(Change the business cards already. I miss the downtown location, too, but it's still closed. And you're no longer next to the Randall's in Lakeway, either, since that moved.)
I really can't say there's a lot of difference between the old downtown location and (not) Lohmans Crossing. Same great food, same hugely competent and efficient service, same great bang/buck ratio.
This is good enough to make me want to drive from Ben White and I-35 to Lakeway every week: which is my only complaint. While the drive is pleasant enough, especially during the summer (and it does keep me off of I-35 on Friday afternoon), it is a bit of a haul out to Lakeway from there. Especially if someone like Alanis "I've got one hand in my pocket, and the other one is holding a multi-million dollar recording contract" Morisette is playing at The Backyard. Even if there isn't a concert at The Backyard, traffic still backs up (to a lesser extent) at 71 and 620. After the annoucment of the downtown location closing, but before it actually closed, there were mutterings about a new location in the Arboretum/183 area. I hope those were more than just rumors.
Once upon a time, there was a great Chinese restaurant in the middle of downtown Austin. It was called Pao's Mandarin House. Though hidden away in an office building, Pao's offered the best Chinese food in Austin at more-than-reasonable prices. And the people of Austin were very happy. Then one day, an evil dragon (read: clueless landlord) devoured the nice restaurant, and the people of Austin were very sad. And then the writer got very, very tired of this stupid fairy tale shtick very quickly.
Actually, Pao's had opened up the Lakeway location even before the downtown location closed, and they don't appear to have missed a beat. As far as I can tell, very little has changed except for the location. All the appetizers were scrumptious, and while my Amazing Chicken could have used a little more Wonderful Sauce, Dwight's Three Cup Chicken and Andrews Pressed Duck seemed every bit as good as that they used to offer downtown. And I'm always surprised at how much you get and how little you pay compared to competing Chinese offerings.
The best Chinese food in Austin is now in Lakeway.
(Do something about the damn parking, okay? I'm sorry, expecting people to use the valet just doesn't cut it.)
The foie gras terrine appetizer was delightful: I think the bacon is really what makes the dish. I also was very fond of the Maytag blue cheese tart with apples and carmelized onions: but then I have a taste for blue and other exotic cheeses. Likewise, I really enjoyed the warm goat cheese tart(?) served with the scallops wrapped in proscuttio. I'm also fond of oysters, but the vaunted oysters served on yucca chips (supposedly a favorite of Bush, Jr.) just missed for me: the oysters themselves were fine, but I thought the yucca chips were kind of bland and could have been cut a little thinner.
My duck and shrimp dish was wonderful: I have had very good duck in some other places in Austin (the Y Bar and Grill, Mirabelle) but Jeffrey's duck is the best I've had.
Unlike certain other upscale establishments, I felt genuinely satisfied after I left Jeffrey's, even without dessert. Man does not live by wild game or steak alone: Jeffery's is worth saving and scrimping for. And it would be a nice spot for a romantic meal with that special someone.
Jeffrey's was purported to be George W. Bush's favorite restaurant when he was Governor, and it's easy to see why. It's upscale food some five minutes away from the Governor's mansion. But for those of us who aren't highly-paid members of the state bureaucracy (Andrew "well paid but not highly paid" Wimsatt's cushy state job not withstanding), I'm not sure Jeffrey's quite justifies it's considerable cost.
The appetizers ranged from excellent to unimpressive. We started out with Jeffrey's versions of two things I'm not generally fond of, oysters and foie gras. I will say that the crispy fried oysters were palatable, which is an achievement for me, and I liked the green habanero sauce (though it wasn't nearly as hot as I like it), but the yucca chips they came with seemed rather bland compared to the ones at Habana. On the other hand, the foie gras was delicious, perhaps due to the smoked bacon they cooked it in. I could really get behind chowing down on this stuff if it weren't so damn expensive. The bacon-wrapped scallops were also quite delicious, but since there were only two of them on the plate for something like $10, I can't really recommend it from a bang-for-buck ratio. The tart we had just didn't work for me; it struck me as a quiche with a bit too much flour.
I had the beef tenderloin for my main entree, and while it was very good, it wasn't any better than the steak at Ruth's Chris, there was considerably less of it on my plate, and the celeric parsley potatoes ("not one garnish, but two!") on the side were actually pretty dull; a serious garlic infusion would have improved them considerably. We may just have picked them on the wrong night; the menu changes from day to day, and almost every dish seemed to have one or two elements I didn't care for. The Banana Fosters Crème Brulee was delicious, but not quite as transcendent as I would hope from something that combined two of my favorite desserts, and I think Ruth's Chris Steak House's crème brulees are a touch better.
Service was uniformly excellent an unobtrusive, and the atmosphere carried off the elegant-but-understated tone quite well.
The big problem with Jeffrey's is that they suffer from The French Problem, albeit not as badly as, say, Zoot does. (And when I finished my meal, I was pleasantly full rather than still peckish.) While the food is generally excellent, I just don't think it's good enough to justify the prices they charge. In the same general area, Castle Hill Cafe is about as good, the food is cheaper, and the portions are usually more generous. If I want to pay this much, Ruth's Chris Steak House and Hudson's on the Bend offer food as good or better with far more generous portions. That's not to say I wouldn't go back to Jeffrey's, especially if someone else was picking up the bill. Maybe if I were willing to drop $80 a meal once or twice a month, rather than three or four times a year, I'd make it back more often. As it is, despite it's manifest virtues, I'm not rushing back.
Southside has quite good, if not exceptional, barbecue: nice ribs, good brisket, and pretty fair sausage. And you can actually get fries with your barbecue plate, too.
However, they also have two problems: one minor, one major. The minor problem is the lack of seating: inside, there's probably enough space for about 10 people at most. Outside, there's an extra two picnic tables.
The major problem (approaching an unforgivable sin) is the total lack of a bathroom. Yes, that's right: there's no bathroom in the establishment for patrons. (There is one for the kitchen staff: in the kitchen, where customers aren't allowed for insurance reasons.) If you're dining in and need a bathroom, you have to use the one at the Conoco Kwick-e Mart (or whatever the hell it's called) a few doors down in the strip center: if I were rating that men's room, it would be a 1.
I can't comment on "The Killer", but I will recommend that anyone thinking about eating at Southside plan on a to-go order instead. If I lived in the area, this is probably the barbecue joint I'd do my pick-ups from.
You may have read about this place in John Kelso's column. I'm not a big Kelso fan, but I am a fan of big hamburgers, so I just had to try "The Killer."
While not quite as big as a second-grader's head, The Killer is indeed a large and tasty hamburger. (I believe that Fuddrucker's has one slightly larger, but it comes with some structural integrity problems, and The Killer seemed better cooked.) Indeed, it's about as good a hamburger as I've had since the G/M Steakhouse on the drag closed down. If I was the sort of person who could eat anything I want without gaining weight (I'll now pause to wait for those who have seen me in the flesh to stop laughing), I'd be happy to pick up a Killer once or twice a week. Since I'm not, if I did that I'd start to look like...well, click on that John Kelso link again.
Apart from the Killer, the fries were average burger joint fare (decent, but nothing to write home about), and the banana pudding was pretty darn good. Prices are about what you'd expect, $7.95 for the Killer combo, and they cooked them up quicker than I expected them too. Dr Pepper is 75 cents a can, firmly in the acceptable range. See Dwight's comments for rating the BBQ.
However, you should know that in addition to being way the hell South (south of William Cannon), Southside Smokehouse & Grill isn't a restaurant, it's a joint. Our party of five essentially took up 75% of the indoor seating capacity. (There were also a couple of picnic tables outside.) It's really more of a grab and go kind of place. But if what you're looking to grab is a hefty hamburger, it may be your best choice south of the river.
The service has improved at the Mesa location, but I still prefer the Lake Austin one. It just seems nicer to me.
The sauce on the stuffed pizza seems to have become chunkier with tomato in the past few years, a condition I deplore. They do, however, do a good barbecue chicken pizza: I haven't tried the beef. And I wish they'd return to the County Line barbecue sauce on both barbecue pizzas.
I really have very little to say about this Mangia's locations that I haven't said before. The pizza's still the best in Austin. OK,one new comment: The salads are huge, just a bit smaller than the gargantuan ones served at Ruth's Chris.
I can also say that leftover Mangia's pizza provides a nifty breakfast once reheated.
I was in Providence, Rhode Island, again, on business.
See the logs for April of 2002.