Last week, my parents treated me to an amazing birthday dinner at Suze restaurant. For those of you (like me) who didn’t know about this gem of a restaurant, it’s a tiny New American bistro tucked in a shopping center off Northwest Highway and Midway in Dallas. It’s owned by chef Gilbert Garza and Lisa Garza, (Lisa, friends told me yesterday, is now in the final 3 on The Next Food Network Star). Also, we found out their excellent meats are supplied by one of our clients, Winn Meat Company.
Everything we ordered (lamb chops, parpadelle with veal, tenderloin and venison) was over-the-top outstanding: simply prepared dishes that were perfectly cooked and let the excellent ingredients take center stage. Check out this Guidelive review.
But the thing that really took our breath away was the lightly seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras with a cassis glaze (I think it had cherries in it too), caramelized and slightly crispy on the outside, and melt-in-your-mouth on the inside. I’m not going to say anything else for fear of this turning into a piece about food porn. But all I can say is, it’s by far the best foie gras any of us ever had, and we’ve been talking about it ever since.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I first tasted foie gras in 1986 at a little Parisian restaurant called “Il etait une oie dans le Sud Ouest” (there was a goose in the SW). I think the fact that the restaurant still exists and the top reviews all reference its foie gras, speaks for itself. It was a simple appetizer: foie gras on toast with a salad.
I have tasted a lot of foie gras since that time, but last year, the foie gras that I savored at at the Mission Hill Winery (recently name one of the top 5 winery dining experiences in the world by Food& Wine) trumped them all:
a beautiful smooth foie gras terrine topped with rock salt which wonderfully complemented the richness of the foie gras
the “toast” was a delectably buttery and flaky thick slice of brioche
3 “sides”: a quince paste, toasted figs and, my personal favorite, a “caviar” made from Vidal grapes (its somehow mixed with gelatin/seaweed to form caviar like beads).
Imagine a forkful of rich foie gras with a hint of rock salt, on a buttery brioche, topped with a sweet Vidal grape caviar…. Heaven on earth!
July 28th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Holy cow– now I won’t be able to focus on my work because I’ll be thinking about foie gras all day. You should be a food writer. Next time you are in Dallas, I’m taking you to Suze and I want you to tell me how it compares to those amazing foie gras you’ve had. By the way, my parents ordered a big shipment of foie gras, but now they’re eating all healthy, so maybe we need to take it all and throw a heart-stopping foie gras party!
July 28th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
It’s a deal. Oct. 17. Well, maybe Oct 18. I’ll be there with my fork out.
July 30th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I am getting on my soap box for one second….I eat meat and was raised in the country and know that not every animal I eat is treated in the utmost humane way but obtaining Foie Gras is one of the worst situations for any animal. Poor ducks and geese are force-fed two or three times daily through a pipe shoved down their throats. The force-feeding can cause painful bruising, lacerations, sores, and tearing of the birds’ throats. Due to this unhealthy and unnatural diet, the birds’ livers can swell up to ten times their normal size and become diseased (a medical condition called “hepatic lipidosis”), and cease to function properly. The harrowing process and its effects on the birds make it difficult for them to walk or even breathe comfortably. The birds would die from the condition if they were not slaughtered at just three months old. Even so, many die before being slaughtered.
We were in Philly for a while and Foie Gras was being debated as to outlaw it from being served in restaurants. Not for sure of the outcome but know it educated a lot of people. I know that Chicago has banned it and California has a law on the books that will make it illegal to sell or raise foie gras in that state by 2012.
Check out http://www.nofoiegras.org/faq.html more info and pix that will make you think twice before eating duck liver.
I’ll take you all to Lucky’s Diner for the good’ole liver and onions dish – it may not be as pretty as Suze but at least we can almost bet that this animal had a better life than the duck.
Perhaps I need to start a petition for DFW….wanna join me? That is, after you throw the heart stopping party (;
July 30th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Dave,
I know about the methods of production of foie gras. I hate to think about any animal being raised, tortured and slaughtered for human consumption. Too much thinking has led me in the past to go briefly vegetarian, and to all but eliminate veal from my diet.
If I were required to kill my own meat, I would without a doubt be a vegetarian full time. However, the treatment of the ducks used in the creation of foie gras, force-feeding notwithstanding, is actually better and more humane than the treatments of most animals used in the food industry– and definitely better than chickens or pigs, which we eat far more of. Foie gras has gotten a lot of negative attention lately although the market is much, much tinier, and we would all be better served focusing on improving the conditions of the bigger industries if we really wanted to make a difference in the humane treatment of animals.
My parents visited a small foie gras farm in France where the farmer gave lots of special care to his ducks. I’ll have to get one of them to reply to this post with their experience of watching it first-hand. American-raised foie gras is considered the most humanely-raised in the world, and Hudson Valley Foie Gras gets good marks for treating their animals well before slaughter. From New York Magazine:
Also, check out this defense of Foie Gras.
I don’t think foie gras will ever be anything other than a tiny niche market product– it’s too expensive, it’s gotten too much negative press, and liver makes too many people squeamish anyway. But if it ever gets otlawed, my tastebuds will mourn.
So… how do you feel about eating French Songbirds?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Ok, you win – While chomping away on my healthy mixture of grape-nut cereal and yogurt then reading about the songbird…I pretty much vomited as I was crunching away (insert Dave’s mind thought: BIRD BONES) on my cereal. ICK, YUCK! GROSS! Yes, it took me pretty much all day to get over reading that at 8am to now reply to you. I think I might be going briefly vegetarian. (thus far, I have all day) For the record, once I learned about veal (as a child), it too was eliminated from my diet.
Watch out, the Kozusko’s are all over the world wanting to protect our cute little animals…did you notice in the article that I have an obvious relative fighting this battle overseas? “Last week Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the environment minister, declared that enough was enough.”
Here’s the deal Amy, I won’t torture you about eating a duck’s liver any more – as I can’t stand the thought of you posting another link about some nasty “delicacy” for me to read while eating my crunchy breakfast. (-;
July 31st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
HA HA HA! AMY: 2 DAVE: 0
I am so sorry you had to read that link over breakfast. Actually, I think you’ve managed to put me off Grape Nuts for a while because now I’m going to associate them with crunchy bird bones.
I am both revolted and intrigued by the French ritual of eating songbirds. It’s so horribly cruel to kill them by drowning them in cognac. (Why not simply soak them afterwards in it, for heaven’s sake? Could that little bit that goes down their throats be THAT critica to the taste?
But the part I find fascinating is that the tiny bones are so sharp that they will pierce your gums and make you bleed, and that pain and taste of blood actually becomes part of the sensuality of the whole experience.
To think of a roomful of lawless gourmands, heads covered with napkins, eating drowned songbirds whole while their gums bleed– well, that’s an image that’s sticks with you for a long time.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Not sure that I know what what foie gras is (yes, I am one of the world’s pickiest non-4 year old eaters), but I’m not sure that I’d be interested in it anyway. BUT, since you raised the issue of amazing eats – let me throw out a suggestion for best “who would’ve thought” pastries in Dallas . . . our very own Cindi’s! You know how most pastries look so much better than they taste? Well Cindi’s cakes and pastries all look spectacular and taste better. I highly recommend trying them out the next time you’re in the mood for some food that can only be described as “sensual”.