New Downtown Eats: M2

M2 is a new restaurant in downtown Austin at 208 West 4th Street next to Peche and Hacylon.  With Chefs Mat Clouser & Mark Strouhal heading up the kitchen, they are bringing some interesting dishes to the table.  @windaddict and I popped in for a visit last week, and here's our findings. Also, the beer menu is quite interesting, interesting good.  They have Rogue Dead Guy, Watou Tripel, Delirium Tremins, Konig Pilsner, Fireman's Four, and Allagash White just to name a few.   Photos by @windaddict. Here's what the inside looks like now.  M2 is still undergoing some remodeling so it may look drastically different.  Beet chips with green olive dust.  I absolutely love these chips.  They remind me of terra chips, and the olive oil dust was pretty interesting.  It seems like the type of seasoning that you use to add depth of favor to many dishes. Pork fries with malt vinegar aioli. I'll start by saying that I typically hate mayonnaise and aioli.  But I loved this sauce.  I want this on a roast beef sammich.  Irish sea trout with pistachio-mint pistuo, scallion hearts, and carrot jus.  The skin on this fish was perfectly crispy.  I grew up eating fish skin and other fish parts, so this was a blast down memory lane.  Yum.  Nilgai antelope kabob, grilled watermelon, and curried yogurt.  The antelope was extremely tender, and the flavor the grilled watermelon.  The watermelon is meant to be ice cold on the inside with a smoky flavor on the outside.  My favorite though, was the curried yogurt.  That was pretty darn awesome.  House-made sausage flatbread, caramelized onions, roasted tomatoes, cerignola olives, and farmer's cheese.  It's like an open face pizza.  And lastly, Eel bacon zepple, vin cotta.  This is literally eel bacon.  A piece of eel belly is cured and smoked, and oh my goodness, it is delicious. The smoky, caramel flavors mesh perfectly with the rich fat of the meat.  If you like bacon, try this.  If you like unagi, try this too.