This week, I was invited to the
Olive & June soft opening. Olive & June is a restaurant opening to the public very soon (rumor says next Tuesday), from Chef Shawn Cirkiel who also has Parkside and Backspace downtown on 6th street.
After fighting rainy day, post-work traffic on Mopac, I arrived at Olive & June exactly at the time my reservation was for. While waiting for my dinner guest to get there, I ran into
Addie Broyles and chatted with her a bit. Later I spotted
Jennie Chen, and I think there may have been some people from
Texas Monthly sitting at the table behind me.
Once my guest arrived, it was time to really decide what to order and start tasting!
My dinner guest and I started off by ordering a few appetizer dishes. The fried artichokes were amazing. Sometimes when you get artichokes they are breaded and fried, but these skipped the breading, and I was so glad. We also got the risotto balls which were delicious and incredibly crispy. And a polenta dish with an egg on top and mushrooms. It was so rich, but really yummy and the mushrooms added the perfect amount of earthiness to the dish.
Then we ordered an entree and a pasta dish. We both decided that the swordfish with a pistachio topping sounded delicious, and a pappardelle pasta with short ribs and apples and sunchokes sounded great. And they were! That pasta was so good. And the tartness and crispness of the apples lightened up the heaviness of the pasta perfectly. And the swordfish steak was actually cut down the middle to make two thinner pieces, and it worked beautifully. We ordered sides of kale (so good!) and some sort of white beans.
As we were eating all of this.. a few things happened.
1. I made a lot of mmmm noises.
2. I decided kale is actually really delicious.
3. I dropped my dinner fork on the ground (so embarrassing!)
4. I reached down to get my camera out of my bag to take a photo, and dropped it on the ground (embarrassing again!)
5. Remarked about how great the service was and how our waitress was doing a fantastic job.
For dessert we had something chocolatey and layered.. unfortunately I can't remember the name. I am not a big fan of super-sweet desserts, and so this one was perfect. It was very rich, but not overly sweet. Even though I only meant to take one bite, I think I wound up taking four or five before putting down the spoon.
It was such a great experience. I can't wait to come back, especially in nicer weather and sit outside under the huge tree.
Edited to add: After seeing Michelle's lovely post, I realized that I neglected to mention that the food was complimentary! Many thanks to Olive & June for the invite and encouraging us to try many different things!
