Blue Dahlia Austin Restaurant Review

On this Sunday evening we decided to try out the Blue Dahlia Bistro restaurant in east Austin. The neighborhood itself around the restaurant has a lot of construction. Parking for the Blue Dahlia was a bit hard to find since they don't have their own parking lot, so we ended up passing the restaurant (which is on 11th street) and parking a block away on Lydia St.

The Blue Dahlia certainly had a bistro feel to it. You go inside and you seat yourself. We helped ourselves to a small two person table in the corner. There was a musician with a guitar jamming some live music. It blended in the background and didn't seem to loud. There was a counter where the cashier is and also where the restaurant displayed some of their fresh bread.

We started by ordering the Mesclun Greens Salad with tomato, cucumber and basil pesto. The mescluns are organic which was a bonus. The cherry tomatoes were very sweet and the pesto was nice and strong but not too salty. We were surprised at the portion for the $4.95 salad. We also ordered one of their house soup ($3.95)- we selected the red pepper spicy soup. It had a ton of red pepper and quite a kick to it, tough it was a bit too salty. Using it as a dip for the bread turned out to be perfect. It was a sizable bowl and we could not finish it.

For the main entrees we went with the Prosciutto tartine sandwich with mozzarella, pesto and sun dried tomatoes ($9.95) and the Cassoulet of duck, sausage, white beans and tomato ($12.95). The prosciutto tartine was good, but the duck cassoulet was delicious. It had plenty of shredded duck meat and the broth was flavorful thanks to the herbs in it and was not too salty.

It was an enjoyable meal, and our waiter Greg provided good service. We would certainly return to Blue Dahlia. My rating for the Blue Dahlia Bistro is a hearty 4 out of 5.