Taste of Offal

     Calf liver. Snails. Beef heart. When people mention these things to you, you automatically think it's disgusting and unappetizing. However, one restaurant takes these ingredients and turns them into delicious dishes. Drawing their inspiration from Mediterranean cuisine, they have created an exotic restaurant for the adventurous.

     First off, for an appetizer, try their pork fat on toast. It may sound something that will tip your cholesterol to a higher scale, but it is actually just ground pork topped with fried egg. The ground pork didn't even contain fat which was probably the reason why it was a little dry for my taste. However, the fried egg really brought the whole dish together and made it a good starter for the rest of the meal. I also ordered the traditional French dish, escargot. Pairing their garlic snails with toast, the combination is excellent, the snails being very rich while the starchiness of the bread helps add a nice crisp. Both of these simple appetizers are a great way to start off your meal.

     For the main course, however, it was just so hard to pick. After a long deliberation, I finally narrowed my choices down to two. First, there's the braised beef heart and ale pie. The stew of heart and ale is put inside a warm thick crust and cooked in the oven until the outside is golden brown. However, even though the overall flavor is good, I would have loved it more if the outside crust of the pie was soft enough to meld the crust in with the stew. However, the outside was very crunchy almost to the point of breaking your teeth. The heart was somewhat chewy, too. Other than a dentist's nightmare, it has hearty flavors, no pun intended, that make you reminiscent of a home-cooked meal.

     If you don't want a pie, then maybe some calf's liver will fix you right up. Combined with the American staple, bacon, mashed potatoes and kale, this meal takes Southern food and adds some European twists. Combining all the components together makes a great bite or two, but each part on its own is not that appealing, the liver very overpowering and the mashed potatoes somewhat dry. This is something you can get from Luby's for a third of the price. It did not impress me at all.

    Finally, for dessert (the best part of the meal), their most beloved dish is the one to get, their sticky toffee pudding. Every mouthful was so good, combining the cream and pudding makes for a very sweet, very delicious bite.  There is literally nothing bad I can say about this dessert. It is perfection!

    Feast is a restaurant that is only for the bold and daring. It offers out of the ordinary foods that people fear to try. Feast is not for the faint of heart!


For more about Feast...

http://www.29-95.com/restaurants/feast

http://www.zagat.com/r/feast-houston