Restaurant Week Review: David Burke Townhouse

Four friends and I sampled David Burke Townhouse last week during Restaurant Week.

What we ordered:

Appetizer: Wild Mushroom Soup with truffle parmigiana foam - Pretzel Crusted Crab Cake and Sweet Chili Prawn with confit orange and poppy seed honey

Main Course: Mustard Crusted Tuna with coconut-kaffir lime basmati rice, baby bok choy, red seaweed with sweet and sour blood orange sauce - Seawater Soaked Roast Organic Chicken with herb garden potato puree, roasted vegetables and pommery jus - Handmade Cavatelli & Braised Short Ribs with wild mushrooms, mushroom chips and truffle mousse

Dessert: Caramelized Warm Apple Tart cider caramel and dulce de leche ice cream - Bittersweet Chocolate Cake with peanut butter mousse and roasted banana ice cream

What We Loved:

Appetizers:
The bread was delicious and arrived alongside tall, molded butter sculptures.
Both appetizers were knock-outs. According to those who tried both, the crab cake was the winner. I'm no fan of seafood, though, and I can tell you that, whatever the heck truffle parmigiana foam is, it's delicious. The soup was thick but not too heavy and laden with mushroom flavor. Unlike many soups, it was not intensely salty, instead relying on the mushroom to really bring on the flavor. A few soup-sogged croutons made of the starting bread really sealed the deal to this excellent starter.

Main Courses:
While everything was great, the Cavatelli knocked the rest out of the park. The ribs were pulled off the bone, mashed together, and stuffed into two paper-thin rolls of Cavatelli pasta. They were surrounded by crispy mushroom chips and extremely thick morsels of bacon. The meat was tender and flavorful. While it must have been saturated with fat, it wasn't dripping with grease or gristle, my usual complaint when it comes to short ribs. The pasta was light and, while I didn't notice it much at first, really added something lovely and different to my final few bites.

Desserts:
The Bittersweet Chocolate Cake was another Knock Out. This cake cannot really be called a cake. It was three thick slabs of dark chocolate goo with two slabs of light, fluffy peanut butter mousse in the middle. Drops of chocolate lined the edges of the plate, adding a few extra bites to the already chocolate explosion. But the best part was by far the roasted banana ice cream. Now, I like banana ice cream, but rarely do I LOVE it. This was incredible. It rested on a bed of delicious, sweet butterscotch crunchies. Alone or mixed with the crazy Reeses' Peanut Butter Cup on Crack, it was an incredible scoop of ice cream.

The Service:
They seated us before our full party arrived, which was very nice of them considering how crowded it was. They didn't treat us differently even though we clearly could only afford the place because it was restaurant week, so points for them there, too.

What We Liked (But Didn't Love):

Appetizers:
Nothing. They were all amazing.

Main Courses:
The Roasted Chicken was delicious, but the portion was a little too large for the average person. Our only complaint with the Tuna was that, unlike the Cavatelli, there was nothing very special about it. My boyfriend noted that he had had better seared tuna at Hibiscus, one favorite Special Occasion restaurant in Dallas. While it was great, it didn't quite live up to what we had expected. One (minor) critique of the Cavatelli was that the bacon that came with it, was (in my boyfriend's words) "more like glorified ham." I know everybody nowadays thinks the world should be covered in bacon (and admittedly, I had bacon in some macaroni and cheese from Westville last week and it was fabulous!), but some things really are just great as they are. The Cavatelli was a perfect example of that.

Desserts:
Our dining companions who had the Apple Tart loved it and are huge fan of apple tarts, so no complaints in this department, either!

The Decor:
We definitely got the Alice in Wonderland theme (red and white, weird card paintings, etc), but there were some pieces (glass balloons?) that seemed somewhat out of place.

The Price:
The $35 pricetag escalates when you share a bottle of wine among 5 people (well, 4, since I didn't drink), and no wines at this place come cheap. In the end, we each payed about $45-$50 for the meal. But, considering it would have been worth $75+ on a normal night, we were still happy with it.


In the end, Restaurant Week is what you make of it. We found a good deal at a great restaurant, and we were ready to slam down the bucks to make it happen. It was a special occasion among friends and we all had a great time. For those of you looking to enjoy the Restaurant Week love, no worries, some spots are extending their offers until the end of February. And some places (like David Burke Townhouse) have a regular prix-fixe menu all year round.

Stay on the lookout and let me know what you find. Happy Stewing!