I liked the flamitas: little bites of chicken wrapped around jalepeno, then wrapped with bacon, battered, and fried. Other than that, the food was mainstream average TexMex: this is the sort of decent TexMex place you'd eat at pretty often if you lived in the area, but wouldn't drive more than a short distance for.
As a neighborhood Mexican joint, I rather like it (save the restroom problems noted above). Appetizers and entrees seemed pretty average, the interior is much nicer than the average TexMex place, and service was actually pretty good.
However, the most notable dish was the fried ice cream dessert, which was huge (just short of a first-graders head, I think), very tasty, and covered with honey. It blows away the fried ice cream at Tia's TexMex, and is one of the better desserts I've had along this stretch of 183.
Fairly good Vietnamese/Chinese food, but I prefer Twin Dragon on Lamar. Why? One, Sea Dragon is almost always just about empty when I go, which makes me uncomfortable. Twin Dragon has the same problem, but it doesn't have problem two: the wait staff at Sea Dragon seems generally sullen and unfriendly. Sometimes I get the feeling that they believe they're doing me a favor by serving the white guy.
This is a solid Vietnamese/Chinese place which has been there forever, and there's nothing particularly wrong with it (though remind me never to order a pork spring roll ever again; it wasn't bad, but pork just doesn't taste right served cold). And my spicey lamb dish did have a perceptable heat, which is a nice change from the usual Austin chinese lack of spice. The problem is there's nothing here compelling enough to make me want to choose this over competing area restaurants such as Tien Hong or Suzi's China Grill for Chinese, or Kim Phung or Sunflower for Vietnamese. Maybe they do something else on the vast menu particularly well, but I'm not in a big rush to find out.
The core SDC group (along with my stepfather, E.M. Whittington, who graciously bought tickets for us) stepped out to attend the annual wild game dinner in Dripping Springs. Lawrence didn't want to count this as an actual conspiracy, especially since it was a charitable event, so I won't. But, as far as I could tell, everyone had a good time and got a reasonable fill of elk, bear, venison, and other exotic meats.
Okay Greek food, but the dolmas tasted kind of off. I wouldn't order them again. The staff seems like nice people, and I hope they can make a go of it, but I really don't see myself driving that far up 183 very often to eat here.
I'm not a particularly big fan of Greek food, and it wouldn't break my top ten list of favorite ethnic cuisines, so take anything I say about this particular instance of it with a grain of salt.
That said, I thought this was a pretty adequate dining experience. I got the $9.99 gyro plate, which comes with salad, soup, and three sides. My gyro was fine, though not exceptional (Pyramids does a better job), my salad was OK, and my chicken soup quite acceptable, and a touch zestier than usual. The pot roast side wasn't anything special (then again, it was pot roast), though the other meat-something side (I forget the name) was slightly interesting. Rice pilaf was OK. The bit I had of Dwight's dolmas seemed "off": mushy and not very flavorful. Granted, I don't typically like dolmas anyway, but these were clearly sub-par.
All in all, I think you get a pretty decent value for your dining buck here, and it's a better use of the space than the sandwich place that used to be here. Still, unless you really like Greek food or hate Italian, Reale's is a far superior dining experience and only 100 feet away.
See the logs for March of 2005.