What I Ate: December 1, 2010 (Artisan Bistro)

Dinner: We went to Artisan Bistro (900 RR 620 S, suite C108, Austin, TX (512) 263-8728) in Lakeway tonight and the food was quite good.

Foie Gras au Torchon - delicate flavor, rich but not overwhelming, but not particularly pretty (visually). Served with poached fruit of some kind (it had the texture of pear, but I cannot be sure - I was half braindead when we got there at 9:20pm) and a sweet bread of some kind (like a banana bread but less moist). Since the last foie gras I had was just a month ago and also served "au torchon" it was hard not to keep thinking about that one (the perfect foie gras at Per Se), but that's just not a fair comparison ($60-70 foie gras vs $12). At $12 this is excellent value since it's a rather large cut and the texture was dense but pleasurable.

Cassoulet comme a toulouse (white beans with duck confit and sausage) - awesome comfort food. Perfect for a cold winter night. White beans were cooked to near mush, but flavorful and warming. Served with breadcrumbs on top. Sausage had a medium grind texture with some chewy bits (good chewy) but at the same time surprisingly soft and juicy. The duck confit was perfect with skin so crispy that it was… well crispy - even the part sitting in the beans while we ate. Flavor was excellent. ($25)

Roast Salmon - a large portion of salmon fillet that had been roasted in the oven. Beautiful to look at with amazing crispy skin that stayed crispy (even though it was served skin side down). The salmon had not been brined before because it was beginning to exhibit albumin coagulation (a little white stuff seeping out) but then I don't think brining salmon to denature albumin is a classical French cooking technique (at least Escoffier doesn't mention it). The problem we had with this dish was that the salmon was a bit overdone for our taste - we prefer salmon that is still a little translucent in the middle as we find the texture superior to completely cooked salmon and the flavor to be less sharp. Also due to the thickness of the cut there was not ample seasoning to make the fish palatable, but asking for salt and pepper fixed that problem. Now, I want to clarify about the texture - it wasn't cooked it hell like most restaurants serve salmon… it was perhaps a few degrees too far over the target though. (I think the price was $18)

Ratatouille - we got this side with the roast salmon but there was something slightly bitter in the dish. I don't know what it was, but experience tells me it was probably the eggplant (older eggplants exhibit more bitterness than younger; salting supposedly helps but in my experience it's better to just get young eggplants).

Tarte Fine Aux Pommes ($8) - Our new favorite apple tart now that Driskill Grill anathema (and no longer serves the incredibly perfect apple tart we had 1.5 years ago). This one has a very thin pastry crust and thinly sliced apples and is served with a dollop of Blue Bell ice cream. The homemade salted caramel sauce is the finishing touch that binds all the flavors together and enhances the sweet/tart apple. We're definitely ordering this again the next time we go back.

We picked up one of each kind of macaroon and a couple croissants from the bakery when we left and we're too full to taste them right now.

Lunch: Leftover Suzi's Chinese Kitchen Chinese Food