Tasting good food is a joyful experience. Tasting good food with great beer can be a wonderful experience. Tasting really amazing food with great beer is kind of mind-blowing. That is what happened at the sneak preview of St. Elmo Brewing and Soursop Austin. *Thank you to St. Elmo and Soursop for inviting us for a preview.
St. Elmo Brewing is a new brewery with alumini from Austin Beer Works, Bryan Winslow and Tim Bullock. Given Austin Beer Works’ impressive awards right from the start, the dedication to producing great brews was obvious at the tasting. The beers served at the sneak preview were on point and balanced. We’ll circle back to those as we take a look at Soursop’s food samples.
I was not alone in my strong feelings about the food served that night. We’ve all eaten really good food. And we’ve all had some life changing food. Soursop was life changing. The chef, Teddy Bricker, has built a remarkable vitae with stints at La Condesa and Qui Austin. The layering of different flavor profiles and textures into familiar and approachable foods was just perfect. It was a great blend of off the hook delicious with classic beer pairing food.
The first dish I sampled with the kaeng pa curry which includes grilled and curried eggplant, chili crisps, kaffir lime, galengal, and young peppercorns. The vegetarian dish is a bit on the spicy side if you’re not a fan of the capsaicin sweats. It paired really well with kolsch to clean the palate. I also tend to like IPAs with spicy foods, and the American IPA would have held its own against the curry. Some people don’t enjoy that type of pairing as they feel like it can intensify the spice, but I kind of like it.
The La Korenita sandwich and the Pho-tine were perfect with the American IPA as well. The La Korenita sandwich is a galbi-marinated pork and beef patty, kewpie-mojo, full sour pickles, melted Swiss, and topped with shoestring potatoes. It is no secret that I love burgers. I strongly believe in eating burgers and fries at least once a week as part of my patriotic duty. This sandwich holds one of the top three spots in my favorite burgers ever, and I have eaten many burgers.
The pho-tine is a play on the words to sound like poutine. This dish starts with a pile of fries, topped with 5 spice flank steak, ram ram, Thai basil, rice cake slices, and smothered with a pho gravy. The flavor of the gravy was aromatic with intense meaty goodness. I’m a fry fan. Get this dish. Have it with a beer. Thank Teddy later.
The ice cream sandwich of all ice cream sandwiches goes to the Thai ice cream bun. I list of components in this dessert was missing magic. There was some kind of fairy-dust-unicorn-magic in the ice cream sandwich. All my dopamine receptors were firing like a fourth of July parade. Maybe it was the coconut ice cream or the jackfruit caramel? Maybe it was the pandan milk jam? Something in there was magic. Pure magic.
St. Elmo’s Brewing and Soursop Austin are a welcome addition to South Austin. Be there to experience the magic.
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