Kent Wang

Sorry about the delay; the holidays are a busy time here at Atelier Kent Wang. We had nearly all the dim sum staples, but here are some the more unusual ones: Xiao long bao, shark fin dumpling. The xiao long bao were passable, but the meat was dry and many of the dumplings were broken, with the soup lost. The shark fin dumpling was quite good, a rich burst of flavor. Jellyfish, chilled braised beef. The jellyfish had a strange taste to them, a sign that they were not processed properly. The beef was delicious. Jiu cai dumpling. I'm not sure what this is called in English but the jiu cai vegetable has a very bold flavor. Sesame paste pastry, which is a rice flour bun with a rich sesame seed filling and a peanut butter dust outer layer. I love Chinese desserts as they are not as sweet as Western ones. What a great meal. We raised $30 for the Society. Thank you everyone for your donations.

What was your oxtail recipe? I'm cooking a Mexican-style oxtail stew at this very moment.

It doesn't seem to fair to penalize restaurants that have such an enticing menu that you choose to order multiple appetizers, additions to your prix-fixe, etc. I feel one can deduce a fair average price based on the menu alone.

Wow, the truffles. Are they much cheaper in France than here in the US?

Isn't the Mandarin "pi dan"?

I don't think Whole Foods is very serious about charcuterie, if their flagship store in Austin is any indication. They carry only a handful of items that I would ever buy, and those are found at other stores too. When Fermin was available last year, Central Market carried it but Whole Foods did not. But, I have heard that Whole Foods buying is fairly decentralized by region, so it may just be that the Texas region's charcuterie is poor.

Or a Chinese kitchen. It's great that so many cultures have recipes for all the cuts of an animal.

I refrain from eating mediocre bluefin -- only the most choice cuts. This decreases my total consumption of bluefin while still allowing me to enjoy it on occasion.

Fermin was introduced about a year ago but a few months after supply ran out, due to a USDA inspection -- according to Central Market. So I take it is now available and I should run down to Central Market to badger them to pick it up again.

They sure do. I wish I could get such high quality pi dan here. Thanks for all the pictures. What makes this such an excellent travelogue is that not only is there such excellent food in Hong Kong but that you are very knowledgeable about it.

As a customer of Spec's, I receive quarterly a free 25-page magazine called Drinks. It has the Spec's name on top, has some ads and a page of Spec's-specific information. The rest is filled with remarkably high quality articles. Wondrich is the regular writer on cocktails. This issue he has an article on St. Germain -- does this mean Spec's will be carrying it now? -- and another on bitters. There is also a well-informed article on cask-strength bourbon and scotch, a regular wine article and another section on food recipes to match your wine. I wonder if this is a magazine that is rebranded for other liquor stores, or only for Spec's?

What gives Campari such a red color? Is it artificial? The current issue of Drinks includes a Wondrich-named variation on the Negroni called the Typing Monkey using bianco vermouth instead of rosso. Sipping one now, it is nice and lighter than a Negroni. The red color also comes through more.

Why is it that all the top joints use the same style horizontal pit? I don't care how long he's been building pits, I don't trust Mr. Klose to know more about cooking barbecue than Luling City Market, Mueller's, etc. who have been using their pits longer than he's been alive. Also, maybe Mr. Klose does know that the big horizontal pits are the best, but how is he going to be able to sell a fixed pit like that? He has to come over to your place and actually build it. How about I start sticking "in my opinion" onto every statement I make? No thanks. You read too much into this. I mention Veritas in the context that if you like the cocktails at Beaver's, you should check out Veritas, too. That's like saying that I can't compare PDT in a thread on Death & Co. That just stifles discussion. This just sounds like a cop out. Turning off your critical mind and saying "it is what it is" is just giving them a pass. My criticism of the food in no way altered my enjoyment of it. My meal was very satisfying, and frankly even bad barbecue is still pretty tasty. Finally, I'd like to add that the reason I have written so much about this restaurant is because I care deeply about barbecue and I think they have the potential to be great.

Howdy! This is answered by my statement above: Frankly, I just don't think their barbecue tastes great, Central Texas or not. One thing they could do is make a pork rib that is very tender, which would be overcooked by Central Texas standards, but would still be delicious. The ideal Central Texas ribs, in my opinion, are too dry. Their ribs are approaching that non-Central Texas ideal but are too mealy and overcooked. Brisket has plenty of marbling in it. I've had countless briskets from the top places that have less moisture and tons of fat retained. Here's a few (click to zoom in): Cooper's in Llano. Black's in Lockhart. Louie Mueller's in Taylor. Granted, it could also be that this piece of brisket happened to be on the dry side. This happens even at the top joints. Each brisket is different. Maybe it's because that firebox is inferior to the horizontal pit? I don't pretend to know why, all I'm telling you is that it is definitely not as smoky as what the top joints turn out. Smoke ring is actually an unreliable indication of smokiness. Smoke Ring in Barbeque Meats by Joe Cordray: In barbecue judging, smoke ring is prohibited from being used a criterion. Also, I do not find Beaver's smoke ring any deeper than what I've seen at the top Central Texas joints. Luling was exactly what I had in mind, actually. Last time I was there I bit into one and had a rivulet of fat spray three feet across the table -- luckily no one was hit. But that's the big difference: when you bite into it there is a lot of fat that flows out. I don't think Luling's fat percentage is much different from what Beaver's uses; it's the way that it's cooked that makes all the difference. Also, Beaver's slices their sausage before serving which only promotes fat loss. This is only an idle suggestion. I think their sauce is fine. Sorry, I wasn't sure of that and didn't want to say he was the chef if that wasn't the case.

I know very little about restaurants in Japan, but what are the ones labeled "Japanese fugu", like Tsukiji Yamamoto and Usukifugu Yamadaya? Do they only serve fugu? Haha, I had forgotten all about that.

I went to Beaver's last night before seeing Stevie Wonder. In short: The food is OK, the drinks spectacular. Food A review of the food, mixed with a concise discussion on proper Central Texas-style barbecue. Let's get this out of the way: This is not a Central Texas-style joint, and has no pretensions to be. Whether the cooks have "studied" at the top Central Texas places or not, everyone at Beaver's says there intention is not to attempt to emulate that style. Major differences are apparent as soon as you enter the place: it is not counter service and you do not order meat by the pound. Their menu looks interesting and has a lot of side-dishes that are not run-of-the-mill. However, I wanted to see their take on the barbecue staples so I requested a sampler of brisket, ribs, pork shoulder, and sausage, which was not on the menu but the kitchen kindly accommodated me. Most of the barbecue was overcooked and had a mealy texture and was too moist. I don't pretend to know how to actually cook barbecue -- only how to taste it -- but I believe this is symptomatic of too high heat for too short of a time. The brisket was the most overcooked, followed by the ribs. This resulted in a mealy texture, instead of biting into long strands of muscle fibers, those fibers broke apart too easily and became like sand particles in your mouth. Everything was also too moist -- as in actual moisture, not fat. The insides of the meat was especially moist, while the outside was not as crisp and dry as it should be. The meat, particularly the brisket, was also very lean. "Moistness" should come from the fat, not actual moisture. The goal of barbecue is to remove that moisture while retaining the fat. All the barbecue lacked smoke flavor. If you leave a half pound of brisket from one of the top Central Texas joints in your car, it will thoroughly permeate the cabin and make it smell like that for hours after you take the meat out. Beaver's isn't even half as smoky as that. It is about as smoky as what can be achieved with gas ovens, like from Salt Lick (Driftwood) or Pok-E-Jo's (Austin). The pork shoulder was the best of the meats, though I know very little about Carolina barbecue. The menu indicates they have a variety of sausages, but my sampler plate only had Italian sausage. The sausage was made well, with a coarse grind and boldly flavored with fennel, but seemed too lean. This could due to both the fat content at which it was made and the way it was cooked. Central Texas sausage, frankly, is the best sausage in the world because it is minimally seasoned but packed with fat, and cooked in such a way that it retains all that fat. A good Central Texas sausage, when cooked properly -- which is only possible at the top joints -- will spray rivulets of fat into your mouth (and possibly all over the place!) when you bite into it. If you try to cook the exact same sausage at home, it will be incredibly bland and the fat will not flow in the same way, so you end up with a bland sausage with little fat and no seasoning. I appreciate that Beaver's understands the lesson here: if you cannot cook sausage like the top joints, don't bother trying to do so with blandly-seasoned sausage. By using boldly-seasoned sausages like Italian, you can compensate for the lack of fat, but nevertheless it's never as good as a proper Central Texas sausage. Beaver's casing also lacked the beautiful snap of Central Texas sausage; I don't know if it was natural casing or not. The rub that is used on the brisket and ribs is quite bold and tasty. This is one area that they have down pat. Many of the top Central Texas joints, like Luling City Market, have a very minimal rub with just a small amount of salt and pepper. Others, like Cooper's in Mason, use a rub with seasonings beyond just salt and pepper. This is a matter of taste, but I prefer a more bold rub. Beaver's rub is even more bold than Cooper's, and they rub more of it on, too. The sauce was pretty good, thick texture, somewhat complex, well-balanced. Some of the top Central Texas joints have terrible sauce, as if it was a point of pride. I say that unless you just refuse to serve sauce at all (like Kreuz), people are going to inevitably use your sauce -- after all, not everyone is a purist -- so at least make it good. It is the closest to John Mueller's (now closed) sauce, which was similarly thick. John served his sauce out of a crock pot with intact rings of onions in it, and is perhaps the best sauce I've ever tasted. Perhaps Beaver's can try to emulate that. After I finished my food, Dax, one of the cooks, showed me their pit, which is all wood, no gas. It is not the typical large horizontal pit but upright, about the size of a large refrigerator, with multiple racks for the meat. This is much more space-efficient, but the top joints all use the same horizontal style pit for a reason. I understand the compromises that have to be made for a restaurant in the city, and so do not fault them for that. It might also be possible to turn out very good barbecue out of this kind of oven when they get more experience with it. Although I am certainly biased by Central Texas-style standards, I by no means attempted to judge Beaver's by those criteria, but from a unbiased aesthetic standpoint of "does this taste good?" I think it is fine, but could be much better. It doesn't need to be more like Central Texas-style, but there is a lot they can learn from those top joints about how to cook great barbecue. I should also add that Beaver's has only been open two weeks and mastering barbecue takes a long time, arguably longer than any other kind of cuisine. The rest of the menu also looks highly promising and I look forward to returning to Beaver's to taste Monica Pope's take on barbecue staple side-dishes. Drinks Beaver's has the best drinks of any restaurant I have ever been to -- excluding wine, which I'm not very knowledgeable about. That's a serious statement that I do not make lightly. Beer The beer selection is superb. Dave, who compiled it, is quite knowledgeable about beer, more so than any restaurant bartender I've met. They carry Ayinger Celebrator, the best dopplebock in the world, and Unibroue La Fin du Monde, one of the best Belgian pale ales. Between these two, you have some of the best dark and pale beers available in North America. They also carry 10-20 other craft beers, including a rare North Coast Old Stock Ale (BeerAdvocate) that I ordered, which I've never seen anywhere else. The beer menu itself is rather disorganized and hard to read, but I'm sure this will improve over time. Your best bet is to just ask Dave. The selection itself will also change rapidly as they learn which beers sell well, I hope for the better. I'm optimistic as Celebrator and La Fin du Monde are very approachable for beer novices and hopefully Beaver's will make some converts out of them. I've only been to a handful of restaurants with similar beer selections, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where they have a strong craft beer scene, but none in Texas. Cocktails The cocktails are superb, and judging from what I've read of the dismal cocktail scene in Houston, Beaver's cocktails are the best in the city. Bobby is highly knowledgeable about cocktails, as you can tell from his blog. They make their own grenadine and ginger syrup, and juices are freshly squeezed. This is par for the course at the top cocktail bars in New York (Pegu Club, Death & Co., PDT) but very rare in Texas. As far as I know, Veritas in College Station is the only one that can compare. Veritas, I do feel is better than Beaver's, as they have a much higher budget for their cocktail program and, as knowledgeable as Bobby is, judging from his posts in the cocktail forum, Andy at Veritas is even more so. As far as cocktails in Texas go, Veritas and Beaver's are the best, and everything else can't even begin to compare. To make an analogy, the difference between these two and the rest of the bars in Texas is as great as that between Da Marco and Olive Garden. I enjoyed a Pisco Sour as an aperitif, and sampled a glass of the newly-legal Lucid absinthe with my meal. Bobby also introduced me to the O'Henry, an early twentieth-century (?) rye cocktail. Fellow eG regular Morgan Weber also showed up at the bar and we both had an Aviation -- very nice meeting you, Morgan. The idea of great cocktails in a barbecue restaurant is a little strange, but I'm not going to complain. It would actually be rather quaint to meet people for cocktails at this place. Conclusion I've been to restaurants with great cocktails (The Modern at the MOMA in New York), and restaurants with great beer selections (Union in Seattle), but never one with both. I suppose cocktailians and beer connoisseurs don't run in the same circles. Without considering the food, Monica Pope has created an excellent bar that, were I a Houston resident, would be proud to be a regular of. The food that I did sample was OK, but I feel that the rest of the menu is much more promising. Overall, I think this is a superb restaurant and will certainly be back next time I'm in town.

November 29, 2007 Austin Chronicle Big Top Candy Shop. By Rosalind Faires. "...a crimson-and-gold-striped candy store with a real soda counter with real hand-jerked sodas." Austin Chronicle Habanero Mexican Cafe. By Mick Vann. "Great small places this good scream for the eat-but-don't-tell rule, but Habanero is too good to keep a secret."

Thank you so much! I'm going to try a few of those out when I go back to New York in March.

I vote for whichever area has the most charcuterie. Wow, a smoked fish place and so many charcutiers in one place. I wonder if there are other cities in the US that have that -- maybe San Francisco? I was in Brooklyn last month and I think stumbled into the same Polish area you were in. I stopped into a deli to buy a bottle of water and was so envious of all the kielbasa they had. How about pastrami? Is this something you can find house-made at a lot of places in New York?

Speaking of which, how about maple syrup as a substitute for simple syrup in certain applications? I just made a (rye) Old Fashioned with it, tastes very American.

No sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested in this. My crazy dream is to move to Shanghai and start my own Central Texas barbecue joint there. Justin, can you elaborate on how different the cue is? I'm definitely going to check this out around 3-5 Dec.

Delirium Noel. Like the Nocturnum, but even darker and richer. The pink elephants in the Santa hats are cute, too.

I just noticed that the company that makes these bags is called AJM E-Z Tote. Then I thought how awesome it would be if there was a company called AsympTote.

Another meal at Shanghai. Jalapeno stuffed with shrimp, greens, duck. Pork belly. Zhong zi. When we made these back in China when I was a child, it was just a small piece of pork in the middle and the rest was rice. I don't know if that's the only traditional way to make it or if it was because my family grew up through the famine times. But traditional or not, this version is certainly more delicious. The best zhong zi I've ever tasted. Make sure you're sitting down when you see this next photo... Xiao long bao, aka Shanghai soup dumpling, the greatest food ever invented (Cook-off and discussion). They only started making these a few weeks ago and they're the only restaurant in Austin to do so. Austin is now truly a world-class city. The quality is so-so, but I'm not going to complain. Rice flour pastry with sesame seed filling. Another new item, very tasty and quite traditional. The green color is a little artificial, though.

Wow, potentially great barbecue (I'm withholding my judgment until I get there) and great cocktails under one roof? I'm sold.