Restaurant August, Friday lunch review, w/ pics apps, entrees and desserts

I had never been to August before, and when we couldn't get a table at Commander's for lunch today we decided on August instead. We booked earlier in week through Opentable, great app for deciding where to eat for special occasions and such


I started this thread asking what to get, and the people who said Gnocchi Great choice. We got two for the table. In addition to the fried green tomatoes and the octopus. Both of which were excellent. The octopus had a char to the outside yet was tender and moist and was like a slightly lighter scallop in texture. The fried green tomatoes were outstanding and the remoulade was perfect. I love the details this place has, you get an appetizer and it has multiple smaller components that really add to the depth of flavor and add so much to the dish. You can see how the appetizers could be taken as Tapas as well. The gnocchi though.... wow. Just wow. The cream sauce is probably the richest cream sauce I have ever tried, the gnocchi was super tender, the crab meat was heavenly and it was all topped with truffle shavings and parmesan shavings. All together it made a dish that was both simple and extravagant at the same time. It deserves all the hype the dish gets.









I got the fixed price meal it was a pumpkin soup with creme fraiche with a slow cooked "mississippi style" pork with homemade Strangolapreti (priest strangler) pasta. This dish was impressive, yet I was still jealous of some of the other dishes at the table.






The Wagyu hanger steak was charred to perfection while being perfectly blue on the inside. The texture was so smooth it was like it melted in your mouth.




The crispy flounder was juicy on the inside and fried to perfection on the outside. This was the other fixed price entree option.




My favorite may have been the Crispy Gulf Snapper with the Royal Red shrimp. That crispy skin was something else, I have never had a fish prepared like that. Satisfying crunch yet the meat was perfectly flaky and juicy. The royal reds had a little spice to them and really went well with the fish. I wish I had more than a couple of bites of this dish.





After an excellent meal and appetizers and soups, each of us decided to get a dessert (well two of us had it as part of the fixed price menu)



First off is my dish. Oddly called "milk and cereal" I would not have ordered it had I not asked the waiter to explain it. A concoction of ice cream, with home made cereal topping and white chocolate. More to it, but I forgot and as you can see on the menu, they don't say much.



though again I found I preferred my Mother's fixed price choice.
She had the Cornmeal cake, again something that does not sound that appealing in an expensive fine dining restaurant, yet was a knockout dish.
The show stealer was the vanilla custard that was lighter than any flan or custard I have ever had, yet so creamy and full of vanilla flavor. The cake part was good too, but this dish was just excellent. Reminded me of dessert we had at the Jose Andres restaurant "American Eats" years ago.




My fiance got the "After school special" which is another oddly described dish. With the menu only hinting that is comes with "peanut butter, potato chips, and muscadine" Really it was a peanut butter flavored cube of heaven. I have no idea what it was, custard, pudding, I don't know, I don't care, it was delicious. The marscapone ice cream really went well with it, and it was served with crumbled chips and grapes. Like what would accompany classic peanut butter and jelly bag lunches of our youths that this was made to evoke.



Next up we have Dark Chocolate Ganache with avocado, yes avocado ice cream with hazelnuts and matcha green tea.
Delicious, ice cream was not too sweet but sweet enough to balance the bitterness of the dark chocolate. Very good dish.



Lastly my brother's Mango ice cream. It was his birthday so they made it special for him.




I haven't seen scripted writing that fresh since cousin Cheye's cake back in aught eight.





Anyway, very good. I am glad I finally got to try August, it had been at the top of my restaurant bucket list for years. I can't wait to go back for dinner one day.

John Besh is the man.