Bonterra Blu consistently serves some of the best meals I've ever had. Their lamb is to die for, and a generous portion of sweet potato fries doesn't hurt, either. If this is your first time here, the lamb should definitely be your initiation dish, but after that, be on the lookout for new additions to the rotating menu. The chefs here never seem to put out a bad dish.
The Bonterra salad, which comes default with the entrees, is a perfectly fine salad, but it's well worth the few extra dollars to upgrade to the organic greens with goat cheese. For those of you who say you don't like goat cheese (like myself), give it one last shot with this salad. It will make you a believer in simple, unmasked, delicious goat cheese.
The calamari is delicious. My boyfriend, who really doesn't care for calamari one way or another, loved it. It's not my favorite, but that's mostly because I prefer smaller pieces with a crispier, flakier texture on the breading. Bonterra's version is large, tasty chunks of squid with very firm breading to stand up to the excellent Bloody Mary sauce.
The restaurant is BYOB, but they offer unique and tasty non-alcoholic beverages like their homemade sarsaparilla.
I'm a sucker for good crème brûlée and Bonterra's is excellent, but you really can't go wrong with any of their delicious desserts.
This is a great restaurant close to Abilene that serves seasonal, fresh food. Â
The sweet potato fries were great, as was the crawfish black bean
appetizer. Â Unsweet tea tastes great - don't miss the sugar at
all. Â I've not had the opportunity to have a full meal there yet, but I
plan to go back. Â Service was good, ambience is great - cozy,
personal, and intimate. Â I recommend it, although my experience
is admittedly somewhat limited so far.
After hearing rave reviews about this place I was sorely disappointed when my family had some friends, my guest, and me out to Bonterra Blu for New Year's Even dinner.
In our party of six, three of us had to reorder as the kitchen ran out of multiple entrees. One member of our party had to reorder twice as the kitchen ran out of the first two entrees he ordered. Of the six main courses ordered, a shrimp dish was lukewarm and three of the four meat dishes were undercooked and/or cold: A steak that was ordered medium well was red more than 75% throughout, one of the meat entrees was prepared solely at the discretion of the kitchen as the individual was never asked how he would like his third choice of entree prepared, while another meat entree was cold on arrival (as if it had sat around for some time before being served). What's more, a member of our party who has a flour allergy was brought his entree topped with onion rings, even after explaining his food allergy to our server and discussing the flour free options on the menu with him.
While our server was apologetic and polite about the myriad problems, most of the issues were never really resolved: the shrimp that was sent back to be reheated came back barely warm, the borderline blue rare steak that was sent back to be properly cooked came back warmer but still rare, and ultimately most of us just gave up and ate as much of our entrees as we could tolerate.
On top of the disastrous entrees, we were brought wrong drinks, we had ask to have drinks refilled, service was generally slow, and I became wretchedly sick shortly after finishing my entree. While all restaurants have a rough service, the problems at Bonterra Blu go well beyond what can be written off as a bad night.
I give it four stars in general, but compared to other places in Abilene: five stars. Â There is simply nowhere in the Abilene area you can get this kind of food. Â This is fine dining the likes of which we Abilenians used to have to travel 2 or 3 hours to enjoy. Â A Godsend!
It's BYOB with a $5 cork fee, so you can enjoy a fine bottle of wine without the typical restaurant markup. Â Staff was friendly and attentive. Â
Although I've never been much excited by calamari, this calamari is clearly better than the average, and the cocktail sauce served with it is excellent. Â The baby-spinach salad with local honey mustard dressing was perfect.
The real treat of the night was the new zealand grass-fed lamb chops. Â Simply outstanding, honest food. Â Cooked to exactly the right temperature. The lamb went well with the green-chili hominy, and the entire dish was adorned with light, crispy, fried spinach leaves (I had never considered this as a possibility), which turned out to be a great compliment.
The bread pudding was also very tasty, though I would have preferred the sauce to be a little thinner and less syrupy. Â The chef has his own blend of coffee, which was, again, a cut above anything else I have found in Abilene.
My wife and I spent about $100 before tip and not including the wine we brought. Â Well worth it.
Overall, I am very pleased to have the option of fine dining so close to home. Â I will be returning to this restaurant often.
I don't know what "Bonterra Blu" means, but I would translate it as "excellent food, great service and a fun and friendly atmosphere located deep in the heart of West Texas that has a heavy influence of Cajun." What a treat it is to have a 5-star restaurant just a stone's throw from Abilene!
The Friday night before Easter, me and 8 friends grabbed our favorite bottles of wine, loaded up the SUVs  and made the very short pilgrimage from Abilene to Clyde. (For readers not from West Texas, this is less than 20 miles east of Abilene.) Fortunately, as we were dining with several locals they knew what a popular place Bonterra Blu has become since it opened a few months ago and had very wisely made us reservations.
Located on the very peaceful "main drag" in Clyde, the atmosphere of Bonterra Blu is charming and fun and full of life. The friendly host and hostess quickly seated and us and we were promptly greeted by our very service-oriented waitress who opened our first flight of wines we had brought with us.
According to our friends who had dined there several times, the menu changes to stay current with the foods that are "in season." I must say, it took the 8 of us more than 20 minutes to decide on what appetizers and entrees to order as everything sounded so amazing! Finally, we all made the decision and ordered the crawfish queso with black beans (amazing!), the really big Texas fried shrimp with sweet chili sauce (and they were REALLY big and very fresh!) and the corn breaded calamari with sweet bloody mary sauce as our appetizers. Meanwhile, chef-owner, Joel Trueblood, came out and greeted us and the other patrons in the restaurant with some gracious hospitality that is so unique to Texas.
The appetizers were very generous portions and the flavors were so unique and delicious! I think a few of the couples in our group tried to keep their spouses preoccupied in conversations so that they could enjoy more of the appetizers for themselves.
Then came our salads ... Unfortunately, as I am allergic to blue cheese, I wasn't able to sample that particular homemade dressing, but everyone raved about it. I had the creamy house dressing and it was the perfect pairing for my salad that was a quarter-head of Romaine with a fresh mixture of green and black olives.
Then ... drum roll please ... dinner was served! And, wow, what a unique and delicious dinner it was! Five members of our group had decided  that we would be "gracious" and allow each other to sample our entrees ... and I am so glad we did this because it gave us the opportunity to try so many of the different flavors and pairings on the menu.
I ordered the classic NOLA-style BBQ shrimp with beer and butter and, even though I gave each of my five friends a shrimp and a generous serving of the sauce, I still had a very generous portion left for myself. The BBQ flavor was not overwhelming and dish had the consistency of gumbo - yum! My other friends ordered: the grilled 14-oz rib-eye with fig & caramelized onions (delicious and perfectly grilled!), pacific salmon with basil pesto & fried spinach (very fresh fish and the fried spinach is such a light and unique way of serving fresh spinach leaves), fried catfish with blu crab Rockefeller sauce (amazing!) and my favorite was the roasted lamb chops (perfectly cooked!) with sweet chili sauce! Another treat was that Bonterra Blu offers one of my favorite veggies as a side: sweet potatoes. You can order sweet potato fries or a baked sweet potato. Other sides include the delicious green chili hominy was delicious , the creole mashers and oyster dressing. All were so flavorful -- I'm telling you, it was the best meal I've had in months and I am a foodie who lives in a very foodie-friendly city!
Unfortunately, because the food was so incredible and the portion sizes are "big as Texas", and we had paired our three-course dinner with several bottles of wine, none of us had saved room for dessert -- but believe me, I will plan better next time! I can't wait to go back!
Hands down the best food you will get near Abilene. Â Â Bonterra blu supports locally grown organic farms which is awesome. Â I had a meal there with the Joel Salatin, the organic farmer from the movie Food Inc. Â My mouth waters when I think of their short ribs and creole mash potatoes. Â The menu is always changing and exciting my taste buds beyond belief. This is a place where the food puts you in a great mood, the ambiance is homey and artsy, and the people are great. Â An all around wonderful dining experience.
Review Source:Adorable place, great setup! Tonight I went with a group of friends, and we all tried different items. Starting w/ the drinks, there was the prickly pear lemonade, which is served in a sugar rimmed glass . I definately liked that it was not too sweet, like I assumed it would be. My husband had unsweet tea, which was surprisingly great tasting. Neither one of us are fans of unsweet tea, but there's something about their unsweet tea that makes me want to ask them if they will sell it by the gallon. The sweet tea is also different, made with hibiscus, which gives it a pretty dark red tint. I think when trying it, one should be open minded. It's not as sweet as one would expect it to be, but it does leave you feeling refreshed.
For appetizers we tried: Crawfish Queso with Black Beans and Corn which comes served with a mixture of regular and blue corn chips, and we tried the Smoked Salmon Cheesecake that comes served with gourmet crackers.
The entrees we tried were: the Pacific Salmon, the Jamacian Pork Chops, the Roasted Lamb Chops, Blackened Red Fish, and the 14-oz Rib-Eye. I would say we all loved our meals, except for my husband. He ordered the rib-eye which is served with bleu cheese, one of the few cheeses that he does not like. Even after he scraped it off of his food, he said he could still taste it in every bite.
The sides were also very interesting, starting with the salads. A word of advice, if you're not a fan of olives, I'de def ask them to leave that off if you order any dressing that's not Caesar. We also each tried a different side: none of us were really liked the hominy or beans, but we def recommend the mashers, green beans, or sweet potato fries.
For Dessert we tried: the bread pudding, cheesecake, and brownie. They were all delicious, but the bread pudding was extremely sweet...we couldn't even finish it.
In all, I loved this restaurant! My only recommendation is: since the menu doesn't go into great detail, ask the waitress/waiter about how the food is served, especially if you're a picky eater
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