St. Philip's Pizza Crust from Heaven

St. Philip is nothing short of answered prayers. We now have it - another amazing restaurants in South Austin to join the likes of Lenoir, Sway, and Odd Duck. Here's some recommendations from my first visit.  *Disclosure: I really like Uchi, Uchiko, and the staff there. I guess I'm biased in that I'd like their next venture.

1. Get a beer. Their beer list is thoughtfully crafted so you ought to start with one.

2. Meatballs. I had the chicken meatballs, and I dipped my pizza crust in the white sauce. The meatballs are so juice and flavorful. The flavor of chicken comes through while being perfectly balanced with the spices, herbs, and sauce.





3. Pizza. Specifically the mushroom pizza. The crusts of the pizzas are amazingly tender and fluffy with a crispy bottom. It is like eating clouds of heaven. My heaven is pretty awesome. The mushrooms pizza is drizzled with an utterly delicious umami sauce that is pretty much savory orgasm in a bottle. The mushrooms were so earthy and meaty that it was as if you were eating in the middle of a forest. I was one with nature, and a pizza.

I had some left over pizza the next morning. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH yes!

4. We were gifted with a dish of potato chips. If you thought something s basic couldn't be improved, you are wrong. These chips are delicately paper thin with a salty and tangy crunch. Do not skip.

5. A version of chicken and churros that is sure to make you go "Wha?"

5. Pick up some goodies on your way out.

Like these fine buttery goodies.

Or this lovely chocolate smores snowball? 

St. Philip is still has a few days to go before they officially open to the public on Oct. 2nd. I hope you can wait until then!

Pay it Forward with Daniel Curtis benefiting Lone Star Paralysis Foundation @CarillonAustin

You might have remember that Austin has a pretty awesome food community.  In that community are really awesome people.  Unfortunately, sometimes not awesome things happen.  Just over a year ago in a diving accident, Daniel Curtis's life changed completely.  He suffered a life threatening injury to his spinal cord, and with the support of many, he is well on his way to recovery.  Here's last year's event.

To relieve the medical expenses, his friends, family, and co-workers raised $65,000 by producing an amazing fundraiser with the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation.  I'm not biased or anything.  :o)  Through this event, I was able to get to know the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation, an organization that amazes me over and over.  The supporters of this group are earnest in their support and work ethic.  It is pretty cool just to be near a group that is so pure of heart.  Here's another post on a previous Lone Star Paralysis Foundation Vodka Dinner at the Carillon. 

Two years ago, I put on the Cupcake Smackdown 2.0 on my birthday.  It was a pretty awesome day, and even Dave Chappelle showed up.  This year, you have a chance to celebrate my birthday with me again.  Now that Daniel is on his way to recovery, he is intent on fulfilling his vow to payback all that was done for him last year.   

The 1st Annual Pay it Forward with Daniel will be held on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at ATT Conference Center in Austin.  All proceeds will benefit The Lone Star Paralysis Foundation in helping people with spinal cord injuries.   Tickets can be purchased at: www.payitforwardwithdaniel.org.  Tickets are $100, and VIP Tickets are $150.  Don't forget to their your checkbook for the auction items. Music will be provided by Kat Edmonson and a Special Guest.

This year's chefs are:

• Josh Watkins — The Carillon
• Plinio Sandalio — The Carillon
• Kenzie Allen — Asti
• John Bates — The Noble Pig
• David Bull — Congress, Second Bar & Kitchen
• Shawn Cirkiel — Parkside, Olive & June, The Backspace
• Jack Gilmore — Jack Allen's Kitchen
• Zack Northcutt — Swift's Attic
• Callie Speer — Swift's Attic
• Philip Speer — Uchi & Uchiko
• Shane Stark — Kenichi
• David Alan — The Tipsy Texan

If you want your un-birthday to be as awesome as my birthday, enjoy some delicious bites from some of Austin's accomplished chefs, have a cocktail, and hang out with a truly moving nonprofit.  Buy tickets here. 
Here's some pictures from The Lone Star Paralysis Foundation's golf fundraiser in April.  At every few holes, there was food, drinks, and good company.  Serious, Serious fun. 

Pulling off an event of this size is no small feat.  Check out all those happy golfers!

This station was Cover 3.  Green Chile Mac and Cheese with Grilled Chicken was pretty darn tasty.

Bacon wrapped shrimp from El Arroyo!

Bacon wrapped quail leg from Jack Allen's on a Goat Boat. 

This signed poster was auctioned off later that night. 

And Daniel Curtis in the flesh.  He walked across the stage that night.  Amazing. 

Calling all Chefs! Compete in Chefs under FIRE! Nov. 30th

 Hey Aspiring chefs! We've got an event for you! Think you can cook up a storm?  Enter this contest and show off your knife skills!

Former Iron Chef Challengers Judge Chefs Under Fire™ In Austin

Chefs David Bull, Tyson Cole, and Kent Rathbun put down their pans and pick up pens to judge cooking competition

AUSTIN, TX (October 8, 2009)  If you've ever wanted to feel the heat of a live cooking competition, while simultaneously getting advice from Texas' three Iron Chef challengers, mark your calendar for November 30th. Three Iron Chef challengers...one night only...one fierce competition! What's the secret ingredient?  Passionate foodies who want to show what they can cook!

Hosted at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in Austin by Keeper® Collection, LLC and the Plate & Vine Interactive Cookbook, Chefs Under Fire is a competition open to contestants nationwide culminating on the evening of November 30th with a timed cookoff between selected contestants and judged by former Iron Chef America challengers David Bull, Tyson Cole, and Kent Rathbun.  This event marks the first time all of these chefs will appear together in a public event of this type.

Chefs Bull, Cole, and Rathbun have all donated recipes to the Wine and Food Foundation of Texas' Plate and Vine Interactive Cookbook, created in conjunction with Keeper Collection.  Each chef has chosen one of his recipes from this cookbook and will challenge potential contestants to prepare a dish using the guidelines outlined by the chef.  Each entrant will pay a $20 entry fee, choose which dish they'd like to prepare, and submit their unique recipes via email, along with photos, and/or short videos to the respective chef.  The chefs will each narrow down their field to three finalists, who will have a limited amount of time to prepare their dish the evening of the 30th before presenting to the panel of judges.  Each chef will announce their final winner live at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center that evening.

A limited number of tickets will be available to the public for the event, available for purchase online at Keeper Collection's website.  A reception for attendees and contestants will begin at 6:30 PM in the Tejas Restaurant featuring food prepared and overseen by Executive Chef Josh Watkins, along with wine for the attendees to enjoy.  The competition will start promptly at 8:00 PM.

"We're thrilled to be hosting such a unique event," says Dana Andrae of the AT&T Executive Education & Conference Center, "we have an ideal venue not only because of our entertaining areas and kitchen space, but also because our technology onsite allows us to do live feeds of the event-in-progress to multiple viewing locations. Plus, we're thrilled to be able to show off the culinary talents of our staff that evening before the Chefs Under Fire finalists take the stage."

For more information and to purchase tickets and entries visit www.keepercollection.com.

About Keeper Collection & the Plate & Vine Interaction Online Cookbook: Frustrated by recipes that provide inaccurate quantities, include difficult to follow directions, and produce disappointing and unflavorful results, Keeper Collection created an approach to cooking that is user-friendly, time-efficient, and saves money.  Traveling the world to find award-winning, passionate chefs and authentic recipes, Keeper Collection's interactive cookbooks bring culture into the kitchen.  Being coined as the "future of cookbooks", Keeper Collection cookbooks are on the cutting edge of culinary and viticulture trends.  Keeper Collection also works in partnership with trusted travel companies and our award winning chefs in offering unique culinary packages for learning and vacation.  About The Wine & Food Foundation of Texas: The Wine & Food Foundation of Texas is a dynamic, statewide charitable Foundation created to inspire excellence and education in the culinary and viticulture arts. The Foundation fulfills its mission through scholarships, grants and the development of educational programs and projects. These charitable works, including the Texas Sommelier Conference, Stephan Pyles Culinary Scholarship and affordable community-wide wine and food classes impact students, professionals, future chefs, winemakers and the general community on both state and national levels.

For full event details and contest rules, check here.

Uchi + Twitter = dining nightmare

I used to have a favorite place to go for celebrations. The service here was spectacular. The food was incredible. Every dish was interesting and exciting. This place was Uchi. I've been to Uchi 4 times in the last few months, and I had a terrific time on each visit. One of my photographs of an Uchi dish was even published recently. Link here: http://www.schmap.com/austin/restaurants_japanese/#p=324344&i=324344_12.jpg Here's a link to a previous review I wrote of Uchi. To say that I was a fan of Uchi is an understandment. However, I feel that Uchi committed a public relations/marketing error which completely changed my attitude about my previously favorite restaurant. The story unfolds....

After the yogurt making party at Megan's house, I checked my twitter. I saw this on Uchi' Twitter "http://twitpic.com/4vfv2 - 40lb halibut today! first person to come request, chef tyson cole will prepare the collar and head for you!!!..." Link to Uchi's Twitter: http://twitter.com/uchiaustin Link to the Tweet: http://twitter.com/UchiAustin/status/1749327681 That was posted at 4:18 pm. It was close to 7:30 pm, so chances that I would have gotten the halibut head were slim. Since Uchi was on the way home anyways, I stopped by just to see if it was still available.

The hostesss had no idea what I was talking about and had to ask Tyson. Apparently, I was the first person to ask about this mysterious fish head. About 10 minutes later, Tyson brought it out and showed it to me, raw. I was confused. I thought he was supposed to cook it first. We're both standing at the front with this gigantic raw fish head. He asked if I was eating, and the answer was yes. I did come for the halibut didn't I? He asked if anyone one else was going to eat with me, and I said no. He replied saying he wouldn't cook it for one person as it was a massive amount of food. I said fine. A friend was going to be joining me.

At this point, I was really confused. Why had no one else claimed this "special" dish if Uchi already had 684 followers on twitter? How often was this halibut available and what was the price? From the few words "40lb halibut today! first person to come request, chef tyson cole will prepare the collar and head for you!!!..., "It seems like a special, and maybe even complimentary. Why didn't the hostess know anything about the special? Someone's confused, and that someone was me. I wasn't getting a good vibe, and had thought about ditching. But heck, Uchi was my favorite place. I decided to stick it ou.

Finally, my friend arrives and I tell the hostess that we're both here and ready for the halibut. To which the hostess asks if I wanted to get on the waiting list. Um...... was I not already on the waiting list? How did I go from getting the halibut head to not being on the waiting list? We wait. The hostess comes out to give us more information. She points to me and says, "You get the halibut head, and *points to my friend* you have to order off the regular menu." I take that as an indication that the halibut head is a special event, but I'm still not sure if I get anything special for it. We wait. And we wait. We're offered some appetizers while we wait. 9:00 pm rolls around, and we are finally seated.

By now, everyone knows that we've ordered the halibut, and the waiter tells us that it is a 20-25 minute prep time on the halibut head. So we order the brie seneca, which comes and goes. We're offered a salad of some sort by the manager, which comes and goes. 9:50 rolls around, and we're looking pretty annoyed. My friend lets the manager know that we've been waiting nearly an hour for a dish that is supposed to take 20 minutes to prepare. The manager says that they started the dish when we were seated, and that they are just now plating it. Funny. We were seated at 9:00pm. They should have said that the dish takes an hour to prepare. 10 minutes roll by. 5 more minutes roll by. I'm feeling like walking out at this point. I really felt like leaving at this point.

Finally, I'm presented with this gigantic fish head that has everyone around us oogling. That's cool. I take a while to snap some pictures. And then we dig in. It was big. It overly salty and not at all special. It wasn't anything that wowed me. It wasn't "delicious" by any means. I would have been much happier with the hotate, shag roll, or kona kanpachi. It tasted like cooked fish with a salty, blackened crust. And unfortunately, the rice it was served with was terribly salty. This was not a typical Uchi experience. This was the only time I have ever had a less than stellar experience at Uchi, and it did suck the big one. My friend and I ate maybe one-tenth of that sucker, and then had the rest wrapped up to go. I think it is very safe to say that I'm a big eater, and the fact that two people barely touched the fish means something. I wouldn't have waited 20 minutes for the halibut head. And it isn't that I don't know how to eat fish heads. I've been eating fish heads all my life. This was just like another fish head.

The check comes, and I see that the halibut was $50. Um....... okay. Where was that listed on the twitter? It isn't on the regular menu. I had no idea how much it was supposed to cost. No one made mention of the cost to me at any point. If anything, the Twitter posts and interaction with the hostess makes it seem complimentary at best. The waiter asks for the manager.

The manager says that the price was on the twitter post. "http://twitpic.com/4vfv2 - 40lb halibut today! first person to come request, chef tyson cole will prepare the collar and head for you!!!..." Didn't see a price there. I show her my iphone with their Twitter feed. No price. She asks me to click on the post. I show her that the full tweet showed no price. The manager heads into the kitchen and comes back with a print out of the twitter picture. Below that is a caption that says "40lb halibut today! first person to come request, chef tyson cole will prepare the collar and head for you!!! 50$$$ mmmm... what a tweet deal!" Funny, that wasn't on twitter. In order to see that, you have to view the picture on twitpic on a browser and not on an application. Whoever runs their twitter did not see that the tweet was truncated as it exceeded 140 characters with the photo URL. Needless to say, I felt a little mislead. The manager did not offer to make any amends or to adjust the price or even apologize for the misunderstanding.

I wound up paying 54.13 pre-tip for that over salted uninspiring halibut head that took 3.5 hours of my life. I was annoyed. I was upset. If the tweet had said "$50 for halibut head, special deal" or something of that nature, I would have saved myself a big wad of cash and some time. I would have gone straight home, ate leftovers, and spent time doing something productive. I had absolutely no intentions on eating at Uchi tonight, and I was only brought in on the fly by the truncated tweet.

My major complaints:

• I found the staff tonight to be rough, confusing, and disorganized. The hostess had no idea about the special. The advertising of the halibut was vague. If I was supposed to be getting the halibut head, why did the hostess wait until my 4th interaction with her to ask if I wanted to get on the waiting list? If I'm paying $50 for this dish, why did Tyson refuse to cook it for just one? If I'm paying for it anyways, it shouldn't matter how many people are there to eat it. The manager did not apologize for the wait, the food, or the issue with the pricing.
• This is the first time that I have felt that Uchi's food was less than mediocre. The halibut head was boring, over salted, and nothing like I would have expected from Uchi. This was like something I could get at Din-ho or Asian Market. I actually make a very similarly prepared dish with whole tilapia that costs me about $3.00 per whole fish.
• I felt like no apologies were made for their mistake on Twitter. Their tweet was truncated, and some how no one even bothered to say "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but the price of this dish was $50." No one bothered to say before hand, "I understand that you are having the halibut head special tonight for $50." The attitude of the manager was "Pay up."
• Someone needs to learn how to use Twitter.
  

This is why one star reviews of Uchi exist. If tonight was my only Uchi dining experience, I may never come back again. I'm still very upset about last night's experience now. I hope that in the future, they can get all their staff members on the same page and advertise their specials more accurately.