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September 2009
Esquire names Perla’s among America’s best
The November issue of Esquire magazine will name Perla’s Seafood & Oyster Bar on South Congress Avenue among America’s best new restaurants.
Perla’s, the surf-centric outpost from the Lamberts team of Larry McGuire and Tommy Moorman Jr., is the only Texas restaurant honored on John Mariani’s annual list.
Here’s what Mariani said about Perla’s:
“Few restaurants to open this year get the tenor of the time so impeccably right: bright yellow and blue everywhere, trays of shellfish glistening on the bar, an umbrella-shaded patio, and a menu on which every item sounds irresistible.”
Perla’s is at 1400 S Congress Ave., 291-7300, www.perlasaustin.com.
Austin City Limits: The menu
If ever the food at an outdoor music festival tasted like its host city, the jalapeno brisket tacos from Stubb’s, hot-and-crunchy chicken cones from Hudson’s and veggie burgers from P. Terry’s at the Austin City Limits Music Festival would be that food.
The ACL audience is a captive bunch when it comes to food and drinks. The festival allows people to carry in just two factory-sealed water bottles (up to one liter each), an empty Camelbak or other empty plastic container (such as a Nalgene bottle) and ice in a soft-sided cooler or Camelbak. That’s it. Everything else you have to buy on-site, with cash in most cases. And you can’t buy food and drinks at the same booth. One line for corndog chicken tenders from Moonshine, another line for Sweet Leaf Tea.
But it could be worse. The festival asked a real-live chef — Jeff Blank of Hudson’s on the Bend — to be the food-court adviser, and he’s helped put together a roster that includes street-food renditions from white-tablecloth Austin standbys Aquarelle, Louie’s 106, Thistle Cafe and Restaurant Jezebel, along with the already street-legal Torchy’s Tacos, Boomerang’s and Best Wurst, among others.
Following is a list as complete as the festival can offer before the gates open Friday.
FOOD
• Aquarelle
Steak frites sandwich, $8
Spicy shrimp po’boy, $8
Parmesan fries, $4
• Austin’s Best Burger
Cheeseburger, $6
Veggie burger, $6
Cheese fries, $5
Cold watermelon, $3
• Austin’s Pizza
Pepperoni pizza, $7
Cheese pizza, $7
• The Belmont
Pressed Cuban sandwich, $7
Fajita steak-and-cheese sandwich, $7
Jalapeno cheese tots, $5
• The Best Wurst
Grilled sausage sandwich, $6 (bratwurst, smoked pork Italian, all-beef, jalapeno)
New York buttered salt-potatoes, $4
• Boomerang’s Gourmet Veggie & Meat Pies
Guinness steak and potato, $6
Southwest chicken, $6
Spinach and mushroom, $6
Curry veggie, $6
• Hudson’s on the Bend presents the Mighty Cone
Hot-and-crunchy chicken, shrimp or avocado cone, $7
Hot-and-crunchy chicken or shrimp cone with avocado, $8
Purple pig cone, $6
Death by chocolate, $5
• The Love Shack
Burgers by Fort Worth celebrity chef Tim Love (menu unavailable at press time)
• Louie’s 106
Chilled penne pasta primavera, basil pesto aioli, $5
Chilled penne pasta with chicken, Thai peanut dressing, $6
Chilled penne pasta with pulled pork, mango chipotle mayo, $6
• Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill
Corndog chicken tenders with honey mustard, $7
Zucchini fries with buttermilk ranch, $6
Crispy fried fish tacos with jicama slaw, $5
Lunar burrito with veggies or steak, $5
• Original Hoffbrau Steaks
Menu pending at press time
• P. Terry’s Burger Stand
Hamburger or cheeseburger, $4
Double-meat, double-cheese burger, $6
Veggie burger, $6
• Pluckers Wing Bar
Six chicken wings, $6
Four chicken tenders, $6
Fried pickles, $4
Fried Twinkies, $5
• Pureheart
Gyros (beef and lamb), $7
Souvlaki (beef or chicken), $7
Mediterranean gordita, $7
Greek salad, $7
• Restaurant Jezebel
Spicy Jamaican jerked pork skewers, $5
Mild chipotle marinated chicken skewers, $5
Tandoori-rubbed veggie skewers, $5
Cold pasta salad with mint-olive pesto and feta cheese, $5
• The Salt Lick Bar-B-Que
Sausage wraps, $5
Chopped beef sandwich, $6
Sloppy nachos, $6
Pulled pork sandwich, $7
• Solar All Natural Wraps and Hummus
Falafel wrap, $7
Chicken wrap, $7
Hummus wrap, $7
Hummus and chips, $5
• Stubb’s Bar-B-Q
Jalapeno brisket tacos with Fritos, $8
Pulled pork sandwich with Fritos, $7
Sliced brisket sandwich with Fritos, $7
Chopped beef sandwich with Fritos, $6
Add a sausage wrap, $3
• Thistle Cafe
Turkey wrap, $6
Chicken chipotle wrap, $6
Steak wrap, $7
Honey Dijon turkey melt, $7
Add a cookie, $1
• Torchy’s Tacos
Green chile pork taco, $4
Potato, bean, green chile taco, $4
Trailer Park taco (fried chicken), $4
• Wahoo’s Fish Taco
Menu pending at press time
DESSERTS/SNACKS
• Amy’s Ice Creams
Small ice cream, $3
Large ice cream, $4
Toppings, $1
Shakes, $5
• Children of the Kettle Corn
Medium kettle corn, $5
Large kettle corn, $7
• Nice Conez
Snow cone, $4
Stuffed with ice cream, $5
• Sambazon
Acai bowl (Amazon berry sorbet topped with granola and bananas), $6
Organic acai juice, $3
Amazon organic energy drink, $3
• Snowie
Snowie, $4
All-natural organic flavors, $5
Add cream, $1
SOFT DRINKS
• Fresh Squeezed Best Lemonade
Lemonade, limeade or strawberry lemonade, $4 (16 ounces), $5 (20 ounces)
• Maine Root All Natural Handcrafted Soda
Organic root beer, ginger brew and blueberry sodas, $4
Texas cactus juice agave lemonade, $4
• Sweet Leaf Tea
Sweet Leaf Tea or Lemonade, $3 (20-ounce bottle), $4 (32-ounce commemorative cup with ice)
BEER AND WINE
• Heineken, $5 (12 ounces), $8 (24 ounces)
• Heineken Light, $5 (12 ounces)
• Tecate, $5 (12 ounces), $8 (24 ounces)
• Lone Star, $8 (24 ounces)
• Santa Rita cabernet, $6 glass, $24 bottle
• Twin Vines vinho verde, $6 glass, $24 bottle
(American-Statesman photos of Austin’s Pizza, Hudson’s hot-and-crunchy chicken cone and $5 dishes from Restaurant Jezebel)
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One Dish Wonders: Whole Foods Market
Salad bar ($7.99/lb), agua fresca of the day ($2.59)
The Whole Foods Market downtown is as much of a restaurant as it is a grocery store, with dining choices from a raw-foods bar to a barbecue shack throughout its vast expanse as well as tables inside and out for enjoying them. The market’s impressive salad bar, one of the healthier options, offers an inexhaustible variety of ingredients and flavors, from Mediterranean chickpeas to traditional potato salad.
At $7.99 per pound, it’s easy to get carried away and end up with a $10 salad, though that’s comparable to meal-sized salads in restaurants. The key to building a good salad is texture, to make it different with every bite. I start with a base of spinach leaves and get creative from there.
The salad bar carries many grain medleys, from cranberry quinoa to sunflower rice salad, as well as proteins like tuna and black beans. Just a few feet away from the salad bar is a hot bar of international cuisine for the same price per pound.
What I ended up with was a happy, complex marriage of flavors, with each ingredient bringing out the best in the others. The carrots crunched, the tomatoes burst with juice, the dried cranberries added a subtle, tangy sweetness. I also added julienned raw zucchini, edamame, pumpkin seeds and the best ingredient of all: marinated feta.
The feta, with red pepper flakes, parsley and garlic, added saltiness and immense joy to the salad. A drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette added sweetness with a kick of Dijon mustard. The only disappointing choice was roasted tamari tofu, which was too tough and added nothing to the salad but weight.
The watermelon agua fresca will bring you back to summer days (if you really want to go there). With three ingredients — water, sugar and watermelon — it’s the closest you can get to the real deal without having to spit out seeds. Though it accompanied the salad just fine, it also served well as an after-meal refresher and an alternative to dessert.
525 N. Lamar Blvd. 476-1206, www.wholefoodsmarket.com.
(American-Statesman photo by Amira Jensen)
Chefs will throw down for Showdown
As part of the Go Texan Restaurant Round-Up that starts Monday (Sept. 28), chefs from the Driskill Grill, SWB at the Hyatt and Trio at the Four Seasons will compete in a Go Texan Chef Showdown at 7 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 30) at the Hyatt Regency Austin, 208 Barton Springs Road.
For $80, guests will dine on a Southwestern-style appetizer and main course prepared by each team (six courses in all), with wine pairings and a dessert and coffee bar.
Judges include American-Statesman food writer Addie Broyles, plus editors and writers from Austin Monthly, the Austin Chronicle, Edible Austin and more.
Reservations at 480-2035.
The Go Texan Restaurant Round-Up — with chefs across the state cooking special menus featuring Lone Star meat, produce and wine — continues through Friday (restaurant list at www.gotexan.org/restaurantroundup).
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San Antonio’s Le Reve is closing
San Antonio’s Le Reve is closing in late October, reports Patricia Sharpe of Texas Monthly. She calls Le Reve the best French restaurant in Texas.
Patricia doesn’t usually send us alerts from her Eat My Words blog, but I get the sense she really wants Austin fans of Andrew Weissmann’s restaurant to have their chance to eat at Le Reve one last time.
Thanks, Pat. Read more about Le Reve on her blog here.
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‘Yes We’re Open’ Report #2
• District 301, a nightclub and lounge with DJs (including DJ Kosta, pictured, on Tuesdays) and a hammered-copper bar at 301 W. Sixth St. The name harkens back to the name the bar carried in the rougher days before the space became Oslo and then the Hi-Lo.
• The Texas Cuban, a trailer selling Cuban-style pressed sandwiches and sides at 1700 S. Lamar Blvd. (www.texascuban.com).
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Coming soon: Lion & Rose in West Lake Hills
Taking my 10-year-old for an after-soccer Chick-fil-A yesterday, I saw that the Lion & Rose British Restaurant & Pub is working on a location in the West Lake Hills shopping center that houses the H-E-B Westlake Market and a Barnes & Noble.
The space at 701 Capital of Texas Highway, Building M, used to house Ruggles Grill (and a few other places before that).
The Lion & Rose is a San Antonio operation with four locations there, serving English pub food (bangers and mash, fish and chips, Scotch eggs, shepherd’s pie) and a menu of steaks, salads and sandwiches.
And where the Lion roams, the European draft beer will follow.
No word on when the Lion & Rose will open in West Lake, but at the pace the remodeling is going and how focused the general contractor seems, I’m crossing my fingers for early November.
(Image from www.thelionandrose.com)
Austin Restaurant Week: Mulberry for $25
Tonight (Wednesday, Sept. 23) is your last shot at Austin Restaurant Week’s $25-$35 three-course dinner deals. I’ve already reviewed some of the $35 dinners. Here’s one for $25.
MULBERRY
360 Nueces St. 320-0297, www.mulberryaustin.com.
Restaurant Week pricing: $25 for appetizer, main course and dessert (three choices in each category).
What I ordered at this wine bar with the feel of a tiny urban hideaway at the base of the 360 Condominiums:
• A glass of Inca Torrontes chardonnay for $8. Because at a place with 27 wines by the glass and more than 175 by the bottle, wine is what you order (unless you want to feel even more out of place because you’re 10 years past the median age of the other people here). The Torrontes is cool and crisp, a white with a hint of summer melon.
• Coppa crostini. Four little crusts of baguette with Gorgonzola and one small slice of fatty, luscious cured meat, drizzled with honey and thyme. The kind of thing you’d make at home after three glasses of Torrontes, because you’re really hungry, and what the hell.
• A cheeseburger. No, really. But with a regular sticker price of $14 with no sides, this has to be over-the-top. And it is. A charred patty with melted Gruyere cheese, shaved tomato, mixed greens with herbs, a crackling Frisbee of brilliantly crisp pancetta (it’s a BACON cheeseburger) and an entire egg, with an orange yolk just daring you to break it all over the rest of the burger with the crusty farm-bread of a bun that supports the whole superstructure. Upright, it’s tall enough for the people on the second floor to see. How does it taste? That’s beside the point, isn’t it? But for the record: not as grand as it sounds, because it was underseasoned, and the greens are a big part of what I tasted.
• Butterscotch brulee. The rule these days is that the crackly sugar crust on a creme brulee must pack some kind of spicy heat. But it usually just serves to mask the weakness of the custard underneath. But this one was pretty good, with a light, creamy sweetness and none of that artificial tinny taste I associate with most butterscotch concoctions.
Full restaurant list at restaurantweekaustin.com.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
Austin Restaurant Week: Zax for $25
Tonight (Wednesday, Sept. 23) is your last shot at Austin Restaurant Week’s $25-$35 three-course dinner deals. I’ve already reviewed some of the $35 dinners. Here’s one for $25.
ZAX PINTS & PLATES
312 Barton Springs Road. 481-0100, www.zaxaustin.com.
Restaurant Week pricing: $25 for appetizer (three choices), main course (four choices) and dessert (three choices).
The $25 Restaurant Week math really works at Zax, considering the New York Strip Au Poivre main course usually clocks in at $22 by itself. I ordered that steak, a Greek salad and a blueberry crumble dessert. Not a bad spread for $25.
I was already curious about Zax, which feels like an above-average neighborhood bar and grill that’s aiming to move up one more tier with steak, seared tuna, duck and scallops to go along with its modest wine list and its not-so-modest collection of 16 draft and almost 20 bottled beers, including Belgian standouts Tripel Karmeliet and Duvel. But truly, those beer numbers aren’t encyclopedic by Austin standards, as tap walls expand at places like Abel’s on the Lake, Black Sheep Lodge and even the newer Waterloo Ice House locations. And they don’t have the word “Pints” on their signs.
But neither do they have food this ambitious. My strip steak was cooked mid-rare as ordered, with an assertively beefy demiglace punctuated with soft green peppercorns for some mellow heat. The plate was finished with thin-cut fries and a few steamed asparagus stalks.
I heard the table behind me rave about the soup option on the ARW menu, a special of white bean and sausage with a housemade chicken stock for a base, as the waiter described it. But my Greek salad was an uninspired toss of chalky, crouton-shaped feta cheese with tomato, olives, onion and some weary greens. The blueberry crumble, though packed with berries, was more like thick oatmeal laced with syrup, and I’d have liked some textural contrast to rough things up.
The dinner wasn’t a transporting experience, but it was a solid deal for the price. Service was polite and attentive — and honest enough to wave me off a $10 wine-pairing special (basically, two short pours of house wines that usually run $6 for a regular glass). The place has its ups and downs: wooden floors and just a hint of restored-old-house ambiance; TVs that you can see from most any seat in the house, whether you want to or not; and a side patio under a big shade tree twinkling with party lights, a good place for a Live Oak Oktoberfest beer on the first night of fall.
Full restaurant list at restaurantweekaustin.com.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
Need a local food fix? Go Texan.
Starting Monday (Sept. 28) and running through Oct. 2, Lone Star foodies can celebrate the state’s bounty and benefit local food banks with the Go Texan Restaurant Round-Up put together by the state Department of Agriculture.
During that five-day stretch, more than 200 restaurants across the state will showcase Texas wines and special dishes made with Texas produce, seafood and meat.
In Austin, participating restaurants include the Kerbey Lane Cafe locations, Trio at the Four Seasons, Roaring Fork and Eddie V’s. At Carmelo’s Ristorante (504 E. Fifth St., 477-7497, www.carmelosrestaurant.com), a three-course dinner for $35 will include among its options Hill Country venison osso buco and tiramisu with local berries, and bottles of Texas wine will be $25.
Opal Divine’s will fill its three restaurants’ taps with dozens of Texas beers for $2.50 a pint.
Full list of restaurants at www.gotexanrestaurantroundup.com.
(American-Statesman photo by Jay Janner. Summer salad, tiramisu and Hill Country wild venison at Carmelo’s.)
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Fino chef Jason Donoho adds Asti to his roster
Asti Trattoria and Fino Restaurant and Patio Bar announced today that Fino chef Jason Donoho will assume the role of executive chef for both restaurants.
The move comes as chef John Bates departs Asti to start his own place. As he said last week from his Twitter account, @Chefjohnbates: “Last week at Asti, then striking out on my own with The Noble Pig. Can’t wait till things get up and running.”
(American-Statesman photos)
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One Dish Wonders: Mother’s Cafe & Garden
One in an occasional series that takes the measure of a restaurant by tasting one of its signature dishes.
Spinach lasagna ($9.95), cup of tomato-artichoke bisque ($2.50), hibiscus-mint tea ($1.50)
In the rebuilt garden at Mother’s (the restaurant was closed after a fire in March 2007 and reopened later that year), clusters of people sit in friendly company among potted plants and trees. The tables are spaced so nobody’s chair backs into anybody else’s, making eavesdropping difficult.
It’s a lunchtime utopia, and Mother’s spinach lasagna is its local manifestation of ambrosia. Promoted online as the top recommendation for first-time customers, this dish tells people that Mother’s is about fresh ingredients and robust flavors.
Eggless spinach pasta is layered with creamy ricotta cheese, spinach, black olives and pecans for a nice crunch. The ample baking dish of lasagna is topped with Jack and Parmesan cheeses and sizzles in a hearty marinara sauce.
It’s filling, and it can be elevated even further by one of the daily soups, in this case a tomato-artichoke bisque. The bisque is thick and creamy, served hot enough to be eaten throughout the meal or as an immediate appetizer.
Adding diversity to the tomato-based lunch, hibiscus-mint tea freshens the palate with bright tartness. This meal — like all of Mother’s menu — is vegetarian, but even an omnivore will be delighted.
4215 Duval St. 451-3994, www.motherscafeaustin.com.
(American-Statesman photo by Amira Jensen)
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First Impressions: Justine’s
Somewhere between the reporting of a new restaurant’s opening and the full-contact review that comes after a polite grace period lies the land of First Impressions. We’ll save the ratings for later, but these are places that show promise the minute they flip the sign to read, ‘Yes, we’re open.’
JUSTINE’S
4710 E. Fifth St. 385-2900, www.justines1937.com. Hours: 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. (dinner until 1:30 a.m.) daily except Tuesday (closed).
It’s hardly news any more that East Austin has become hot property for restaurant people. The last year has seen the opening of the Good Knight, the East Side Show Room, Buenos Aires Cafe East and the Shuck Shack.
Add Justine’s to that list, dated Sept. 3, named after Justine Gilcrease, who owns the French brasserie with her husband, Pierre Pelegrin.
In a ramshackle 1937 house next to the staging yard for a fleet of ice-cream trucks in an industrial area, the couple made room for a dining room with red walls, a black vaulted ceiling, the original wood flooring, a full-service bar and a modest kitchen, doing much of the two-year extreme makeover themselves.
‘I never used a table saw before, but now I’m pretty good at it,’ said Gilcrease, who studied photography at San Francisco’s Academy of Art. Pelegrin’s been in Austin since he moved here from France two decades ago, long enough to have played bass in 8 1/2 Souvenirs, long enough to have worked at Chez Nous, where his brother once served as a chef, and long enough to have met Gilcrease while his band was on tour in her native California.
They’ve been together five years, and the birth of Justine’s comes just a few months before their first baby is due.
Justine’s has been overwhelmed since it opened, Gilcrease said. Some credit has to go the Web site, justines1937.com, that in the early days opened with a grainy black-and-white film of three women in a bathtub (not as racy as it sounds), a film Gilcrease made in art school. The site has been toned down, but the risque business added to the word-of-mouth that comes with the hyperconnected foodie community here.
The food gets the rest of the credit. Working with the owners, chef Josh Lopez has put together a succinct menu of French bistro classics, including escargot in butter sauce ($6.50), salade nicoise ($10), steak frites ($16.50) , duck confit ($15) and coquilles St. Jacques ($15).
His charcuterie plate ($12), made from meats that Lopez cures and cuts in-house, is an explosion of texture and flavor: a ramekin of creamy, salty and garlic-rich duck liver mousse, a cylindrical rillette of rough-shredded pork with herbs and aromatic spices and two slices of rabbit terrine, a mosaic of peppercorns and tender meat. It’s served with cornichons, olives and sliced baguette.
Steak tartare ($14) at Justine’s is a tower of fragrant shreds of raw meat shot through with capers, onion, fresh ground pepper and Worcestershire, crowned with a raw quail egg. It’s luscious, it’s dense, it’s a lesson in the savory taste called umami. And it will not make you wish it were cooked. That same plate comes with fries that are hot, crisp and flecked with herb.
The dish has been a hit, to everyone’s surprise except Gilcrease’s: ‘Everybody told me, “No one’s going to order steak tartare in Texas.” And I said that’s ridiculous. There’s such great meat here.’
And there’s such great potential at Justine’s. The wine list is short, smart and affordable. The place has soul. Pelegrin plays vinyl records throughout the night, heavy on the blues he chased to America with his friend Oliver Calmant, who now helps tend the bar.
In just a few short weeks, Justine’s has given itself a lot to live up to.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Trailer Treasure: Bananarchy
Update 3/13/12: New location at the trailer park at South First and Live Oak. Just north of Oltorf on South First.
It all started with a sleepless night and an ‘Arrested Development’ marathon. Anna Notario and a friend were watching the Fox series when the idea hit her to start her own frozen banana stand, like Bluth’s Original Frozen Banana stand in the show. Notario paired up with friend Laura Anderson and on May 18 this year, Bananarchy opened its trailer window to customers.
The decadent dessert is made fundamentally out of a frozen banana on a plastic spoon. It can get messy, but that’s part of the fun. Bananarchy offers these treats in halfsies ($2.50) or a whole ($3.50), with dipping options of chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter or the new vegan chocolate. Toppings include sprinkles, granola, nuts and coconut.
For something Bluth-inspired, try an Afternoon Delight ($4.50 for a whole), combining the original three dippings with crushed nuts and graham crackers. The banana is cold, the dippings are crunchy and the toppings satisfy the most demanding sweet tooth.
Given Austin’s love for trailer food, Bananarchy (‘the revolutionary dessert’) might hope to develop the same cult following as its inspiration.
The trailer park at South First and Live Oak. Just north of Oltorf on South First. www.bananarchy.net. Hours: Monday-Thursday: noon-10pm. Friday-Saturday: noon-midnight. Closed Sundays.
(American-Statesman photos by Amira Jensen)
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A letter from Jeff Blank of Hudson’s
Jeff Blank, owner and chef (along with Robert Rhoades) of Hudson’s on the Bend, sent this letter about my Austin Restaurant Week review. (Reprinted by permission)
My heart hit the floor after reading about your experience at Hudson’s. After locating my ego (it’s not my amigo) I realized what an incredibly bad dining experience you had. I am truly sorry. It’s a good thing to remind all at the restaurant we are only as good as our last meal…..we will do better.
You said some very nice things about the restaurant and reported your experience. We will have better food and service on your next visit. Thanks for your honesty.
PS….restaurant week is bigger success than we expected….that’s a good thing…..we’ll be ready next year.
The second half of Austin Restaurant Week runs Sunday through Wednesday (Sept. 20-23).
Austin Restaurant Week: Sushi Zushi
The first half of Austin Restaurant Week ends tonight (Sept. 16), with another round of $25-$35 three-course dinners coming Sept. 20-23. Restaurants and menus at restaurantweekaustin.com.
Sushi Zushi
1611 W. Fifth St. 474-7000, www.sushizushi.com.
Restaurant Week pricing: $35 for appetizer (five choices), main course (three choices) and dessert (four choices). $25 for vegetarian option. Free glass of wine or draft beer.
Sushi Zushi (so ketchy-wetchy) is new to Austin, a recent export from San Antonio and Dallas, those well-known oceanside cities in Texas. It’s a well-designed place, from the blond wood accents and tabletops and moss green ceilings to the cushy curving banquettes and zen-tasteful booths to the black-and-white logo that reiterates the rhyming name. “Sushi” transforms to “zushi” when modifiers are added. For example, sushi rolls become “maki-zushi.”
And this place is all about the modifiers. The menu is the size of a Sunday comics page, with itty-bitty type and hundreds of rolls, nigiri, yakitori, tempura, chirashi … OK, so it’s what the Facebook page would look like if a sushi bar married a Japanese cafeteria.
That’s why the Restaurant Week menu is so helpful here. For $35, I sampled:
• Green Mussels Dynamite: Five baked half-shells with nice bites of tender meat and weapons-grade spicy mayo.
• The Bora Bora Roll (eight pieces): Shrimp tempura, avocado, chopped snow crab and four sauces that added up mostly to heat, but a slow, deep heat that allowed the main flavors to take turns like jazz soloists.
• The LIR Roll (named for a Sushi Zushi chef; eight pieces): A simple blend of spicy tuna and avocado inside, with salmon and a sweet-and-spicy sauce on the outside. The sauce caught me off-guard, with something like a diesel note at first that sorted itself into clean heat with a hint of sweet.
• A dessert of tempura-fried plantain slices with strawberry and chocolate sauces and vanilla ice cream. (I’m such a Japanese-food purist, right?)
In total, it’s plenty of food for two people.
My only complaints? The mussels and dessert arrived at room temperature instead of hot, and the waitress didn’t tell me about the Restaurant Week free glass of wine or draft beer (who doesn’t love a cold glass of Japanese beer with sushi?). And the $8 flight of unfiltered sake I ordered never showed up. These are things I chalk up to a new place still working out the bugs.
But what I can’t forgive are the “Keep Sushi Weird” T-shirts. Let’s add something to the menu: the Jump the Shark Roll.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
Austin Restaurant Week: III Forks
The first half of Austin Restaurant Week ends tonight (Sept. 16), with another round of $25-$35 three-course dinners coming Sept. 20-23. Restaurants and menus at restaurantweekaustin.com.
III Forks
111 Lavaca St. 474-1776, www.3forks.com.
ARW pricing: $35 per person for an appetizer (three choices), main course (four choices) and dessert (two choices), with three choices in each category.
III Forks could be any upscale steakhouse almost anywhere, from the animal-horn chandeliers to the dark leather booths to the white-jacketed waiters. And III Forks is, in fact, in several other places: Dallas and the Florida cities Boca Raton and Palm Beach Gardens.
Once the dishes started hitting the table, it didn’t matter. From the Restaurant Week menu (which is III Forks’ regular fixed-price menu with $7.95 knocked off the price), I went with French onion soup, a 6-ounce bacon-wrapped filet and cheesecake.
The service staff practically never left the table. One-two-three-four-five guys stopped by, ultimately with little to do, because from the salty, cheesy tang of the soup to the ready-for-its-Beef-Council-closeup steak with crunchy bright green broccolini and two egg-sized new potatoes, dinner was flawless.
I haven’t even mentioned the bright red slices of tomato. The round loaf of crusty, warm bread. The complex tomato-and-hollandaise interplay of the Charon sauce on the filet or the crispy, seared bacon around it. You wouldn’t be interested in all that.
But maybe something from the 18-page wine menu would catch your eye? Or a bracingly cold $5 martini in the bar from 5 to 7 p.m.? Or the ARW menu’s duck, mahi mahi or lamb? Or the piano man doing ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ in an Allman Brothers style? Maybe?
OK, so I won’t rave about the cheesecake. But after the beef, the bouillon, the bread and the big-shot treatment, dessert was almost beside the point. But thanks for asking.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
Austin Restaurant Week: Hudson’s on the Bend
Foraging through Austin Restaurant Week menus is like leafing through a coupon book during an eight-day feeding frenzy. The event’s first four-day stretch of $25-$35 three-course dinners goes through Wednesday (Sept 16). The second half fires up Sunday through Wednesday (Sept. 20-23) at more than 50 spots. Restaurants and menus at restaurantweekaustin.com.
Hudson’s on the Bend
3509 RM 620 N. 266-1369, hudsonsonthebend.com.
ARW pricing: $35 per person for an appetizer, main course and dessert, with three choices in each category.
This is a school-night reality for some of us: the baby-sitter can only stay until 9 p.m. Allowing for travel time, we’ve got about an hour and 45 minutes to eat. At Hudson’s, that wasn’t enough time.
A packed-house night of three-course dinners is no small feat, and this isn’t fast food. But this was a service issue. Our waiter had too many tables, and as the gap between finishing our entrees and the arrival of dessert stretched to 25 minutes, we had to bail on the berry flambe with ice cream and the brownie sundae and ask for desserts to go.
It was frustrating, but not the dinner’s only heartache. My Shiner Bock rib-eye, cut wide and extra thin, had been undercooked, and I gave up after a few tough bites, a problem I couldn’t get an audience for until we surrendered and asked for the check. Hudson’s took the dinner off the bill, but that’s not what I wanted from one of my all-time favorite Austin restaurants. What I wanted was more of the good food we had leading up to that point.
Yes, the good stuff. Hudson’s is a rambling, multi-leveled warren of bright art and soft lights. The aroma of sweet smoke and meat fills your senses as you pass through the herb garden to the door. Hot skillet bread, chipotle and herb butters and an amuse of spicy wild boar on a tostada opened the dinner. The Restaurant Week menu offers a trio of wine pairings for $15, including an enchanting, cigar-box Spanish red from Evodia.
We started with a rich chipotle bisque, poured tableside over small bites of lobster and a Hudson’s specialty called Duck Diablos, a study in texture composed of jicama, fig, jalapeno and duck, wrapped in crisp bacon on three skewers mounted in a green apple. That sweet, smoky aroma at Hudson’s? This is what it tastes like.
But Hudson’s can bring the finesse, too, like it did with butter-soft snapper in a crunchy crust of pecans bathed in subtle, lemony beurre blanc and served with a corn bread pudding and crisp zucchini, haricots verts and bell pepper. The dish tasted like fall. Those to-go desserts? It doesn’t get much better than pecan pie dipped in chocolate or a rosemary and olive oil cake with lemon curd.
Austin Restaurant Week: Fortune Chinese Seafood
Foraging through Austin Restaurant Week menus is like leafing through a coupon book during an eight-day feeding frenzy. The event’s first four-day stretch of $25-$35 three-course dinners goes through Wednesday (Sept 16). The second half fires up Sunday through Wednesday (Sept. 20-23) at more than 50 spots. Restaurants and menus at restaurantweekaustin.com.
Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant 10901 N Lamar Blvd. 490-1426, www. fortuneaustin.com.
Austin Restaurant Week pricing: $35 per couple (shared appetizer and dessert, two main courses, two glasses of wine)
At this new restaurant in the Chinatown Center where Kim Son used to be, the Restaurant Week menu is $35 per couple, and it includes two $6 glasses of wine. Not good wine, really: Les Jamelles chardonnay (jet fuel) and cabernet sauvignon (lollipop).
Do you go to a Chinese joint for wine, though? You go for food like the shrimp-and-pork shumai (steamed dumplings from Fortune’s dim sum service), four firm cylinders with lightly spiced meat packed in dense pieces rather than minced, bland by themselves but good with the sharp, red pepper-flecked dipping oil.
The front part of Fortune is a restrained Chinese bistro with a teapot display, red upholstery and dark wood; the back part is a bright banquet facility the size of a soccer pitch. The menu offers several hundred dishes, from real Chinese and pan-Asian to the Americanized styles so well-represented on the Restaurant Week menu (Sichuan chicken, kung pao combo, fried rice).
We picked a seafood clay pot with squid, small scallops, shrimp, pieces of white fish and for no good reason, imitation crab. The big clay bowl hit the table boiling hot, with mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, carrots and fried tofu. It was filling, but I wish the sliced ginger in the light white broth had jumped up and smacked the whole thing to life the way black pepper and five-spice powder energized our beef tenderloin entree. It reminded me of a sweeter and saltier fajita plate, with chunks of mushroom on a bed of stir-fried onions with a fanned array of tomatoes and zucchini.
Quick math, using regular menu prices: Dumplings: $2.95. Tenderloin dish: $12.95. Seafood clay pot: $11.95. Almond tea with puff pastry: $3.95. Total: $31.80. Skip the wine, and your dinner would cost less than the ARW price. If you’re OK with the wine, then this is a good package.
Service transcended the math, though. An older man showed my daughter how to hold chopsticks. Our young waiter was fast, polite and clearly proud of the place, especially the almond tea dessert, and rightly so: a dome of pastry over a ramekin of sweet, milky almond tea with hidden pearls of soft green almonds at the bottom.
(American-Statesman photo by Mike Sutter)
Dining for Life: Monday’s roster
Today (Sept. 14) and tomorrow, dozens of service-minded Austin restaurants will donate an average of 15 percent of sales to benefit AIDS services of Austin in the annual Dining for Life campaign.
Here’s the Monday list. For more information and for restaurants participating on Tuesday, see www.asaustin.org/dfl.
Monday (dinner only, unless otherwise noted):
• ASTI Trattoria
• Chez Zee American Bistro
• Chuy’s
• Eastside Cafe
• FINO Restaurant Patio and Bar
• Fonda San Miguel
• Guero’s Taco Bar
• Hoover’s Cooking
• Hyde Park Bar & Grill
• Lamberts Downtown Barbeque
• Maudie’s Cafe
• Mirabelle
• Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill
• Mother’s Cafe & Garden
• Olivia
• Sago Modern Mexican
• Sampaio’s Restaurant & Bar
• Satay
• Shady Grove
• Shoreline Grill
• South Congress Café
• The Hub
• The Steeping Room
• Trudy’s Texas Star (all day)
• Wink Restaurant & Wine Bar
• Zoot
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Good drinks: Beer flight at Fion Wine Pub
It takes a contrarian to order a beer flight at a wine pub. Or just somebody who can’t resist a tap wall with more than 40 beers, heavy on the domestic — and specifically Texas — microbrews.
Fion, which opened its Bee Cave location (the first is in Steiner Ranch) earlier this year just a few doors down from Zoot restaurant, is one of those convenient places where you can have a drink at the bar, have a cheese plate with nuts and fruit and buy a few bottles at retail prices to take home, whether it’s one of the hundreds of wines or a big bottle of Affligem Belgian ale from the beer cave.
But the flight’s the way to go, with your choice of four beers in four-ounce glasses for $6. The taps change out regularly, the bartender said, but she helped me pick four winners from the stock that day. Pictured from left to right:
• Biere de Mars from Colorado’s New Belgium, a dry and fruity saison-style beer with a touch of spice and a golden pale color.
• Blanche de Bruxelles, a hazy yellow, cloud-soft Belgian witbier.
• Fuller’s ESB, the malty English warhorse ale.
• Lost Gold IPA from Real Ale in Blanco, a pale ale with a hop bitterness almost rosemary bright. It reminded me of Collin County Pure Gold from a brewery in Plano years ago, the first pale ale I ever drank.
About time Bee Cave got a beer cave.
11715 RM 2244, Suite 100, Bee Cave. 263-7988, www.fionwinepub.com.
Other locations: In Steiner Ranch at 2900 N. Quinlan Park Road, Suite A150. 266-3466.
(American-Statesman photo by Mike Sutter)
Good drinks: The Old Austin at Annies Cafe & Bar
‘The way you can get a Sazerac anywhere in New Orleans, I’d like to see this cocktail be the same thing for Austin,’ David Alan says of the Old Austin, a reimagining of the fashionable-again Old Fashioned.
Alan is a bartender at the resurrected Annies Cafe & Bar, whose comeback includes a 30-foot horseshoe-shaped bar topped with zinc and stocked with drinks developed by Fino Restaurant and Patio Bar mixologist Bill Norris.
Sweet, sour, tart and hot all at the same time, the Old Austin is something you can get at Annies for $9. Or you can try making it at home with this recipe, developed by Norris and explained to me by Alan, known in the blogosphere as the Tipsy Texan.
The Old Austin
1 orange for zesting and peeling
1 lemon for zesting and peeling
Half an ounce of pecan syrup (made by simmering roasted, unsalted pecan halves in simple syrup for 15 minutes, then removing the pecans)
2 oz. Wild Turkey rye whiskey
2-3 dashes Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters or angostura bitters
Cracked ice
Over an Old Fashioned glass, use a vegetable peeler to cut a wide, thin section of zest from the orange and lemon, being careful not to include the white pith underneath. Express the oils of the zest into the glass by squeezing lightly, then drop the sections of zest into the glass. Add pecan syrup, bitters and rye whiskey. Add ice and stir to combine.
319 Congress Ave. 472-1884, anniescafebar.com.
(American-Statesman photo by Mike Sutter)
Good drinks: Framboise Flip at East Side Show Room
What kind of place is this? Every detail is obsessively rendered in soft-focus retro-shab, down to the bartender smashing ice to order in a green Swiss Army-style bag for the pricey, show-crafted cocktails.
A woman in a vintage-store strapless flapper ensemble plays the piano and the kazoo (at the same time). Dark red curtains shield the big main room, a patchwork of exposed bricks, painted ductwork and concrete floors. The furniture looks like it was made for overimagined puppet people, like having a tea party with the robots from the new animated fever dream called ‘9.’
The Framboise Flip is a $9 drink of doll-like proportions in a wee sherbet goblet, something like a pleasantly sweet raspberry-bourbon smoothie with a dash of peach bitters, made frothy with an egg and finished with a mint leaf the bartender smacks between his palms to release the oils. It’s a fussy concoction made by true cocktail believers.
In fact, after eyeballing my half-drained drink, bartender James Chauncy didn’t like what he saw. So he remade it — colder, more finely muddled and strained, sporting sharper teeth.
Elsewhere on the early-last-century cocktail list is a Pisco Fuego, made with grape brandy, lemon, elderflower liqueur and fire. Yes, for $11, you get to see the thing get sprinkled with sugar and torched to make just a whisper of a bruleed floater on the sweet, floral drink.
Not in the mood for a show? The beer list is medieval in strength, and the menu moves from charcuterie to shrimp and grits to short ribs.
1100 E. Sixth St. 467-4280, eastsideshowroom.com.
(American-Statesman photo by Mike Sutter)
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Good drinks: Blood orange margarita at Paggi House
The same swollen-sunset hue as the Paggi House itself, the blood orange margarita is served in a tall glass rimmed with fat crystals of salt. It’s a ruddy color out of the crayon box (the big one, with a built-in sharpener) for $8, only $4 at happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.
The margarita’s salty with a sultry citrus bite, rimmed with slices of the namesake fruit, a ruby shade so saturated it looks synthetic. The drink is emblematic of the restaurant’s ability to take a classic and breathe new life into it with a taste of the unexpected, like venison with an espresso rub and vanilla-parsnip puree.
Paggi House is a graceful old homestead repurposed with a modern breezeway bar and an expansive wooden patio in front with plush lounge seating. Inside, it’s renovated to suit modern tastes with straight chairs in black leather and classic sensibilities with scuffed wood floors and thick mouldings.
The patio lounge was warm, but sheltered from the direct sun by a dappled tree canopy. It was still warm enough to melt herbed butter served with bread alongside a happy-hour menu (changed by now) that included dense, luscious Niman Ranch pork belly ($12/$6 at happy hour) and crispy fried halibut strips with spicy remoulade ($10/$5 at happy hour).
Nothing a second blood orange margarita couldn’t fix.
200 Lee Barton Drive. 473-3700, paggihouse.com.
(American-Statesman photo by Mike Sutter)
Scenes from Buenos Aires Cafe East
Buenos Aires Cafe on East Sixth Street has become a new gathering spot for Austin’s elite (even if the most elite person in the room is you). Here are a few more shots from my review of this Argentinian bistro running this week in our Austin360 magazine. (Read the review here.)
Clockwise from top:
• The dining room at night.
• An array of desserts, including quatro leches cake, alfajores maicena and chocolate-strawberry mousse cake.
• Milanesa al Plato at lunchtime (two breaded cutlets with fries and a salad).
• The avocado-green building at 1201 E. Sixth St.
• Two sandwiches at lunch. Foreground: A Chorizo Especial (bratwurst with roasted red peppers, marinara and melted mozzarella cheese) served with a spinach salad with feta cheese and sweet pecans. Background: Lomito Beef sandwich (tenderloin and chimichurri sauce) with a Caesar salad.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Last days for the Treat trailer
Sad news for fans of the s’mores kits and frozen hot chocolate at Treat, the little silver trailer with a sweet tooth at the South Austin Trailer Park and Eatery. Owner Josh Frank sent a press release early this morning announcing Treat will close Sept. 20.
From the release:
“We will keep our regular hours - 11-2:30pm and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. (weeknights) 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. (weekends) through the 20th. We will continue to show movies at the trailer park until the last night we are open.
We are not sure where and when our doors will open again. Maybe soon, maybe later, maybe here, maybe there. Maybe in front of your house! You never know where and when the campfire might be lit again!
We love you, and we loved Treating you right!
And please stop in and say hi before we close up. On the last evening (Sept 20th- 8 to 10 p.m.) we will be celebrating around the trailer with free marshmallow roasting for all!”
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A roll with a hole? See for yourself
In this week’s Food & Life section, American-Statesman features writer (and transplanted New Yorker) Jeff Salamon teamed with Tasty Touring food blogger Jodi Bart and me to taste bagels from from five bakers, including emerging Austin phenom Rockstar Bagels. We ran out of room in print for the photos of the contenders, so here they are. (I won’t spoil it by telling you who won, but you can read about the taste-test here.)
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Trailer Treasure: Sushi A-Go-Go
* Update 3/13/12: New location at 801 Barton Springs Rd.*
How does your schedule look? Try this one: Take (left) and Kayo Asazu have two young children, they run a catering business called Deli Bento, he’s a chef at Yu Sushi Izagaya downtown … and they have this trailer on Manor Road called Sushi A-Go-Go where they sell sushi rolls six days a week.
But the first question always seems to be, ‘How good can sushi from a trailer be?’ The answer is: just fine. When Kayo Asazu opens the service window, the frosty rush of the air conditioning flows out, and she keeps the fish and vegetables fresh in the commercial-grade refrigerator inside the new Magnum trailer.
Japanese natives who’ve been in Austin about eight years, the Asazus offer sushi rolls primarily in the $4 to $6 range, with familiar choices such as crab salad, spicy shrimp, barbecued eel, tempura and smoked salmon, plus a range of veggie rolls starting at $3.50. For $12, the Fat Samurai roll is packed with tuna, salmon, yellowtail, crab salad, shrimp and avocado. The Longhorn Roll ($5.50) has rib-eye steak, cream cheese and avocado.
Kayo Asazu says she wants to help people experience sushi for the first time, but for the adventurous, there’s a Swamp Roll with Tabasco, crawfish and okra that honors the couples’ time in New Orleans. Another specialty is ‘Box Sushi,’ with the rice pressed in a wooden mold rather than rolled, filled with crab salad and a choice of fish, starting at $10.
Customer Carmen Knight said, ‘It’s fun to get something fast that’s not fast food.’ And speaking of fast, you’d be advised to hit the Manor Road location soon. The couple plans to move the trailer north to 4001 Medical Parkway in the next month or so. The Asazus promise to keep customers up to date on Twitter (@sushiago_go).
801 Barton Springs Rd. 423-7170, www.sushi-a-go-go-austin.com. Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. 4 to 8 p.m. Saturdays. Closed Sundays.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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Now open: Mizu Prime Steak and Sushi
Something must have been going right for the owners of Mizu during their time in the Lohman’s Crossing area of Lakeway, because on Sept. 1, the restaurant moved up the road on RM 620 to a vaulted stone-and-beam cathedral of a building with spectacular views of the hills around Lake Travis.
The mixing of steak and sushi might seem an unlikely pairing of two very different disciplines, but Mizu clearly takes both styles seriously. On the grill side, Mizu brought in Christopher Bauer, the chef who helped launch Finn & Porter at the downtown Hilton Austin. The sushi side is overseen by Tatsuki, whose career includes time alongside Tyson Cole at Uchi. The general manager is Brian Phillips, who worked with Bauer at Finn & Porter and most recently was a wine sommelier at the Driskill Grill. Phillips said Mizu’s owners are going for a neighborhood restaurant and bar that offers ‘a little bit of everything for everybody.’
The menu promises something like that, with nigiri from $2 to $5 per piece, edamame sauteed with garlic and wine for $3, well-portioned sushi rolls such as the classic California and spicy tuna ($8 each) and specialty rolls like the Mclovin ($12 with crab, peppered tuna, avocado and serrano peppers) and the Mizu ($20, with lobster, Kobe beef and grilled asparagus). From the bistro side, Bauer offers crispy duck confit ($23), Niman Ranch tandoori chicken ($21) and hard-core Kobe rib-eye with a side for $39. At lunch, there’s a Kobe burger with fries for $9 and a fried halibut po-boy with a salad for $11, along with pizza, pastas, entree salads and sushi combos.
The bar, called Branch, pours a full line of mixed drinks and high-end cocktails, and the wine list reflects Phillips’ goal of encouraging experimentation with ‘esoteric and value-driven wines, something that’s a little bit more fun.’
3001 RM 620 S., Lakeway. 263-2801, www.mizuaustin.com.
Hours: Bar 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily, with a bar menu served until 1 a.m. daily. Lunch 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Brunch 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, until 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
Fonda San Miguel: Eye of the beholder
In today’s review of Fonda San Miguel, I called the decor “tacky and carnivalesque … a theme-park melange, almost a Casa Bonita parody of itself.” (Read the review here.) More than a few loyal customers disagreed. Here are a few of their letters:
From Amy: Surely “tacky and carnivalesque” is being hard on our poor Fonda San Miguel. We love to sit in the atrium for a quick happy hour date before we run back home to the kids on a school night, and have for years! It is possible to capture a bit of the feeling of actually going to Mexico, which we have done often and love, and nice when you cannot dash off for a real vacation. This is not to be underestimated. Surely their efforts are not quite as appalling as you suggest. The atmosphere is quite possibly one of the reasons the parking lot is always full. As a 51-year-old mother of two with one leg in the high school and one in the middle school, it is not hard to make me feel dreadfully unhip (not that I lose sleep over it) but, this time, I just felt you missed the point on the decor. One doesn’t always go to Mexico for high style.
From Louise: I take exception to your comment about Fonda San Miguel being tacky. It is a lovely spot in the middle of town that feels much like being on a Mexican vacation. They have a valuable art collection that glows on those walls that you so critically described. Fonda reminds me of a beautiful Mexican hacienda.
From Roger: While the ambiance of any restuarant can be a part of a restaurant review, the main focus should be the food - not the decor. Perhaps you were trying to fill space, but if you are more of an fan of taco trailers than proven successful restaurants like San Miguel - then your one-man opinion is not worth the paper it’s printed on! Why do all so called “food critics” have to always find something wrong?
From John: You seemed to be surprised that there is an Austin restaurant serving Mexican food with high-quality ingredients. If you weren’t surprised then I am wondering why you devoted so much of your review to comparisons with generic Mexican food. I haven’t seen similar comparisons when you are reviewing other cuisines. As with all of your reviews you fail to mention this restaurants use of local ingredients—produce, meats, cheese and fish.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
Austin Restaurant Week lineup
The list is out for Austin Restaurant Week, which kicks off Sunday Sept. 13, and it’s impressive. Some 50 strong, the list includes established powerhouses like the Driskill Grill, Hudson’s on the Bend, Aquarelle and Jeffrey’s, plus some buzzworthy additions: Fabi & Rosi, Frank, Piranha Killer Sushi and Roaring Fork Stonelake.
In the spring, I hit four of these dinner specials (read the report here), and had some extraordinary food (fried lobster tail, filet mignon, seared duck breast, milk-poached halibut) at prices that encouraged me to try something new at places I didn’t think I could afford ($35 for three courses at most places, an astonishing $25 at others).
Austin Restaurant Week, sponsored by Rare Magazine, encompasses two Sunday-to-Wednesday stretches, Sept. 13-16 and Sept. 20-23. The event also benefits AIDS Services of Austin and the Sustainable Food Center. Details at www.restaurantweekaustin.com.
• Annies Cafe & Bar
• Aquarelle
• Bess Bistro
• Cru Wine Bar Domain
• Cru Wine Bar Downtown
• Daily Grill
• Driskill Grill
• Eddie V’s Arboretum
• 1886 Cafe
• 8212 Wine Bar & Grill
• Fabi & Rosi
• Fleming’s Domain
• Fleming’s Downtown
• Fogo de Chao
• Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant
• Frank
• Green Pastures
• Hudson’s on the Bend
• Imperia
• J. Blacks
• Jasper’s
• Jeffrey’s
• Joe DiMaggio’s Italian Chophouse
• Judges’ Hill Restaurant
• La Condesa
• Lamberts Downtown Barbecue
• Louie’s 106
• McCormick & Schmick’s Downtown
• McCormick & Schmick’s Domain
• Mizu Prime Steak & Sushi
• The Melting Pot
• Mulberry
• NoRTH
• Paggi House
• Parkside
• Perla’s
• Perry’s Steakhouse
• Piranha Killer Sushi
• Roaring Fork Downtown
• Roaring Fork Stonelake
• Roy’s
• Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse
• Sagra
• Satay Restaurant
• Siena Restaurant
• Sullivan’s
• Sushi Zushi
• Taverna
• III Forks
• Truluck’s Arboretum
• Truluck’s Downtown
• Woodland
• Zax
Free beer alert: Torchy’s 3rd birthday party
Torchy’s Tacos will celebrate three years of tortilla-slinging by getting you drunk and taking advantage of you on Thursday (Sept. 3) at the Torchy’s at 2809 S. First St. at El Paso (the old Nopalitos restaurant location).
The party starts at 7 p.m., with free admission and free keg beer until it runs out, plus music by fiddle phenom Ruby Jane.
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