Dallas Food - One Week, Dos Brisas, Three Meals (Part 3)

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One Week, Dos Brisas, Three Meals (Part 3)
Posted on Tuesday, July 29 @ 19:03:15 PDT
Topic: Non-DallasFood

For the third meal at the Inn at Dos Brisas, I returned to the "grand collection" tasting menu. Despite the proximity in time to the first meal, the kitchen was able to avoid duplicating any course between the two. On to the food...

As previously mentioned, the Inn at Dos Brisas makes a number of cheeses. This is largely a project of general manager and sommelier Christopher Bates. Dissatisfied with what passes for burrata in the US, he began experimenting with making fresh mozzarella and burrata. He still hasn't produced a burrata he considers worthy of serving in the restaurant, though that may speak more to his standards than the actual results of the experiments.

While continuing to work on the burrata, the project expanded to fresh chèvre. Then aged chèvre. Then cow's milk cheeses, soft-ripened and hard. Had my trip to the restaurant come a little later, I could've sampled some of the latest blue cheeses they're making.

I can think of plenty of restaurants that make mozzarella, ricotta, queso fresco, or crème fraîche (though, naturally, they're scarce relative to restaurants that buy commercially available products). Yet I can't recall ever visiting a restaurant in the US with a comparable cheese-making program. This demonstrates an admirable ambition, culinary curiosity, and commitment to "slow food" ideals.

A gougère kicked off the meal again, this time pairing the cheese with just enough olive to offer a slight, salty tanginess.

The first course offered a variety of pickled baby vegetables from the garden--eggplant, onions, and several varieties of summer squash. In addition to the variation among the vegetables, the chef used different brines and spices for each vegetable, so there were contrasts in sweetness, sourness, and piquancy. Another successful, confidently "simple" course.

White roll and a somewhat bready pretzel roll.

Next was an attractively presented salmon and tuna "martini." Set over a bowl with rose petals from the garden, the stemless cocktail glass held chunks of flawlessly fresh fish, a light and unobtrusive dressing of soy and blood orange juice, and garnish of microcress, cilantro, and black and white sesame seeds. Though nothing revelatory, it was an enjoyable dish.

Not a new thing under the sun, but it's hard to go wrong with a perfectly seared slice of foie gras, seasonal white and yellow peaches, and dewberry gastrique.

Lobster bisque was perfectly smooth, with good body and a slight sweetness, garnished simply with minced chive and chiffonade of basil. Good stuff.

The seafood entrée paired a beautifully roasted scallop with a tender, fried Ipswich clam, dressed with lemon oil and remoulade. Another safe entrée, though a good one.

Continuing the "conservative, but tasty" theme, Akaushi beef tenderloin with a red wine reduction, crispy onions, baby pole beans and squash, and a salad of frisée and fingerling potatoes. The beef came out more medium than the requested rare to medium rare, though didn't seem to suffer much for it, remaining moist enough and with good flavor. The vegetables were, as always, of excellent quality and not mistreated in any way. If you're going to eat a "steak house" style entrée at a fine dining restaurant, you could definitely do a lot worse.

After asking for a peak at the restaurant's cheeses before the meal, I had hoped to get another of their fine housemade cheeses. Instead, the kitchen served Veldhuizen's Gruyère clone, which, while good, still doesn't rival a well-aged AOC Gruyère. The cheese was served with a balsamic reduction and golden aprium. Not a bad cheese course, though I would have preferred to see more of the restaurant's own cheeses.

This meal ended with a lackluster layered chocolate confection with a thick, tough base crust, dense chocolate mousse, and a layer of shiny glaze over the top, served with raspberry puree and crème anglaise. Falling short in both originality and execution, this was the most disappointing of the three desserts I had at the Inn at Dos Brisas. It's the sort of thing one expects to find at a restaurant with far fewer resources and ambitions.

Another flop with the final bites. These were supposed to be simple truffles. Too-soft ganache was piped and then simply dusted with cocoa powder. No coating layer of chocolate was applied before rolling in cocoa powder. There was no effort to shape the ganache into a traditional truffle form. Given the absence of a shell and the softness of the ganache, the bites couldn't be picked up without making a mess.

Final impressions are as important as first impressions in fine dining. In keeping with that principle, the trend has been towards more numerous and elaborate mignardises. For guests who come to the Inn at Dos Brisas with expectations formed by experience with other five-star restaurants and Relais & Châteaux properties, ending the evening in this way will come as a bit of a shock.

Making a dramatic recovery from the poor mignardises, the hostess offered a jar of pickled okra as a parting gift. Unspeakably cool. I'll take pickled heirloom okra over shortbread cookies any day of the week.

So, coming back to the overall evaluative and comparative question, does the Inn at Dos Brisas deserve five stars? On the basis of these meals, I would say "yes and no."

The Inn at Dos Brisas has some remarkable strengths, chief among them the quality and variety of organic produce the kitchen has at its immediate disposal. The gardens, greenhouse, and orchard put the restaurant in a class of its own within the state of Texas and within a pretty select group nationally. It's a huge asset, even without considering the extraordinary "greenness" of the undertaking.

The produce wouldn't mean anything without a discerning palate and skillful hands in the kitchen. Chef Jason Robinson possesses both. Many courses showed a very delicate sense of balance. Robinson is willing to call upon bitter and sour flavors, which many chefs avoid. The pacing and progression of menus were sensible. Though some courses may have been rather conventional, nearly everything was tasteful, well executed, and built around high quality ingredients.

The housemade cheeses are pretty impressive, both for the ambition they demonstrate and on their own merits. With time, further experimentation, and ramped up production, the Inn at Dos Brisas could very well make an independent name for itself among turophiles.

Service was of consistently high quality--warm and polished, never stiff or stilted. "Extra mile" touches were fairly common. The atmosphere and surroundings also make quite an impression, embodying three of the "C's" in the Relais & Châteaux motto: Charm, Character, and Calm.

In the past year, I've dined at a little over half of the current crop of Mobil five-star restaurants. With the exception noted below, my meals at the Inn at Dos Brisas neither led nor trailed the pack in quality of food or service. That being the case, I think the restaurant is arguably a fair selection for that recognition.

The big exception is, of course, pastry. Those five stars invite scrutiny and comparison. And when set alongside meals that are concluding with the focused efforts of chefs such as Claire Clark, Michael Laiskonis, Johnny Iuzzini, and Sébastien Rouxel, the contrast is stark. The desserts and mignardises at the Inn at Dos Brisas are--in ambition, creativity, presentation, and execution--well below five-star territory. This is not an insignificant lapse. The gap is wide enough to raise serious doubts about whether five stars are warranted.

Is the Inn at Dos Brisas the best restaurant in Texas? That's harder to answer. Deciding whether a restaurant merits five stars requires situating it within a range of restaurants. That's easier than calling out a specific ordinal ranking. The unusual combination of strengths and a notable weakness at the Inn at Dos Brisas makes it even harder to pin down in that way. The ambitious gardening and cheese programs make the restaurant exceptional, perhaps even unique, in Texas. Yet one can get some meals (and certainly desserts) elsewhere in Texas that equal or surpass these in terms of interest level and execution.

Though I wouldn't feel comfortable saying the Inn at Dos Brisas is the "best restaurant in Texas," I would argue that it's "among the best." And, given the restaurant's unique strengths, it's one I hope to return to soon.

Links to: Inn at Dos Brisas Report (Part 1); Inn at Dos Brisas Report (Part 2); Inn at Dos Brisas Report (Part 3).