Chain pizza, distinguished by two factors; flat screen televisions everywhere, including at the booths (apparently, the idea is to hypnotize your loin monkeys so that everyone can eat in peace) and an odd obsession with "fire roasting". (Look, I can understand fire roasted pizza. But a "fire roasted" brownie?)
The pizza is better than Gattitown's, but I can not see any good reason for an adult unburdened by children ever to eat here.
Adequate but overpriced pizza in a restaurant obviously geared for families with small children, including flat panel TVs at every booth. (I'm beginning to think that flat panel TVs are the worst innovation in restaurant decoration since the BMTCRSC.)
The only conceivable reason anyone might eat here is if they had a desperate craving for pizza on the drive home to Cedar Park or Leander. Otherwise there's absolutely no reason to choose this over Reale's, Brooklyn Height's Pizza or Rudino's. (However, the Zero Ice Cream shop next door is a much better proposition.)
I'm glad BB Rovers has a large beer menu, because the food stinks. My "steak and mushroom pie" with a "puff pastry crust" and a "rich wine sauce" was a bowl of mystery meat, mushrooms, and questionable drippings, with a square of puff pastry plunked down on top of the bowl.
There are plenty of places that prove "good bar food" isn't an oxymoron. BB Rovers is not one of them.
Meh. Decent burgers and onion rings, adequate hot wings (of the "doused with Tabasco" variety), and some of the worst French Fries I've ever had, limp and greasy.
Even for pub grub, Riata Bar & Grill and The Water Tank do a better job in the same general area.
Fogo de Chão was pretty much superior to Estancia Churrascaria in every way except price (more) and available parking (less). Sure, they're a chain, but the salad bar was much more extensive (including some excellent smoked salmon), the wait staff was an order of magnitude less pushy, you actually have room to move your elbow without jostling someone at an adjacent table, and the meats served are as good order better. (Actually, I did think the beef picahna at Estancia was just slightly better than the equivalent dish at Fogo de Chão, but the difference is still pretty small.) And while I'm not sure I would go as far as to call the creme brulee the best in town, it was certainly a credible contender, and had the perfect, thin layer of caramelization.
To me, the $12 difference was well worth it, and I can heartily recommend Fogo de Chão as good downtown fine dining choice for special occasions, though you might want to consider carpooling. (This is not to say I want to see Estancia Churrascaria go under. I think Austin is plenty big enough for the both of them.)
A baby seal walks into a bar. "What can I get you?" asks the bartender. "Anything but a Canadian Club," replies the seal.
See the logs for May of 2008.