noz's Profile
Hard Hat Report Vol 8
Confirmed - site plan review for P. Terry's in the Market center by West Lake building design committee August 3 - http://www.westlakehills.org/BDC/documents/bdc8'3'11.pdf. Not real encouraged about the area being able to support Hat Creek and P. Terry's. I'd guess that P. Terry's would go into the old World Bank location. The old Macaroni Grill seems too big for P. Terry's.
Hard Hat Report Vol 6
I don't know what's going on, but that was a Pizza Hut location that has been closed for quite some time. I thought that they were renovating for a new business, but now it's just a lot of rubble. I've seen nothing in the Westbank area newspapers.
Hard Hat Report Vol 5
With respect to the restaurant opening at the old Mooyah/Geaux Burger in the Crossroads shopping center, It's Cafe Canela. It's the same owner as with Geaux Burger. It has slightly different burger topping choices than before, but now it has similar systems for ordering burritos and fajitas. If you liked Mooyah and Geaux Burger, give it a shot.
Hard Hat Report Vol. 4
From Northwest Austin Impact News of April 23rd: "Named for owners Mike and Sara Davis’ family dog, Maggie’s Café will open in late spring or early summer in the location previously occupied by Gabbi’s Burgers n Dogs. The café will be open for breakfast and lunch and will serve Southern comfort classics like waffles and country-fried steak. Call 906-0069."
RIP part III: Austin Restaurant Closings
El Grito at Merrilltown and 1325 (Burnet) has closed. There's a sign announcing a new restaurant (sorry, can't remember the name, but it sounded like Tex-Mex) to open soon in that space.
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El Grito Restaurant
14611 N Mo Pac Expy, Austin, TX 78728
Delta Restaurant
These guys are in way over their head. Went for lunch yesterday. 12 people at 3 tables when we walked in. First thing that I noticed was that only one person out of the 12 had a drink. My lunch companions each ordered a double cheeseburger and I ordered the beef kebab and rice. The guy behind the counter told me that it would be twenty minutes, which turned out to also be what they told the guys ordering burgers. We each ordered iced tea (not on the menu) and sat down - no tea.
About every five minutes the woman from the back would come out with an order for somebody. A roast beef sandwich one place, what I guessed was the falafel sandwich for another, a big plate of spaghetti for another, a few scattered burgers after that. "Bruce Almighty" blared from the television as we waited. And waited. And waited.
51 minutes later, the burgers, fries and iced tea arrived at our table. I told the rest of the group if they finished the burgers before my order came that I'd just walk out when they were done, but my order came out a few minutes later. My kebab was like a rubbery sausage slice. It came with a grilled quarter of an onion, a grilled tomato, a halved tiny lime which was so hard that it couldn't be squeezed, and a large bed of non-fluffy and not obviously seasoned rice. I found the kebab very unappetizing and doused it in Louisiana hot sauce so that I could get it down.
To be fair, the others thought that the burger seasoning was interesting and actually pretty decent.
They clearly have too broad of a menu and insufficient resources to pull it off. We try to go to a new place every week. Since I've started tracking it, we've gone to 121 "new" places (new to us, at least), mostly in north Austin. I rank this place a solid 120th (#121 has already closed).
Delta Restaurant
The Capitol City Subs on Bee Caves Road also pretty much seemed like a relabeled Delaware.
We swung by Delta's today after eating around the corner. We were looking at the menu trying to figure out what kind of "restaurant" it was. They have a bunch of sandwiches (burgers, sloppy "delta"s, chicken sandwich, fried fish, falafel (!?!)), but their sides were salads (greek salad, tuna potato salad, a couple more I can't remember, and "special yogurt and herbs"). They have some dinners - beef kabob, chicken & rice, a couple of "alfredo spaghetti"s and an "Italian spaghetti." In their drinks, they have strawberry milk shake and banana milk shake, but no vanilla or chocolate, and the strawberry milk shake is more expensive than the banana - they also have yogurt drink. They also serve breakfast tacos. Well, good luck to them.
New Restaurant opening soon-Mooyah Burgers
I went twice in the course of a week because it was convenient. The first time I thought was decent - there was actually flavor in the patty, which put it way ahead of Mighty Fine in my book. Fries were really greasy.
Took a friend a few days later since I needed to go to that area, and I had what I would have to describe as a salt patty with a little meat mixed in. Probably the saltiest thing that I've ever eaten that clearly wasn't supposed to be salty.
Nuno's
We went twice at lunch. One time, only one other table was occupied during the entire time we were there (it was a Tuesday). On another time, no other tables were occupied the entire time we were there. The other people liked their food more than I did - I didn't enjoy those kettle chips either time.
Passed by there last Friday evening - parking lot was overflowing. I wish them all the luck in the world, but I won't miss their lunch offerings.
Estancia Churrascaria is open. Who'll take the plunge?
I went with one of my daughters to Estancia yesterday. It was fun, but I'd have to basically concur with the opinions which describe lesser-quality meat or execution - none of the meats were outstanding and some were dry. The service was excellent (though they did ignore the yes/no service cards once we started eating, but we went very early and there were only a few people in there at the time). They asked us if we had any specific requests, so when we got to the end and hadn't tried the pork tenderloin, I mentioned it to one of them and out it came within a couple of minutes. Some people had said that the sides weren't replenished, but ours were promptly replenished. Nothing terribly special about the salad bar, and my daughter could not bite through her asparagus spear (woody, as previously described). Mozzarella balls were flavorless.
It was certainly different from what we were used to, and I'm glad that we went, but I have no plans to return.
New Restaurant opening soon-Mooyah Burgers
Have you tried Gabbi's (Mo-Pac and Gracy Farms, in the back of the strip with Mangia)? I think that they've got good burgers - I especially like the jalapeno burger. The jalapenos end up under a layer of Jack cheese, so they stay in place. The buns are tasty and they hold up to the burger. They are just open for lunch, though. There's already a thread about Gabbi's in here somewhere.
Ruggles
Cafe Brix had a tough location - it's not very visible from the street, tucked behind the Wells Fargo building. Parking and access can be a pain there as well, and even getting back across Bee Cave can be difficult. There's no Vietnamese restaurants in the area that I'm aware of, so that could work.
Tomorrow is last day here - where to get good breakfast taco in RR or Parmer area?
Don Luis' was closed (at least today) due to non-payment of rent.
Ruggles
OK, now we have two restaurant sites available in the area with RedBud Grille also out of business - maybe something reasonable can land in one of them. I'd take an average mom-and-pop Tex-Mex place or a decent burger/sandwich shop - RedBud was way below-average on our two attempts there.
Ruggles
I haven't personally verified yet, but this article (http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2007/08/27/daily38.html) says that Austin Cheesecake Kitchen has closed. I won't miss it if that's the case.
Ruggles
Okay, we finally went and were absolutely underwhelmed. Menu is long and eclectic, which made me suspicious that it couldn't do everything well, and since the menu was all over the place, it was hard to guess what they wer emost likely to do well. Menu itself is very sparse - generally just has "name of item and price" - we had to ask what, if any, sides came with various entrees. Generally one pre-set side is assigned per entree, but this isn't noted on the menu, so your chicken enchiladas would come with jicama slaw, but you wouldn't know unless you asked. Sweet and sour chicken came with fried rice. Chicken-fried chicken and steak were served on a couple of mounds of mashed potatoes (yellow). King ranch chicken came with nothing.
I went low-end and got chicken-fried steak, and it was pretty good. I decided to get a house salad as well, which was also good, with big chunks of blue-cheese in some type of oily vianigrette (which started to bother me after a while - so maybe I should say that I liked it at first). My daughter's medium-well cheeseburger came with an overcharred bun.
Wait staff were all in black and white, so it was sort of upscaleish, but there were rolls of brown paper on the tables, so that was weird.
They had a couple dozen choices of cheesecake, but that was deceiving, as they really only had a few different ones on which they added toppings. The ones that we weren't objectionable as a dessert, but they were more mousse-like in consistency than a cheesecake should be.
Bill for 6 was around $90 (only a couple of us had drinks other than water).
I have no need to go back and I live 5 minutes from the place.
Ruggles
Actually, you're sort of both right. The guy in Austin was trying to start a Ruggles-concept chain, so it was in some ways affiliated with the indepedent spots in Houston, but not really the same thing.
Ruggles
Snakebit? Actually, restaurants in that center have done fairly well in terms of longevity. Canyon Cafe came and went and then Tia's Tex-Mex followed by Ruggles were in the building where Austin's Cheesecake Kitchen is now, but Macaroni Grill, La Madeleine, Thai Spice, Quizno's, Hangtown Grill, and La Salsa have been going a long time. I don't think that the parking lot of a strip center in Westlake anchored by an Albertson's and next to a Chick-Fil-A is the place for a fine dining (or semi-fine dining, if that's what Ruggle's was) establishment. That's a spot for a family restaurant. My expectation is that people who live in that area are happy to go downtown for higher-end dining, but people who live outside of Westlake are unlikely to venture out there for the same. Tres Amigos a little ways down 360 packs them in, and I find that place simply atrocious.
Where is the best fried catfish within 25 miles of Austin?
Mildly off-topic, but a new Catfish Parlour location will be opening in the fall on Williams Drive in Georgetown not too far from Sun City for people up that way. They officially broke ground last week.
Gabbi's
On our first visit, my lunch crowd got burgers - mine was whatever they called the #1 (lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle), another was the "Guac" (guacamole and jack cheese), and another was the "Shroom" (sauteed mushrooms, sprouts, jack cheese, lettuce, tomato). The burger was done medium-well, but wasn't dry at all - I didn't miss the cheese. The bun held up better to the juices and veggies than Phil's and there was a noticeable sweetness to it. The Guac had a lot of guacamole on it. The salads and onion rings sides were substantial. None of us had fries. There are about 5 choices each of burger and dog combos on the board.
Everything's $6.95 and drinks are $1.50, so with tax you're looking at $9.15.
The drink choices were limited - coffee and tea from behind the counter (the person who acted as cashier refilled with ice and tea), with milk and canned Pepsi products in a case (Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Sierra Mist - that's all).
I'll try one of the dogs next time, though it will seem a lot more expensive at that price.
Defintely worth a repeat visit.
