Friends! How I’ve missed your shining faces! But here I am, back again for my monthly blog post.  Really, I have dozens and dozens of pictures of food just waiting for me to paste them into a blog post, if only I could drag myself from the delights of Netflix Instant (namely the classics, i.e. Look Who’s Talking and Ren and Stimpy).

Anyway, back to the task at hand! I’m here to tell you about the perfectly lovely dinner Andy, his parents (Art and Mary) and I had last month courtesy of the Dai Due Supper Club.  Dai Due is a group that hosts dinners at farms around central Texas.  Our dinner was their summertime Seafood Feast at the beautiful Springdale Farm in east Austin.  (Side note, because I think it’s pretty: the name Dai Due comes from the Italian phrase: “Dai due regni di natura, piglia il cibo con misura” ~ “From the two kingdoms of nature, choose food with care.”)  Everything we ate was sourced as locally as possible, and the seafood came from the Texas gulf. It was a really fun and delicious experience.  Here’s what we had:

This is a Chilled Potato, Leek and Crawfish Soup.  Oooh, it was tasty! It was so hot outside, and this cold soup was a refreshing kickoff to the meal. It was light and creamy, with perfectly cooked crawfish and a flash of dill. Also, please note the adorable burlap table cloth.  It was a very charming table (or tablescape as Sandra Lee would say).

I might as well tell you now- the rest of the courses were served family style, and I photographed the dishes after I’d served myself a portion.  You will notice that my plate gets less and less photogenic as the night wears on- a thousand pardons! This dish might have been my favorite of the night.  It is: Smoked Triggerfish Terrine with Tomato Salad, Pickled Onions, and Grilled Bread. Um, hells yes.  That smoked triggerfish terrine was held together with a delicious cream cheese-like substance, and the tomatoes were those perfect early summer ones we’re so lucky to enjoy in central Texas.

This was a lovely dish (though you might not know it from my picture)- Triggerfish Escabeche with Marinated Cucumbers.  In case you were wondering (I hadn’t happened upon this dish before) escabeche is a Spanish term for poached or fried fish which has been covered with a marinade and refrigerated for at least 24 hours.  It was lively and refreshing! Also, I thought it was really clever of them to start us off with three cold dishes while the sun was still blazing.

Feast your eyes on this! Nice photo, aye? I’m aware this looks disgusting, but I really loved this dish- a Shrimp and Cabbage Tart.  I gotta tell you, I have a thing for cabbage that has been smothered in this manner.  A few months ago I made a tremendous Smothered Cabbage Risotto that this tart really reminded me of.  Yes. Smothered cabbage is the new black.

Look at this guy! This is Grilled “Mother-in-Law” with Green Bean and Potato Salad and Garlic Vinaigrette.  Isn’t that the best fish name ever? One site oh-so-helpfully informed me that this fish is so named because it’s “ugly and has a big mouth”.  That seems pretty harsh to me (especially because I enjoyed this particular fish with my very lovely and not-at-all-big-mouthed mother-in-law), but name aside, it was a really delicious fish.

More astute readers will notice that the sun went down somewhere between this course and the last one.  This is a plate of Grilled Softshell Crab with Green Tomato Salad and Roasted Corn.  This was super fly and unquestionably the best softshell crab I’ve ever had.

Beloved cheese. This is an assortment of local cheeses served with homemade bread warmed over the fire.  What’s not to love? After this, they served a lovely Plum Sorbet with Poppyseed Cookie, but it was too dark to take a picture.  It was a classy end to a really beautiful meal.

My dear sweet friend Rebecca hipped me to House Pizzeria, a swell restaurant near 51st and Airport.  The outside of the building is, shall we say, unassuming, but it’s adorable inside, where they are kicking out some terrific Neapolitan-style pies.  I can say unequivocally that this is my favorite pizza place in Austin.  I wouldn’t presume to call it “the best pizza in Austin,” because I know people are fiercely devoted to their own pizza proprietors, whether it be Home Slice, East Side Pies, or ahem, Mr. Gatti’s. 

Anyway, here’s what we ate!

Yes! Yes! I say, to roasted olives. This little ramekin of assorted olives and olive oil is plopped into the pizza oven until the oil is bubbling fiercely, and then they deliver it to your table along with a warm sourdough roll.  I loved it a healthy amount.

This is Helen’s mixed green salad.  Yes, it is enormous.  Sister-of-my-life thought it was tasty, but what wouldn’t be with strawberries/goat cheese/walnuts on top? I guess a few things…  I didn’t try this, because I had already eaten an impressive amount of olives and bread, and still had a whole pizza to eat. On to the star attractions!

Helen’s pizza! She got the Potato and Goat Cheese.  This was mighty tasty- they par-roast the potatoes so they’re crisp on the outside and creamy on the inside.  So many places don’t handle potato pizzas well, but they did a swell job.  I think they might have been a bit heavy-handed with the rosemary, though. (And I love rosemary! So much so that I plucked several needles from the garnish sprig that accompanied the roasted olives to eat along with the bread (until one needle got lodged in my throat-I am very graceful and sophisticated, if you didn’t know)).

“Poor predictable Bart, always picks rock.” “Good ole rock! Nothin’ beats that!”  Andy always, always orders pepperoni pizza.  House’s version is a real winner, though.  I mean, look at it! Not too cheesy, not too saucy.  Andy decreed it to be his favorite version in Austin!

And here’s my pizza! I ordered one of the daily specials (I think it was called “The Noble”) which featured all of the flavors of the classic appetizer devils on horseback: sliced dates, goat cheese, and a really delicious melt-in-your-mouth pork belly, plus some arugula for good measure.  It was truly wonderful- I do hope it becomes part of their regular menu. The flavors were just perfect together, and the crust on these pizzas is my idea of perfect- thin in the center and pillowy and chewy on the outskirts.  Well done, House Pizzeria! I’m happy to know you 🙂