Bijoux diners win whether they root for Sooner or Longhorns
Good restaurants are an extension of the owner’s personality. Great restaurants are a piece of the collective soul.
Scott and Gina Gottlich don’t have the ego to presume that they’re producing some of Dallas’ finest food without the focus and commitment of an entire staff.
Scott told me that when people enter Bijoux, he wants them to feel like they’re in his home.
Scott’s home is a commune. A sophisticated, beautiful, unpretentious commune that celebrates great food and wine.
The former OU wrestler and his sommelier wife have achieved in a short time what some chefs and restaurateurs will work a lifetime to achieve and still fall short.
That’s a result of putting God-given talent together with the skills one has accrued, not taking people for granted and dropping the attitude.
This is a place where you’ll spend anywhere between $60 to $150 per person and feel lucky to have had the opportunity to do so.
I had the good fortune to eat at the Gottlich commune with my 12-year-old son, Luke.
The restaurant serves meals in either 3, 5 or 9 courses. The amount of food you will ingest doesn’t increase greatly with the number of courses chosen.
We opted for the 3-course. Luke ordered Sweet Corn Agnolotti, and I Pan-Seared Prawns.
Sweet Corn Agnolotti from Bijoux in Dallas.
Luke’s agnolotti was filled with sweet corn and kissed with hazelnut butter and danced with Parmigiann-Reggiano and truffle shavings. My prawns were intwined over caramelized onions, roasted mushrooms and Spanish chorizo. My prawns were rich and spicy, reaching deep into my diaphragm to draw up a slow, smooth, “mmmmm.”
Pan-seared prawns.
But Luke’s pasta was inspired. He’d never eaten anything remotely close to it, and didn’t stop talking about it for a week, despite the fact that he didn’t know how to pronounce. While his young palate perhaps wasn’t prepared for the wonder of shaved truffle, mine was thankful for it. Hard to imagine that such small morsels are capable of a thermonuclear event of flavor.
We also sampled the Crispy Pork Belly. It came with frisee, tomato fondue and stone ground mustard, but it didn’t really matter. Luke took one bite, and the look on his face was all that was necessary.
“It kind of squirted when I bit into it,” he tried to explain. “And it was sooo good.”
Crispy pork belly, or Flavorstralia.
Yeah, we’re talking about a really big hunk of bacon-ness. If flavor were a planet, this dish was one its continents. Australia, maybe.
For the second course, I chose Long Island Duck Breast, Luke chose Roasted Filet of Beef.
Long Island duck breast.
The duck was beautifully prepared with carrot, fingerling potato and raspberries. Being breast, it was lean and lacked the punch of the pork belly, so it might’ve been a mistake on my part to choose it to follow. Luke’s filet stood up to the pork belly and, in the manor of the great Calvin Ebby LaLoosh, announced its presence with authority.
Roasted filet of beef.
The haricots verts were crisp and fresh, the truffled potato puree rich but not as much as the veal jus that surrounded the island.
For dessert, Luke chose the Glazed Chocolate Tart, and I the Ice Cream Sandwich. Luke wasn’t talkative, so I was concerned he was disappointed. When I asked him about it, he told me it was the best chocolate he’d ever tasted.
Glazed chocolate tart.
And it’s no wonder, considering the thick almost gelatinous layer of chocolate that formed a shell over the tart and the surrounding red berry coulis, pistachio and chocolate ice cream that accompanied it.
While Luke’s dessert might’ve been more decadent and delicious than my dessert, there’s no arguing that mine was more ingenious. A playful take on a kid’s favorite, white chocolate macadamia cookies served as buns for the ice cream and was served with a tiny mug of “root beer float” with amaretto syrup. While I like Luke’s better, I’m thankful I got to see a genius’s interpretation.
If you’re in Dallas for the Red River Rivalry this weekend, you can’t lose by choosing Bijoux for dinner.
Bijoux's ice cream sandwich with root beer float.
The menu changes daily, so you won’t be able to match this meal. However, the interpretation you are in for might just exceed it. Having gotten to know Scott and Gina, I’d be surprised if it didn’t.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
My mouth is watering…