Jeffrey's: A Review

There are lots of places in Austin that I haven’t been to, but thankfully now I can cross Jeffrey’s off that list. I saw on Yelp that there was going to be a special Yelp Eats! week, featuring prix fixe menus at about a dozen of the nicest restaurants in town. Amanda and I immediately decided we need to fancy mamas’ night, and after a bit of thinking we settled on Jeffrey’s.

It was easy to decide what to have. The prix fixe menu had three courses, with two choices for the starter and dessert, and three choices for the main. We quickly dismissed the vegetarian option (it sounded lovely, but we wanted meat!) and ordered one of everything else so we could split it.

Since Amanda is pregnant I had to soldier on alone and bear the task of sampling the alcohol. I started with the Mora Julep, a concoction of bourbon, mint, blackberries, Dolin blanc, and ginger beer. It was very tasty and actually refreshing, which is not what I expect in a drink with bourbon. Since the blackberries are still exploding here I loved seeing a drink with them featured. I also decided to do the wine pairings with the meal, but I’ll be honest – I don’t know much about wine, other than I like whites more than reds, so sadly I don’t have much to say about them. They were good, and the wine served with dessert was from South Africa, not a place I’d think produces wine!

The meal started off with an amouse bouche of mini cheese gougers, and then the starters arrived. The short ribs, served with potato puffs and horseradish creme were lovely and tender. I’m not a big fan of beef for a starter, but these were good.

I also think I would have been more impressed with them if the crispy oysters, served on potato chips, had not been so freaking tasty. Half were served with pineapple pico de gallo, and the other half were “Octavia” style and served with something called bacon royale and tomato vinaigrette. Seriously, we could have had a meal with just these oysters. I’m not a big fan of the raw oysters, and I probably have been ruined forever for them now!

Before our mains were brought out we were surprised by a plate of pickled shrimp with fried green tomatoes. Let me just say that these were the best shrimp I have ever had. A forkful of the shrimp and crispy coated tomato with some cold and creamy avocado on top … ohhh. Food bliss, I’m telling you.

Our mains were a porcini-rubbed filet migon with potato butter, and sticky quail with grilled rice onigiri. We weren’t too impressed with the quail, which seemed to have been bathed in soy. The rice and pickled green peaches helped offset the saltiness a little, but overall I was disappointed.

The filet, on the other hand, was perfect. The mushrooms weren’t overpowering and the meat just melted in your mouth. The potato butter, which was whipped potatoes blended with an insane amount of butter, is just the sort of comfort food you look for after a long day. I need to figure out how to make it without killing my arteries during recipe testing.

We were positively stuffed at this point, but desserts were still to come! We had banana pudding ice cream sandwiches, and “chocolate intemperance”. While the banana pudding ice cream was very yummy, we were confounded by what the menu called “house-made Nilla Wafers”. They weren’t very wafery at all, and we were actually worried they weren’t cooked all the way through. However, our waitress confirmed it with the kitchen that they were indeed meant to be this way. The taste of the wafers was OK, and mostly marred by the fact the texture was kind of gummy. It was also disappointing that the ice cream was a halfway melted mess when it arrived on our table.

The “chocolate intemperance” was a chocolate overdose! It was a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate mousse, chocolate top, chocolate crisped balls, and sea salt, served with chocolate ice cream. It was yummy but we couldn’t eat more than a few bites because it was incredibly rich, and after the meal we had just eaten it couldn’t be done. We did pair up the banana ice cream with the cake, and they went very well together. It seemed like it would be a good choice to pair the cake with a non-chocolate ice cream to cut the richness, but restaurants seem to think they need to have one insane chocolate selection. Hey restaurants! You don’t!

Overall it was a great meal, and I’m going to be sure to come back to Jeffrey’s. In fact, just a couple of days after we visited, Groupon posted a deal for Jeffrey’s! I call that serendipity. And next time, I’ll get a few more of those oysters stuffed in my mouth.

Jeffrey’s
West Lynn at West Twelfth
jeffreysofaustin.com
512-477-5584