Recent Austin Eats

Manuel's
When I used to work downtown, we would frequent Manuel's for lunch or happy hour. Their interior Mexican food has always been consistently good. I hadn't been in a couple of years, and a friend held a birthday celebration there on a Saturday night in August. We had a reservation for about 12 people, and while the food was overall fairly good, the service was not. Clearly the waiter knew that with a party that size, he was guaranteed an 18% tip, and our consensus was, because of that he didn't try very hard at all. Drinks took 30 minutes to come, lemon that was asked for when the fish dish was ordered took an extra 10 - 15 minutes to appear after the dishes were served, and he was in general absent for long periods of time. Yes it was busy, and there were other large tables, but the place was not a zoo, nor did they appear to be short handed. Anyhow, no surprise that I ordered the mole chicken enchiladas. I've always liked their mole in the past, and while I do still find it good, it didn't wow me. Not a lot of depth to it. Still on the quest to find the best mole in town, and sorely disappointed I missed Scumptious Chef's Oaxacan pop-up dinner in September.

Hopdoddy
Hadn't been to Hopdoddy in a long time either, and met a friend for an early dinner. I had the Greek burger, which is made with lamb, and my friend and I split the parmesan truffle fries and a milkshake. Delicious. Have to give props to the staff, as when we arrived at about 5:45 pm, there was a  line to order food, but their credit card machines had just gone down. They had someone working the line with a big tray of fries, and letting people know there was an ATM around the corner. Fortunately for them, they got the machine back up and running pretty quickly.

Bonneville
I was invited by Citygram Magazine to participate in their Twitter chat at the Bonneville. We had a great evening of various cocktails, and a couple complimentary appetizers, the salt cod fritters, and this arugula and banana pepper pizza, which was surprisingly really good with the peppers.

After the event, a few of us stuck around and ordered dinner. I had the bacon and egg ravioli in brown butter. I could have used more bacon (duh), and probably even more brown butter flavor, but the pasta looked freshly made and was nice and light. Throughout the evening the staff was welcoming, and I really want to return for their Sunday brunch.

My Fit Foods
On a recent weekend, I was running errands on Bee Caves Road, and realized I was starving since I hadn't eaten lunch. Not totally knowing what I was getting myself into, I decided to try My Fit Foods, hoping to get a quick bite. I was given the whole explanation of their meal program by one of their staff; in short, when you sign up, you meet with their nutritionist to design a healthy eating program. They make pre-packaged meals in two sizes (basically for men or women, depending on what your calorie intake should be), and they really did have quite a variety. I picked the Chargrilled Crazy Chicken, with green beans and sweet potato puree. They have microwaves to heat the meals up, and you can eat on site (which I did), but everyone else I observed during my time there was buying a few meals to take home. I would have called this poached chicken, as I didn't see any indication that this chicken ever sat on a grill, and it was pretty bland. I could tell even before we popped it in the microwave that the green beans were overcooked, and sure enough, soggy, tasteless green beans. The sweet potatoes were tasty, though definitely sweet. This whole meal was 240 calories, 21 grams of protein, and 6 grams of fat. And completely lacking in flavor, which could be easily remedied by the use of spices, which wouldn't add calories! I've also kept their menu for inspiration for some good healthy home cooked meals.

The Flying Carpet
One of my all-time favorite trailers, The Flying Carpet, recently did an evening of pastilla, a traditional Moroccan dish of chicken with ground nuts, a touch of sugar,  and some egg, wrapped in phyllo dough.  They took a while to arrive, because they had to switch commisary kitchens as the oven in their regular kitchen broke, but it was worth the wait.  I had a salad and fries with their famous L'Afrique sauce in the interim -- make sure you try some when you go, and tell Abdu and Maria I sent you. :)

Austin Beer Garden Brewery
I was invited to the media preview of the new ABGB, located on Oltorf, just east of Lamar Blvd., next to the railroad tracks. Their brew masters come with a lot of industry experience (Live Oak and Uncle Billy's, amongst others), and they will always have 6 regular beers on tap, and another 5 or 6 taps of seasonal or special brews. Plus, they've got a kitchen producing good salads (you could take the anchovy in the Caesar salad dressing), and nice pizzas (good crisp crusts). I've driven past a couple times and the parking lot has been packed, and surely once the weather cools down, their outside areas will be extremely popular. If you build it, they will come -- and they are!

LA Barbeque
A friend bought it, and I only took a bite, but OMG! This is LA Barbeque's El Sancho, with pulled pork, sausage, and onions. Must go and get one of my own.

Olivia
I met a friend at Olivia for brunch, and realized I hadn't been there in over two years, which is a crying shame, especially since they're in my neighborhood. I had the MacDaddy, the upscale take on an egg breakfast sandwich, this with crispy pork belly, scrambled eggs, and mustard glaze. The glaze was a bit sweet, but otherwise, a very tasty dish. My friend had the bison burger, which was huge!

Ikea
What does one eat when one visits Ikea? The Swedish meatballs of course! This was my first time trying their famous meatballs, and I have to say, I am sort of on the fence about them. Something was a bit strange about their texture, but I can't put my finger on it.... not dense, not gummy....over-processed? I liked the lingonberry sauce a lot, and the little flag is a great touch. And I would guess a Texas Ikea store is one of a very few worldwide that offers hot sauce as a condiment.

Local Yokel
Over at the Moontower Saloon, there are three trailers in residence, but on a recent Tuesday, the Local Yokel was the only one open. There were three items on the menu: bratwurst, quesadilla, and cheesesteak. I had the beef fajita quesadilla with caramelized onions and their housemade jalapeno sauce. I think they're pressing them, rather than grilling, because this was one of the best, crispest quesadillas I've ever had! Great flavor, and again, super-crispy, and perfect with beer. Thankful the weather is starting to cool down -- time to visit more trailers!

So this will give you something to chew on for awhile! What have you eaten lately?

Bits and Bites

-- Lots of our local beer gardens/pubs/breweries are having October Beer Month/Halloween specials:
   -- Bangers is holding "Beer College" now through October 28 and it will teach you about the craft beer community and different beer varieties each day.
   -- Hops and Grain will have different daily beer specials and tastings.
   -- drink.well will have special Halloween night drinks

And two beer-related openings:
   -- October 25 -- Pinthouse Pizza, at 4729 Burnet. Beer + pizza.
   -- October 31 -- Public House, from the Gourdough's trailer folks, in the old South Lamar Kerbey Lane spot. Beer + donuts!


-- Olivia will host a dinner October 25, $75/person that matches Eric Texier French wines with James Holmes' "haute Texan" cuisine.  Five courses, each with a wine.

-- The Sustainable Food Center will hold their Haunted Ball at the Mansion at Judges Hill, October 28, 6:30 pm, $60/person, costumes encouraged!


 Re-Openings:
-- Zen, the Japanese fast food spot on South Congress is closing and reopening as Lucky Robot, which will be a full-service restaurant.

-- Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, Bryce Gilmore's precursor to Barley Swine that closed last year, will reopen as a 120-seat brick and mortar restaurant in the same location as the previous trailer -- 1219 S. Lamar, in the still-being-built mixed use building, Gibson Flats.

Moving:
-- The trailers on South Lamar next to Red's Porch, as we make way for yet another apartment/condo project (boo!). Honky Tonk Hot Dogs and Collie's Burgers will be at 415 Jessie Street, and Trai Mai Thai will be at Manchaca and Prather.

Closing:
 -- Though temporarily, The Highball, November 17th, as the Lamar Plaza complex redevelops.

Lucy's Fried Chicken

Consistency is everything in the restaurant world. A patron who has good food at an establishment expects it to be that way (if not better) upon their return. Yes, there are occasional glitches, but for quality establishments, they are generally few and far between. In the four+ months Lucy's Fried Chicken has been open, I have heard various impressions through the foodie grapevine that swing in both directions. I finally had the opportunity to try it for myself.

Lucy's is located at the southern end of the trendy SoCo strip, actually on College Avenue, which juts off Congress and hits Oltorf. It is the site of a defunct Mexican spot, that the folks from Olivia snatched up and renovated, with seating both in and outside. We sat inside, and I started off with a 512 Wit on tap, and we worked our way through a lot of food!

I am generally not a raw oyster person, but these were delicious! Topped with hot sauce and wasabi tobiko (fish roe), the oysters were in very gnarly shells, and just had that sweet ocean flavor. The oysters were absolutely one of the best things we had.

The Chicks and Chips, chicken salad with homemade cayenne pepper potato chips was a mixed bag. I loved the crispiness of the thick-sliced chips, very crunchy and dark, but the cayenne pepper flavor was lacking on many of the chips. In fact, I tasted cumin more than I tasted cayenne. The chicken salad didn't have a whole lot of flavor, and they are using the dark meat. It could be so much more! A little celery, garlic, spicy mayo of some sort, SALT... it has the potential.

The South Austin Wedge Salad was also very good. Nice blue cheese dressing, certainly not from a bottle. The nuts were a nice twist to it.

Then there was the chicken itself -- we got the basket, which came with five pieces (great deal for $9)! (They also have a bucket of chicken that they say serves 4, but the grapevine says it feeds more like 6!) The chicken was very good -- thick, crisp skin, juicy and moist on the inside. For sides, cornbread stuffing and Mexican Coke sweet potatoes; unfortunately, neither proved to be very appealing. The sweet potatoes are just that --  SWEET.  If you're a big connoisseur of sweet pots with marshmallows on top, then this may be your thing. I love sweet potatoes, and I love sweet stuff, but this was too sickly sweet for it to really work as a savory side dish. The cornbread dressing also suffers from sweetness, as they're using a sweet corn bread instead of a savory. Just think what a buttery jalapeno cornbread with real corn in it could do here!

A friend of mine has eaten here frequently, and has had leftover pie, so I had previously had bites of the s'mores and shoofly pies, which were both really good. I'm always a sucker for key lime pie, so we had that and the sweet tea pie. I have always said a crust makes a pie. I like to bake, and I like making pie crusts from scratch (ideally with butter and leaf lard), so I appreciate the effort that goes into them. In both these cases, the fillings were fantastic, and the crusts were close to awful. The lime pie is described as having a coriander-wafer crust. What I tasted was an undercooked pie shell with way too much shortening in it, and apart from the shortening, no other flavor. It is nice that it has a whipped cream topping as opposed to a meringue, and again, the lime flavor was incredible. (I ended up just eating the filling, not the crust.) The crust on the sweet tea pie suffered from being way too thick, and also under baked. There wasn't a whole lot of flakiness to it because of the density. My friend swears she's had the lime pie when the crust has been delicious. I trust her food opinion completely, so again, where's the consistency? Who's making the pies?

Lucy's has had it's fair share of local media attention, and some national attention as well. There doesn't appear to be any shortage of customers, and from our recent visit, it's locals, people of all ages, and even out of towners who are catching on to the hip vibes. The negative feedback I had heard from people the past few months included burnt chicken (this came from two separate people, and one was told "that's how it's supposed to be" when they questioned it), to poor side dishes, to the pie crust issue. The positive feedback has been the chicken's great, as are the deep fried deviled eggs, and steak night (Tuesdays) was delicious. But not one person who I have heard feedback from said "everything we ate was fantastic," and don't you want to hear that in the restaurant business?

So the question is, does Lucy's have any interest in really improving the quality and consistency of their food across the board when they're seemingly cruising along as it is?

Bits and Bites

And, in this week's news:

In case you really can't figure out where to go eat, the Austin Chronicle Restaurant Poll came out last week. It's always fun to see what the readers and critics picked, and of course, I always have to agreed and disagree with some of the picks. (Like this year's new number one restaurant??) Bookmark the page, or hurry up and find the glossy print copy, and make more lists of all the places you want to try!

Man Up Texas BBQ has announced their 2nd Annual Texas Monthly BBQ Festival will be October 30th on the City Terrace at the Long Center.  I've got to go to this! A friend went last year and said it was phenomenal. Porky goodness! 

The USDA has finally realized that overcooked pork is not tasty. They have lowered the recommended cooking temp of pork from 160 degrees Fahrenheit to 145 with a 3 minute rest. Read the National Pork Board's update on it.

Now through June 28, when you shop at area HEB grocery stores, you can add $1, $3, or $5 to your grocery bill total to help support the Capital Area Food Bank. HEB is a big supporter of the CAFB, and it's great to see them involving their customer base.

Openings

-- Hoover's (some of the best down home cooking in town) has embarked on a healthier venture, based off of homegrown produce. The Soular garden is at 12th and Waller, and will also be accompanied by a food truck of the same name.

-- Olivia, one of my favorite brunch spots, will now be open on Saturday and Sunday for brunch, beginning June 4th; read their newsletter announcement. Because of this, they will now be closed for Friday lunches.
-- And speaking of Olivia, owner/chef James Holmes is about to have another restaurant named for another one of his daughters: Lucy's Fried Chicken will open later this year on College Avenue (off of SoCo, running into Oltorf), in the site of the former Nueva Onda.

Closings

-- Fortune, the huge Chinese and dim sum restaurant, in the Chinatown complex up north. According to their Facebook page, they'll become a site for event rentals. Bummer.

Brunch at Olivia

** Editor's note: the restaurant group that owns Olivia decided to close it in the Fall of 2016. They repurposed it as Lucy's On The Fly, a fried chicken carry out spot. **

I just returned from Sunday brunch at Olivia, one of the first places I wrote about on this here blog. I am a brunch lover, and don't often get to eat it, so this was a real treat! Arriving a little before noon with no reservation didn't pose any problems. The restaurant was probably at two-thirds capacity, and we got seated right away. I must say, it's a building that's very architecturally interesting, with high ceilings, modern lines, and in the daytime, nice light pouring in. Dining sections are divided a bit by.... well, built in wall dividers, that held vases with tropicals. We were seated in pretty much the exact spot where I sat before, which is the bench across from the kitchen. Unfortunately, my back was to the kitchen, where you could tell they were keeping busy.

We both started with bellinis, and sipped on them while checking out the brunch menu. Always a sucker for sweet and salty, I ordered the brioche French toast with a side of sausage. The waitress asked me what kind of syrup would I like, the vanilla or lemon ginger, so I asked her what her preference was, and she said "I'll bring you both, choices are fun!". Perfect! My friend ordered 2 eggs, poached medium, bacon, and asked to substitute the fries with the smoked gouda grits, which was no problem. My plate was three thick pieces of bread, egg soaked, and grilled off, with some slices of pear on top. The FT was nice, maybe not the tenderest, eggiest brioche that I've ever had, but quite tasty; unfortunately the pears were very underripe. The syrups were a nice twist from a typical maple syrup; the vanilla infused was particularly good, the lemon ginger had nice flavor, but was a bit overly sweet, even for me. The housemade sausage, however, was delicious -- a medium grind pork sausage with whole fennel seeds, red pepper flakes, and I think some sage and/or thyme. The grits were a little coarse, but had really good flavor from the smoked gouda, and the house-cured bacon was crisp, with I think a light smoky flavor. My friend was thrilled her poached eggs were cooked to a perfect medium; we did have to ask for salt & pepper though, and a small piece of bread would have been nice on the plate to sop up the yolk.

Service was friendly all around, and attentive but not obtrusive from our main waitress. When we got up to leave, the line chefs looked up and like all said "Bye, thanks!" Kinda nice. I am really glad to see that in a poorer economy, a newer place like Olivia appears to be doing well. As we left, we were admiring the plants in their landscaping around the patio area, and noticed a garden towards the back. We walked over, and saw banana peppers, mesclun, basil, thyme, oregano, tomatoes, and possibly green beans (no tag on them, but they have built a trellis). There's no fence around it, so so hopefully the critters stay out! I should add that Olivia's is dedicated to buying locally as much as possible, and they list their local farms and purveyors on their menu, which is always nice to see.