bin 555. When we came in, they seated us at the bar, which was great because that's where Jason Dady had set up the liquid nitrogen. That's him up there, making us some white wine sangria. It looked like a Slushie, but kind of melted immediately in your mouth. Like cotton candy.

Another dish I got, not made with liquid nitrogen, was the steak tartare. I don't normally like steak tartare, but I do when Jason Dady makes it. It had whipped cheese on top and was served with flatbread, a play on Philly cheese steak.

For the piece de resistance, deconstructed strawberry shortcake. The strawberry ice cream and some of the nuggets are made with liquid nitrogen. The rest is graham cracker crust, sour cream, and jam.

Someone said on Foodspotting that it doesn't look pretty, and food should look pretty. I disagree. In photos, it doesn't look pretty, but it is quite striking. I think, for most chefs, they want their food to be presentable and intentional on the plate. They don't want it to look thrown together. I don't think food always has to look beautiful, because that's so subjective. This looks really haphazard in this photo, but it looked very presentable in person.

Anyway. It tasted great, which, if you've ever had my food, always makes up for presentation.

Restaurant Insignia Revisited

I heard through the grapevine (i.e. Twitter) that Jason Dady had changed up the menu at Restaurant Insignia. And I knew that one of the changes involved pork belly and pancakes. So on Saturday night, John and I and Sam and Kate all went to Restaurant Insignia.

We've been back a handful of times since the opening, and we invariably get the brisket burger and the San Antonio pizza. Those are our favorites. But this time, we started with two new apps: pork belly and pancakes, and mussels in saffron sauce.

I loved the pork belly and pancakes! I'm a sucker for any kind of pork. I haven't had a lot of pork belly in my life, but I am developing a taste for it. The blueberry pancakes were, as Kate said, the perfect size. She like them, and Kate doesn't even like blueberry pancakes.

The mussels were delicate in flavor, a little more delicate than I would have liked. But I'm not a big mussels person. The only downside with these mussels is that a few hadn't fully opened, which made it hard to open them. I liked the slaw, the crostada and the spicy sauce that came with it.

On to entrees! I got the salmon with white beans and chorizo.

I always like salmon, but the white beans and chorizo stood out to me. I wanted to lick the plate after I ate all my beans because the flavor was fantastic. It was subtle, but the flavor grew the more I ate.

John had the duck breast which he loved for the cherry sauce it came with. He also ate everything on his plate.

For dessert, we split a macademia milk shake. I am a sucker for a milkshake. The shake came with tiny straws, so John and I both busted some blood vessels trying to drink as fast as we could.

Insignia is one of my new favorite restaurants in San Antonio, but I've never been when it's very busy. San Antonio, why aren't you going here? It's downtown, but they validate your valet parking! There's an enormous dog in the lobby! The food is delicious, different, and reasonably priced! There's an extensive wine list! You can order chicken and waffles! Go eat here, already!

FAIL

(It's my first day back at work in two weeks, and I'm sleepy and my office is freezing. So today's post is kind of a cop out. Deal.)

I visited John at work last week. His office recently moved into an old mall. I spotted these pillows in the lounge area and cracked up.

Christmas in San Antonio

After Christmas in Dallas, we came back to San Antonio to see my father, brother, aunts, and grandparents.
This is my cousin Elizabeth. She begged us to come over early on Christmas so we could open presents, but when we got there, she was still asleep. Like any teenager, she was mortified that she wasn't wearing makeup.

We always say we're going to draw names, cut back on spending, buy fewer presents. But we never do.

We have a tradition that we all open one gift on Christmas Eve. But it's usually a gag gift, some kind of puzzle. This year's gift was a wooden puzzle that you had to take apart and put back together. John was the only one who managed to do it.

We open gifts one at a time in my family, youngest to oldest. So opening gifts takes a long time. I think we started about 11 am and finished about 3:30 pm. After that, there was champagne, finding batteries for gifts, and watching Up.

Underground Kitchen

WARNING: DELICIOUSNESS AHEAD
Side effects include intense hunger, envy, jealousy, and eating.

Friends, I will never be the same. I fear my life has reached its pinnacle already. I have peaked. Colors will never be as bright, birds not as joyful, food not as delicious, laughter not as loud.

Let me explain: Jason Dady cooked in my kitchen last night.

It all started weeks ago on Twitter. Jason Dady (@chefjasondady) said he was starting DUK, Dady Underground Kitchen, where he would come cook, in your kitchen, for you and 4 other couples. 10 people total. The menu would be a secret. We would provide the wine, a wine for each of the 5 courses.

So we assembled the DUK crowd - our usual dinner group (John and me, Kate and Sam, Casey and Jarret) and we asked our friend Beth and Jason, and Nicolette who brought her friend Vickie.

We cleaned the house. We bought fresh flowers. We gave everyone our address. And then we waited.

And then Jason Dady was here!


Here are some facts about Jason Dady: he has Tre Trattoria, The Lodge, Bin 555, and Two Brothers BBQ. He is really tall. He will give you a hard time. He makes magical meals.

Let's see him cooking again, shall we?


Jason Dady came with a helper, Josh. Josh didn't talk much, but he kept our glasses full.

Jason Dady announced that the first course would be out of things he found in our fridge. I was struck with fear, because we hadn't gone shopping the previous weekend because we were in Cleveland. I was afraid he would be forced to make something out of frozen bacon and pudding.

But he came up with a bruschetta with cheese, leeks, and peaches.

He also made some popcorn with butter and smoked paprika for a snack.

Then came more appetizers. This is chorizo with Nutella and olive oil. Gotta admit, we were dubious, but it was fucking delicious. From now on, that's how I eat chorizo.

Who doesn't love meatballs? If you count, you'll see that there are 12 meatballs for 10 people. I ate one of the extras, and Sam ate the other one.


Jason Dady gave us the menu for the night. I look insane here because I saw that it said "ohmypuddin" at the top. OMG, that's meeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

That's Josh there in the background, looking for some wine to pour.


FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGS!

With goat cheese, honey, balsamic vinegar, and proscuitto. Oh man, it was good.

Crusted scallop in a bed of forbidden rice corn and peas, and the most delicious tomato beurre blanc in the world. Seriously. I would leave John for that sauce. I love you, sauce!

I think this is when I started getting really drunk. 10 bottles of wine for 10 people. Cmon. I'm only 5'2".
Rabbit head-to-toe. Or, as Jason Dady calls is, head-to-fluffy-tail. Rabbits are adorable, and delicious. There's also some celery bulb puree and japanese eggplant.


Kate dreams about the crostada she had at Tre Trattoria. Dreams. Every day. Sam (not so subtly) hinted to Jason Dady that he wanted a crostada, so he got one. This is a nectarine crostada. Remember my onion goggles? Jason Dady wore them for me! ZOMG!

Also for your amusement:


No, I did not actually eat this butter. I only pretended to.


I am such a dork, I made everyone sign my menu. Jason Dady wrote, "Explore your palate!"

I would like to thank my fellow DUK-ers, John, Beth, Jason ("Pumpkin"), Kate, Sam, Casey, Jarret, Nicolette, and Vickie, for being awesome and enjoying this experience. Thanks to Casey and Jarret for watching Buster so he wouldn't go berserk, and for loaning us the table and chairs. Thanks to John for all of the cleaning we did. Muchos gracias to the internets and Twitter for facilitating this. Thanks to Josh, for being patient and helping Jason Dady.

And the biggest thanks of all to Jason Dady, for cooking us dinner, being cool, wearing onion goggles, telling us stories, not mocking the food in our fridge, and drinking wine with us. Will you come cook for me all the time? Pretty please?

More photos on facebook and flickr. And don't forget to read Kate's account of the night on her blog, Sincerely Yours, Kate.

Talking Dirty at Il Sogno

For John's birthday, we went to one of our new favorite restaurants, Il Sogno. I called when we got home, and they were miraculalously not busy, so we rushed over. Il Sogno has an open kitchen with seating at the bar, so that's where we sat so we could watch the chefs work.

I know the sommelier at Il Sogno has read my blog. When he spotted us at the counter, he spread his arms and said "Miss Blogger!" Haha, awesome! He advised us on which wine to get. He chose a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, which is very impressive to say and even better to drink.

We got the margherita pizza for an appetizer. It says "market price" on the menu, which makes me hesitate to order it, because "market price" usually means "fucking expensive." What exactly is market about a pizza with mozzarella, basil, and tomato sauce? All it means is that they price it by the hour, so at 5 o'clock it's $5, $6 at 6 o'clock, etc. So that's solves that mystery.

Chef Andrew Weissman was there last night. His daughters were eating at the restaurant and they kept talking to him and waving. It was adorable.

First entree to come out was the hog with polenta. Let me see if I can describe it: think of the best meal you've ever had, and then multiply it by 37 and add some sprinkles and maybe some crack on it. It's just that good.

We totally hated it. Ha!

Next entree was the roast chicken and truffle fries. I must confess, while this was delicious, it suffered in comparison to the hog. That hog was MAGICAL, people. The chicken was awesome, but it just can't compete. The truffle fries were really good too. I consider myself a conniusseur of fries. I love all fries and will get them anywhere they're served. These were good fries, y'all.

I forgot to get a picture before we tore into the chicken, so you get to see it half eaten.

Cheese course! Who doesn't love pungent cheeses covered with bee pollen and honey? What, you don't? More for me then.

Sitting at the counter means you can watch the chefs cook your food. We saw them make pasta, pizzas, fish. We watched things go into the enormous oven.

Watching all of this food being cooked was like food porn. That's what the title of this post was about. I won't repeat what I said about the food, because it is downright filthy. It's just what I do.

We couldn't decide on one dessert so we got two. This is the chocolate tart and gelato. See how close we are to the chefs? I told them if they needed anyone to taste anything, I'd help them out. The chef laughed. I was being serious. Il Sogno - I'm here for you! I will taste things and make sure they're good! All you have to do is ask!

This was the strawberry dessert with strawberries, vanilla cream, chocolate sauce, and then strawberry sauce on top. It was also divine.

I don't have a picture of the last event of the evening, which was John and I moaning on the couch about how full we were. Ha!

Il Sogno

Sooooooo, I am kind of a foodie. Kind of. I like food. No, I LOVE food. I like to cook food, and serve food, and read about food, and write about food, and take pictures of food. I like to try new food. I love to try new restaurants.

If you're not familiar with Andrew Weissman, he's one of the most prolific top chefs in San Antonio. He has the flagship restaurant, Le Reve, which was on Gourmet's top 50 restaurants IN THE COUNTRY. I've been before, and it is phenomenal. He also has Sip, a coffee shop, Sandbar, a seafood restaurant, and Big'z, a burger joint.
His latest restaurant, the much talked about Il Sogno, was supposed to open at the beginning of this year. That didn't happen. Rumors said it would open this summer. But it wasn't until an article this past week in the San Antonio Current that I had some answers - Il Sogno would open soon, July or August. Construction was still going on, but it would open.

Il Sogno is located near a new area, the Pearl Brewery, which is an old beer brewery and is now home to lofts, restaurants, and, every Saturday, a farmer's market.

I follow the farmer's market on Facebook and they said on Friday that Il Sogno would be opening for breakfast on Saturday. As big fans of Chef Weissman, John and I had to go.

We showed up at 7:50 am for the breakfast. I ordered the coddled eggs, John ordered the speck and provolone panini and we split a bread basket.

It was AWESOME.


So awesome that we had to come back with Kate and Sam for dinner the next day. Here's the Bismark pizza. Can you tell it has an egg on it? A delicious, delicious egg? Because it does.

They serve grissini as you sit and wait. We also had a duck flatbread, scallops, hog ragu, and rabbit. The ragu? Was knock-you-on-your-ass fantastic.

They didn't have their liquor license yet, but they gave us wine anyway! This picture is courtesy of the adorable French sommelier from Le Reve, who was at Il Sogno on Sunday. He has taught us about the tiny bubbles in champagne, and how much he likes Sam's shirt.

I can't wait to go back!