http://www.holeinthewallaustin.com/
2538 Guadalupe St
Austin, TX 78705
(512) 477-4747
A few weeks ago Jenn and I found ourselves near the UT campus with an hour and a half to kill, so we decided to spend it at the Hole in the Wall on Guadalupe. I haven’t been there since I was in college, and even then I wasn’t a regular. As an engineering major, my appearance was required at the north end of campus and my drinking time was mostly split between Posse and Crown and Anchor. This is why I didn’t even realized what a fantastic patio and drink prices they had.
After two beers at the beautiful price of $2 each, we found ourselves looking over the food menu, and that’s when I pointed out to Jenn that the menu contained… fried pickles. Being the fried pickle connoisseurs we are, we knew what we had to do.
We ordered and paid the $3 for the pickles and went out to the patio to enjoy the daylight. We had some massive confusion about where we were to pick up our salty fried treats and spent the next few minutes looking around quite bewildered. Eventually after asking about 4 people, we found the kitchen pick up area in the back.
The pickles were of the thinly sliced variety, as opposed to the spears you get at Pluckers and Katz’s. The concoction was a beautiful clumpy fried mess that came with a side of ranch dressing. Upon taking a bite, my tastebuds were overcome by the greasy goodness and extremely salty flavor. The salt complimented the beer and I could imagine the more inebriated one to be, the better the treat. We dubbed the concoction “Chicken Fried Pickles,” although this is a bit of a misnomer since the batter was more of a tempura style.
Jenn said it was the best $3 she had spent in a long time. And even though we were huge fans, we were unable to finish the basket between the two of us. At one point I had to push them away citing that I liked them but continual gorging would change that.
Bottom line: Do it with beer. Don’t do it alone. Ask for extra ranch.
Laura - Recommended.
Showing posts with label Central. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Central. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Fried Pickles at Hole in the Wall
Friday, June 20, 2008
Chuco's
900 W. 10th St.
Austin, Tx
(512) 476-TACO
(512) 476-TACO
I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but I haven't always been the gallivanting single woman I first appear to be. Before there was Bachelor #s 1, 2, or 30 there was my ex. We met on E-Harmony of all places. We were both single and hating life in DFW. He was tall, smart and goofy. On the first date I knew we'd date seriously, by the third date he had met my parents, and after a month we had moved in together. But alas the "honeymoon" did not last. I moved to Austin to be closer to my family and he moved to Phoenix to be closer to his. We tried maintaining our long distance relationship for a while, despite the 2,000 mile separation, we managed to see each other twice a month. During the course of our relationship, I managed to make a dozen or so trips out to Phoenix. I went there enough to realize that 1) it is waaaay to fricken hot there and 2) no-one does anything fun there.
One other thing I discovered about Phoenix is that their Mexican food isn't Tex-Mex, or Monterrey, or even Baja style Mexican food, it's Sonoran style. Apparently in Sonoran style Mexican food they don't cover their food in salsas and greasy Tex-Mex style sauces. They focus on fresh ingredients available in the Yuma breadbasket to create simple Mexican yumminess. There was this little Mexican taquerilla in Tempe that we would frequent that had the best taquitos. Quality marinated pulled chicken wrapped in fresh corn tortillas, deep fried to a light golden color, then covered in the freshest, greenest guacamole you've ever seen. We'd order a huge place of those tasty taquitos and chow down.
I've tried a couple of the taquerias around Texas hoping to find taquitos of the same quality, but so far I've been disappointed. Tex-mex taquitos tend to be filled with stringy uninspiring chicken, wrapped in spongy tortillas, and deep fried until they're overcooked. The whole package tends to be rather unappealing.
Bachelor #4 and I were trolling around downtown one night and decided we wanted cheap Mexican food. We thought we'd try a little joint off Lamar that Laura had mentioned had good breakfast tacos. I thought why not. Chuco's is in a converted house that I believe used to be a really nice neo-european gourmet restaurant a few years ago. Its in the high rent district around Lamar and 6th which is why its surprising a low price taqueria has managed to survive where so many expensive restaurants have failed. The parking lot is tiny, but there were surprisingly few cars in the lot behind the restaurant. There were a surprisingly large number of people inside the restaurant indicating most of the folks who frequent this place are locals that walk or bike.
The counter to order is right by the front door and the volume of people coming and going make for a rather convoluted order process and an inevitable traffic jam. You order at the counter, get a number, then find a seat. The place is cute and has a clean feel; an old house with hardwood floors and white trim. After we ordered and sat down we waited what seemed like forever, but was probably close to 20 minutes. I was starting to get really antsy for my food. Who waits that long at a taqueria? Seriously!
Our order trickled out slowly starting with the house special, beef chucos. I ordered them as they're served, smothered in cheese and covered in some sort of watery tomato sauce. I wasn't all that impressed with the cheese and sauce, but the taquitos were top quality. They were the lightly golden fried delicious Sonoran style taquitos I'd get in Phoenix. The sauce, while it was tasty, was really watery and dripped everywhere making for a really messy eating experience. I'd avoid it next time. After we'd each had a few chucos our tacos came out. I ordered a chicken adobado which was spicy but rather uninspired. Bachelor #4's carne asada taco was really great though. Simple, but flavorful, the chicken had a nice texture and the taste of quality meat. They don't use Grade D chicken parts here.
After sucking down our chucos (sounds kind of dirty doesn't it), Bachelor #4 and I headed down the street to pick up a thank you present for my co-workers. I'd had a big deadline at work and wanted a special way to thank my co-workers who had helped, and what better way to say thank you that a big sugary, buttery Cinnabon. I haven't found a better purveyor of fat cinnamon roles here so if anyone can recommend one I'd appreciate it.
Bottom Line: Cute, convenient, quality Mexican taqueria, avoid the sauces
Mariah - 8
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Melting Pot
305 E. 3rd Street
Austin, Tx
(512) 401-2424
13343 N Highway 183
Austin, TX
(512) 401-2424
Being the good daughter that I am, when Mother’s Day rolled around, I tried to plan a special day to celebrate how awesome my mom is (and I’m not partial, she really is). My mom has done everything in her power to help me succeed in life. Everything from putting me through college (thanks again mom and dad), to driving me half way across America (while I had pneumonia no less) so that I could go on my grade school field from Chicago to Virginia. She always cooks me yummy dinners and had the forethought enough to make me do my own laundry when I was a teenager so I wouldn’t screw it up once I got to college. I could go on and on extolling the virtues of my mom, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear those; you want to hear about where we went for Mother’s Day. We went to, what in my opinion is now, the greatest place to celebrate Mother’s Day – The Melting Pot.
Now when I lived in Fort Worth, high end chain restaurants like The Melting Pot, Simply Fondue, Fogo de Chao (as mentioned in the previous review), etc were de rigueur. Places like that aren’t too bad, in fact they’re usually pretty tasty, but I much prefer my experiences at unique (and non-chain) Austin restaurants. But (and here comes the but), I LOVE fondue. Its one of those foods that’s fun to eat, tasty, and is a great way to spend a long meal with someone (and trust me, when you eat fondue it’s a loooong meal – but more on that in a minute). But more importantly, my mom loved fondue. When she would come to visit me in Fort Worth, we spent many an evening at one of DFW’s many fondue places enjoying a hot of melty cheese or chocolate. So when I heard Austin finally had a fondue restaurant, I immediately knew I had to take my mom there for Mother’s Day. I called up to make reservations the Tuesday before Mother’s Day thinking there wouldn’t be any reservations left. Surely everyone else, unlike my procrastinating self, would have the foresight enough to call ahead weeks in advance to make reservations. Apparently not. I had no trouble getting us a table, I was even able to get us a special table (more on that in a minute too), AND they even offered to put a vase of fresh roses on the table that Mom could take with her. And here’s the best part, because we wanted to have a late lunch, they were offering all this at a special Mother’s Day discounted rate. How cool is that!
The Melting Pot is rather conveniently (or inconveniently) located in the new Convention Center Food District. It’s on the same block as the other quality national chains that broker for Convention traffic: Roy’s, PF Changs, Fogo de Chao, and to a lesser extent Dona Emilia’s. So with all those other options, why would you choose the Melting Pot? Three words: Chocolate Cookie Fondue. But I'll get to that in a minute.
Now when I lived in Fort Worth, high end chain restaurants like The Melting Pot, Simply Fondue, Fogo de Chao (as mentioned in the previous review), etc were de rigueur. Places like that aren’t too bad, in fact they’re usually pretty tasty, but I much prefer my experiences at unique (and non-chain) Austin restaurants. But (and here comes the but), I LOVE fondue. Its one of those foods that’s fun to eat, tasty, and is a great way to spend a long meal with someone (and trust me, when you eat fondue it’s a loooong meal – but more on that in a minute). But more importantly, my mom loved fondue. When she would come to visit me in Fort Worth, we spent many an evening at one of DFW’s many fondue places enjoying a hot of melty cheese or chocolate. So when I heard Austin finally had a fondue restaurant, I immediately knew I had to take my mom there for Mother’s Day. I called up to make reservations the Tuesday before Mother’s Day thinking there wouldn’t be any reservations left. Surely everyone else, unlike my procrastinating self, would have the foresight enough to call ahead weeks in advance to make reservations. Apparently not. I had no trouble getting us a table, I was even able to get us a special table (more on that in a minute too), AND they even offered to put a vase of fresh roses on the table that Mom could take with her. And here’s the best part, because we wanted to have a late lunch, they were offering all this at a special Mother’s Day discounted rate. How cool is that!
The Melting Pot is rather conveniently (or inconveniently) located in the new Convention Center Food District. It’s on the same block as the other quality national chains that broker for Convention traffic: Roy’s, PF Changs, Fogo de Chao, and to a lesser extent Dona Emilia’s. So with all those other options, why would you choose the Melting Pot? Three words: Chocolate Cookie Fondue. But I'll get to that in a minute.
Let me describe how the Melting Pot is layed out. The inside is dark and cavern-like, but tastefully decorated as all high end small chain restaurants are these days. Lots of dark wood and silver. That makes the Melting Pot really special, however, are the individual rooms. Yes, that's right, call ahead for reservations and you too can reserve one of a dozen or so totally private tables. Each room has its own table, complete with fondue burner, and a frosted glass pocket door to separate you from other other low-brow restaurant go-ers (I mean seriously, who wants to associate with those schlubs??). I highly recommend that if you eat here, you reserve one of these rooms just for the novelty of it.
Normally, the fondue operates on a per person prix fix pricing scale. The table chooses one type of cheese fondue, chocolate fondue, and in the middle, the type of entree cooking style. The cooking style is normally oil or a flavored broth. The oil is fun because they bring out a host of batters to cover your meat in, but the broth is healthier and just as tasty (and won't leave you smelling like you just deep fried your clothes). I think they normally have some sort of beer broth, and a more flavorful broth - when we went, it was coq au vin. Mom (who got to choose) went with the coq au vin. Once the table chooses a cooking style, everyone chooses their meat plate. They offer a mixed plate of tenderloin, chicken breast, sausage, shrimp, scallops and veggies that I normally recommend to fondue beginners. But, they also offer more steak, lobster, and veggie options.
Once you have the general outline of the meal figured out, you pick fondue flavors. For the cheese fondue, we chose the "Wisconsin Trio." Having grown up an almost cheesehead, I was most delighted with that choice. The trio was a rich blend of fontina, butterkase, and surprisingly blue cheese with some garlic, wine, scallions and sherry thrown in for good measure. The coolest part about the cheese course is they make it right in front of you. Your server brings out a large tray covered in cheese, and other delectable ingredients, starts the fondue burner and mixes up the cheese while you drool at the smell. Once its warmed up and melted, they bring you bowls filled with a variety of breads, fruits and veggies to dip in the cheese. It was incredible. There's nothing better than cheese, especially if its hot and melty and on top of a crisp green apple. The dippers as we'll call them were all fresh and tasty. No dry, stale bread and drippy cheese like at Cru. This fondue's the real deal.
Once you've gorged yourself on cheese, the server brings out a scalding hot pot of your chosen broth style. When it first comes out, its covered with a clamped on lid and looks something like a medieval torture device. Stay clear of this until your server tells you its safe. You wouldn't want to be a "hot coffee" lap casualty. But once it's safe, you grab your handy color coded skewer - each person gets their own color so you know who's is who's - spear a piece of meat, and start cooking. It generally takes about 2-3 minutes for each piece to cook, so you get a rhythm going, and rotating out through your 3 skewers so you always have tasty food on your plate. Oh, they also bring 4 or 5 different sauces to dip your meat into. The yogurt Curry is the best but stay away from the sweet and sour. Its pretty gross. This was probably the weakest part of the meal. After cooking quality meat in great smelling broth, you want something interesting and savory to dip your meat into. Not just a crappy teriyaki or horseradish sauce.
Added Note: After seeing Lee's comment, it reminded me of the funniest part of the fondue experience. When you lose a bit of food in the fondue broth, you use this big slotted spoon to fish it out. Now this slotted spoon isn't called just anything, it's called the "David Hasselhoff." So we all got a good giggle when we'd lose a piece of chicken in the broth and would have to ask someone to "Pass the Hoff."
Just when you think you're so full you could hardly eat anything else, they bring out.. The chocolate. You're table has to agree upon one type of chocolate fondue, but when you have such choices as Bailey's Milk Chocolate Fondue or Smores Fondue, is anyone really a loser? My mother, in her infinite wisdom chose Chocolate Cookie Fondue. It was a rich dark chocolate swirled with marshmallow fluff with bits of Oreo cookies mixed in. It was incredible. You get a plate of the most decedent desserts to dip in said fondue. Anything from angel food cake to marshmallows to brownies to a slice of cheesecake. Yes you read that right, a slice of cheesecake. I can't think of a more perfect dessert.
The plus about a fondue meal is also the minus. All this extravagance takes about 2-3 hours to complete and really do it justice. Cooking meat in broth in is a time consuming endeavour. But if you've got the time, I suggest you try it at least once. Its fun and tasty and a great way to connect with your family.
Bottom Line: Fun to eat food that tastes great
Mariah - 9.5
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Torchy's Tacos
1207 S 1st StAustin, TX
(512) 366-0537
511 E 6th St
Austin, TX
(512) 474-7000
520 West Ave
Austin, TX
(512) 789-2063
2809 S 1st St
Austin, TX
(512) 444-0300
(512) 444-0300
http://torchystacos.com/
After having picked up Leslie and Joel’s wedding invitations from Café Java, I tried to get in touch with them so that I would no longer be responsible for them anymore. Leslie’s been working crazy insane hours (damn film industry) and Joel’s been busy planning the wedding and looking for work (he just moved back from Florida to be with the love of his life, so if anyone has work for someone with a doctorate in Endocrinology, let me know and I’ll pass on the info.) So when Leslie didn’t answer the phone, I gave Joel a ring. He had business to take care of downtown, so he offered to meet me. We picked Little Woodrow’s as the location for the swap.
After finding change for the meter, I perched myself up on the patio at Woodrow’s with a beer and attempted to get some work done while waiting. Soon enough, Joel arrived and joined me. We opened the box of invites to discover that they were only partially assembled and required some more work. He looked vaguely disappointed, so I offered my services to help stuff the envelopes in exchange for another cold beer. We chatted as we stuffed the envelopes and when we were done, we moved outside to finish our drinks. At this point we were on #3 or #4.
The sun was setting, and the alcohol was taking effect. At this point, we had been hanging out for a few hours and my stomach was starting to rumble, so we did what any intoxicated person on the west side of Sixth Street would logically do. We hit up Torchy’s.
Torchy’s is a small trailer attached to (but not a part of) Little Woodrow’s on West Sixth Street. I know they have other locations but this is the only one I’ve been to. When I first discovered Torchy’s, it came off of a tip from an old neighbor. Since then, I’ve suggested it numerous times when substantially sized groups of people have been out drinking. Everybody can get something they want, the tacos are of excellent quality, and the food is fairly inexpensive so even the brokest of your friends can afford it. Plus, it doesn’t interfere with the beer drinking. You can have a seat inside Woodrow’s and they’ll bring it right to you.
The people working there are a little bit rockabilly and really nice. The selection of tacos have names like “The Republican” (jalapeno sausage, shredded cheese, pico de gallo in a flour tortilla with poblano ranch), “The Democrat” (Shredded beef barbacoa and onions topped with fresh avocado, queso fresco, cilantro and a wedge of lime on corn tortilla with green sauce) and “Dirty Sanchez” (scrambled eggs with guacamole, fried poblano chili, escabeche carrots and shredded cheese on flour tortilla with poblano ranch). They have all sorts of sauces – the green and poblano ranch I mentioned before, plus, diablo, tomatilla, roja and chipotle.
You can also order chips and salsa, guacamole or green chili queso. The chips are thin and just mildly greasy in that oh so bad but oh so good kind of way. The salsa and the guacamole are tasty, but avoid the green chili queso. It has an odd consistency that just makes you wish you didn’t go there. It claims to contain guacamole, queso fresco, cilantro and diablo sauce, but the only ingredients I could decipher was some cheese-like substance, some splashes of hot sauce and a few flecks of cilantro.
This particular evening, Joel ordered The Republican, and I ordered the Fried Avocado Taco and the previously described queso. Although the queso fell flat, the chips remained enjoyable and my taco was a beautiful concoction of hand battered fried avocado, vegetarian refried beans, lettuce, pico and cheese on a corn tortilla that I smothered with poblano ranch. The mixture of avocado, beans and poblano ranch in my mouth was nothing but pure genius.
Joel raved about the sausage in his taco. For about 10 full minutes. I think he was feeling kindof worried about ordering something called “The Republican” and the implications that had on his character and felt the need to defend how delicious the sausage was. This led to a full blown political discussion that was followed by an assessment of the transitions in drunken Austin downtown street cuisine.
When we both arrived in Austin in the late 90’s we were heavily into the Roppolo’s pizza, but as our taste buds and the Austin scene matured, the choice became Torchy’s, hands down every time. I even ended up eating there on my birthday this year. And then had a phone malfunction that resulted in an accidental drunk dial to my grandma. Classy, I know. Hey – I only claimed that our taste buds had matured. I never said anything about the rest of us.
Bottom Line: Damn good tacos. It's hard to get a better meal for $3. Avoid the queso.
Laura - 9
Friday, May 2, 2008
Marakesh
906 Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 476-7735
Wednesday started my week of serial dating – lunch date Wednesday, 2 dates Friday, a date Saturday, a date Sunday, a date Tuesday, and then one more on Wednesday. If it weren’t for my crackberry, I’d have problems keeping up with all of them. Needless to say, I’ve been eating out a lot lately. My Tuesday lunch date was at Cosi, which I’ve already reviewed, my Thursday date was just drinks at Trudy’s (and the date went pretty horribly anyway, but that’s what I get for going on a blind date with someone who hangs out with 65 year old women). Which brings us to Friday. The first date was marathon wine drinking at my favorite wine bar, Cork & Co, with a funny and dynamic (though slightly workaholic) software engineer. The second date, however, is the focus of this review.
I met up with Bachelor #2 Friday evening at Marakesh, a little middle eastern restaurant on Congress. We were seated promptly at one of the few empty tables. The place was packed with people from all walks of life, singles, people on dates (like us), and even a few families. The place isn’t large, maybe 15-20 tables and the décor is typical Congress ave restaurant. Brick walls, worn hard wood floors and the slightly musty scent of a well aged building. The smell of the building mixed wonderfully with the smell of the middle eastern food to produce a great homey feel that made me immediately at ease. The smell made my mouth instantly water, and after 2 bottles of wine, I was starving!
I perused the menu and noticed the typical middle eastern fare: shwarma, gyros, falafel, etc. More Greek or Turkish than Moroccan, but eh, this is Texas, you can’t expect to go to a traditional Moroccan restaurant in central Texas. We ordered an appetizer and two entrees, and to be honest, I don’t remember what any of them were. Between the alcohol and the TOTALLY unremarkable middle eastern food, I seriously don’t remember what we ate. I totally don't remember the appetizer. I remember it was meaty and tasteless. I really don't remember what Bachelor #2 ordered. I think it involved chicken, but I am at a loss as to what it was. I THINK I ordered kibbeh, mostly because its usually what I like to order at new middle eastern restaurants. Its considered sort of the meatloaf of middle eastern food and you can generally gage how good a restaurant is by their kibbeh. Its kind of like in the US, if you can't cook meatloaf right, you can't cook anything right. However, Marakesh's fried bulgar/lamb was so unremarkable I don’t remember if that’s truly what I ate. It wasn’t badly prepared, rancid, or anything too offensive, but it was just boring boring food. I do remember my entree came with hummus and pilaf, and I remember enjoying both. The hummus was pretty tasty, having a sharp dill tang and the pilaf was plain but turned into a nice hummus delivery system.
The only think remarkable was the halva, the dessert we ordered, and that’s because it was remarkably bad. I’ve come to find out that the halva I had eaten before is semolina halva and more resembles a thick polenta textured pudding. But after doing some research, I’ve discovered halva can resemble anything depending on what country you’re in. In fact, it means dessert (or more specifically “sweets”) in several different languages. This halva was more (as I’ve come to find out) Egyptian style halva, which resembles a big square hunk of candy. It had a nice melt-in-your-mouth texture, but it was soooo over-sweet and the bitter taste of cardamon overpowered all the other flavors that I couldn’t take more than a couple of bites. The waitress who was a little off to begin with noticed we hadn’t eaten it and chose to tell me while I was standing in line at the bathroom that she’d taken it off the bill. You know there are times when you talk to strangers, and times you don’t, and standing in line for the bathroom is one of those times you don’t. :P
Bachelor #2 and I continued on to The Hideout for a Ladies of Comedy improve show. The Hideout is a cute little coffee shop/improve theater. A fun date for all you single people if you’re looking for interesting things to do (like you have to look that far in Austin, but hey, I thought I’d point it out). The comedy show was.. interesting.. to say the least. There were moments of sheer brilliance and moments that were less than brilliant (including the sketch where a woman gives birth to her food baby - a baby tied to a pizza - and procedes to eat it.. a little disturbing).
Bottom Line: Bland, uninteresting, just plain forgettable middle eastern food
Mariah: 5
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Fino
2905 San Gabriel Street
Austin, TX 78705
(512) 474-2905
Oh, my fellow foodies, how busy life gets sometimes. I feel bad for abandoning you these past 2 weeks to take care of the banalities of life (like school projects and work), but sometimes you have to put down the things you love in order to finish the things you don’t. But rest assured, I didn’t deny myself the only pleasure I seem to be getting these days, food (aside from the dates I had this weekend, but I don’t kiss and tell)! I happened to go to two restaurants in the last few weeks that need reviewing. I’ll start with the latest, the one new restaurant I went to last week, Fino.
Fino is actually located in an area I know really really well, at 29th and San Gabriel. When I was in college, I spent a year living in a houseful of men, at my engineering fraternity’s house, which as it happened, was nicknamed “The House” (sounds ominous, right?, well if you spent any time in that bathroom, you’d think so too). The House was an old 1930’s west campus house with bad plumbing, bad walls, bad smells, but oh was it fun place to live. The yard was surrounded in thick, tall bamboo and we used to have these incredible keggers there. Think make out rooms, 2-story beer bongs, and a huge yard to throw up in when you’d had enough. That place was made to be a party house! It was located right at the intersection of 29th and San Gabriel. We used to get all liquored up and walk across Granite Café, the local high end restaurant and pretend to spend money we didn’t have on food we never bought. But they did have a nice patio and for a college student Granite Café was about as swanky as it got.
Flash forward 8 year (yikes!!) to groovy 2008. Lee invited me out for dinner and since I knew I’d need a break from all the school work I’ve been doing I said sure. Let me tell you, if I wanted to relive my college years of pretending to eat at Granite Café I still could, because the place hasn’t changed one bit. Now don’t get me wrong, its really a nice location. Its on the second floor of a nice brick shopping center and basically takes up the whole top of the shopping center. A generous wrap around veranda with tons of outdoor seating, lovely bamboo blinds to keep the sun out, large wicker furniture, and a nice breeze wafting in from Shoal Creek, gives the restaurant has a nice tropical atmosphere. The inside (where I have to admit I’ve never spent much time), seems nice and upscale. Large picture windows bring the tropical atmosphere into the interior of the restaurant while a large bar creates an open space that is segmented by small screens for more privacy.
I sat down and immediately ordered a sangria, the house specialty. It came in a smaller glass than I was hoping, but was a really amazing drink. Little pieces of apples and oranges danced with ice cubes in the ruby liquid. The red wine was neither too sweet nor too bitter. Very tasty. At that point Lee came walking up looking like a Vietnamese Mexican (sorry bud, you’ve been spending waay too much time in San Antonio lately). But we settle and I ordered tapas, calamari and crab bourekia, and decided to get the paella (which requires 30 minutes to cook, btw). Well, technically we only ordered a crab bourekia but a few minutes later what should happen to show up but calamari. We waited a few minutes for the waitress to come back but when she didn’t we decided to dig in. I was hungry and I’ll never turn down good calamari!
The calamari was fresh and the breading was decent. Nothing too spectacular. It was fried to a perfect golden color though. There’s nothing I hate more than overfried calamari. But the sauce. Well, the “smoked paprika mojo picon” sauce was AWFUL. Bleh. I think they mixed tomato sauce with liquid smoke and served it up for us. Avoid if at all possible. By then the waitress had come back and when we pointed out that we had actually ordered the bourekia she said “My bad!” and the bourekia appeared soon after. The crab bourekia wasn’t all that great either. The phyllo was initially crisp and flaky and the lump Crab, mascarpone & roasted peppers filling tasted good but the whole package together turned out being kind of oily and lackluster.
The paella came out soon after which surprised me, I was expecting it take a lot longer to cook. But then, I was on my 3rd glass of sangria and was enjoying the company. Now, after having the less than stellar tapas, I wasn’t expecting much from the paella. Maybe it was because my guard was down, or maybe it really was that good, but the paella knocked my socks off. The octopus, calamari, and mussels (and maybe sausage but I don’t remember) were cooked perfectly in the moist saffron-tomato infused rice. It had a slightly smoky flavor and the texture of the rice was incredible. Not at all gummy like some paella’s I’ve had, and definitely not dry. Each grain of rice was plumped to Portuguese perfection. I totally glutted myself on it. And to be honest the portion was huge. It is meant for 2 people, but 3 people could easily not finish it and with appetizers it would be the perfect amount for 4 people (if you’re cheap like me).
After the incredible paella, we decided to chance dessert and ordered the lemon pot de crème. I love creamy, lemon desserts. When it comes time to order dessert, I don’t want something heavy and chocolaty; I want something light and tart. I have the mis-begotten belief that it makes my after dinner breath smell better (but I know it’s a lie). Now this lemon pot was perfectly acceptable. It was a great consistency, a nice lemon flavor, not to tart, not too sweet. But if you’re looking for an amazing lemon pot experience, Wink’s lemon cream filled sugar balls (no comments) are soo much better. What was amazing about the fino lemon pot were the Basil-Mint sugar dusted blackberries on top. Basil, mint, sugar, and blackberries are MEANT to live together in harmony in my stomach and that’s where they went. Paired with the lemon pot they were amazing, but there were only 4 of them! If the whole top were covered in those awesome blackberries I’d have given it a much better score.
Overall: Wonderful patio, awesome paella & sangria, stay away from the tapas.. please..
Mariah – 7.5 (9 if you ONLY order sangria & paella and get them to throw in the blackberries)
Fino is actually located in an area I know really really well, at 29th and San Gabriel. When I was in college, I spent a year living in a houseful of men, at my engineering fraternity’s house, which as it happened, was nicknamed “The House” (sounds ominous, right?, well if you spent any time in that bathroom, you’d think so too). The House was an old 1930’s west campus house with bad plumbing, bad walls, bad smells, but oh was it fun place to live. The yard was surrounded in thick, tall bamboo and we used to have these incredible keggers there. Think make out rooms, 2-story beer bongs, and a huge yard to throw up in when you’d had enough. That place was made to be a party house! It was located right at the intersection of 29th and San Gabriel. We used to get all liquored up and walk across Granite Café, the local high end restaurant and pretend to spend money we didn’t have on food we never bought. But they did have a nice patio and for a college student Granite Café was about as swanky as it got.
Flash forward 8 year (yikes!!) to groovy 2008. Lee invited me out for dinner and since I knew I’d need a break from all the school work I’ve been doing I said sure. Let me tell you, if I wanted to relive my college years of pretending to eat at Granite Café I still could, because the place hasn’t changed one bit. Now don’t get me wrong, its really a nice location. Its on the second floor of a nice brick shopping center and basically takes up the whole top of the shopping center. A generous wrap around veranda with tons of outdoor seating, lovely bamboo blinds to keep the sun out, large wicker furniture, and a nice breeze wafting in from Shoal Creek, gives the restaurant has a nice tropical atmosphere. The inside (where I have to admit I’ve never spent much time), seems nice and upscale. Large picture windows bring the tropical atmosphere into the interior of the restaurant while a large bar creates an open space that is segmented by small screens for more privacy.
I sat down and immediately ordered a sangria, the house specialty. It came in a smaller glass than I was hoping, but was a really amazing drink. Little pieces of apples and oranges danced with ice cubes in the ruby liquid. The red wine was neither too sweet nor too bitter. Very tasty. At that point Lee came walking up looking like a Vietnamese Mexican (sorry bud, you’ve been spending waay too much time in San Antonio lately). But we settle and I ordered tapas, calamari and crab bourekia, and decided to get the paella (which requires 30 minutes to cook, btw). Well, technically we only ordered a crab bourekia but a few minutes later what should happen to show up but calamari. We waited a few minutes for the waitress to come back but when she didn’t we decided to dig in. I was hungry and I’ll never turn down good calamari!
The calamari was fresh and the breading was decent. Nothing too spectacular. It was fried to a perfect golden color though. There’s nothing I hate more than overfried calamari. But the sauce. Well, the “smoked paprika mojo picon” sauce was AWFUL. Bleh. I think they mixed tomato sauce with liquid smoke and served it up for us. Avoid if at all possible. By then the waitress had come back and when we pointed out that we had actually ordered the bourekia she said “My bad!” and the bourekia appeared soon after. The crab bourekia wasn’t all that great either. The phyllo was initially crisp and flaky and the lump Crab, mascarpone & roasted peppers filling tasted good but the whole package together turned out being kind of oily and lackluster.
The paella came out soon after which surprised me, I was expecting it take a lot longer to cook. But then, I was on my 3rd glass of sangria and was enjoying the company. Now, after having the less than stellar tapas, I wasn’t expecting much from the paella. Maybe it was because my guard was down, or maybe it really was that good, but the paella knocked my socks off. The octopus, calamari, and mussels (and maybe sausage but I don’t remember) were cooked perfectly in the moist saffron-tomato infused rice. It had a slightly smoky flavor and the texture of the rice was incredible. Not at all gummy like some paella’s I’ve had, and definitely not dry. Each grain of rice was plumped to Portuguese perfection. I totally glutted myself on it. And to be honest the portion was huge. It is meant for 2 people, but 3 people could easily not finish it and with appetizers it would be the perfect amount for 4 people (if you’re cheap like me).
After the incredible paella, we decided to chance dessert and ordered the lemon pot de crème. I love creamy, lemon desserts. When it comes time to order dessert, I don’t want something heavy and chocolaty; I want something light and tart. I have the mis-begotten belief that it makes my after dinner breath smell better (but I know it’s a lie). Now this lemon pot was perfectly acceptable. It was a great consistency, a nice lemon flavor, not to tart, not too sweet. But if you’re looking for an amazing lemon pot experience, Wink’s lemon cream filled sugar balls (no comments) are soo much better. What was amazing about the fino lemon pot were the Basil-Mint sugar dusted blackberries on top. Basil, mint, sugar, and blackberries are MEANT to live together in harmony in my stomach and that’s where they went. Paired with the lemon pot they were amazing, but there were only 4 of them! If the whole top were covered in those awesome blackberries I’d have given it a much better score.
Overall: Wonderful patio, awesome paella & sangria, stay away from the tapas.. please..
Mariah – 7.5 (9 if you ONLY order sangria & paella and get them to throw in the blackberries)
Monday, April 7, 2008
Cru
238 W 2nd St
Austin, TX
(512) 472-9463Laura: My good friend David has been recommending Cru for months. Yes folks, it is a chain. I looked at their website to find that they had locations not only in Austin, but also in Dallas, Denver, Plano and the Woodlands. Knowing that it was a big success in Dallas, I wasn’t quite sure it would be my kind of place, but I wanted to find out.
Mariah: I’m still recovering from my 6 years in DFW and haven’t quite been able to wash the stink of that place off me. I generally avoid places that are popular in Dallas but the lure of wine is strong. Probably stronger than my dislike of Dallas.
Laura: Mariah picked me up and we drove down to the ultra trendy and ultra expensive second street district. And if you don’t believe me that it is ultra expensive, consider this- Cru is right next to the clothing store Estilo. I once won a $50 gift certificate there off the radio. When I went to redeem it, I could not find a single decent item I could afford, even with the gift certificate. However, I did find a really awesome designer dress that I had to call my grandmother to talk me out of spending my rent money on.
Laura: Anyway, we get down there and we are looking for parking. I, ever the Eagle Eye, spot a car exiting a spot, so Mariah speeds across three lanes of traffic to swoop in for it, getting flipped off by a rightly pissed off driver in the meantime. My deepest apologies to that poor guy and the sad explanation that neither of us had enough cash to pay to park.
Mariah: Yeah I’m an awesome driver. I had to dust off some aggressive driving skills I learned while living in Chicago. Laura didn’t give that maneuver justice, we were stopped in the far left lane at a traffic light, there were cars in the other two lanes to the right of us. I inched forward and as the light turned green, I sped up quickly (as quickly as my junky Mazda can go) dodged up and around the two other cars in the middle and right lane, into the far right lane, and braked to snag the spot. All in the space of 100 feet. I rock.
Laura: As we walk into Cru and are faced with super swank bar, décor and staff, we notice what an awesome patio they have and request to be seated there. We get a couple of funky glances and are seated in a two person table in between another crowded table, a walkway for the wait staff, and a large back of a sofa chair that is making me extremely claustrophobic. When I express my concerns, what seems like the manager turns very passive-aggressive. One second he apologizes kindly, and the next minute his voice turns arrogant as he explains that there are no other tables available. Then he turns back to Dr. Jekyll as he offers to let us scoot our table and chairs over, and then after I explain to him that we would be in the walkway of the wait staff if we did that, he again changes to Mr. Hyde and tells us we will have to sit inside if we are uncomfortable with our chairs and explains that some customers like the privacy the side of the couch provides.
Laura: “I can deal” I say. It’s too nice of an evening to be inside. A really sweet and really cute waitress comes over and offers beverages and food. Its half price champagne night so Mariah and I go for a bottle of Perrier-Jouet, something we’d never choose normally, but at half price is so reasonable.
Mariah: The patio here is really nice. It’s more of a fenced off portion of the sidewalk. But the inside of the bar and the patio are open to each other creating a nice airy effect. It reminds me of a Paris sidewalk café. After we were seated, I looked over the wine menu. I had already eaten at Chez Nous (the review is forthcoming) so I didn’t bother long with the food menu.
Laura: But I was in need of some grub, so I start scanning the food menu. They have a few pizzas, a few meaty entrees, a couple of salads, and some interesting looking cheese flights. I was feeling extremely indecisive, so I eenie meenie miney moed and ordered White Truffle Oil Cheese Fondue with apples, carrot and rustic bread.
Laura: The clientele was varied. Mariah had a better look at all of this than I did, as I was being sequestered by the sofa wall. She explained to me that people were going between tables inside and that the place seemed very friendly. But the patio seemed full of girls with fresh highlights and $1000 Fendi purses. And not the knockoff ones my friends (Mariah) have.
Mariah: Whatever. My knock-off Fendi is awesome. I definitely see how this place works though. If you don’t have a seating preference they put the young good looking people out on the patio and the older less trendy people inside. Thats probably why the host looked a little nervous when we asked to sit on the patio (despite there being 6 or 7 open tables) and why were were seated behind a large couch. Apaprently we don't look cool enough to sit on their patio. Its filled with young 20-something (some looked even younger though) with short skirts, flat ironed hair, Abercrombe& Fitch polos, and way too much hair gel. The people inside looked normal and were clearly having a good time. There was a lot of laughing and table hopping. I’m guessing the place has quite a few regulars. But I wonder if they see the lipstick segregation.
Laura: I didn't notice the segregation (thanks again, Sofa Wall). And I don't understand it. So what I was wearing flip flops and don't have an expensive purse? We're two really cute girls! And this is Austin damn you. Flip flops here ARE couture. Anyway, the champagne was young but not send back worthy, although at full price ($70) I would have been horribly disappointed.
Mariah: It was really green. It was very acidic and didn’t have a good balance of flavors. I’ve had better bottles of $40 champagne (Nicky Fou Rose or Moet White Star)
Laura: A waiter or waitress came by every minute and a half to refill our glasses. This tactic kept us drinking at a quick pace. The fondue arrived and I went in for a bite. Initially, the cheese was very liquid (as expected when warm) and the apples and carrots were fine, but the bread was hard as a rock. Even after soaking it in the fondue, it still did not give.
Mariah: Seriously! That bread was stale! It was disgusting. I don’t know if that’s the effect they were going for. I understand there’s a time and a place for stale bread (bread pudding, yum!), but not normally when you’re just eating it plain.
Laura: As time passed on, and the fondue cooled, it never thickened in the least bit and did not adhere to the apples or carrots. We used our scientific reasoning to deduct that it was heavily diluted with milk and wine. At this point my tongue started to swell a bit. Guys, I’m about to admit something. I’m mildly allergic to cheap wine. I found this out on a trip to boyfriend’s dad’s for Thanksgiving when they busted out with the notorious bang for buck bottle of Two Buck Chuck and my entire mouth swelled. When my tongue started swelling at Cru, we had long finished our bottle of champagne, making me think that the wine in the fondue was scraped from the bottom of the grape stomper’s feet.
Mariah: We also noticed the previously ever present (and pouring) waitress disappeared the second we finished our bottle and decided we weren’t going to order another. We literally sat there for 10 or 15 minutes waiting for her to come back so we could settle out bill. Finally we had to flag down Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde to get our check.
Laura: We asked for our check and found that they had charged us full price for the champagne. Kind of cheeky, eh? After having the problem corrected by Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, we left, vowing not to return.
Overall: Cheeky attitude of restaurant staff/management. Full price bottles are overpriced. Fondue sucks. But goddamn that patio is nice… if you can avoid the $30k Millionaires and lumbering furniture.
Laura: 4
Mariah: 5 (The patio IS really nice)
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Magnolia Cafe
1920 S. Congress Ave.
Austin, TX 78704
512-445-0000
512-445-0000
2304 Lake Austin Blvd
Austin, TX 78703
512-478-8645
512-478-8645
Hello my fellow foodies. I hope the weekend found you eating well. I found myself eating very well.. in Seattle.. I flew up Thursday night to visit my friend Kasie and immediately threw myself into the local cuisine. Friday morning I was having shrimp and crab benedict at a warfside diner, Friday night I had 5 different types of chowder (yes there are that many!), Saturday I got thoroughly toasted at 9 local Washington wineries, Saturday night I had the perfect hang over food – fish tacos, and Sunday I had fresh salmon lox and banana french toast all the while glutting myself on fabulous Seattle coffee. Yum! But Sunday afternoon came around and I had to make my way back to Austin. I managed to successfully transport the 11 bottles of wine I had drunkenly acquired at said local Washington wineries through American Airlines checked baggage (yes it can be done foodies, and for future reference, they make suitcases specifically for transporting wine, seriously, only $386 and its yours). I managed to make it back to Austin only 2 hours later than the intended arrival time (thanks American), and when I finally landed I was STARVING. Not just any kind of hungry, the kind of hungry you get from being tired, hung-over and traveling 2000 miles. The kind of hungry only pancakes can satisfy.
I met up with my friend Ben and headed for Magnolia, my favorite Austin late night dining spot. I’ve been coming to Magnolia on and off since 1999. And how can I pinpoint that year? It was the year I got a car and could leave the confines of campus eateries. A whole new world of culinary delight opened up to me in that year. And one of the first places I ended up was Magnolia. The lure of 24 hour queso and pancakes is strong when you’re 21 and hopelessly drunk. And this is one restaurant that is so quintessentially Austin. Like Hula Hut, Magnolia is one of the places I always recommend to people from out of town. The interior is the perfect blend of crunchy granola and Austin funky chic. The wait-staff appear all rough and pierced but are in actuality very friendly and helpful.
Since I’ve started going there I haven’t strayed too far from the few favorites I started eating back in 1999. The first is the Eggs Zapatino. Its amazing. Fluffy yellow scrambled eggs on a crisp toasted English muffin covered in spicy, cheesy queso. It was incredible hang-over food then and it still is now. I got it last time I was at Magnolia (the day after my awesome Mardi Gras adventure on 6th at the 80’s Sing Along). I sometimes get the Love Migas. Picture it, regular migas, but made with a garlic & serrano infused butter. They’re nice and spicy, a real zinger of an egg dish. Magnolia also has awesome omelets. My favorite is probably the #15 Popeye. A huge monstrous omelet stuffed with spinach, bacon, cheese, onions, and sour cream. Not the healthiest breakfast in the world, but damn tasty.
This particular time I ordered a breakfast taco. I seem to be having quite the breakfast taco cravings lately, and this one fit the bill. The tortilla was perfectly toasted while the eggs, sausage and cheese inside were a lovely blend of all the wonderful things a quality breakfast taco should be. It wasn’t as good as the excellent and apparently aberrant (check out the SAT vocab) breakfast taco from Kerby Lane. But considering the Kerby Lane taco was a fluke (as I discovered on my second trip) I consider this taco to be superior.
What Magnolia is really known for are their pancakes, and not just any pancakes, their gingerbread pancakes. At Magnolia, you don’t order a stack of pancakes, you order them one at a time. Yes, they’re really that big – they fill up a whole dinner plate! Really! They’re always griddled (if that’s even a word) to perfection. Slightly crisp exterior and cakey interior. I’ve never had an over or underdone pancake at Magnolia. And the taste is always excellent, a hint of spice from the gingerbread, but not enough to overwhelm you. Covered in a glob of melty butter and maple syrup they’re spectacular.
Bottom Line: Fresh diner food with funky Austin charm
Mariah – 9
I met up with my friend Ben and headed for Magnolia, my favorite Austin late night dining spot. I’ve been coming to Magnolia on and off since 1999. And how can I pinpoint that year? It was the year I got a car and could leave the confines of campus eateries. A whole new world of culinary delight opened up to me in that year. And one of the first places I ended up was Magnolia. The lure of 24 hour queso and pancakes is strong when you’re 21 and hopelessly drunk. And this is one restaurant that is so quintessentially Austin. Like Hula Hut, Magnolia is one of the places I always recommend to people from out of town. The interior is the perfect blend of crunchy granola and Austin funky chic. The wait-staff appear all rough and pierced but are in actuality very friendly and helpful.
Since I’ve started going there I haven’t strayed too far from the few favorites I started eating back in 1999. The first is the Eggs Zapatino. Its amazing. Fluffy yellow scrambled eggs on a crisp toasted English muffin covered in spicy, cheesy queso. It was incredible hang-over food then and it still is now. I got it last time I was at Magnolia (the day after my awesome Mardi Gras adventure on 6th at the 80’s Sing Along). I sometimes get the Love Migas. Picture it, regular migas, but made with a garlic & serrano infused butter. They’re nice and spicy, a real zinger of an egg dish. Magnolia also has awesome omelets. My favorite is probably the #15 Popeye. A huge monstrous omelet stuffed with spinach, bacon, cheese, onions, and sour cream. Not the healthiest breakfast in the world, but damn tasty.
This particular time I ordered a breakfast taco. I seem to be having quite the breakfast taco cravings lately, and this one fit the bill. The tortilla was perfectly toasted while the eggs, sausage and cheese inside were a lovely blend of all the wonderful things a quality breakfast taco should be. It wasn’t as good as the excellent and apparently aberrant (check out the SAT vocab) breakfast taco from Kerby Lane. But considering the Kerby Lane taco was a fluke (as I discovered on my second trip) I consider this taco to be superior.
What Magnolia is really known for are their pancakes, and not just any pancakes, their gingerbread pancakes. At Magnolia, you don’t order a stack of pancakes, you order them one at a time. Yes, they’re really that big – they fill up a whole dinner plate! Really! They’re always griddled (if that’s even a word) to perfection. Slightly crisp exterior and cakey interior. I’ve never had an over or underdone pancake at Magnolia. And the taste is always excellent, a hint of spice from the gingerbread, but not enough to overwhelm you. Covered in a glob of melty butter and maple syrup they’re spectacular.
Bottom Line: Fresh diner food with funky Austin charm
Mariah – 9
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Cipollina
1213 West Lynn
Austin, Tx 78703
http://www.cipollina-austin.com/
Before I start this review, let me apologize for not posting in the past week. Laura's living the high life in Mexico and I've had 2 midterms. Life sucks sometimes, but we all have to remember what is important - food...
Laura and I went to the Tasting Tuesday at Specs last week. I know I went last time and just raved about it, but I wasn’t all that impressed this time. The food was the same, the wine was still cheap, and the people that frequent it are entirely too old and suburban for my tastes. Wait. Maybe I’m becoming old and suburban. Shit. Laura and I still managed to have a fairly good time despite the “housewives gone wild” vibe the place had. We even met up with two of my new friends Linda and Nate. Well they’re really my brother’s friends (or more specifically Nate is my brother’s boss), but I like them and they’re fun to hang out with. Anyway, none of the wines were really worth writing home about, always noteworthy is the incredible goat feta served by CKC Farms out of Blanco. Their marinated feta is to DIE for. After we were finished drinking (well after Laura and I had sampled everything and Nate and Linda had wussed out and thrown in the towel) we decided to go to Cipollina to grab a quick bite to eat. Laura and I were going to hit up some free pre-SXSW parties so we decided to try something central and I wanted pasta.We all drove (in 3 cars, we’re so American) to Cipollina on W. Lynne. Its in a really nice Central Austin neighborhood. Its surrounded by other local favorites, Galaxy Café, Zocalo, and Jeffry’s nestled in the cute Clarksville bungalows. Its in a strip mall next to a grocery store, but in Clarksville somehow that normally bland description transforms into a quaint and inviting actuality. There’s not a lot of parking so if you come during peak hours be prepared to park in the street. The actual restaurant itself is not very large - maybe only 20 tables – with a large granite topped bar that opens to the kitchen. The atmosphere is warm and inviting with large mirrors hung from the ceiling to provide a more open feeling.
You order at the front register, get a number and sit down. After eating at the likes of Primizie and Mandola’s, the menu offerings at Cipollina seemed a little small. There were half a dozen each of salads, pizzas, pastas, etc. Each one sounded tasty, but not the gourmet fare I had been used to. I went with the ravioli, Laura got the rosemary and truffle pizza, Linda got the duck confit salad, and I currently forget what Nate ordered. The food arrived promptly and looked very appetizing. The ravioli were fat stuffed squares covered in a light broth. The pizza was thin and covered with wall to wall white cheese. And the pulled duck was mounded high and inviting on the confit salad. Unfortunately the reality of the food didn’t live up to the appetizing vision before us. It was fresh but wasn’t really to my taste. The ravioli just wasn’t what I was looking for. I thought is would be cheese ravioli in a meat/broth sauce, but instead it was meat stuffed with nary a pocket of cheese to be found. It was very filling too. I could only finish 2 or 3 or the half dozen raviolis offered. Laura’s pizza was tasty, but without all that rosemary! They literally put clumps of the stuff all over the pizza and it was way too overpowering. I had a couple pieces of her pie and took to picking it off. With just a hint of the rosemary flavor it was quite a good pizza. They should really think of chopping it up or switching to rosemary oil to get the proper flavor balance. Linda’s Duck Confit salad was pretty tasty with shredded duck pieces heaped on top of a bed of fresh greens. We opted not to get dessert as Laura and I were heading downtown to meet up with Eric to hit some of the pre-SXSW shows.
Laura's note: I get what they were trying to achieve through simplicity, but I could have gone out to the garden and retrieved a handful of rosemary to sprinkle about the top myself. The failure to integrate the rosemary into the dish was a huge disappointment, but as Mariah pointed out, the pizza sans rosemary was tasty. I'd actually been to Cipollina once before and had an amazing salad. In fact one of the best salads I have ever had. They could do with expanding their menu... and keeping their staff off the Redbull. I thought the guy behind the counter the last time I was there was going to have to run some laps around the block before taking our order. Overall I find the food good, but the restaurant a little pretentious. Maybe a great place to take your in-laws or that college student you are dating and trying to impress with your casual sauve-ness. But back to what Mariah was saying...
We parked on 7th thinking we were going to the Beauty Bar to see the Mercers but apparently we missed that show and Eric had moved on to Mrs. Bea’s. When we called him he said Mrs. Bea’s was like half a block from Emo’s so we decided to head over. We walked a block east of Emo’s, then another and before long we were bumping up against I-35 and there was no Mrs. Bea’s. We called Eric again and he assured us it was just on the other side of I-35. But as some of you may know, parts east of 35 are known for being a little rough. So we assumed our best “I’ll kick you in the nuts if you fuck with us” faces and ventured into lands unknown. We walked and walked and walked and FINALLY came to a run down Mexican cinder block bar. We asked the guy cooking sausages out front where Mrs. Bea’s is and he said this was it. Well it didn’t look like much but we went in anyway. The party in the back was like something out of movie. 19 year old tragically hip college students (and I say tragically because I know they were going for totally hip, but come on, who really wears red jump suits and sports plaid sports jackets??) dancing around to a half way decent band. We found Eric and his friend Matt and boy were we in for a surprise. Eric was TOTALLY soused. We had a great time dancing to the first band, then making fun of the second band – an all girl trio who thought music was mumbling into a microphone while a repetitive electronic beat thumped in the background. It was awful. Laura took off at some point and had a life evaluating conversation with a 19 year old college student on her walk back to her apartment. I of course decided to stay and partake of the festivities. The bands got worse – the third band was a hip-hop/rap group that made us get low, so low that when they dropped to the ground and started shaking and convulsing to their music. At that point we decided it was time to split. Eric accosted the poor sausage merchant in his frenzied attempt to get a sausage (note to Eric, don’t drink on an empty stomach dude), ran into oncoming traffic on the I-35 frontage road while walking back, then peed on a car for a $1 in the parking garage. It was awesome. A fruitful night.
Bottom Line: Average Italian or Below Average Gourmet Italian – you pick
Mariah - 7
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Kerbey Lane
2606 Guadalupe St Austin, TX (512) 477-5717
2700 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX (512) 445-4451
3704 Kerbey Ln, Austin, TX (512) 451-1436
So I feel like we've gotten into the habit of only writing about the really great Austin restaurants or the really bad ones. When was the last time we reviewed just an ok restaurant? Well here's a good 'ok' Austin restaurant for ya - Kerby Lane. Now, before you start whining about how its an Austin institution, let me say that I fully acknowledge its innate Austin-ness. I've been eating at Kerby on and off for 10 years now and back when I was in college (and didn't know or couldn't afford better) it was a late night institution. But I am older and wiser and have since discovered the joys of other better local Austin institutions like the Omlettery and Magnolia Cafe. So how did I end up at Kerby again? Sheer laziness.
A few weeks ago I was out with Laura, Jenn, and Elena. The night was promising, we had special invites to a 1 year anniversary party at Prague. Now I thought Prague was a goth bar. The gargoyles and red lights usually signify goth-like tendencies, but Laura assured me it was just "European". So we get all tarted up and head to Prague. Boy were we disappointed. We were lured there with the promise of free drinks (it was sponsored by Grey Goose, which usually means free vodka) and free food (it was also sponsored by a local restaurant). Well we get there and not only was the place dead (as in we were the only people there), but there wasn't any free food, AND to add insult to injury, we had to pay for our drinks. Suck. So we headed for Betsy's, a nice little bar near the warehouse district and got our Lone Star on ($2 Lone Stars on Thursdays, as if Lone Star is even worth that much). Well it got to be 10:30 and being the working girl I am, I started packing up. I offered to drop Elena off at her place. As we were walking back to my car, I mentioned I was hungry and Elena said she was too, I mean, we were expecting free food. We decided on pancakes and since it was on the way, we thought we'd hit Kerby Lane.
We stopped at the Kerby on Guadalupe and 27th and the first thing we noticed was that the place was Hopping (with a capital H). We parking lot was full, we had to wait a second for a spot and we had to wait in line to get a table. But the wait was only 5 minutes, so we decided to stick it out. As we waited in and amongst the college students, something occurred to me, I am old in their eyes. I remember being a 19 year old college student looking at the late 20 something semi-professionals that would come to our frat parties and thinking, wow, that guy is 28, how old is that. And now that old guy is me and I'm a stranger in the world of the young and hip.
Anyway, it was chilly out and by the time they seated us, we were quite cold. We immediately ordered tea and hunkered down to warm up. As we scanned the menu, I noticed that it had changed considerably in the 5 or 6 years since I'd been there. The menu seemed less dinerish and more organic. As Laura noted on a trip there a few weeks later, there were more veggie options. But the reason Elena and I went there was for (a late night) breakfast. After hemming and hawing over the various options, we both decided to get a breakfast taco and a pancake. The pancakes, when they arrived were exactly as I had remembered them, large and spongy. I was less than enthused about the spongy (I use that word again because truly it is the best description) pancake in front of me having been a loyal patron of Magnolia Cafe for so many years. I have to say, in a side by side comparison the firmer, more flavorful Magnolia Cafe pancake would win. However, what really amazed me was the breakfast taco. Now, I've lived in Texas for 10 years and consider myself something of a breakfast taco expert, I've eatten a short ton of breakfast tacos in my lifetime. That Kerby breakfast taco was one of the best I've had. I went with a normal taco, egg, cheese and sausage and all were exceptional. The tortilla was lightly toasted and crunchy on the outside. The eggs were light and fluffy; the cheese to egg ratio was perfect. And the sausage.. Oh the sausage. It was tender, rosemary infused, and perfectly cooked. All together, the taco was tasty and damn near perfect.
Now, the reality of Kerby. They are really inconsistent. I went back to the same Kerby, on the same day of the week at the same time with Laura a week later. I wanted another breakfast taco. The first one was so good I had been dreaming about it. What was delivered to me was less than what I was expecting. The tortilla was overtoasted to the point that it wouldn't bend, and crumbled as I ate it. the bottom of the taco was soaked in grease. The sausage was overcooked and tasteless, and the eggs were dry. It was made up slightly by the tasty but not spectacular tortilla soup I had as a side. And overall disappointing experience.
Bottom Line: Inconsistant OK Food - If you want breakfast, stick with Magnolia Cafe
Mariah: 6.5
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Wink
1014 North Lamar, Ste. E
Austin, TX 78703
512-482-8868
Mariah: So Valentines Day was last week. I hope all you readers had a wonderful and romantic evening filled with good love, better lovin, and maybe even a bit of tasty food. I found myself in the strange position of being single on Valentine's Day. Oh horror of horrors, I know, how could that happen to a great catch such as myself? Well from time to time the stars align, quarks spin the wrong way, things go hay-wire and the Universe decides to throw you a streak of bad luck. But despite the Universe, I've been trying to make the best of being single again. After having dating through the phone book in Fort Worth, I've turned my attentions to the available men of Austin, and in my usual fashion I've gone full throttle. But dating isn't about quantity, its about quality and I have to say, Austin has some quality single men! This year, however, I found myself in an awkward position. Though, I received several invites from some very nice men to partake in Valentines Day celebrations, I had only really gone out with each of these gentlemen once or twice. And being the practical, modern girl I am, I thought it would create an immature sense of intimacy between myself and whichever lucky gentleman I happened to pick. Plus, as Zach pointed out, gentlemen who take a lady out on Valentines Day expect a little something extra at the end of the night that I just wasn't quite ready to give. So, after weighing my options I decided to spend Valentines Day with my favorite pseudo-single friend, Laura.
Laura: I'd like to disclaimer that by "pseudo-single" she means "physically unable to see my boyfriend". I'd also like to add that it was an honor to be chosen best substitute for a date on Valentine's Day.
Mariah: We started the evening at a free ladies event at The Nest, a trendy furniture store at 6th and Lamar. There were literally hundreds of single women scarfing down the free booze and brownies, listening to the mellow jazz band and mingling with other upwardly mobile Austin women.
Laura: The party at Nest was actually co-ed but you never would have known it. Now, I grew up as the only girl amongst 2 brothers and 3 male cousins, majored in engineering, and now work in an industry that is less than 20% female so I'm not acclimated to being surrounded with so many cute shoes and cool haircuts in one room. The estrogen was getting to me- I needed cute shoes too!
Mariah: So we strolled down to Emerald to shoe shop. Not finding anything we couldn't live without, we continued our stroll down to Wink, my favorite Austin restaurant. Since it was V-Day, we didn't figure we'd get into the restaurant proper, so we headed to the wine bar next door. We thought we'd get a couple of glasses of wine and an appetizer before headed off to the Mean Eyed Cat to meet our other pseudo-single friends for an "I Hate V-Day" bash. We were totally surprised and shocked to discover 1) that we got a seat at the bar and 2) the Wink wine bar serves the same food as the proper restaurant! We did a happy dance and quickly ordered wine and purused the menu.
Laura: Mariah left out the fact that she leered over a couple that were nearing the end of their Valentine's Day Wink experience for a good 5-10 minutes to get them to leave while I stood back and tried to give them their space. It really was a work of good cop/bad cop genius.
Mariah: I went with my current favorite, a nice dry Malbac, and Laura went with the tradition V-Day sparkling wine, Prosecco (which we now know after Miss Jane's class is NOT made in the Methode Champagnoise) . We decided to watch our girlish figures and to split an appetizer and a entree. We went with a homey mac and cheese for the appetizer (I think its one of the bar's normal appetizers) and a mushroom crepe. While we waited on our food we giggled about boys, shoes, and other frizolous things girls are supposed to chat about. When we finished our drinks, the food still hadn't arrived, so we did what any sensible person would do and ordered another round. I decided to switch from the dry tasty malbec to a fruitier pinot noir. I forget what Laura went with for her second glass, but it wasn't prosecco.
Laura: At first I recoiled with disgust at the Prosecco, but each sip brought me in and by the end of the glass I had found it refreshing and perfect for the occasion, but not perfect enough for another glass. I opted for a red this time.
Mariah: The food arrived quickly after ordering our second glass and we dug in. The food was amazing, as I've come to expect from wink. The mac and cheese was a perfect creamy baked blend of pasta and cheese. They even used ridged (rigate) macaroni and not the smooth walled kind because, as any foodie knows, ridges hold sauce better. The mushroom crepe was equally amazing. It was a savory blend of 3 or 4 different kinds of wild mushrooms (sorry, I don't know mushrooms very well) liberally stuffed into a thin perfectly browned crepe. The crepe was then covered in a rich mushroom creme sauce. The plating was simple, but then if there is one thing I can ding Wink on its the plating. But, I'd rather have an excellent tasting dish served plainly then a plain tasting dish served excellently (if you want that, go to Starlite). In addition to the veggie friendly dishes, I ordered a side of smoked salmon to get my meat on. The salmon came with rye crakers (not pumpernickle as the waitress/bartender claimed) but the waitstaff was accomodating to my hatred of rye toast and got me some bagel chips. The salmon was velvety and lightly smoked. It didn't have the heavy oily, smokey flavor of other varieties of smoked salmon, but I like my smoked fish a little milder than most. I was getting pretty toasted at the point, so I don't remember if we ordered dessert, but I'm thinking we were so stuffed at that point that we decided to forgo.
Laura: The food was incredible. I have come to expect nothing less from Wink. The portions are usually perfectly sized and they use local ingredients whenever possible. The menu changes daily. That night our macaroni and cheese contained slivers of mushrooms, so combined with the crepe it was a mushroom-tastic meal for me, but I ate every bite and it was delicious. Instead of dessert, we had another glass of wine. I went for Mariah's first choice of Malbec and to say it was rich would be an understatement. I then realized what time it was and that I needed to knock the wine back and jet.
Mariah: Laura left me at that point to get her hair cut (at 9pm on V-DAY!)
Laura: Ever go to get your haircut by a new stylist wasted? Yeah, probably not the best idea.
Mariah: In Laura's absence, several other friends joined me. Included in that group was my friend Harris who, aside from a brief encounter at Esther's Follies I haven't seen in years. We had yet another glass of wine (my memory starts to get really hazey at this point), then moved the whole group to Mean Eyed Cat. Harris claimed it "wasn't his scene" and left us for some douchey pick-up bar downtown. The rest of us enjoyed a couple of beers on the Cat's nice patio.
Laura: My snazzy new haircut and I met back up with the crew at Mean Eyed Cat where we finished the night.
Bottom Line: Incredible food, the best (european inspired fusion) restaurant in town, hands down
Mariah - 9.5 (10 if they had better plating)
Laura - 10 (Plating didn't bother me any. However, the strip mall exterior does. Lucky for Wink, I love this place enough to overlook outward appearances.)
Laura: I'd like to disclaimer that by "pseudo-single" she means "physically unable to see my boyfriend". I'd also like to add that it was an honor to be chosen best substitute for a date on Valentine's Day.
Mariah: We started the evening at a free ladies event at The Nest, a trendy furniture store at 6th and Lamar. There were literally hundreds of single women scarfing down the free booze and brownies, listening to the mellow jazz band and mingling with other upwardly mobile Austin women.
Laura: The party at Nest was actually co-ed but you never would have known it. Now, I grew up as the only girl amongst 2 brothers and 3 male cousins, majored in engineering, and now work in an industry that is less than 20% female so I'm not acclimated to being surrounded with so many cute shoes and cool haircuts in one room. The estrogen was getting to me- I needed cute shoes too!
Mariah: So we strolled down to Emerald to shoe shop. Not finding anything we couldn't live without, we continued our stroll down to Wink, my favorite Austin restaurant. Since it was V-Day, we didn't figure we'd get into the restaurant proper, so we headed to the wine bar next door. We thought we'd get a couple of glasses of wine and an appetizer before headed off to the Mean Eyed Cat to meet our other pseudo-single friends for an "I Hate V-Day" bash. We were totally surprised and shocked to discover 1) that we got a seat at the bar and 2) the Wink wine bar serves the same food as the proper restaurant! We did a happy dance and quickly ordered wine and purused the menu.
Laura: Mariah left out the fact that she leered over a couple that were nearing the end of their Valentine's Day Wink experience for a good 5-10 minutes to get them to leave while I stood back and tried to give them their space. It really was a work of good cop/bad cop genius.
Mariah: I went with my current favorite, a nice dry Malbac, and Laura went with the tradition V-Day sparkling wine, Prosecco (which we now know after Miss Jane's class is NOT made in the Methode Champagnoise) . We decided to watch our girlish figures and to split an appetizer and a entree. We went with a homey mac and cheese for the appetizer (I think its one of the bar's normal appetizers) and a mushroom crepe. While we waited on our food we giggled about boys, shoes, and other frizolous things girls are supposed to chat about. When we finished our drinks, the food still hadn't arrived, so we did what any sensible person would do and ordered another round. I decided to switch from the dry tasty malbec to a fruitier pinot noir. I forget what Laura went with for her second glass, but it wasn't prosecco.
Laura: At first I recoiled with disgust at the Prosecco, but each sip brought me in and by the end of the glass I had found it refreshing and perfect for the occasion, but not perfect enough for another glass. I opted for a red this time.
Mariah: The food arrived quickly after ordering our second glass and we dug in. The food was amazing, as I've come to expect from wink. The mac and cheese was a perfect creamy baked blend of pasta and cheese. They even used ridged (rigate) macaroni and not the smooth walled kind because, as any foodie knows, ridges hold sauce better. The mushroom crepe was equally amazing. It was a savory blend of 3 or 4 different kinds of wild mushrooms (sorry, I don't know mushrooms very well) liberally stuffed into a thin perfectly browned crepe. The crepe was then covered in a rich mushroom creme sauce. The plating was simple, but then if there is one thing I can ding Wink on its the plating. But, I'd rather have an excellent tasting dish served plainly then a plain tasting dish served excellently (if you want that, go to Starlite). In addition to the veggie friendly dishes, I ordered a side of smoked salmon to get my meat on. The salmon came with rye crakers (not pumpernickle as the waitress/bartender claimed) but the waitstaff was accomodating to my hatred of rye toast and got me some bagel chips. The salmon was velvety and lightly smoked. It didn't have the heavy oily, smokey flavor of other varieties of smoked salmon, but I like my smoked fish a little milder than most. I was getting pretty toasted at the point, so I don't remember if we ordered dessert, but I'm thinking we were so stuffed at that point that we decided to forgo.
Laura: The food was incredible. I have come to expect nothing less from Wink. The portions are usually perfectly sized and they use local ingredients whenever possible. The menu changes daily. That night our macaroni and cheese contained slivers of mushrooms, so combined with the crepe it was a mushroom-tastic meal for me, but I ate every bite and it was delicious. Instead of dessert, we had another glass of wine. I went for Mariah's first choice of Malbec and to say it was rich would be an understatement. I then realized what time it was and that I needed to knock the wine back and jet.
Mariah: Laura left me at that point to get her hair cut (at 9pm on V-DAY!)
Laura: Ever go to get your haircut by a new stylist wasted? Yeah, probably not the best idea.
Mariah: In Laura's absence, several other friends joined me. Included in that group was my friend Harris who, aside from a brief encounter at Esther's Follies I haven't seen in years. We had yet another glass of wine (my memory starts to get really hazey at this point), then moved the whole group to Mean Eyed Cat. Harris claimed it "wasn't his scene" and left us for some douchey pick-up bar downtown. The rest of us enjoyed a couple of beers on the Cat's nice patio.
Laura: My snazzy new haircut and I met back up with the crew at Mean Eyed Cat where we finished the night.
Bottom Line: Incredible food, the best (european inspired fusion) restaurant in town, hands down
Mariah - 9.5 (10 if they had better plating)
Laura - 10 (Plating didn't bother me any. However, the strip mall exterior does. Lucky for Wink, I love this place enough to overlook outward appearances.)
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Ironworks BBQ
100 Red River St
Austin, TX
(512) 478-4855
I don’t know about y’all, but when I’m sick, whatever healthy diet I’m on goes out the window and all I eat is comfort food. And whenever I do get sick, I generally let myself eat whatever I want and however much I want, justifying in my head that my body needs more calories when its fighting off some germ. Plus, my illness these past two weeks has been a horrible sore throat. All veggies and fruits were too acidic and burned my throat. All meats were too salty and burned my throat. So for these past two weeks I’ve been essentially on an all-carb diet. In the morning I would eat oatmeal. For lunch I would have toast, or a couple of challa rolls, or croissants, etc. For dinner I would ice cream and cake or cookies or something suitably sweet and carby. And for snacks in between I would eat dry cereal. Seriously, for two weeks I’ve been living off carbs. So when I started feeling better earlier last week, what I was most excited about was eating meat. Lots and lots of meat (and to a lesser extent fresh produce). Anything that wasn’t a carb. So when my date Friday night suggest we hit up Iron Works BBQ I readily agreed. I was hungry. Hungry for meat (sorry Laura).
Since this was a first date we met up at a nice neutral place, Moonshine, and had a few drinks at their back bar. Now, I’ve been to Moonshine several times now, and had no earthly idea they had such a nice patio and bar. Not, I’m not talking about the crowded bar by the front door that everyone usually hangs around, I’m talking about the wood even scented cozy stone accented bar next to the patio. It’s a really nice place for a first date drink, FYI. So after meeting up and determining this guy wasn’t an ax murderer (he brought me rice crispy treats, how not ax murderish is that?) we decided to walk down the street to Ironworks for dinner. It’s tucked away next to the convention center in a little strip of land bordered by Waller Creek and Cesar Chavez.
The first thing you notice is the crazy Texas Hill Country décor. The building looks like a shack that was ripped from an 1880’s western. There are well worn hardwood floors, benches, booths, wrought-iron decorations, stainless buckets of sodas. And the place smelled amazing. Like the wood smoked meaty smell had permeated into the hard wood floors. I felt like I was inside a charred oak whisky barrel and was loving every second of it.
We opted to try a little bit of all the meat. A quarter pound of brisket, a quarter of sausage (yum!), and a quarter pound of turkey. We also went with some potato salad, cold slaw, and a big fat banana pudding for dessert. Now I know what you’re saying, my dad and I have this discussion every time we eat BBQ. Potato salad and cold slaw aren’t traditional Texas BBQ sides. According to my father, nobody in old school Texas ate anything with mayo in it until recently (i.e. when the fridge was invented). You know, back in the dinosaur days. But we’ve advanced as a society and its perfectly acceptable to have mayo laden sides with our BBQ.
The BBQ itself was good but not exceptional. The turkey was well smoked and had a very nice flavor, but it was not the tender smoked turkey I have had at other BBQ joints. The brisket was rather dry and not at all noteworthy. What was really nice was the sausage. It was nicely smoked but not too spicy. It ended up being a nicely subtle fusion of Texas BBQ flavors. The sauce at Ironworks is tasty too. It’s not a spicy, powerful sauce you might find at Rudy’s. That’s one of my big BBQ pet peeves - sauce that’s way too strong or spicy. It It’s instead a nice central Texas blend of mellow spices to make a fine sauce that w
Since this was a first date we met up at a nice neutral place, Moonshine, and had a few drinks at their back bar. Now, I’ve been to Moonshine several times now, and had no earthly idea they had such a nice patio and bar. Not, I’m not talking about the crowded bar by the front door that everyone usually hangs around, I’m talking about the wood even scented cozy stone accented bar next to the patio. It’s a really nice place for a first date drink, FYI. So after meeting up and determining this guy wasn’t an ax murderer (he brought me rice crispy treats, how not ax murderish is that?) we decided to walk down the street to Ironworks for dinner. It’s tucked away next to the convention center in a little strip of land bordered by Waller Creek and Cesar Chavez.
The first thing you notice is the crazy Texas Hill Country décor. The building looks like a shack that was ripped from an 1880’s western. There are well worn hardwood floors, benches, booths, wrought-iron decorations, stainless buckets of sodas. And the place smelled amazing. Like the wood smoked meaty smell had permeated into the hard wood floors. I felt like I was inside a charred oak whisky barrel and was loving every second of it.
We opted to try a little bit of all the meat. A quarter pound of brisket, a quarter of sausage (yum!), and a quarter pound of turkey. We also went with some potato salad, cold slaw, and a big fat banana pudding for dessert. Now I know what you’re saying, my dad and I have this discussion every time we eat BBQ. Potato salad and cold slaw aren’t traditional Texas BBQ sides. According to my father, nobody in old school Texas ate anything with mayo in it until recently (i.e. when the fridge was invented). You know, back in the dinosaur days. But we’ve advanced as a society and its perfectly acceptable to have mayo laden sides with our BBQ.
The BBQ itself was good but not exceptional. The turkey was well smoked and had a very nice flavor, but it was not the tender smoked turkey I have had at other BBQ joints. The brisket was rather dry and not at all noteworthy. What was really nice was the sausage. It was nicely smoked but not too spicy. It ended up being a nicely subtle fusion of Texas BBQ flavors. The sauce at Ironworks is tasty too. It’s not a spicy, powerful sauce you might find at Rudy’s. That’s one of my big BBQ pet peeves - sauce that’s way too strong or spicy. It It’s instead a nice central Texas blend of mellow spices to make a fine sauce that w