What to Eat This Week: New Dishes at Restaurants Three Aces, WingIt at Rockit, and Everything at The Dawson
As the temperature continues to cool, menus continue to enrichen. As we enter the last week of October 2013, a few spots in particular are making a splash with meaty, hearty new dishes, and in one case the entire new restaurant is chock full of inspired comfort food. From new menus items at Three Aces to Rockit Bar & Grill's annual WingIt fest, and brand new West Town spot The Dawson, here's what to eat this week.
(Mushroom tortellini at Three Aces)
Down on Taylor Street, chef Matt Troost is constantly whipping up crafty new creations for his singular take on Italian-meets-contemporary/seasonal American cuisine at Three Aces. If this is bar food, it's the snazziest, most exciting bar food I've ever tasted. On the cusp of November, Troost is unveiling a handful of new menu additions, including a mushroom tortellini dish inspired by beef stroganoff. He starts by making his own tortellini, incorporating mushroom duxelle, ricotta, and sour cream. Once shaped, the stuffed pasta is plated with an umami-packed medley of confit cremini mushrooms, chanterelles, caramelized onion jus, chive crème fraîche, braised beef short rib, and fried garlic. Three Aces loves its porchetta. Diners here can expect to constantly find new iterations for the Italian meat staple, with the latest being an encased porchetta sausage made with pork and porchetta seasonings such as rosemary, garlic, fennel seed, and fennel pollen. The sausages are served with green lentils, black kale and golden beet slaw, pickled shallots, and celery leaf. And here's a cool one: baked olives. Rather than serve your standard bowl of olives, Troost amasses a variety of specialty olives, pits them, and bakes them in a small cast-iron pan with tomato-vodka sauce and house-smoked buffalo mozzarella.
(Wings at Rockit Bar & Grill)
Are you ready to WingIt? Rockit Bar & Grill's annual wing-centric fest is back on this week, featuring five days full of tailgate-inspired fare prepared by executive chef Amanda Downing. Diners can expect a different exotic wing every weekday, starting with piri piri wings today, October 28, made with garlic and piri piri pepper marinade. Tomorrow features five spice-cured confit duck wings with hoisin glaze, scallions, and cucumber, followed by cocoa- and coffee-rubbed ancho mole turkey wings on Wednesday with cilantro and queso fresco. Perfect for Halloween, Thursday's offering is blackened "bat" wings, aka crispy charred chicken wings with ghost pepper sauce (boo!), and a chilled milk shot. Manzano pepper wings wrap up the week, along with pineapple-papaya relish and manzano pepper butter.
(Pigs in a blanket, The Dawson-style)
Last but certainly not least, make sure and check out The Dawson this week. The sprawling new West Town restaurant features stylized American cuisine prepared by chef Rene De Leon, an elaborate beverage program curated by Clint Rogers, and a massive bi-level space. Infusing contemporary American cuisine with international influences, De Leon creates dishes such as pigs in a blanket with Mandarin-style pork sausage and bao, smoked beef tongue sliders, oyster po'boys with masa-breaded oysters, and a wood-grilled burger accentuated with pork jowl, Comte cheese, and bread and butter jalapeños. The drink list contains a slew of craft cocktails, along with housemade sodas, craft beers, and small producer wines. Lots to eat, drink, and see at The Dawson, the latest endeavor from restaurateurs Billy Lawless (The Gage and Henri) and Branko Palikuca (Topaz and Amber).