A Houndstooth Cupping

A month or so ago, out of the blue, I got an email from Jodi Bart asking if I wanted to partner up with Houndstooth to host a coffee cupping for Austin Food Blogger Alliance members. It was difficult to respond with appropriate decorum. Did I want to take Cindy Crawford to my middle school prom? HELL YES I WANT TO PARTNER UP WITH HOUNDSTOOTH FOR A CUPPING EVENT.

So I did. And it was unreasonably, awesomely, fantastically, fun.

Sunday night at 6:00, about 20 of us filtered in and took seats around the shop, scanning the room, trying to connect actual faces to twitter profile pics and profile pics to blogs. On the counter, there were apples; as Sean's brother Paul ground coffee for the cupping, we tasted them. At first, they tasted like... apples. And when we tried to describe the tastes to each other, a lot of us found ourselves coming up blank, going back for second tries. Soon, we started to isolate textures, and sweetness, and citrus flavors, and the bitterness of peel. And then we were ready.

The first step in the cupping is fragrance. This is the part where you stick your nose into a juice glass with a couple of tablespoons of fresh ground coffee at the bottom and inhale. It was a little embarrassing to be in public with one's nose quite so deep in a glass, but it was all so intoxicating that I stopped caring by the time I got to the Burundi. There were blueberry and cherry scents, notes of balsa wood, pepper, chili, almonds. And the fragrance shifted, as the coffee sat, even over a few minutes.



We compared notes, and then shifted from fragrance, when the beans were dry, to the more difficult task of aroma, which is what a coffee smells like when it's wet. It's much harder to get a sense for the aromas here, so there's a whole process of "breaking the crust" when going in for the aroma notes, involving a back and forth and book swish of a spoon after the hot water was poured over the grounds. Sean sort of nailed it on this one when he said mostly it'll just smell hot.

At this point, we were all revved up and ready to get tasting, and Sean gave us a good demo there too. To taste, you slurp. Full on, snooty wine style, slurp. It makes a floppy wet sound sound, kind of like an air zerbert. I no longer felt like the fragrance was the embarrassing part of the event. But the reward for the slurp was the tastes that came flooding in from these coffees. The Mad Cap Gishamwana Rwanda started with flash of sharp almost lemon flavor and the sunk into a silky resonating chocolate. The Gatare Burundi, from Handsome in LA, had a smoother flavor, woody and full bodied, without more subtle changes from start to middle to end. We got almonds from the Finca Nueva Armenia Guatemala, butter from the El Gavilan Ecuador, and a big fat blueberry pie from the Peru all from Counter Culture. Standing around each coffee in little clusters, we'd slurp and compare notes - someone said wood, and someone else said wet wood, and someone else connected that with popsicle stick, and as subjective as this process is, a description resonated, and we could all taste it.

Popular vote was a close run between the Burundi and the Rawanda, but the Rawanda eeked out the victory (sorry Maggie), and Paul set about brewing us all cups of it using a few of the shop's Clevers. We sipped, and sighed, and caught up with each other a bit before packing up our cameras and note pads and heading back out into the warm night and home.

We are novices - most of us anyway - and we have a lot more to learn. We focused on 3 of the dimensions in a real cupping - fragrance, aroma, and flavor. There's acidity to consider next time, and body, aftertaste, and balance. And the entire SCAA flavor wheel to master. So thank you once again Sean and Houndstooth for having us, and Jodi, who I think is now officially my coffee addiction enabler. Can't wait until next time.

Looking for more cupping action? Mike Galante and Farmstress Maggie, a couple of my AFBA compatriots already have posts on the event up as well:
http://blog.mikegalante.com/2012/houndstooth-hosts-the-afba/
http://frommaggiesfarm.blogspot.com/2012/05/coffee-cupping-at-houndstooth-austin.html

Head to Head: MightyFine vs P. Terry's

Austin has never suffered for want of burgers and fries. We've had Dirty Martin's since 1926, and places like Dan's, Sandy's and Top Notch followed, serving up mega-greasy, super delicious burgers of unknown provenance.

Now there's a new crop - led by P. Terry's and Mighty Fine - that have taken the I-know-the-guy-that-grew-that-tomato ethos and applied it to the formula that worked so well for the classic burger joints. Tiny menu, cooked to order, fresh made everything.

I can't afford the calories for a full run down of the Austin Burger scene, and I don't want to invite the hate mail that would come from comparing the new guys to classics. But I do have the completely subjective data to support a head-to-head throwdown for the new big dogs in town: P. Terry's and Mighty Fine.

The Place

P Terry's Wm Cannon Location

Mighty Fine is run by the same folks that run Rudy's, and it shows. Mighty Fine is just this side of a warehouse on ambiance. Folding metal chairs line long tables with plastic red-check table cloths. Oddly, it works. Though it's bare-bones, there's something appealing about the function before form approach.

P Terry's couldn't more different. Each of their locations shares an early-60's modern vibe, underscored by exposed wood, clean lines, and high-style architecture. While some details fall through the cracks (the sign on the trash at the Arbor Trails location is in Comic Sans, standing out like a half-empty can of bud light floating in an infinity edge pool) - the place in general holds together beautifully.

Advantage: P. Terry's.

The Burger

Mighty Fine Junior Cheeseburger Yeller

I have eaten many a Mighty Fine burger and each is identical, down to the orientation of the bacon and the size of the tomato slice. They are also delicious. The burger itself is thick and fresh, simply spiced, and each topping they do is right on the money - especially the crisp bacon. I like the Junior size best - the full burger is a lot to handle.

P Terry's Cheeseburger

P Terry's burger? Not so much. While the toppings are great (especially the tomatoes), the meat is thin and cooked to a well-done char. Together with the sometimes compressed spongy bread, there's just not a lot of burger to this burger. In the immortal words of that old lady from my childhood: "Where's the beef"

Advantage: Mighty Fine

The Fries

Mighty Fine Fries

Mighty Fine has the best crinkle cut fries I've ever had. This is not saying much, since most crinkle cut fries come from a a freezer bag and taste like frost bite. These are cut fresh, and they're not bad at all. My main complaint is the crisp - cooked to beautiful color and well salted, they're just a little floppier than I like to see in a fry.

P. Terry's fries are better on good days and worse on bad days. More conventionally cut, these are thin little bundles of joy when they're hot that lose their charm quickly as they cool down. Still, good stuff on both counts.

Advantage: Mighty Fine

The Winner: Mighty Fine. P Terry's has a lot going for it, but you can't eat a pretty little mid-century knock off chair. For the stuff you can eat, fries, burgers, even shakes, it's a clear victory for Mighty Fine.

That said, both have place at the table, and I am happy they both exist. I like that cheap fast food is made with attention to detail and serious consideration of where it's from and how it's raised. And I like that our local places, even in this little wisp of a niche market, still knock the socks off of the national competition.

Mighty Fine:        |      P Terry's:

The Best Coffee in Austin

Tackling the Coffee category for the Austin Food Blogger Alliance City Guide is harder in 2012 than it would have been a few years back. From a complete coffee wasteland in the 90s, Austin has emerged as the coffee epicenter of the central time zone. Cuvee is roasting world class coffee (powering 4 out of the 38 national finalists at last year's US Barista championships). New shops are popping up nearly every month, becoming the centers of neighborhood life and changing the landscape of Austin for the better. Talented baristas are branching out into new ventures and breathing life into forgotten enterprises. I've highlighted five of the very best spots for coffee in town - each of which has raised the bar in it's own way - and another dozen or so that are worth a visit.

The Best Coffee Shops in Austin:

Caffe Medici
Caffee Medici was founded in 2006, turning a little house in Clarksville into a new kind of coffee shop for Austin. Latte art. French press. Perfect ceramic cups. It was packed with customers from the get-go. Now open in 3 locations, Medici is still, as far as I'm concerned, the best in town. The slightly tart Cuvee Espresso Medici blend is a stunning espresso, and with milk, it takes on an almost toasted-marshmallow decadence. They've expanded to three locations - the original in Clarksville, warm and neighborly; the drag, where students spill out onto the wide front patio; and downtown in the Austonian, a sleek, two story temple to coffee that left me completely speechless. Medici matches the best the Northwest has to offer, and manages to outdo itself at every turn.

1101 West Lynn Street, Austin, TX | 2222 Guadalupe Street, Austin, TX | 200 Congress Ave #2b, Austin, TX

Houndstooth
You need to be pretty awesome to hold your own in a strip mall anchored by Uchiko, and Houndstooth does not disappoint. Unlike Medici, which, with only a few exceptions, brews Cuvee exclusively, Houndstooth intersperses Cuvee with a rotating mix of coffee from the best roasters nationally. Today, it's Counter Culture, Verve, and Handsome. This isn't an accident: Houndstooth is built around coffee and around the baristas that bring that coffee to life in the cup. There's an infectious excitement here - when Houndstooth discovers a spectacular new roaster, they can't wait to share it, can't wait to get it dialed in. You can feel the buzz when you walk in the shop - sparse but comfortable on the customer side, and positively gleaming on the barista side of the bar, including a 3-group Mistral - the most spectacular espresso machine operating in these parts.

4200 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX

Once Over Coffee
Founded in 2009 as the second coffee venture for Rob and Jenée Ovitt, Once Over encapsulates the Austin vibe better than any other shop in town. It's a hole in the wall, off South First street - warm, with an absolute gem of a hidden back deck, and a low-budget-chandeliers-and-mismatched-chairs charm. The slacker ethos does not, however, extend to the coffee. Once Over developed their espresso blend - Dead Fingers - in partnership with Cuvee. Not as bright as Thunderbird's or Medici's blends, Dead Fingers is deep and almost chocolaty, my favorite straight shot in town. On a nice day, there's no better place to kick back, listen to the creek gurgle by, and sip some seriously decadent coffee.

2009 South 1st Street  Austin, TX

Frank
Technically, Frank is a hot dog place. And a live music venue. And a bar. This makes what they do with coffee all that much more miraculous. When they launched in the little brick building at 4th and Colorado, they set the bar for artisan sausage (and real Chicago Dogs) in Austin, and also quietly upped the coffee ante downtown. They've moved from Chicago power-house roaster Intelligentsia to LA upstart Handsome Coffee Roasters in the last few months, but the coffee is no less spectacular. If you want the best damn sausage you have ever tasted with your latte, this is pretty much your ticket.

407 Colorado Street, Austin, TX

Thunderbird
Thunderbird started small - as a neighborhood shop out on Koenig - and has grown into a major player, adopting new innovations, serving kick-ass beer, opening up on the East Side. Thunderbird is one of the only places in town that you can get the kind of single-cup brewing that is becoming the standard at the best coffee places on the coasts - from 10 to 1 on Saturdays and Sundays at their original location, you can get coffee ground for the cup and brewed on the spot as a Hario V60 pour over, Chemex, or Siphon. This is the same menu of options I ran into last year at Public Domain in Portland, and last week at Intelligentsia in Chicago. If you're hankering for a beautiful cup of coffee on the weekend, you are unlikely to do better than this.

1401 West Koenig Lane, Austin, TX | 2200 Manor Road, Austin, TX

The Honorable Mentions:

JP's - for starting this ball rolling
JP's, founded in 2002,  was once far and away the best thing going in town. That luster has faded a bit as others have risen around them, but they are still doing amazing things. If you're down by campus, it's a a lovely little dive of a place, and the dark-roast Zoka beans yield a rich and earthy espresso.

Teo - for the best coffee you will ever find alongside a gelato
You can't get much less local on coffee than you get at Teo, where they have been pulling shots of Italian I Magnifici 10 for more than 8 years. It's a smooth, velvety espresso, and a perfect foil to the sweetness of the house-made gelato. The entire experience is as immersively Italian as anywhere in Austin, in a very good way.

Progress - for bringing coffee to the East Side
Progress coffee was one of the first shops to open on the East Side of town - an anchor of the current boom running through the East 6th - East 11th areas. The coffee, roasted by small-time local shop Owl Tree, is woody and fresh, but Progress is not all about coffee perfection. Progress is about kicking back with Austin's mustachioed single-speed set, watching the trains roll by, and taking in Austin from a different angle.

Jo's - for completing the SoCo Experience
The coolest place to stay in Austin is the Hotel San Jose. And the coolest place to grab a cup of coffee when you roll yourself out of bed at noon and head out into the heat of another Austin day, is across the parking lot at Jo's. Jo's is more of a shack than a shop, but they are an Austin institution, with good local grub, and pretty fantastic coffee - also from Owl Tree.

Interested in some social justice with your coffee? Check out old-timer Ruta Maya or upstart Dominican Joe, both of whom put special focus on fairly sourced American beans.

Looking for something on wheels? check out dynamite trailer Patika coffee, one of the best mobile coffee vendors anywhere. Other trailers are doing good things all over town, from Elixer up at Mueller to Lance Armstrong's roving Juan Pelota coffee truck - check out Tiffany's massive round up over at Trailer Food Diaries for up to the minute details on what's rolling through town now.

If you're looking for a zing to go, stop by Whole Foods or Wheatsville and check out locally brewed Chameleon Cold Brew for an exceptionally smooth, exceptionally caffeinated kick in a bottle. Chameleon is the brain-child of local foodie-entreprenuer Chris Campbell and excellent 24-hour east side standby coffee shop Bennu.

And, if you haven't already gathered from the posts above, if you need some beans for home you can't do any better than Cuvee (available freshest, and in the greatest variety, at Medici).

If you're in Austin there's no excuse for a bad margarita. No excuse for sub-par BBQ. No reason to get anything but the perfect Breakfast Taco. And now - there's no reason to get anything other than a spectacular cup of joe.

Got another favorite? I'd love to hear about it - drop me a line in the comments.


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The Test Kitchen. Life in a Corporate Apartment.

I eat out less than I used to. Not that I'm not on the road all the time, or that I don't love to stumble upon a genius chef in an unexpected corner of the world, it's just that now, I have a corporate apartment.

Living out of hotel rooms has its perks in small doses, but when I figured out that my current project was going to keep me going back and forth to Lansing for a good long while, it was time to get a little more settled in. My place in Lansing is right downtown, plenty comfortable, but most importantly, it has a downright livable kitchen.

I thought I'd take a quick moment to post a few of my experiments that worked out particularly well. These are not ambitious meals - noting more than 30 or 40 minutes to make, and generally a serving or two. I won't go into the recipes here, just a few notes on the modifications I made to Mark Bittman's fantastic recipes from How To Cook Everything (I use the iPad app, which is awesome)

Beef with Basil

Could not be an easier dish to make, and the flavors were surprisingly engaging for such a simple combination. Starting from the Bittman recipe, I added about 1/2 tbs of finely chopped ginger with the garlic, and I doubled the amount of lime juice and then some. Basic process: marinate the beef in the basil and little oil, get a pan hot, and add a little oil, ginger, garlic, the beef, and fresh basil. End with lime juice and a little soy. Amazing flavors, and once everything is chopped and prepped, it's literally a 5 minute operation.

Chicken in Wine Sauce

This one is cheating, really. Because this much butter just makes anything awesome. Basic approach here is to fry breaded chicken in butter and olive oil, and build a reduced wine/butter sauce once you're done. It was awesome. My main change to Bittman was to use egg to get the breadcrumbs to adhere to the chicken before frying. From a steps perspective, I did as told, but added a step to filter the oil/butter after the chicken was done to get rid of breadcrumb bits. And when I added the extra butter (I used about 6 tbs all told) and the wine, I also added a tiny drop of honey, which helped soften the intense savory flavors. I served this over pasta, which was kind of awesome tossed in the sauce. Not healthy. Not even a little bit.

Eggs Benedict
This was my first attempt at hollandaise, and, though the flavor was spot on, it was a little thin in the final analysis. A little more heat near the end would have helped. Still, the outcome was lovely. I followed the instructions here to a tee, no adds or removals. Since Lansing is a little light on high-quality meats, I just went with a shaved Boars Head ham from the deli counter at the Krogers. Would have been better with a homemade english muffin or some really hot-shot cured meat, but this was very tasty, and came out pretty as well. Side note: poached eggs are awesome. I learned how to make them for this meal, and now eat them all the time.

Back to our regularly scheduled program next time, but I thought some homemade treats might be fun.

Shiraz Grill: Persian in Unexpected Places

Shiraz Grille is not far from where I grew up - set back in the parking lot, a little off the corner of Breton and 28th Street in Grand Rapids. It's a nice neighborhood, but not a glamorous location. Shiraz has many things. Curb appeal is not one of them.

The interior is well appointed, but also a little awkward, maybe twice as large as it needs to be for any of the crowds I've seen. Bigger is not always better; the nights I've visited have never been more than 50% full - making the lively crowd there for dinner seem a little isolated.

What Shriaz lacks in ambiance it makes up for in taste. Beautifully presented, the food Shiraz puts out is ambitious and absolutely on point, with surprising flourishes and attention to detail.

I've started with a few different things, but the Shirazi Salad is the name of the game here. This is going to be a seriously intense meal - so best to start light, and with mint. The salad - tomato, cucumber, parsley and a simple, fresh mint vinaigrette - leaves you perked up for what's to come. If you end up getting a soup (they vary, I've never had a bad one), you get these little slices of a yeasted flat bread - not altogether dissimilar from the bread pillows at Sultan's in Lansing. The soups are good. The bread is dynamite. My recommendation: Get the Shirazi Salad, and ask for a few pieces of the dynamite toast.

After that, rhe feel of the place starts to warm up - the soul of Shiraz is invisible until you start to eat.

Out comes a little chef's treat - something small and artful, and generally involving a scallion. Wait staff here are attentive, in sync with the kitchen, and no sooner have you polished off the treat, then other pieces start to arrive.

The presentation is not lavish, but it's precise and beautiful for both of the entree styles - Khoreshes (stews) and Kabobs. Both are impressive, but I found the Gheymeh Bodemjon Khoresh particularly lovely. Braised beef works its way through cinnamon, lentils and tomato to come away both deeply savory and complex, with tastes that unfold one-by-one with each bite. I love spices like that - where the taste is tied up in timing of the flavors. Kabobs, well spiced by any measure, lack the depth of the Khoreshes, but are beautifully done. I am especially fond of the Chicken Koubide, a ground, spiced chicken, far superior to the simple tender chicken breast. Basically, you want the kitchen at Shiraz to do as much as possible to the food that you're eating. They do miraculous things.

This goes for the rice as well, where you can get one of a handful of variations. Favorite: Shirin Pol, where barberries and almonds work with the saffron into a tart, almost sweet rice; amazing with the sharper flavors of the entrees.

By the end of the meal, enveloped in the warmth of the food, the coldness of the place is totally evaporated. Shiraz is an ambitious place - not perfect, but pretty damn good - and I sincerely hope they draw in the crowds that they merit.

Grateful: Austin to Boston Foodswap and a New Friend

It's late on a Monday night, and I'm sipping coffee from a brand new Dunkin Donuts mug, thinking how happy I am to be part of an expanding network of food communities.

The latest expansion, and the source of the mug, is through the Austin to Boston Gift Swap, lovingly organized by the Austin Food Blogger Alliance and the Boston Food Bloggers. I was lucky enough to be matched up with the exceptionally thoughtful and interesting Kat Lynch, a blogger and soon-to-be-dietician. Kat is super inspiring - she runs; she lives her dreams; she makes nut butters at home. And she sends awesome gifts.

#ATXBOS: What I Received

Kat's box was stuffed with red-wrapped packages, each topped by a different iconic map of Boston and each containing little treasures, all packed together. Four of the cutest chocolate mice you could imagine, made by Burdick Chocolate in Harvard Square, peeked out of a squat mason jar. A signed picture book, adored by my 6-year old, told the story of Zachary's magic baseball and the Red Sox game it came from. Nut butter, full and fresh and wholesome came with a little note welcoming my family to some of the good stuff to come out of the Eating the Week kitchen. And my Dunkin mug, the one I'm drinking from now, showed up begging to be filled with good coffee. I am lucky to know Kat, and lucky to have gotten to know her better through the Boston goodies we've so enjoyed having in our home (and in our bellies)

#ATXBOS: What I Gave

It's a hard business figuring out what encapsulates Austin food. Breakfast tacos just don't travel that well, and Salt Lick rubs are not particularly useful to a vegetarian. Luckily, I am married to a woman of truly astounding creative inspiration, and together Tracy and I pulled (and stitched) together a box for Kat and her family. Round Rock Honey, from the farmers market near our house seemed like a good place to start; a little bottle of concentrated Austin wildflowers. And pecans, which, at least for me, suggest walks through Hyde Park in the summer, the nuts so plentiful that they crunch underfoot. It's not Austin without the Longhorns, and it's not a Christmas box if there's not chocolate, so Lamme's Candies Longhorns went in next, both dark and milk varieties. Then there's the Texas Olive Ranch Olive Oil, not from Austin, but from a little South of here, which I hadn't planned on at all, but which was just so suprising and lush when I encountered it at the Farmers Market that it had to make it in. Finally, in went a custom hand-made waitress-apron from Fair Morning Blue. Doesn't get much more local than that, since FairMorningBlue is Tracy's Etsy shop, with production facilities in our dining room.

I love being part of this community of food, love seeing the passion and openness that people on both sides of the exchange have given. I love the chance this process gave for some real collaboration with Tracy - who in addition to making the apron was the woman behind the camera for all these photos and the fingers behind the packaging. And I love that I got a chance to make a connection with someone living and working and writing out East. I travel every week, but rarely do I get to see into the life of the locals. This experience gave me a little taste of that. For all of these things, I'm grateful. Thank you to the AFBA, to Kat, and to Tracy for  making the Grubbus/Eating The Week swap such a pleasure.

Delicious Comes in a Box: La Boite Cafe (CLOSED)

La Boite was selling dynamite pastries out of a shipping container before shipping container construction was cool. They've recently expanded to two boxes - one on South Lamar a few blocks south of the Highball, and the other on Congress, just across the street from the Capitol.

First off, the container. Not the easiest thing to heat or cool, shipping containers are otherwise near zero footprint - there's millions of them floating around out there, retired from their original gig, now quietly rusting and taking up space. La Boite was at the vangaurd of a movement to upcycle these containers, and founded on the idea that you could sell good food out of a beautiful, if compact space without using up a bucket load of finite resources. The box places them in the middle ground of the trailer food scene - La Boite is not going anywhere in a hurry, but they're also not exactly brick and mortar establishment. Austin, meet pop up food.

The container is cool, but it's just, well, a box. The good stuff is the baked goods therein. For La Boite, that means baked goods from Barrie Cullinan. "Wait", you ask, "THE Barrie Cullinan? The one who was named one of the 10 best bakers in the country by Bon Appetit?" Yes. That Barrie Cullinan. La Boite is one of a very few outposts in town where you can get her goods, and they come in a very small, but very tasty selection. The standouts for me are the almond croissants and the macarons. The croissants are covered with powdered sugar and slivered almonds, and sport a million layers of butteriness inside. They hint of marzipan, and there is the faintist suggestion of a filling, but the essence of these are scented air and butter. The macarons are bolder than others I've had around town, almost iridescent in both color and flavor. When they have fruit flavors, you get a jolt of concentrated, jam-like essence. When it's salted caramel (like they had today), the salt is on equal footing with the sweet, balancing a huge amount of flavor. The salted caramel and chipotle chocolate were my faves of the current crop. The pastries are less fussy and more subtle than the also-amazing but totally-different Baguette et Chocolate, but they are on the same scale of delicious. They also make lovely sandwiches, and a handful of other pastries that rotate in and out, but to me the love is in the croissant. OK: Truth be told, I am a little nervous about a eating a sandwich from a place that has no kitchen, but people tell me they're awesome.

Coffee is good, but relative to nearby knock-your-socks-off options like Medici and Once Over Coffee, not a reason for a visit. The beans are from local roaster Casa Brasil, and they've developed a custom Mexican blend in part based on the limited carbon footprint compared to shipping beans from further away. I like the sentiment, but they'd do better with a nice pour-over rig or a french press set up and some fresh ground Cuvee.

In a town where empty lots were filled with food trucks, and are now starting to empty all over again as the trailers start to falter, I hope La Boite sticks around. It's a place that, despite its mobility, feels rooted in Austin in the simple goodness of the food, the optimism of the environmental mission, and the strong link to the local food community.

Worth noting: There's amazing stuff being done with shipping containers all over now (like this gorgeous house, or the pop-up retail mall in London, or, somewhat less amazing, the proposed Seattle Starbucks).