I kind of had this one. Well, I ate at Feast. I didn't have the cassoulet though. I think I'm going to count it on the list regardless.
Reading Robb's entry about the dish I got the impression, perhaps wrongly that he picked a dish that was a little more palatable to the mainstream and embodied the restaurant's core purpose of serving delicious, rustic European fare. Since I'm not someone who refuses to eat meat that's named as being from slightly more obscure animal part (as opposed to the meat from those bits that sneaks in to all kinds of ground meat many of the same folks will happily eat) I widened the net a little. I ate a meal which (bar desert) was truly simple, rustic food. It just was pretty pig face and tongue heavy though.
I have looked forward to eating a lot of these meals. Some I've really looked forward to. This one I was genuinely excited about though. I have heard some fantastic things about Feast. I went for lunch, mostly because the special is such a superb deal. For just under $20 including tax you can get a three course meal. For one of the best restaurants in the city, and probably the country, that's a stellar deal!
I had the pork cheek, red bean, and kale soup to start, followed by the bath chaps with mustard greens and mashed swede and finished up with the peach melba. The soup was great. I'm pretty sure it had a hearty dash of Worcestershire sauce in there to boost the umami. The bread that they served before it was good, especially the genuinely sour sourdough with it's fantastically chewy crust. I think the soup I'd eaten a day earlier was better but not by much and that's saying something.
The main course was truly a stunner though. They brought a steak knife along with the dish but it was total overkill. I could literally, and I swear I'm not exagerating, have eaten it with a spoon. The meat and fat were meltingly tender. It must have been cooked incredibly slowly over a period of many hours. The greens were fantastically bitter and cut right through the fat to cleanse your mouth a little. I never managed to find swedes (or rutabagas if you will) in the U.S. as good as the ones in England. These were mighty good though. Mashed swede is one of my favourite simple pleasures. The peach in the desert was superb as was the sauce. The ice cream was fantastically flavoured but could have done with a little extra churning as it was a tiny bit crystalline.
If it's purely due to lack of custom I find it incredibly sad that Feast can't run a lunch time service every day. I cursed the fact that I was otherwise engaged for lunch the next day. If I hadn't been I would have gone back to eat at Feast again. If there was another lunch service between now and when I fly back I'd be at it. As it is I think I'll go one evening. I don't want to regret not taking the opportunity while I'm here even though I can't really afford to hit it in the evening when prices are so much higher. Luckily it's restaurant week!
Montrose is awesome. The density of fine eating on Westheimer between Montrose and 45 is simply mindblowing. It's to the benefit of my waist line and bank account I no longer live around here but my tastebuds suffer.
At the end of the day I had:
eaten 24 / 100 dishes (26/100 including non-available dishes)
spent $254 (including tips)
travelled 197 miles (112 by car, 13 on foot, 28 by bus, 44 by bike)
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