Guatemalan Topado Soup: Don't Try This At Home

So about a month ago, Han and I took a post-holidays "vacation from your vacation" cruise through the Western Caribbean. One of our favorite stops was at Santo Tomas de Castilla in Guatemala. There we took a boat trip down the Rio Dulce and stopped at the small town of Livingston.

Unknown to us at the time, Livingston is famous for two things: catering to tourists from cruise ships from all over the world, and a special seafood soup called topado.

Our tour guide took us through the town and stopped for lunch at one of the restaurants off the main road in town. Being a river town, there were all sorts of seafood dishes available plus some of the more common dishes you'd come to expect. We knew we at least wanted the conch ceviche, but when we asked our server to recommend their best dish she said we had to try the topado, as it was the local specialty of Livingston.

The soup features this red creamy base with giant pieces of crab and fried fish and pieces of plantain. It was very flavorful and the meats were delectable. I seriously couldn't get enough of it. Once we left the restaurant and continued to walk around the town, we noticed that a lot of the restaurants also had signs that said "Try our Topado!"

Anyways, when we got home, being the daring amateur cooks that we are, tried to find a recipe on the internet to replicate the topado soup. The closest thing we could find was on Recipezaar so we gave it a shot. Unfortunately, as you'll see later, we didn't have a whole lot of success.

Ingredients:
-2 cups coconut milk
-1 onion
-1 red bell pepper
-2 lbs red snapper (we used tilapia)
-1 lb shrimp
-1 Tbsp corn oil
-1 Tsp oregano

-1/2 Tsp salt

-1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper

-1 plantain

-1 medium tomato

-3 tsp freshly chopped cilantro

-2 cups water

Now, the directions get a little hazy here. I'll post what we did:

-Slice the onion and saute in the corn oil.

-Add the coconut milk and spices and simmer for about 5 minutes

-Add the fish and shrimp in whole and simmer for another 10 minutes or until cooked

-Slice the plantain and dice the tomato and add to the soup and simmer for another 5 minutes

Here was the resulting dish:

Now, it doesn't look TOO bad, but it did not look anything like the soup we had in Guatemala, and it sure as heck didn't taste anything like it either.

I can tell you first and foremost that adding the fish in whole was a mistake. The soup we had in Guatemala was fried first, which in hindsight was key. The recipe we used said to dice the fish into 2" cubes, which probably would have turned out better as well.

Also the soup we had in Guatemala, not only more flavorful, was also much more, um, redder. Not really sure what happened there but I'm guessing it had something to do with stewing the red peppers or tomatoes?

So now we are reaching out to all of you, our loyal readers. Where did we go wrong? What could we have done instead? Does anyone actually have a real topado recipe they can share with us?

We welcome all suggestions!

Hot Boiled: The Ultimate Mardi Gras/Lunar New Year Spot

Welcome everyone to the Year of the Tiger! What a holiday week it's been. Valentine's day, Chinese/Lunar New Year, my birthday (ahem), and to top it all off Mardi Gras is this Tuesday!

If you happen to be looking for a place to celebrate both Mardi Gras and LNY, a restaurant that serves both Vietnamese food and cajun/gulf coast food, look no further than Hot Boiled.

Located on the corner of Mopac and Parmer Ln, the sign at Hot Boiled says it all: "crawfish and pho." The owners of Hot Boiled are Vietnam natives but come to us by way of New Orleans.

A quick look up and down the menu and you will find many favorites from both cajun and Vietnamese culinary cultures, everything from pho and bun to etouffee and poboys. We opted to go with the crawfish pho and crawfish fried rice. Both were very tasty. The fried rice was moist and light and had plenty of big and juicy crawfish tails. The pho had a very flavorful not-too-salty broth, even for pho. My only real complaint about it is that they were exactly just that: fried rice with crawfish and pho with crawfish. There wasn't a whole lot of cajun flavor in either dish, or any further "fusing" of the cultures.

And I understand that maybe that isn't fair. After all, they advertise "crawfish and pho" and that is exactly what we got. But I really would have like to see more dishes that took it a step further. (Later that night I had a dream I ate a BBQ alligator banh mi... I wonder if it's a sign?)

But in the end, it's hard to have complaints about a place where you can get a bowl of crawfish pho with a side of gumbo and spring roll. Combine that with courteous service and a great happy hour ($2 domestics, $2.50 imports) and it's kung hei fat choy every day of the year.

Carillon Restaurant's New Menu

The Carillon Grill, located at the AT&T Executive Center on UT campus (just a stone's throw from Han's building!) is debuting a new menu, and we were invited to give it a try.

We had gotten a chance to taste some of Executive Chef Josh Watkins's dishes at the Chefs Under Fire competition. Some of the flavors were familiar, some we eagerly got to try for the first time.

We started off with the white bean soup which was creamy and subtle. Funny story: the first time we got to try it, Han wasn't really a fan. She said, "There's some kind of animal fat in it." I looked at the menu and said, "No, it's not animal fat. It's actually a smoked scallop." Han said, "Oh really? Oh then it's pretty delicious actually."

The other appetizers we got to try were the beef tartare and the eggplant caprese. We definitely favored the caprese, which was equal parts crunchy fried eggplant and soft mozzarella.

The real stars of the show, though, were the braised short ribs and the crispy pork belly. Usually "braised anything" is enough to get me out of my seat, and this was no different, although I admittedly did start to wonder if there was such a thing as "too tender." As for the pork belly, Han and I didn't really mean to be rude, but we probably ate like 5 or 6 of these dishes. So much for our "selective omnivore" New Year's resolution!

The restaurant itself was very swanky and it was the first time for both of us to visit. While we were visiting, we heard a lot of good things from other bloggers about the weekend brunches and dinner tasting menu for $38. We are looking forward to our next opportunity to eat here, but that brings up another question for us. Who is the primary clientele here? It's located in the middle of campus and it's apparently not open to the public for lunch. It seems a little nice for the average undergrad or grad student, so who does that leave? The faculty? Guests of the hotel? If you have an answer or a story or an explanation, we hope you'll share it with us below!

The Good Knight

This restaurant I believe has been around for a couple of years but it sits in the heart of the much-advertised East Austin revival. This place was recommended to us by our friend James who knows East Austin well, so we decided to give it a shot.

It wasn't the easiest place to find, especially in the dark, but oh my, what a pleasant surprise it was when we did. It's hard to really say what's better about the Good Knight, the food or the drinks. Luckily they don't make you choose just one.

The food is not only delicious but very reasonably priced. You will eat well here. The chicken pot pie was so light and puffy, it looked more like a savory cupcake and tasted just as rich. The flatbread was probably our favorite and is definitely worth a try. The Good Knight also features many vegetarian options, and even meat eaters will enjoy the cheese and nut loaf. We've heard the veggie side of the day is usually a home run, and this was definitely the case when we went: the creme-drizzled portobello mushroom cap was fresh and delectable.

Not to be outdone, however, were the drinks. The mixologists at the Good Knight have some of the best hand-made libations that I've had in recent memory. It's a little TOO easy to get caught up in the drink menu. The self-titled Good Knight features whiskey, lemon liqueur, and bitters, and will definitely put some hair on your chest. Also tasty were the Bee's Knees (gin, honey, lemon) and the June Rose (grapes, gin, basil). Be warned, however! We got a little too enthusiastic trying to try all the drinks, and ended up racking up quite a drink bill.

If there were any downsides to the Good Knight, the service could have been way more attentive, and it was almost impossible to see anything inside!

But whether for a date-night or a place to kick-start a group night in East Austin (or heck, even as a place to end the night; it's open til 2am 7 days a week!) you can't go wrong with the Good Knight.

The Good Knight

1300 East 6th Street

The World's Easiest Chicken Pot Pie

Here at Keep Austin Tasty, we love eating and we love cooking, but the truth of the matter is that we are much better at the former than we are at the latter. As such, our favorite recipes are not only easy and delicious but ones that someone who isn't a great cook would actually be confident to serve to guests.

We initially found this one after Thanksgiving as a means of finishing up leftover turkey, but we loved it so much we've actually had rotisserie chicken for dinner a few times specifically so we can use the leftovers.

The instructions are foolproof:

Step 1: Buy a rotisserie chicken and eat half of it. We recommend HEB's Honey Jalapeno for taste or Costco if you want more chicken for your buck

Step 2: Shred the rest of the chicken with two forks

Step 3: Prepare a package of frozen vegetables according to directions. Broccoli, peas, and carrots are a good mix for a traditional pie. The HEB Asian stir-fry adds a tasty twist with snap peas, red peppers, and water chestnuts.

Step 4: Combine chicken, veggies, and 1 can of condensed Cream of Chicken soup. Add a pinch of kosher salt and plenty of ground pepper.

Step 5: Pour ingredients into a frozen pie crust. Place second thawed pie crust on top and bake according to directions.

Delicious!

Beer Cheese

We brought this to the Beer-themed Food Bloggers' Potluck and served it again at Han's birthday party last week and both times it seemed to go over really well. At Han's birthday specifically, the whole bowl was gone before all the guests had arrived, and at both events, I had people asking me for the recipe.

Here's a secret though: I'm not really a good cook, and so to have anyone compliment me on something I made... I didn't really know how to handle it so I'm pretty sure I just muttered something.

So with football season in full swing and Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought it's be good to just post the recipe here, in plain-text un-muttered print.

Ingredients:

2 16-oz packages of cream cheese

1 packet ranch dressing mix

1/3 cup of dark or flavorful beer (I use Saint Arnold Lawnmower)

1 cup shredded cheese

Mix the cream cheese, ranch dressing, and beer together in a bowl. Once the cheese has softened and has mixed completely with the beer and cheese mix, mix in half of the shredded cheese,

(Optional: add some fresh rosemary or oregano for extra flavor, or add some crushed red pepper to make it a little spicier.)

Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese on top and serve!

This dip goes really well with mini pretzels, but we also discovered and recommend spreading it on a water cracker and top with a pepperoni.

Fortune Chinese Seafood

Located up in the North Lamar "Chinatown," Fortune Chinese Seafood has opened up to one of the bigger buzzes for an Austin-area Asian restaurant in recent memory.

We've gotten a couple of opportunities to check this place out, once for dinner and the other for dim sum. We liked what we had so far and will definitely be returning for further investigation.

Our first dinner trip followed a grocery trip to MT Supermarket. The Singapore Fried Vermicelli (yellow stir-fry rice noodles with onions and chicken) were pretty good, about as good as you'd expect from a decent Chinese restaurant. But the real rock star was the frog legs: a holy marriage between lemongrass and straight butter. Healthy eaters beware! You'll eat and eat these tender tasty morsels until all of a sudden you feel like you're sweating butter. And yes, they do taste like chicken.

We ended up also going back for a happy hour there where we got to try some of their dim sum dishes, which was also not a disappointment. I believe the dim sum restaurants should be rated like figure skating scores: you get a score for your fundamentals (dishes that all good dim sum restaurants should do and do well) and a score for your "style points" (more adventurous dishes that you would only find at a truly good dim sum restaurant).

The happy hour dim sum they served was an excellent showing of the restaurant's fundamentals: "shao mai" (pork and shrimp dumplings), "xia gou" or "ha gow" (shrimp wrapped in rice paper), and "cha shao bao" (BBQ pork buns). If you are a dim sum newbie, these are three popular dishes to order to get a good taste of what the concept is about.

And, perhaps the owners had a 6th sense for this, but they also served out egg custards, my favorite dim sum dessert from when I was a child. Also thumbs up.

We didn't get a chance to try any of their "style" dishes, but from the looks of their menu, there will be plenty to choose from the next time we go in. Among the ones I'm most looking forward to are the "xiao long bao" (soup-filled shrimp dumplings), chicken feet, and Han's favorite, the taro shrimp balls.

Not to be understated of all this, though, is that Fortune is a really nice restaurant inside with a full bar, and most of their dishes are $12.95 or under (unless you are ordering the shark fin soup), making them an excellent choice, especially if you are dining on a budget.

Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant

10901 N. Lamar Blvd, Suite A-1-501

fortuneaustin.com