Every year, Dai Due is invited by Emmett and Lisa Fox to cook for the combined staff of ASTI and FINO. This year, they had some extra seats and opened them up to the public. Once we heard the news on Saturday, we quickly made a reservation, Paypal'd the $85 per person, and waited eagerly for the dinner to arrive. Once we got to FINO, we were seated with four others (nice people who turned out to be excellent conversationalists) and a wonderful four hour meal began. Here's what we had.

Lima Bean and Mint Puree Amazing use of Springdale Farms' lima beans and mint. So delicious.
Arbequina Olives Great fruity taste without too much saltiness. Great olives from Sandy Oaks in Elmendorf, Texas.

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What I Ate: January 9, 2011 (Dai Due dinner at FINO)

The Sushi Zushi on 5th street is another restaurant we like to hit when it's late and we have a craving for nontraditional sushi rolls (they close at 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends and don't give you the evil eye when you come in 20 minutes before closing). Many of their sushi rolls are relatively pricey, but quite a few of their other dishes are excellent values. We like getting one or two rolls and then getting a variety of other items.

Salmon Musubi, $3.50 (for two). We really liked these rice balls seasoned with flaked salmon.

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What I Ate: January 8, 2011 (Sushi Zushi)

Justine's Brasserie (4710 East 5th Street, Austin, TX (512) 385-2900)

One of our favorite late night stops. After a disappointing evening watching Tango Buenos Aires at The Long Center, we needed a pick-me-up meal. There are usually a bunch of people eating at Justine's at around 10:30pm so it doesn't feel like your the only patrons left in a restaurant and the food is pretty good.

Salade d'Endives Poire Roquefort Belgian endive, pear and roquefort salad with walnuts, butter lettuce, and a classic vinaigrette, $8. The Salade Landaise salad is stellar at Justine's, but this endive, lettuce, and bleu cheese salad is pretty decent.

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What I Ate: January 6, 2011 (Justine's Brasserie)

Well, this is it: The last entry in the daily What I Ate series. I'll probably post in the future under this category for special meals, but for the most part (after two straight years - seven hundred and thirty consecutive days - of documenting every main meal) I'm concluding this series. After today's post, I'll have documented, through photography and text, approximately 6.8% of my entire life's meals (the first three months of 2008 plus all of 2009 through 2010). Writing What I Ate takes more time than I expected it to and I've decided that my time is probably better spent returning more attention to Cooking For Engineers. I'll continue to post to Orthogonal Thought random thoughts and perhaps continue the Things We Like series or Photo of the Week (formerly "of the Day") series. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Dinner: Before watching a performance of the Beatles tribute band Classical Mystery Tour backed by the Austin Symphony Orchestra, we grabbed a quick dinner at Mighty Fine Burgers. We're not huge fans of Mighty Fine's burgers (tonight I had a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger with grilled jalapenos), but we think their fries are usually the best in town.

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What I Ate: December 31, 2010 (Mighty Fine Burgers)

Lunch: My mom made an egg and tomato (with seaweed) soup.

We ate daikon buns with the soup.

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What I Ate: December 30, 2010

Lunch: Nong Shim Seafood Ramyun with egg and Napa cabbage

Dinner: Tina make a red kale and potato soup which we ate with cong you bing and corn bread.

Lunch: I had a craving for banh mi, so we went to Baguette House (10901 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX (512) 837-9100) where we got a BBQ Pork sandwich and two Special Combination sandwiches which we split.

Dinner: I made beef stroganoff with egg noodles and Tina roasted some broccoli.

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What I Ate: December 28, 2010 (Baguette House)

Lunch: Leftover dim sum from Chinatown

Dinner: We heated a bunch of leftovers from Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant and the stewed pigs feet from Tina's parents for dinner

Dinner: After watching a performance of the Radio City Holiday Spectacular, we ate a dinner of crawfish and Dungeness crab with our favorite seasoning choice - Fire-Grilled.

Lunch: In what might be an after Christmas tradition, we went to IKEA for their New Year's sale and ate IKEA food for lunch. I had meatballs, mashed potatoes, and a kid's portion of mac 'n cheese.

Lunch: Having found out the previous night that Chinatown Restaurant was going to be open and serving dim sum until 2:30pm on Christmas Day, we decided to go there for lunch to try the dim sum for the second time. All the dishes we had previously remained good or improved (like the Peking duck which was excellent today). The only problem I had was the shrimp dumpling where the dumpling skin was a little gummy.

Dinner: We went over to Tina's parent's house for Christmas dinner where we had soy sauce cooked pig's feet, fish with tofu, shrimp with pineapple, green beans and potato, mung bean noodles with cucumber, radish, and vinegar, and pidan with white rice.