October 9, 2024 • 40 mins
A delightful dining experience can be found in Bryan, Texas (Brazos County) thanks to Amanda and Brian Light, the husband-wife owners of Ronin Farm & Restaurant. The restaurant's seasonal menus feature what's fresh from the couple's nearby farm which hosts monthly full moon communal dinners. Of course, there's always a juicy chicken-fried Texas steak and giant burger on the menu at Ronin. The top-notch beverage program is extensive and eclectic in its wines, sakes, beers, meads and cocktails.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
travel the world to bring you the amazing people we
meet when we eat, zip, play, and explore, and we
love sharing their stories with you. We're taking you to Brian, Texas,
(00:32):
where we had our first visit in August of twenty
twenty four. We were invited to a grape stomp at
Messino Hoff Winery and a chance to explore this bustling town.
It is actually a twin cities. It's Brian College station
and it's the home of Texas A and M, which
we learned is a massive school and we've been following
(00:53):
the football since then. Joining us are the proprietors of
a restaurant we felt absolutely in love with and we
know you will too, Right David.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It delight, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah? We're talking about Ronan R O N I N.
It's actually a farm and a restaurant, the restaurants in
downtown Brian. Joining us is Brian and Amanda Light, the
husband and wife owners. They have a great how they
met story, and we love this restaurant because it's dedicated
to spotlighting the wonderful seasonal produce that's grown on the farm.
(01:26):
The menu changes regularly. We had a great meal and
we were really blown away by the wineless. The beverage
program is really one of the best we've seen in
a long time. It was top not So you know,
we love sharing stories like this, So Amanda, Brian Light,
welcome to the Connected Table.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Thank you, hell honey, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So let's talk about how you met, because it's a
cute story.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, Brian was a chef and I was a server
front of house lady, and that's how everything started.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
We're working at the same restaurant here in town. I
was kind of in town for a little bit. I
wouldn't really plan on stand I was gonna go head elsewhere,
and then they gave me. I was there as a
cook and they gave me the chef job like two
months later. She showed up six months later. We started
chatting pretty soon after that, and here we are fifteen
(02:31):
years later and sixteen years later now three kids, dogs, hogs, chickens, vegetables, restaurants.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, and then we met the kids. I have to say,
you have some dexterity I saw you holding a baby
one arm and work in the stove in the other,
and I was like, wow, we've only seen that. We
had a friend who did that with a glass of
wine and a toddler that she was toilet training, and
we just went, wow, how did she hold the baby
one arm and hold the glass in the other. It's
amazing what parents can do.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Right hurt the baby. So I got a hold a
little firmly. That's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Absolutely, So give us your background. What did you each
grow up and where'd you go to what was your education,
and like, did you think you're gonna end up with
a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (03:14):
No particularly now. I was born and raised in South America.
My grandparents were both based in Houston, and my parents
went down there for the oil industry. At age three,
we'd started coming up Venezuela and Columbia being the two
world was raised. At age three, we started coming up
to Houston for Christmas in summer and spend those times
(03:34):
at my grandparents' houses. Apparently, at age three, my grandfather
said that every family needs a chef, and you're going
to be him. I have like zero recollection of that whatsoever,
But my mom she's like she has you know, distinctive
did a memory of that? And here we are. I
do know that growing up like so in South America
there was a bunch like open fire cooking where they
(03:55):
have chickens on spits and and and and south like
Argentina and Stouth barbaracues kind of stuff. I just remember
seeing all the fires and the smells, and you know,
it's mostly men working on the fires, and like watching
all that whole thing. And I guess between the subliminal
area family is a chef and then watching those big,
big communal communal meals effectively growing up, maybe it just
(04:19):
it took you so so then you went to so
then we moved to Houston when I was in high school,
and then I went to a couple of different colleges.
Wasn't sure exactly what I want to do, but then
I ended up at you of age at the at
the hotel shop management school. Because I've been working in
restaurants since my first job at age fifteen and then
(04:39):
I haven't stopped since, you know, it's been thirty years anyhow,
just constantly learning and growing. And then then we out
of the farm to it, you know, fifteen years ago
and we moved here. So they're not only just cooking
of the food, but the raising of it and the
scene and learning what seasons were and are and and
nature and how roots it could be sometime into the
(05:00):
farm and I mean the farm in forms of cooking,
but it also you know, when there's a crop devastation
and you lose your crops, you realize that he is
as a little farmer that you know, I can't make
this meal that I was planning on making this weekend.
But as as a farmer farmer you're like, oh my god,
this could this could affect your entirely likely, you know,
And so so you learn how to how it all
(05:22):
affects everybody. And it's much more it's much more real
way of doing it than than just calling the produce
company and getting a case of asparagus for somewhere else.
You know, there's an actual farmer like, oh gosh, this
this may be a problem with me. So community support.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
You know. We we had that conversation when we had
Lee Jones on our show, Yeah with Chef's Garden up
in here on Ohio. He said they've gone through a
number of trials and tribulations during their career with their farms.
And you know, when you have a bad year, you
lose everything and you have to then regrow from scratch,
and it takes time to do that. It's not always
(05:56):
the next year.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, it's it's it's very hard. You're curious. The farm
has an interesting backstory, and let's talk about how large
it is, where it is located for our listeners who
are often global, who may not even know where Brian,
Texas is, So let's create some context and how the
farm came into your hands on proprietorship.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, Brian College Station is located kind of in what
a lot of people termed the Texas Triangle. So it's
between Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio. We're kind of an
hour and a half to three hours away from any
one of those major metropolitan areas, which sets us up
nicely being kind of a crossroads. So we we do
(06:44):
see especially being that it is a little more I
guess rural for lack of a better word. That's a
little extreme for Brian Culle Station. I don't know that
it's it's not quite rural at this point the used
to be, but it's certainly it's certainly smaller than those
major metropolitan areas that I just mentioned. So anyway, that's
(07:09):
kind of the location of Brian College Station, Texas. The
farm is located about ten to fifteen minutes away from
the restaurant, so we're actually, you know, in two separate spots.
The farm being so close though, has been really great
(07:31):
for like Brian brought up his truck this morning full
of firewood from the farm, so we have a live
fire kitchen, so we're using wood that's collected from the
property and things like that. So the proximity has been
super important for the restaurant and the farm to be
close to one another so they can kind of work
(07:53):
in kind of symbiosis, if you will. So that's kind
of the location Backer. And then as far as the
farm itself, it was owned and operated or it was
owned as a family property operated by a gentleman named
Don Gan who owned a bar and restaurant called the
Dixie Chicken. He also owned a number of other bars
(08:17):
and restaurants on the Northgate district, which is basically the
strip of bars directly across from the university. So people,
we we win a football game and everybody walks to
to those bars.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
The chicken has been around since like the I don't
know late, it just celebrated. You see nineteen seventy dot
Com drank beer there, My brother drank beer there. That
they'll have people who's like there, it's like they'll take
four generations, the grandfather of the father of the and
then so on nearby. Maybe not the infants. Maybe I'm
(08:50):
drinking beer, but like it's it's been around for forever,
and it's it's such an institution. And then the farm,
because it was his property, has all this.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
We always say we have a little bit of like
Brian College station history just because the farm was owned
by him. So the guest house that is a family
property that is right next door to the farm so
you can always come stay with us, is actually how
a little home that was built as a man cave
(09:20):
for mister Ganter. So when we moved in all those
years ago, it had pool tables and a couch and
a fridge and one bathroom.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
That's all.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
For your man cave.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Exactly, fun, fun backstory, fun history to the farm. And
then we sort of serendipitously fell into kind of building
out the commercial kitchen out there, and then catering and
then that turned into the restaurant. So it's been a
been a fifteen year adventure.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Actually started you actually started working with the farm before
you started with ron in the restaurant.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Tell us.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But it's an interesting story in its own right, and
it's a very historic building in downtown Brian. Why don't
you tell us a little bit about how you got
rown and started. And let's talk about the woodburning stove too,
because I know that was that was an issue that
you thought you might not get to happen and that
would have been the deal killer for the building. So
tell us all about.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
That, about the building itself, about or them, and just
how you got.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Rown and started. Well, the building, let's do because it's
a very historic building. So how did that come about?
And what was it before?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
So it was.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Vacant, Yeah, it was vacant for a good long while.
It was it was the original ice house that was
built in nineteen twelve twelve. It was apparently state of
the art of Texas when it was built.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So underneath the building fun facts for nineteen twelve there's
a state of the art like ice making system that
still exists. It's like under us but it's been since,
you know, obviously filled with.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So an ice house. Just for again, I'm thinking about
our listeners who may not know what an ice house
is because we lived in the north for a long time.
I never saw an ice house up there. Did you
have any ice houses up there now? Well, I think
maybe in Poughkeepsie, but we moved south and they're all
over the place.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yeah, right north. I used to cut the ice out
of the frozen lakes and bring and use that here.
We had no such things, and so they would, I
mean they will quite literally building make the ice here
and then the farmers come and then grab a chunk
of ice, and off they went back to the farming.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And we're right next to the railroad, so we we
our neighbor is the railroad track right there. You can
see it out this window. And they would send ice
for the entire county on the railroad that's right here. Apparently.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well, so what's interesting about this is just to put
some context into it. So Brian College Station is located
in Brazos County in Texas speak. Two and a half
hours is a commute because Texas drive long ten miles
from the restaurant of the farm is up road, and
there is a train track through the middle of town,
(11:56):
which really underscores how important Bryant College Station Station was
for people in terms of a transportation hub linking these
major cities. Thus the ice because in the Deep South,
and we experienced the Texas seat, you you need ice.
And this was nineteen twelve before modern refrigeration, so it
(12:17):
was a very important building historically for those times for the.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Community up until about nineteen fifty when refrigeration was invented,
and then all the eighthouses all went out of business,
so this became a contractor dealership. Stress Carlotti, it's been
all sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
An antique store.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, it's big, Well it's a it's a beautiful building,
and you folks have done a great job with the
renovations to really build out the restaurant from scratch.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
We tried to keep as much of the originals.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Take a hundred year old wood and your old brick stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So what was neat is you have these levers on
the ceiling that could raise the table up and down
to make it a high top or I don't know.
That was very cool. We saw that one other place somewhere.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, it was very unique.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
So at the farm, all of the tables are set
in a forested space or in one of our barns
in the case of rain, so it's all open air
and outdoor seating. But they're all communal, long tables. And
it grew from you know, one big table with eighteen people,
to two tables, to three tables, to now we set
up to two hundred people out there. Wow. So it's
(13:27):
little by little at these very long communal tables, and
that's kind of how the farm sort of started and grew.
So by the bringing the sort of long communal tables
to the restaurant, we wanted to kind of emulate that
and what we found so interesting, and this is again
think about before COVID, we people talked to their neighbors
(13:49):
a little bit more and made friends with people that
they may not have spoken to otherwise when we were
at the farm, So we wanted to again emulate that
and bring that to town and have that'd be kind
of the central focus of the restaurant and then have
it overlooking the kind of open kitchen for the purpose
of again the same thing. At the farm, there's only
(14:10):
one restroom, so folks have to come into the kitchen
and kind of they get to watch Brian and the
kitchen team cooking and doing all the things with the meal.
So they're able to interact in that way with their
with who's preparing their food, which isn't normal. I would
say these days pretty.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Pretty it's more normal now than it was before.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well, right, I mean before the kitchen was like downstairs
in the basement with no air right right, or.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Tucked away somewhere.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, we like in the open kitchen. We thought that
was kind of like part of the excitement of dining there.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yes, yeah, I always say it's like live food TV.
It's fun to a lot, yeah, a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I just wanted to grab everything off the counter was
the problem.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It probably would have led us to. Because I think
I walked up to talk to Brian at the ship
station couple of times during dinner and to talk to
some of the staff and whatnot. They were all like
they were inviting us over to say hello and ask
us how we liked our dish and whatnot. It was
really it was like a family affair. Yeah, And really
that's what Ronan is. It's a family affair. You all
work together that you had your kids in the restaurant
(15:17):
that night, and everybody they were traping around the restaurant too,
And everybody's like a big family there. They all they
all worked hard. It's a hot kitchen obviously on that
side of the on that side of the counter, but
the restaurant, the front of the house also works in
the same way. Very familiar.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Your kids were traping, but they were polite, they were
behind the scenes. They're very well well mannered. I just
want to say that because trading sounds like, you know,
they're very well mannered. Like I said, you were holding
that baby. It was really charming. So your menu changes
with seasons and actually almost weekly, right.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Okay, so not the entire maned doesn't change weekly. That
that's tough a little bit. Everything will change almost every week. Uh,
one vegetable will go out a season or another one
will come into seasons. So we'll kind of swap some
things around, we'll do stuff for you know, so season
is about three months here, give or take, and then
after three months we kind of get bored of whatever
dishes we're doing. But but to try to change it
(16:14):
all the time constantly, it gets it gets to be
a bit much, but but it also very rarely will
will we repeat something from like last year. You know,
there's a couple of minu items. I mean, I hate
to say it, but like hal openion poppers, right, but
they and they're all because we get fresh out pans
from the farmers and we make our cheat these things
with bacon and pickled peppers and then panko frime and
(16:35):
we make homemade rancher, homemade spicy manager or whatever. But like,
and I would have never thought to put that on
the menu. But three or four years ago, one of
one of the cooks asked to be we had a.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Huge influx of peppers from the farms.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
One of them guys like, just do poppers, Like we're
not doing poppers, like it's so like, but we did,
and they sell all the time. It's crazy. I'm like,
all right, well, I guess people, but they're like the
best poppers you've ever had, Like all right, we're good.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So it takes all of briand's kind.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Of but other than other than that, and it's it's
not even my proper at this point. It's everybody else
who like we've they've taught and learned and whatever, experience
they come bring with us and trained I let them
fly with their ideas as long as it passes a
few you know, rules, and it tastes good and standards
and everything else there it's it's there's there's I've found
there's so many more ideas out there than I can
(17:24):
possibly have, and so when we kind of let people
run with them again as long as it tastes good,
as long as it hits these certain parameters, like the menu,
it's it's there's almost no end to it. You know,
there's so much food out there in the world, and
there's so many different backgrounds and so many different people
from different places, and their parents and their grandparents, and
somebody knows something that their grand grandparents maye that my
(17:44):
grandparents never made, and so so I'm like, yes, that
sounds good, let's do that. And so it's it's kind
of a constantly evolving thing. And so there's no there's
no rhyme or reason, there's no plan to it. It's
just whatever the vegetables come in, come in season. Those
are kind of the rules. The proteins, you know, chicken
and beef and pork and like, and they all they're
always pretty much available.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, we always say that the proteins really consistent. The
veggies and the way things are prepared are what kind
of circulates through the seasons.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Like the seafood, it's it's most of it's most of
us from the golf where we have a guy who
getsuff from the gulf, but he also gets you know,
salmon from wherever salmon comes from, scalps from Maine and
stuff like that. So like again the dishes changed, but
I mean and same with the fish. Though. We did
salmon for I don't know, six or eight months, and
then we finally just one day I got border salmon.
I was like, all right, no more. Stop. And then
(18:29):
we did you know, pompino for a while, and then
then he had some some flounders. We did the flounder,
then went to the red fish and Pompo and did
snapper for a little bit, and then we were, you know,
we're doing go shrimp for for a long long time.
But then he had some lobster tails. I'm like, let's
try the lobstails, why not? And they sold justice good,
not better than the shrimp. I was like, you know what,
it's actually less labor on the lobster. Let's lobster for
(18:50):
a little while. I like lobster, so.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know, we missed lobster. We used to live in
the North. We miss a good lobsters. They're very expensive
at the supermarket, just to our listeners. So it is
a seasonal menu. I mean the menu that's up on
your website right now is different from somewhat different from
what we had when we were there in August. And
there is a lobster tail on. It's a grilled main
lobster tail with homemade fetichinu miso, herb cream sauce, gypsy
(19:14):
bell peppers and Parmesano regiano summer squash and herbs. It
looks delicious. What's interesting is all of your menu items
have a suggested pairy that tends to be cocktail centric.
I'm fascinated personally by the suggested pairing of a French
seventy five, which is a very classic New Orleans cocktail
with gin quantro Clemont and lemon. That's a very interesting pairing.
(19:39):
And all of the dishes have thoughtful wine or cocktail pairings.
I guess you sell a lot of cocktails because there's
a fairly significant cocktail pairing here.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Oh yeah, it's crazy. So okay, So that dish right there,
you said miso herb cream sauce, which in strict like
culinary I don't know, non fusion technique would be kind
of garbage. You know. I'm not supposed to mix a
cream sauce with herbs and miso and put it all
together and call it a sauce. But one of the
cooks tried it. It means it's roasted squash and roasted
(20:10):
onions and tomatoes, put it all together, added some cream,
added the miso, and the thing is like, now, like
miso is, it's a flavoring paste. It's not necessarily a
miso soup flavor. But there's a there's a funkiness, there's
an earthiness, there's a mommy iss to it. There that
because we live in America, and to me at this point,
there's no real as long as it's again, as long
as it's good, there's no real food rules. Because we
got we got the Misa paste from a grocery store.
(20:32):
We didn't go very far to get it. But then
there's also that that that whole dish was kind of
loosely based off of like you say, the first seventy five,
like a New Orleans style cream shrimp pasta that then
just little by a little evolved into into the lobster
tail with miso or butter cream sauce. It is delicious
and it's and it's kind of silly, but it worked,
and I'm like, all right, put it on and it
(20:53):
sells all the time. And then we put lobster on it,
and it sold just as much, you know.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
So.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Well we can see why. Now of course you've got it.
There's a lot of meat in Texas, and I tend
to eat fish and vegetables. So it was challenged, not
at your restaurant, but some others. The Texas Wagoo, this
one I loved Texas Wagoo Chicken fried steak with cream gravy,
mashed potatoes, so taste summer squash. That sounds like it
would be on your menu all the time with just
bearying vegetables. Because that sounds like it's super popular.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
It's never left. It was on there from day one,
and that's because I was I was raised. So's there's this,
uh a place called it called Loub's here in Texas anyhow.
It's a cafeteria kind of.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Deal and that was lovies.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Yeah, okay, when we came up from Houston, that was
like if I hit Loubies, Toys, Rs. McDonald's, the Zoo. Yeah.
I came up from South America. That was part of
my childhood and so every time there I would get
this the lu n platter with chicken fried steak and
mashed potatoes and green beans because I couldn't get that
down in South America. That wasn't really a thing. And
so as I you know, that was one of the
first things I learned how to cook when I was
(21:53):
I don't know. I mean, I know it's apparently supposed
to be a cook from age three, but I didn't
really start cooking until I got intoup high school and
college and stuff. But that was one of the first
things I learned to make with chicken fried steak. And
it's like, all right, if I ever do a restaurant,
that's going to go on the menu, but it's made
with with wagu and it's made with cream gravy like
actually will make the gravy like a Besha mall turn
with super good cream and then the vegetables they change
whatever whatever's in the season. It works but and this
(22:16):
is Texas, where people have been born and raised on
chicken fried steak their.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Entire lives and neat potatoes.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Stated, I can't tell you how many times we've been
told about how how this is the best chicken fry
steak I've ever had. I've be eating chicken fry steak
for my entire life, and it's you know, we've been
doing it for seven years and you hear it a lot,
and it never it never gets old. You know, it
was good. Well, at least we're still doing that, right,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Well there's a lot of chicken fried in clothing, chicken
fried chicken. I mean, there's a lot of chicken fried vegetables.
And it is like what you eat. The other thing
what we know what you eat, which was a first
a starter for us, is a grilled corn eloed is
it eLOAD or elo ta elotase?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's so good. Yours again has the ooh mammy of
the miso butter, togarashi chives, sesame season lime. I mean
it is so it's one of our favorite dishes in
tech anywhere. And you did a great job and grown
in thank you.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
That isn't that wasn't even my idea at all. Like
we that's here in Texas at Low Taes with the
Hispanic and specifically the Mexican community. It's Mexican street corn
and a few different ways to cook it. And so
we've done it over the year. Some of our kitchen
staff who are from Ryan area, who his parents and
grandparents were from Mexico, like the same thing they were
born and raised on. And they're like, hey, let's try
(23:31):
it this way. Let's try it this way. And so
one of the other guys is like, hey, what if
I putting me some one of this too. I'm like,
they worked with the foster, why not, you know? And
and uh and sure enough it's pretty tasty. So that
that had nothing to do with me at all. That
was just the cooks and and but they but again
like they kind of took the the fundamentals that they've
tought and learned and were trained, and hey, what if
we do this instead.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
It's an elevated street corn and it's terrific.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
We liked it so much. The next day we had
it when we went to Frieda's.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
We had Freeda's version.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
We want to Low t guys.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
We had a traditional version lo te Crawl. It's appearing again.
Each of your courses is a pairing. I love this
one Smoking spice. It's a jalapeno infused tex texts quila oncho,
race acho mescal with honeydew, grapefruit sugar. Wow. I can
just I can just that just sounds so good with
(24:22):
that corn really wow. Now I want to know I
ordered the vegetable. I always like to see how restaurants
handle vegetarian plates because most can't deal with it and
it's fairly slap dash. I had an eggplant dish. It
was very spice, which is what you gotta do with eggplant.
(24:44):
Eggplant's always a challenge for me personally, and a lot
of wonderful vegetables with it. What you have here, which
I'm salivating because it's one of my favorite vegetables, is
a roasted spice sweet potato with red beef, puree, cherry
tomatoes at summer squash, roast carrots and mixed I love
the mixed pickles. Pickles from anything just sounds great, and
(25:06):
you pickled red onion. So that's a really nice composition
of vegetables and flavors and textures.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Good. Thank you that's that same dish has it's I
mean the idea that dish has changed over the years.
That same relative dish has been on for I would
say at least a year, if not two. But all
the ingredients in it have constantly in and out, you know.
And and it was kind of based on a dish
that that I've had years before at a different restaurant
(25:36):
with a sweet potato. You say sweet potato, but that
like that sweet potato has gone. It was an eggplan
when you had it. It's gone through. I mean pumpkins,
squash beats, regular tomatoes, bring tomatoes just you know. But
but the like you're saying, like that that big combination
variety of vegetables plus the different like the pure's and
(25:56):
the pickles and everything else there try to hit all
the all the textures, all the everything.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Texture and flavor are critical with and color with a
vegetable dish. So it's just I've been served vegetable dishes
are all the same color white, and that's depressing and
going in a fall where it's turnip and it's you know, root,
vegetable season is rough and or you know, I actually
saw somebody who was a member of a CSA complained
to the CISA owner that there was too many lettuces
(26:25):
in her box, and the poor CSA person was like,
what do I say, and like, go shopping at a
grocery store right now, right right right, Yeah, let's talk
about the beverage program, because we were really impressed by
the food. But for the restaurant of your size and location,
you have a beverage program that is worthy of being
(26:45):
in Chicago, New York, San Francisco. And why is that?
Because we were blown away by the care and thought
of the wine list, which breaks it down every which
away from new world to old world, a category to
skin on contact. Two women owned and it.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Doesn't stop there because they have a big beer list.
They've had saki list meat, They've got mead tomorrow or mouth,
all kinds of stuff going on. And it was really
it was really a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Zero and zero proof cocktails and not just like one
or two or three, but you have like five or six.
I mean the the saki and mead, I mean nobody
has a sak and meat. Do you how many sake
and mead menus do you see?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Pretty rare?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, pretty rare. We haven't seen any here in New Orleans,
trust to me. And that was impressive. How does that
all come about?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Well, I'm sorry, there's not a sake or a mead
menu in New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Really, we haven't found one. Yeah one yet. There probably is,
There probably is, but we're looking. It's we find the
wineless here. A little challenge, but that's all we'll say.
It takes a lot of effort. Maybe because of the hurricanes.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's God and you. But the way
(28:01):
you describe them also, I mean you really get into it.
So it's texture and flavor as well as style.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
The beverage list and the beverage program is I like,
it's like my baby a little bit. It's it's been
a slow and steady growth over the past. I mean
we've been opened six and a half years. We opened
in May of twenty eighteen, and we opened as just
a beer and wine program that forced the exploration of
(28:32):
other things outside of just you know, your standard liquor
and cocktails and all that fun stuff. But we did
we did start significantly smaller. I think our list has
it's it's grown since since then.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
We started, I was like thirty thirty wines top. That's
all we need. We don't any more than that.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I mean, the world, the world of wine is just
as big as the world of cooking. So that's I
always talk about how you can you can learn forever
with wine and with cocktails and spirits and meat and
sakki and all the fun things that are fermented. So yeah,
it's just been kind of a slow growth and a
(29:13):
slow progression. And we always say that our beverage program
tries to mirror the kitchen and kind of reflect the
same philosophies. So small, family owned, woman owned, those sorts
of things are very important to us. A lot of
the major producers you don't find those here as we're
trying to we're trying to showcase something a little bit different,
(29:34):
a little bit smaller scale. There's a huge emphasis on organic, biodynamic,
can harvested dry farming is really important. I really, I
feel like it's a much more impactful reflection of the
terwara and of the grape and of the maker and
(29:55):
what they're trying to showcase about that wine. So the
wine is like a a total kind of passion project
of mine. The cocktails are just obviously super fun and
they were in addition, in July of twenty twenty is
when we received our full liquor license and the cocktail
(30:16):
program one of the things that we really like to highlight,
and I'm sure y'all saw on the shelves, there's a
whole bunch of large jars excuse me, that have varying
fruits and things from what's currently in season. So right
now on the shelf, there's dewberry vodka, there's pear gin,
(30:37):
there's peach bourbon. We have strawberry mescal on menu that
we just strained off. There's a pineapple and mango rum.
So it's just kind of a way to extend the
current season and again be a really fun reflection of
you know, Okay, well, summer might be over, but it's
(30:58):
still hot in Texas. So while these things are in
season anymore, strawberries are definitely long gone, we're still enjoying
them in the form of a strawberry as kill drink.
So that's kind of some of the background on the
On the beverage.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
It's really terrific. I think it stands up to any
top wine list and beverage.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think what struck me struck me most was the
diversity of what was on the list. It wasn't just France, Italy, Australia,
New Zealand, America, South Africa, is Hungary, Armenia. Like that,
you really you've really sought out some really interesting wines
from from what I like to call emerging regions even
(31:39):
though they've been making wine for thousands of years exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And the same goes with the meat and the cider
and and the beer. And you also have Texas. You know,
Texas has on wine and beer and distilling community as well.
Just very I was just on the beer when you
know it's by flavor and deep and bolth. There's there's
so much depth the air. I think it's great that
you have found ways to extend the season and the
(32:05):
use of the farm to incorporate beverage. You know, food
waste is a big topic right now, and I am
sure as a true farm to table restaurant because you
literally go to the truck to the farm and bring
bring everything to the restaurant. It is real farm to table.
What are some examples of how you use less popular
(32:28):
or parts of things that most people would toss out.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Uh, salads, pickles, jams, dressings, and.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Then anything that is actually waste.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
We fed into the picture for a little while. I
got to get to get rid of the pigs a
little bit too much at least left muslim. But but compost.
So so I tell people that, okay, this carrot peel, like,
there's only so many carrot peel and regrets you can
make and and drive pick you know, carrot peel powder
and everything else, but that carrot peel or or the like. Again,
(33:04):
someone will get carrot tops, will make chimney true with
the carryt tops for a little while, but there's there's
so many carrot tops, and so it goes into the
compost sometimes if he's the chickens. But like I told,
he was, like this carrot top will turn into maate
on next year. And so I don't feel when we
when we do that, I don't feel bad about it
at all, because it is it's just you know, I
see where the pile goes, and we put some some
sawdust and some off the top of that, and honestly,
(33:25):
you're away with the Texas heat. You don't have to
do a whole lot of flipping into it. It turns
in about a year it's compost and then then they
spread it so and man, that's gonna go some garl likeic,
I'm gonna plant and wait for some rain. But as
soon as the rains, I'm gonna have some garlic. They've
been growing for the last five years. And that's where
the compost from last year is going to go on
top of come sometime in the next couple of weeks hopefully,
but then beyond that again like it's it's as much
(33:48):
a lot of the greens that that. Like we did
an event a few years back where Chef had a
bunch of cauliflower and all the cauliflower leaves he was
just tossing in the trash can, the same one like
with with the the partially from from the like that
that was one of the trash can and and I
was like, that would the stems are definitely going to
the salad dressing, or they're definitely going to the mince
turves like a little crunchy here, but you cut them
(34:09):
up and the leads would again like go into the salad,
going to some kind of sautee green, going to a
solid crowd, going to something you know, and again not perfect,
we don't always you know, kim chi everything like there
is waste. Uh and then again at some point you
go a little too far with all of it. So
you got to you know, there's only balance. But we
tried to waste it as I mean, as little as possible.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
You know, it's a fun challenge to see what you
can do with with particularly when you have an abundance
of Say, yeah, it's because sometimes you have a bumper
crop of this or that, and and it's coming up
with creative ways to do it. So yours is a
family business. You've got your kids. You you know, we
all know what restaurant life is like. What do you
(34:51):
enjoy doing around Brian when it's when you do have
time off?
Speaker 4 (34:57):
It takes the kids in the Aga games? You do that?
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, because Amanda is an aggie that.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Uh, my brother and sister all live in town, and
my folks bought the place next door that they it's
kind of airbnb, but it's also like you know, the
grandparents place. They come and stay. So we'll do family
dinner at like most every Sunday, either our house or
the guest house or my brother's house. And then you know.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It's just the girls are in school, so they've got
all the activities and you know that all that's kind
of getting started. So we stay pretty busy with their
extracurriculars and just yeah, I guess spending time with family.
We're looking at home.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Yeah, normal family stuff there, and we try to as
if then you know, once thirteen, one is eight or
nine and one's but an infant, and so whatever it
is those kids are wanting to do is kind of
where we're going with them as long as we can,
because the restaurant everything else.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
You know, there's some fun things to do in Brian.
We we went to the George Herbert Walker Bush Library
and Museum, which was big and exciting and they had
the train and the helicopter and it's really cool. We
didn't get to go to the zoo. We've had some
Mexican food because everybody pointed us to a Mexican restaurant.
There's a lot to do there, really is.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
There is more to do than you.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
The thing is, so you know, so Houston is is
this big, right, and Brian Collins Station is this big,
But so you take twenty Bryan colle stations and you
get Houston. But there's what I found it. It's it's
like the Goldilocks words. It's not too big and it's
not too small, and there's there's enough stuff to do
to to raise a family here and and to and
to be have plenty to do, but there are like like, really,
(36:46):
there's no National History Museum here whereas there so you
go to Houston for that, or there's nothing, you know,
something I want to go to Austin for. So we're
close enough to where you can go back and forth
if need be. But in town there's I mean again,
there's plenty of little stuff too, Like you know, just
downtown Brian the first Fridays it's kind of a nice, little,
little small coin downtown with a bunch of little stuff
to do that people selling handmade spoons and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
But we did that. We had dinner at Ronan on
a Friday, and then walked around downtown Brian and took
in a live concert performance of some musicians and it
was very family friendly. Well we heard over and over
again by whether it's the uber driver or people we
chatted up and we walked into Brewery's or wherever we
went is it's very family friendly. It's an easy place
to live. I think that was in these days a
(37:30):
lot of people want easy places to live, so I
think that's really important. What do you have coming up
on the farm. What are some of your farm dinner highlights?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Before we wrap, we I'll pull the calendar just to
make sure that I've got the right dates for you.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
But just in general, just in general, this isn't evergreen podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, So the farm, we do our best to host
the nine course full moon dinners pointless as close to
the full moon and as possible. It gives people a
really nice opportunity to connect with food in a way
that you're not able to in the traditional sense. So
(38:12):
there's a farm tour where we kind of show everything,
all the gardens and animals and whatnot, and then fooks
sit for dinner for eight of the courses in the forest,
whether permitting, and then we stand everybody up and go
to the garden for dessert. So we do those. We
(38:33):
host private events out at the farm, but not as
not as frequently as we used to. Coming up in
November on the twenty third, we have a full moon dinner,
and then on December twenty first, and then we haven't
announced our spring schedule yet, but we will hear shortly.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Well, for everyone listening, it's it's thrown int x dot
com backslash farm for the farm, and then there's the
restaurant and there's a lot going on. And we really
enjoyed learning about Brian dining at Ronan meeting you guys.
We just love the whole vibe of the place and
you've gotten a lot of recognition nationally in magazines. I
think you'll get more. I think that Wineless could really
(39:14):
get some serious recognition. Okay, I was going to say,
have you been featured in the Winespectator because you should.
Uh really great stuff and we're so glad you took
the time to join us at our table, the Connected
Table today. Well us absolutely so. We've been talking again
with Brian and Amanda Light, owners of Ronan Farman Restaurant
(39:36):
in Brian, Texas. You've been listening to the Connected Table
with Melanie Young and David Ransom. We had such a
fun time when we went to Brian. We can't wait
to hit the road again. But meanwhile, we love New
Orleans and we encourage all of you to visit, and
we always like to end our show with the words
stay in Sati. She'll be curious. Thank you, mo
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Mo, mo
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
travel the world to bring you the amazing people we
meet when we eat, zip, play, and explore, and we
love sharing their stories with you. We're taking you to Brian, Texas,
(00:32):
where we had our first visit in August of twenty
twenty four. We were invited to a grape stomp at
Messino Hoff Winery and a chance to explore this bustling town.
It is actually a twin cities. It's Brian College station
and it's the home of Texas A and M, which
we learned is a massive school and we've been following
(00:53):
the football since then. Joining us are the proprietors of
a restaurant we felt absolutely in love with and we
know you will too, Right David.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It delight, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah? We're talking about Ronan R O N I N.
It's actually a farm and a restaurant, the restaurants in
downtown Brian. Joining us is Brian and Amanda Light, the
husband and wife owners. They have a great how they
met story, and we love this restaurant because it's dedicated
to spotlighting the wonderful seasonal produce that's grown on the farm.
(01:26):
The menu changes regularly. We had a great meal and
we were really blown away by the wineless. The beverage
program is really one of the best we've seen in
a long time. It was top not So you know,
we love sharing stories like this, So Amanda, Brian Light,
welcome to the Connected Table.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Thank you, hell honey, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So let's talk about how you met, because it's a
cute story.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, Brian was a chef and I was a server
front of house lady, and that's how everything started.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
We're working at the same restaurant here in town. I
was kind of in town for a little bit. I
wouldn't really plan on stand I was gonna go head elsewhere,
and then they gave me. I was there as a
cook and they gave me the chef job like two
months later. She showed up six months later. We started
chatting pretty soon after that, and here we are fifteen
(02:31):
years later and sixteen years later now three kids, dogs, hogs, chickens, vegetables, restaurants.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, and then we met the kids. I have to say,
you have some dexterity I saw you holding a baby
one arm and work in the stove in the other,
and I was like, wow, we've only seen that. We
had a friend who did that with a glass of
wine and a toddler that she was toilet training, and
we just went, wow, how did she hold the baby
one arm and hold the glass in the other. It's
amazing what parents can do.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Right hurt the baby. So I got a hold a
little firmly. That's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Absolutely, So give us your background. What did you each
grow up and where'd you go to what was your education,
and like, did you think you're gonna end up with
a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (03:14):
No particularly now. I was born and raised in South America.
My grandparents were both based in Houston, and my parents
went down there for the oil industry. At age three,
we'd started coming up Venezuela and Columbia being the two
world was raised. At age three, we started coming up
to Houston for Christmas in summer and spend those times
(03:34):
at my grandparents' houses. Apparently, at age three, my grandfather
said that every family needs a chef, and you're going
to be him. I have like zero recollection of that whatsoever,
But my mom she's like she has you know, distinctive
did a memory of that? And here we are. I
do know that growing up like so in South America
there was a bunch like open fire cooking where they
(03:55):
have chickens on spits and and and and south like
Argentina and Stouth barbaracues kind of stuff. I just remember
seeing all the fires and the smells, and you know,
it's mostly men working on the fires, and like watching
all that whole thing. And I guess between the subliminal
area family is a chef and then watching those big,
big communal communal meals effectively growing up, maybe it just
(04:19):
it took you so so then you went to so
then we moved to Houston when I was in high school,
and then I went to a couple of different colleges.
Wasn't sure exactly what I want to do, but then
I ended up at you of age at the at
the hotel shop management school. Because I've been working in
restaurants since my first job at age fifteen and then
(04:39):
I haven't stopped since, you know, it's been thirty years anyhow,
just constantly learning and growing. And then then we out
of the farm to it, you know, fifteen years ago
and we moved here. So they're not only just cooking
of the food, but the raising of it and the
scene and learning what seasons were and are and and
nature and how roots it could be sometime into the
(05:00):
farm and I mean the farm in forms of cooking,
but it also you know, when there's a crop devastation
and you lose your crops, you realize that he is
as a little farmer that you know, I can't make
this meal that I was planning on making this weekend.
But as as a farmer farmer you're like, oh my god,
this could this could affect your entirely likely, you know,
And so so you learn how to how it all
(05:22):
affects everybody. And it's much more it's much more real
way of doing it than than just calling the produce
company and getting a case of asparagus for somewhere else.
You know, there's an actual farmer like, oh gosh, this
this may be a problem with me. So community support.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
You know. We we had that conversation when we had
Lee Jones on our show, Yeah with Chef's Garden up
in here on Ohio. He said they've gone through a
number of trials and tribulations during their career with their farms.
And you know, when you have a bad year, you
lose everything and you have to then regrow from scratch,
and it takes time to do that. It's not always
(05:56):
the next year.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, it's it's it's very hard. You're curious. The farm
has an interesting backstory, and let's talk about how large
it is, where it is located for our listeners who
are often global, who may not even know where Brian,
Texas is, So let's create some context and how the
farm came into your hands on proprietorship.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, Brian College Station is located kind of in what
a lot of people termed the Texas Triangle. So it's
between Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio. We're kind of an
hour and a half to three hours away from any
one of those major metropolitan areas, which sets us up
nicely being kind of a crossroads. So we we do
(06:44):
see especially being that it is a little more I
guess rural for lack of a better word. That's a
little extreme for Brian Culle Station. I don't know that
it's it's not quite rural at this point the used
to be, but it's certainly it's certainly smaller than those
major metropolitan areas that I just mentioned. So anyway, that's
(07:09):
kind of the location of Brian College Station, Texas. The
farm is located about ten to fifteen minutes away from
the restaurant, so we're actually, you know, in two separate spots.
The farm being so close though, has been really great
(07:31):
for like Brian brought up his truck this morning full
of firewood from the farm, so we have a live
fire kitchen, so we're using wood that's collected from the
property and things like that. So the proximity has been
super important for the restaurant and the farm to be
close to one another so they can kind of work
(07:53):
in kind of symbiosis, if you will. So that's kind
of the location Backer. And then as far as the
farm itself, it was owned and operated or it was
owned as a family property operated by a gentleman named
Don Gan who owned a bar and restaurant called the
Dixie Chicken. He also owned a number of other bars
(08:17):
and restaurants on the Northgate district, which is basically the
strip of bars directly across from the university. So people,
we we win a football game and everybody walks to
to those bars.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
The chicken has been around since like the I don't
know late, it just celebrated. You see nineteen seventy dot
Com drank beer there, My brother drank beer there. That
they'll have people who's like there, it's like they'll take
four generations, the grandfather of the father of the and
then so on nearby. Maybe not the infants. Maybe I'm
(08:50):
drinking beer, but like it's it's been around for forever,
and it's it's such an institution. And then the farm,
because it was his property, has all this.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
We always say we have a little bit of like
Brian College station history just because the farm was owned
by him. So the guest house that is a family
property that is right next door to the farm so
you can always come stay with us, is actually how
a little home that was built as a man cave
(09:20):
for mister Ganter. So when we moved in all those
years ago, it had pool tables and a couch and
a fridge and one bathroom.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
That's all.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
For your man cave.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Exactly, fun, fun backstory, fun history to the farm. And
then we sort of serendipitously fell into kind of building
out the commercial kitchen out there, and then catering and
then that turned into the restaurant. So it's been a
been a fifteen year adventure.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Actually started you actually started working with the farm before
you started with ron in the restaurant.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Tell us.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But it's an interesting story in its own right, and
it's a very historic building in downtown Brian. Why don't
you tell us a little bit about how you got
rown and started. And let's talk about the woodburning stove too,
because I know that was that was an issue that
you thought you might not get to happen and that
would have been the deal killer for the building. So
tell us all about.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
That, about the building itself, about or them, and just
how you got.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Rown and started. Well, the building, let's do because it's
a very historic building. So how did that come about?
And what was it before?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
So it was.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Vacant, Yeah, it was vacant for a good long while.
It was it was the original ice house that was
built in nineteen twelve twelve. It was apparently state of
the art of Texas when it was built.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So underneath the building fun facts for nineteen twelve there's
a state of the art like ice making system that
still exists. It's like under us but it's been since,
you know, obviously filled with.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So an ice house. Just for again, I'm thinking about
our listeners who may not know what an ice house
is because we lived in the north for a long time.
I never saw an ice house up there. Did you
have any ice houses up there now? Well, I think
maybe in Poughkeepsie, but we moved south and they're all
over the place.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yeah, right north. I used to cut the ice out
of the frozen lakes and bring and use that here.
We had no such things, and so they would, I
mean they will quite literally building make the ice here
and then the farmers come and then grab a chunk
of ice, and off they went back to the farming.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And we're right next to the railroad, so we we
our neighbor is the railroad track right there. You can
see it out this window. And they would send ice
for the entire county on the railroad that's right here. Apparently.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well, so what's interesting about this is just to put
some context into it. So Brian College Station is located
in Brazos County in Texas speak. Two and a half
hours is a commute because Texas drive long ten miles
from the restaurant of the farm is up road, and
there is a train track through the middle of town,
(11:56):
which really underscores how important Bryant College Station Station was
for people in terms of a transportation hub linking these
major cities. Thus the ice because in the Deep South,
and we experienced the Texas seat, you you need ice.
And this was nineteen twelve before modern refrigeration, so it
(12:17):
was a very important building historically for those times for the.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Community up until about nineteen fifty when refrigeration was invented,
and then all the eighthouses all went out of business,
so this became a contractor dealership. Stress Carlotti, it's been
all sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
An antique store.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, it's big, Well it's a it's a beautiful building,
and you folks have done a great job with the
renovations to really build out the restaurant from scratch.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
We tried to keep as much of the originals.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Take a hundred year old wood and your old brick stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So what was neat is you have these levers on
the ceiling that could raise the table up and down
to make it a high top or I don't know.
That was very cool. We saw that one other place somewhere.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, it was very unique.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
So at the farm, all of the tables are set
in a forested space or in one of our barns
in the case of rain, so it's all open air
and outdoor seating. But they're all communal, long tables. And
it grew from you know, one big table with eighteen people,
to two tables, to three tables, to now we set
up to two hundred people out there. Wow. So it's
(13:27):
little by little at these very long communal tables, and
that's kind of how the farm sort of started and grew.
So by the bringing the sort of long communal tables
to the restaurant, we wanted to kind of emulate that
and what we found so interesting, and this is again
think about before COVID, we people talked to their neighbors
(13:49):
a little bit more and made friends with people that
they may not have spoken to otherwise when we were
at the farm, So we wanted to again emulate that
and bring that to town and have that'd be kind
of the central focus of the restaurant and then have
it overlooking the kind of open kitchen for the purpose
of again the same thing. At the farm, there's only
(14:10):
one restroom, so folks have to come into the kitchen
and kind of they get to watch Brian and the
kitchen team cooking and doing all the things with the meal.
So they're able to interact in that way with their
with who's preparing their food, which isn't normal. I would
say these days pretty.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Pretty it's more normal now than it was before.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well, right, I mean before the kitchen was like downstairs
in the basement with no air right right, or.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Tucked away somewhere.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, we like in the open kitchen. We thought that
was kind of like part of the excitement of dining there.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yes, yeah, I always say it's like live food TV.
It's fun to a lot, yeah, a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I just wanted to grab everything off the counter was
the problem.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It probably would have led us to. Because I think
I walked up to talk to Brian at the ship
station couple of times during dinner and to talk to
some of the staff and whatnot. They were all like
they were inviting us over to say hello and ask
us how we liked our dish and whatnot. It was
really it was like a family affair. Yeah, And really
that's what Ronan is. It's a family affair. You all
work together that you had your kids in the restaurant
(15:17):
that night, and everybody they were traping around the restaurant too,
And everybody's like a big family there. They all they
all worked hard. It's a hot kitchen obviously on that
side of the on that side of the counter, but
the restaurant, the front of the house also works in
the same way. Very familiar.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Your kids were traping, but they were polite, they were
behind the scenes. They're very well well mannered. I just
want to say that because trading sounds like, you know,
they're very well mannered. Like I said, you were holding
that baby. It was really charming. So your menu changes
with seasons and actually almost weekly, right.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Okay, so not the entire maned doesn't change weekly. That
that's tough a little bit. Everything will change almost every week. Uh,
one vegetable will go out a season or another one
will come into seasons. So we'll kind of swap some
things around, we'll do stuff for you know, so season
is about three months here, give or take, and then
after three months we kind of get bored of whatever
dishes we're doing. But but to try to change it
(16:14):
all the time constantly, it gets it gets to be
a bit much, but but it also very rarely will
will we repeat something from like last year. You know,
there's a couple of minu items. I mean, I hate
to say it, but like hal openion poppers, right, but
they and they're all because we get fresh out pans
from the farmers and we make our cheat these things
with bacon and pickled peppers and then panko frime and
(16:35):
we make homemade rancher, homemade spicy manager or whatever. But like,
and I would have never thought to put that on
the menu. But three or four years ago, one of
one of the cooks asked to be we had a.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Huge influx of peppers from the farms.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
One of them guys like, just do poppers, Like we're
not doing poppers, like it's so like, but we did,
and they sell all the time. It's crazy. I'm like,
all right, well, I guess people, but they're like the
best poppers you've ever had, Like all right, we're good.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So it takes all of briand's kind.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Of but other than other than that, and it's it's
not even my proper at this point. It's everybody else
who like we've they've taught and learned and whatever, experience
they come bring with us and trained I let them
fly with their ideas as long as it passes a
few you know, rules, and it tastes good and standards
and everything else there it's it's there's there's I've found
there's so many more ideas out there than I can
(17:24):
possibly have, and so when we kind of let people
run with them again as long as it tastes good,
as long as it hits these certain parameters, like the menu,
it's it's there's almost no end to it. You know,
there's so much food out there in the world, and
there's so many different backgrounds and so many different people
from different places, and their parents and their grandparents, and
somebody knows something that their grand grandparents maye that my
(17:44):
grandparents never made, and so so I'm like, yes, that
sounds good, let's do that. And so it's it's kind
of a constantly evolving thing. And so there's no there's
no rhyme or reason, there's no plan to it. It's
just whatever the vegetables come in, come in season. Those
are kind of the rules. The proteins, you know, chicken
and beef and pork and like, and they all they're
always pretty much available.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, we always say that the proteins really consistent. The
veggies and the way things are prepared are what kind
of circulates through the seasons.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Like the seafood, it's it's most of it's most of
us from the golf where we have a guy who
getsuff from the gulf, but he also gets you know,
salmon from wherever salmon comes from, scalps from Maine and
stuff like that. So like again the dishes changed, but
I mean and same with the fish. Though. We did
salmon for I don't know, six or eight months, and
then we finally just one day I got border salmon.
I was like, all right, no more. Stop. And then
(18:29):
we did you know, pompino for a while, and then
then he had some some flounders. We did the flounder,
then went to the red fish and Pompo and did
snapper for a little bit, and then we were, you know,
we're doing go shrimp for for a long long time.
But then he had some lobster tails. I'm like, let's
try the lobstails, why not? And they sold justice good,
not better than the shrimp. I was like, you know what,
it's actually less labor on the lobster. Let's lobster for
(18:50):
a little while. I like lobster, so.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
You know, we missed lobster. We used to live in
the North. We miss a good lobsters. They're very expensive
at the supermarket, just to our listeners. So it is
a seasonal menu. I mean the menu that's up on
your website right now is different from somewhat different from
what we had when we were there in August. And
there is a lobster tail on. It's a grilled main
lobster tail with homemade fetichinu miso, herb cream sauce, gypsy
(19:14):
bell peppers and Parmesano regiano summer squash and herbs. It
looks delicious. What's interesting is all of your menu items
have a suggested pairy that tends to be cocktail centric.
I'm fascinated personally by the suggested pairing of a French
seventy five, which is a very classic New Orleans cocktail
with gin quantro Clemont and lemon. That's a very interesting pairing.
(19:39):
And all of the dishes have thoughtful wine or cocktail pairings.
I guess you sell a lot of cocktails because there's
a fairly significant cocktail pairing here.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Oh yeah, it's crazy. So okay, So that dish right there,
you said miso herb cream sauce, which in strict like
culinary I don't know, non fusion technique would be kind
of garbage. You know. I'm not supposed to mix a
cream sauce with herbs and miso and put it all
together and call it a sauce. But one of the
cooks tried it. It means it's roasted squash and roasted
(20:10):
onions and tomatoes, put it all together, added some cream,
added the miso, and the thing is like, now, like
miso is, it's a flavoring paste. It's not necessarily a
miso soup flavor. But there's a there's a funkiness, there's
an earthiness, there's a mommy iss to it. There that
because we live in America, and to me at this point,
there's no real as long as it's again, as long
as it's good, there's no real food rules. Because we
got we got the Misa paste from a grocery store.
(20:32):
We didn't go very far to get it. But then
there's also that that that whole dish was kind of
loosely based off of like you say, the first seventy five,
like a New Orleans style cream shrimp pasta that then
just little by a little evolved into into the lobster
tail with miso or butter cream sauce. It is delicious
and it's and it's kind of silly, but it worked,
and I'm like, all right, put it on and it
(20:53):
sells all the time. And then we put lobster on it,
and it sold just as much, you know.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
So.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Well we can see why. Now of course you've got it.
There's a lot of meat in Texas, and I tend
to eat fish and vegetables. So it was challenged, not
at your restaurant, but some others. The Texas Wagoo, this
one I loved Texas Wagoo Chicken fried steak with cream gravy,
mashed potatoes, so taste summer squash. That sounds like it
would be on your menu all the time with just
bearying vegetables. Because that sounds like it's super popular.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
It's never left. It was on there from day one,
and that's because I was I was raised. So's there's this,
uh a place called it called Loub's here in Texas anyhow.
It's a cafeteria kind of.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Deal and that was lovies.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Yeah, okay, when we came up from Houston, that was
like if I hit Loubies, Toys, Rs. McDonald's, the Zoo. Yeah.
I came up from South America. That was part of
my childhood and so every time there I would get
this the lu n platter with chicken fried steak and
mashed potatoes and green beans because I couldn't get that
down in South America. That wasn't really a thing. And
so as I you know, that was one of the
first things I learned how to cook when I was
(21:53):
I don't know. I mean, I know it's apparently supposed
to be a cook from age three, but I didn't
really start cooking until I got intoup high school and
college and stuff. But that was one of the first
things I learned to make with chicken fried steak. And
it's like, all right, if I ever do a restaurant,
that's going to go on the menu, but it's made
with with wagu and it's made with cream gravy like
actually will make the gravy like a Besha mall turn
with super good cream and then the vegetables they change
whatever whatever's in the season. It works but and this
(22:16):
is Texas, where people have been born and raised on
chicken fried steak their.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Entire lives and neat potatoes.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Stated, I can't tell you how many times we've been
told about how how this is the best chicken fry
steak I've ever had. I've be eating chicken fry steak
for my entire life, and it's you know, we've been
doing it for seven years and you hear it a lot,
and it never it never gets old. You know, it
was good. Well, at least we're still doing that, right,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Well there's a lot of chicken fried in clothing, chicken
fried chicken. I mean, there's a lot of chicken fried vegetables.
And it is like what you eat. The other thing
what we know what you eat, which was a first
a starter for us, is a grilled corn eloed is
it eLOAD or elo ta elotase?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's so good. Yours again has the ooh mammy of
the miso butter, togarashi chives, sesame season lime. I mean
it is so it's one of our favorite dishes in
tech anywhere. And you did a great job and grown
in thank you.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
That isn't that wasn't even my idea at all. Like
we that's here in Texas at Low Taes with the
Hispanic and specifically the Mexican community. It's Mexican street corn
and a few different ways to cook it. And so
we've done it over the year. Some of our kitchen
staff who are from Ryan area, who his parents and
grandparents were from Mexico, like the same thing they were
born and raised on. And they're like, hey, let's try
(23:31):
it this way. Let's try it this way. And so
one of the other guys is like, hey, what if
I putting me some one of this too. I'm like,
they worked with the foster, why not, you know? And
and uh and sure enough it's pretty tasty. So that
that had nothing to do with me at all. That
was just the cooks and and but they but again
like they kind of took the the fundamentals that they've
tought and learned and were trained, and hey, what if
we do this instead.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
It's an elevated street corn and it's terrific.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
We liked it so much. The next day we had
it when we went to Frieda's.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
We had Freeda's version.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
We want to Low t guys.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
We had a traditional version lo te Crawl. It's appearing again.
Each of your courses is a pairing. I love this
one Smoking spice. It's a jalapeno infused tex texts quila oncho,
race acho mescal with honeydew, grapefruit sugar. Wow. I can
just I can just that just sounds so good with
(24:22):
that corn really wow. Now I want to know I
ordered the vegetable. I always like to see how restaurants
handle vegetarian plates because most can't deal with it and
it's fairly slap dash. I had an eggplant dish. It
was very spice, which is what you gotta do with eggplant.
(24:44):
Eggplant's always a challenge for me personally, and a lot
of wonderful vegetables with it. What you have here, which
I'm salivating because it's one of my favorite vegetables, is
a roasted spice sweet potato with red beef, puree, cherry
tomatoes at summer squash, roast carrots and mixed I love
the mixed pickles. Pickles from anything just sounds great, and
(25:06):
you pickled red onion. So that's a really nice composition
of vegetables and flavors and textures.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Good. Thank you that's that same dish has it's I
mean the idea that dish has changed over the years.
That same relative dish has been on for I would
say at least a year, if not two. But all
the ingredients in it have constantly in and out, you know.
And and it was kind of based on a dish
that that I've had years before at a different restaurant
(25:36):
with a sweet potato. You say sweet potato, but that
like that sweet potato has gone. It was an eggplan
when you had it. It's gone through. I mean pumpkins,
squash beats, regular tomatoes, bring tomatoes just you know. But
but the like you're saying, like that that big combination
variety of vegetables plus the different like the pure's and
(25:56):
the pickles and everything else there try to hit all
the all the textures, all the everything.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Texture and flavor are critical with and color with a
vegetable dish. So it's just I've been served vegetable dishes
are all the same color white, and that's depressing and
going in a fall where it's turnip and it's you know, root,
vegetable season is rough and or you know, I actually
saw somebody who was a member of a CSA complained
to the CISA owner that there was too many lettuces
(26:25):
in her box, and the poor CSA person was like,
what do I say, and like, go shopping at a
grocery store right now, right right right, Yeah, let's talk
about the beverage program, because we were really impressed by
the food. But for the restaurant of your size and location,
you have a beverage program that is worthy of being
(26:45):
in Chicago, New York, San Francisco. And why is that?
Because we were blown away by the care and thought
of the wine list, which breaks it down every which
away from new world to old world, a category to
skin on contact. Two women owned and it.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Doesn't stop there because they have a big beer list.
They've had saki list meat, They've got mead tomorrow or mouth,
all kinds of stuff going on. And it was really
it was really a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Zero and zero proof cocktails and not just like one
or two or three, but you have like five or six.
I mean the the saki and mead, I mean nobody
has a sak and meat. Do you how many sake
and mead menus do you see?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Pretty rare?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, pretty rare. We haven't seen any here in New Orleans,
trust to me. And that was impressive. How does that
all come about?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Well, I'm sorry, there's not a sake or a mead
menu in New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Really, we haven't found one. Yeah one yet. There probably is,
There probably is, but we're looking. It's we find the
wineless here. A little challenge, but that's all we'll say.
It takes a lot of effort. Maybe because of the hurricanes.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's God and you. But the way
(28:01):
you describe them also, I mean you really get into it.
So it's texture and flavor as well as style.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
The beverage list and the beverage program is I like,
it's like my baby a little bit. It's it's been
a slow and steady growth over the past. I mean
we've been opened six and a half years. We opened
in May of twenty eighteen, and we opened as just
a beer and wine program that forced the exploration of
(28:32):
other things outside of just you know, your standard liquor
and cocktails and all that fun stuff. But we did
we did start significantly smaller. I think our list has
it's it's grown since since then.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
We started, I was like thirty thirty wines top. That's
all we need. We don't any more than that.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I mean, the world, the world of wine is just
as big as the world of cooking. So that's I
always talk about how you can you can learn forever
with wine and with cocktails and spirits and meat and
sakki and all the fun things that are fermented. So yeah,
it's just been kind of a slow growth and a
(29:13):
slow progression. And we always say that our beverage program
tries to mirror the kitchen and kind of reflect the
same philosophies. So small, family owned, woman owned, those sorts
of things are very important to us. A lot of
the major producers you don't find those here as we're
trying to we're trying to showcase something a little bit different,
(29:34):
a little bit smaller scale. There's a huge emphasis on organic, biodynamic,
can harvested dry farming is really important. I really, I
feel like it's a much more impactful reflection of the
terwara and of the grape and of the maker and
(29:55):
what they're trying to showcase about that wine. So the
wine is like a a total kind of passion project
of mine. The cocktails are just obviously super fun and
they were in addition, in July of twenty twenty is
when we received our full liquor license and the cocktail
(30:16):
program one of the things that we really like to highlight,
and I'm sure y'all saw on the shelves, there's a
whole bunch of large jars excuse me, that have varying
fruits and things from what's currently in season. So right
now on the shelf, there's dewberry vodka, there's pear gin,
(30:37):
there's peach bourbon. We have strawberry mescal on menu that
we just strained off. There's a pineapple and mango rum.
So it's just kind of a way to extend the
current season and again be a really fun reflection of
you know, Okay, well, summer might be over, but it's
(30:58):
still hot in Texas. So while these things are in
season anymore, strawberries are definitely long gone, we're still enjoying
them in the form of a strawberry as kill drink.
So that's kind of some of the background on the
On the beverage.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
It's really terrific. I think it stands up to any
top wine list and beverage.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think what struck me struck me most was the
diversity of what was on the list. It wasn't just France, Italy, Australia,
New Zealand, America, South Africa, is Hungary, Armenia. Like that,
you really you've really sought out some really interesting wines
from from what I like to call emerging regions even
(31:39):
though they've been making wine for thousands of years exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And the same goes with the meat and the cider
and and the beer. And you also have Texas. You know,
Texas has on wine and beer and distilling community as well.
Just very I was just on the beer when you
know it's by flavor and deep and bolth. There's there's
so much depth the air. I think it's great that
you have found ways to extend the season and the
(32:05):
use of the farm to incorporate beverage. You know, food
waste is a big topic right now, and I am
sure as a true farm to table restaurant because you
literally go to the truck to the farm and bring
bring everything to the restaurant. It is real farm to table.
What are some examples of how you use less popular
(32:28):
or parts of things that most people would toss out.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Uh, salads, pickles, jams, dressings, and.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Then anything that is actually waste.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
We fed into the picture for a little while. I
got to get to get rid of the pigs a
little bit too much at least left muslim. But but compost.
So so I tell people that, okay, this carrot peel, like,
there's only so many carrot peel and regrets you can
make and and drive pick you know, carrot peel powder
and everything else, but that carrot peel or or the like. Again,
(33:04):
someone will get carrot tops, will make chimney true with
the carryt tops for a little while, but there's there's
so many carrot tops, and so it goes into the
compost sometimes if he's the chickens. But like I told,
he was, like this carrot top will turn into maate
on next year. And so I don't feel when we
when we do that, I don't feel bad about it
at all, because it is it's just you know, I
see where the pile goes, and we put some some
sawdust and some off the top of that, and honestly,
(33:25):
you're away with the Texas heat. You don't have to
do a whole lot of flipping into it. It turns
in about a year it's compost and then then they
spread it so and man, that's gonna go some garl likeic,
I'm gonna plant and wait for some rain. But as
soon as the rains, I'm gonna have some garlic. They've
been growing for the last five years. And that's where
the compost from last year is going to go on
top of come sometime in the next couple of weeks hopefully,
but then beyond that again like it's it's as much
(33:48):
a lot of the greens that that. Like we did
an event a few years back where Chef had a
bunch of cauliflower and all the cauliflower leaves he was
just tossing in the trash can, the same one like
with with the the partially from from the like that
that was one of the trash can and and I
was like, that would the stems are definitely going to
the salad dressing, or they're definitely going to the mince
turves like a little crunchy here, but you cut them
(34:09):
up and the leads would again like go into the salad,
going to some kind of sautee green, going to a
solid crowd, going to something you know, and again not perfect,
we don't always you know, kim chi everything like there
is waste. Uh and then again at some point you
go a little too far with all of it. So
you got to you know, there's only balance. But we
tried to waste it as I mean, as little as possible.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
You know, it's a fun challenge to see what you
can do with with particularly when you have an abundance
of Say, yeah, it's because sometimes you have a bumper
crop of this or that, and and it's coming up
with creative ways to do it. So yours is a
family business. You've got your kids. You you know, we
all know what restaurant life is like. What do you
(34:51):
enjoy doing around Brian when it's when you do have
time off?
Speaker 4 (34:57):
It takes the kids in the Aga games? You do that?
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, because Amanda is an aggie that.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Uh, my brother and sister all live in town, and
my folks bought the place next door that they it's
kind of airbnb, but it's also like you know, the
grandparents place. They come and stay. So we'll do family
dinner at like most every Sunday, either our house or
the guest house or my brother's house. And then you know.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It's just the girls are in school, so they've got
all the activities and you know that all that's kind
of getting started. So we stay pretty busy with their
extracurriculars and just yeah, I guess spending time with family.
We're looking at home.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Yeah, normal family stuff there, and we try to as
if then you know, once thirteen, one is eight or
nine and one's but an infant, and so whatever it
is those kids are wanting to do is kind of
where we're going with them as long as we can,
because the restaurant everything else.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
You know, there's some fun things to do in Brian.
We we went to the George Herbert Walker Bush Library
and Museum, which was big and exciting and they had
the train and the helicopter and it's really cool. We
didn't get to go to the zoo. We've had some
Mexican food because everybody pointed us to a Mexican restaurant.
There's a lot to do there, really is.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
There is more to do than you.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
The thing is, so you know, so Houston is is
this big, right, and Brian Collins Station is this big,
But so you take twenty Bryan colle stations and you
get Houston. But there's what I found it. It's it's
like the Goldilocks words. It's not too big and it's
not too small, and there's there's enough stuff to do
to to raise a family here and and to and
to be have plenty to do, but there are like like, really,
(36:46):
there's no National History Museum here whereas there so you
go to Houston for that, or there's nothing, you know,
something I want to go to Austin for. So we're
close enough to where you can go back and forth
if need be. But in town there's I mean again,
there's plenty of little stuff too, Like you know, just
downtown Brian the first Fridays it's kind of a nice, little,
little small coin downtown with a bunch of little stuff
to do that people selling handmade spoons and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
But we did that. We had dinner at Ronan on
a Friday, and then walked around downtown Brian and took
in a live concert performance of some musicians and it
was very family friendly. Well we heard over and over
again by whether it's the uber driver or people we
chatted up and we walked into Brewery's or wherever we
went is it's very family friendly. It's an easy place
to live. I think that was in these days a
(37:30):
lot of people want easy places to live, so I
think that's really important. What do you have coming up
on the farm. What are some of your farm dinner highlights?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Before we wrap, we I'll pull the calendar just to
make sure that I've got the right dates for you.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
But just in general, just in general, this isn't evergreen podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, So the farm, we do our best to host
the nine course full moon dinners pointless as close to
the full moon and as possible. It gives people a
really nice opportunity to connect with food in a way
that you're not able to in the traditional sense. So
(38:12):
there's a farm tour where we kind of show everything,
all the gardens and animals and whatnot, and then fooks
sit for dinner for eight of the courses in the forest,
whether permitting, and then we stand everybody up and go
to the garden for dessert. So we do those. We
(38:33):
host private events out at the farm, but not as
not as frequently as we used to. Coming up in
November on the twenty third, we have a full moon dinner,
and then on December twenty first, and then we haven't
announced our spring schedule yet, but we will hear shortly.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Well, for everyone listening, it's it's thrown int x dot
com backslash farm for the farm, and then there's the
restaurant and there's a lot going on. And we really
enjoyed learning about Brian dining at Ronan meeting you guys.
We just love the whole vibe of the place and
you've gotten a lot of recognition nationally in magazines. I
think you'll get more. I think that Wineless could really
(39:14):
get some serious recognition. Okay, I was going to say,
have you been featured in the Winespectator because you should.
Uh really great stuff and we're so glad you took
the time to join us at our table, the Connected
Table today. Well us absolutely so. We've been talking again
with Brian and Amanda Light, owners of Ronan Farman Restaurant
(39:36):
in Brian, Texas. You've been listening to the Connected Table
with Melanie Young and David Ransom. We had such a
fun time when we went to Brian. We can't wait
to hit the road again. But meanwhile, we love New
Orleans and we encourage all of you to visit, and
we always like to end our show with the words
stay in Sati. She'll be curious. Thank you, mo
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Mo, mo
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