{"id":7470,"date":"2019-03-01T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=7470"},"modified":"2019-03-01T09:38:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T14:38:40","slug":"texas-eats-2019-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/01\/texas-eats-2019-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas eats, 2019 edition."},"content":{"rendered":"

Both places I hit in Houston were on Eater’s list of the 38 ‘most essential’ restaurants in the U.S. this year, which tends to be a pretty reliable list for good if occasionally overpriced restaurants. Xochi<\/a>, a high-end Mexican place downtown, did not disappoint at all: I had just two dishes but it will stick with me for a very, very long time. For dinner I had the crispy duck (pato crujiente<\/em>) with tomatillo avocado sauce, black beans, and chicharrones. It’s the second-best duck dish I’ve ever eaten, behind only the duck carnitas at NYC’s Cosme, and my only quibble is that there was so much duck and not quite enough of the sauces to go with it. It comes with fresh corn tortillas, and the duck really doesn’t need any additional flavor \u2013 it would be fine with just a little lime juice \u2013 but the slow cooking process did just start to rob the meat of a little moisture. But the star here was the dessert; Xochi’s dessert menu has a dessert side and a chocolate side, and you’re a damn fool if you think I even looked at the side without chocolate on it. I got the Piedras y Oro<\/em>, rocks and gold, described as “chocolate tart with crocant of mixed nuts, praline and chocolate \u201criver rocks,\u201d gold from the Isthmus,” which doesn’t quite do it justice. The chocolate tart’s center was warm and has very little flour in it, just enough to hold it together, with a hard, dense cookie-like crust, topped with those frozen pebbles of chocolate, as well as the praline, various candied nuts, and a dark chocolate sauce. It was chocolate indulgence right into your veins. I’m not sure I have ever had a more satisfying sense of oneness with chocolate.<\/p>\n

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OH. MY. GOD. @xochihou<\/a><\/p>\n

A post shared by Keith Law<\/a> (@mrkeithlaw) on