A better than decent Cajun place, with one major flaw.
Good: I liked the crawfish etoufee (although I still think Sambet's is much better) and the boudin. I thought my shrimp, oysters, and catfish plate was quite good, especially the catfish. The waitstaff was reasonably efficent, and attractive as well.
Bad: the worst fries I've had in a long time. "Awful" doesn't begin to describe them. Lawrence was happy with his, and suggests that I might have gotten the dregs of the last batch: I sure hope so.
If I want crawfish etoufee, I'm likely to drive out to Sambet's still. But Uncle Boudreaux's offers a bit more variety. I'd rank it right up with Evangeline Café, if it wasn't for the fry issue.
I've often noted that a sure way to make money in Austin is to open up a descent Cajun restaurant. Uncle Boudreaux's is a little bit outside Austin in Manor, but otherwise conforms to the rule.
Unfortunately, they were out of the Pistolettes dough, so we settled for some "boudin bites" (which turned out just to be a link of boudin smeared on a plate) and hot wings for our appetizers, both of which were more than passable examples of the form. Dwight and I also split a bowl of crawfish etoufee which was exceptionally good, among the best I've had in town, and well worth a trip for in and of itself. I also had a bowl of gumbo; though the roux was a bit darker than I'm used to, once I got used to it (and the unshelled crab bits), I found it quite tasty as well (though A. T. didn't care for it).
For my main entree I had a "angus poboy," which actually turned out to be a slightly cajunized hamburger. It was a very good hamburger, but in retrospect I should have opted for a big bowl of the crawfish etoufee, which is right up there with that served at Ruby's.
I like this place. Though the decorating scheme is somewhat no-frills (though nicer inside than Sambet's), this is a nice, inexpensive, family-run Cajun place, and is well worth the drive out to Manor to try.
I felt this was a mixed bag, though my opinion leans in favor of the restaurant.
My first quibble was with the appetizer pricing. We paid $6 for a plate of cheese fries (okay, "queso fries") that were, frankly, not that good. We paid another $6 for what I thought was a skimpy plate of artfully arranged "mango wings". On the other hand, the duck paté comes close to being worth $7, especially with the jalepeno mustard. The ancho onion soup is easily worth $3.95, and goes right into my personal pantheon of great Austin soups.
What makes this more jarring is that the main course prices are pretty good. I thought the duck confit was a steal at $16, especially with the sweet potato stuffed chile relleno and the baked red onion. Damn, that was good. Lawrence's salmon seemed a little strong to me, but I'm not really that much of a salmon person.
I didn't have any of the banana pudding, but the red velvet cupcake seemed slightly dry to me, and I really didn't detect much bourbon or buttercream in the icing. Good thing this is the second cheapest thing on the menu (after soft drinks).
El Gringo strikes me as belonging to the same space as Mirabelle or Castle Hill. But when we went, it was virtually empty. I think if you act fast, you may be able to snag an excellent meal without much of a wait: either El Gringo will become worthy competition, and there will be a line around the block on Saturday night, or...
Despite the name, this is more of a "middle American restaurant with Southwestern touches" than a TexMex place. Initially the mostly-empty place gave off a bit of the Veranda vibe. Fortunately, the food turned out to be much better.
We started off with some mango wings and queso fries. The wings were nice and tangy. The queso fries were also pretty good, and fairly interesting, but I don't think they beat out the traditional kind the serve up at The Outback. Speaking of tangy, the vinaigrette dressing that came on the house salad was interesting enough to push this into the upper tier of Austin salads.
For my entree, defying The Veranda disappointment I went with the pan-seared salmon, which was very good, as was the sweet potato hash that came with it. However, I must say I was disappointed with the macaroni & cheese I had on the side, which was fairly flavorless and insufficiently cheesy; really, this is one of the few times that artificial neon-orange fake cheese would have been an improvement.
I opted for both the banana pudding and red velvet cupcake desserts. The banana pudding was wonderful, with just enough rum to really kick up the taste a notch. Alas, the red velvet cupcake was a big disappointment; it was too chocolaty for a proper red velvet cake, and while I know a buttercream icing shouldn't be too sweet, this one went too far the other way by being pretty much devoid of sweetness.
Service was generally very good, though I did have to ask three times for one last soft drink refill.
All in all, El Gringo left me quite favorably impressed. It's much better than East Side Cafe just down the street, and offers a very credible choice if you're looking something a little upscale of Hoover's.
It is not, strictly speaking, kosher to describe something by referring to something else. So I may be cheating by calling Fish City Grill "Rockfish with the serial numbers filed off." However, after thinking about it some more, that's the best short description I can come up with.
Not that this is a bad thing: I was a fan of Rockfish, so I'm not unhappy to see something similar come along and attempt to fill that space. On the other hand, if you didn't care for the original, much of Fish City Grill is likely to annoy you as well. (Fish City did drop the cute menu prices, thank God.)
Food? I thought my blackened combo (oysters, catfish, and shrimp) was pretty good, and fairly priced at $11. You can't really screw up raw oysters (unless they've gone off, or you make people sick: I haven't keeled over yet, knock wood).
I think this may be your best bang for the buck in the Brodie Oaks area: certainly preferable to Red Lobster, and I'd probably go back here before I went to any of the other chains.
This is a good, solid, mid-priced seafood chain restaurant. It is not to be sneezed at; neither is it to be overly praised.
The appetizers were a mixed bad: the crab cake was fairly good, but the calamari was too chewy. My gumbo was alright but nothing special. I did like my crab legs quite a bit, though it's a hard dish to screw up, and I liked the fact you could substitute waffle fries for new potatoes. The cheesecake was a pretty good example of the species. Service had a few fumbles, but was generally fine.
I actually like this a bit better than Rock Fish, and wouldn't mind coming here again. This is a bit cheaper than the Red Lobster a stone's throw across the way, but doesn't seem to offer as many extras or combinations. Worth a try, if only because Austin seafood options are so limited.
The concept of "upscale barbecue" is like "Yahoo Serious Film Festival": I know what all those words mean individually, but together they make no sense. So I'm surprised to have to admit that Lambert's is the most exciting restaurant I've been to in a long time. That excitement does not mean that there were not a few flies in the mix, though.
One was quite literal: there was a bit of an insect problem, with a couple of pesky flies buzzing around the table. Later on, we noticed a walking stick perched on the inside window directly above one diner. Granted, a walking stick isn't a cockroach, and it wasn't perched above my head, and Lambert's is in kind of a funky old imperfectly remodeled downtown building, but I don't want bugs with my dinner unless I ordered them.
Problem two was the $8 wedge salad: my half wasn't worth $4.
Problem three was the incident of the soup. Now, I think they were trying to do a vichyssoise (though they didn't call it that), and I understand vichyssoise is generally served cold. My problem wasn't just the whole "served cold" thing: I just didn't think that the soup worked for me on a texture basis. For want of a better way of putting it, it just didn't feel right in my mouth. Perhaps I was put off by the waitress describing the texture as being like "baby food": I don't know for sure. It just didn't feel right.
So what did I like about Lambert's? The charcuterie plate, for starters: good pate and cured meats, local cheeses, some nice olives and those little tiny cornichon pickles, a foie gras spread, wild honey...I could make a meal out of that, perhaps with a really good soup (El Gringo's onion soup would go really well with it).
I also thought my steak was wonderful: as a matter of fact, I'll say the $24 ribeye at Lambert's was better, in my opinion, than the $39 ribeye at III Forks. And, yes, the sides are a la carte, but I think the mac and cheese is pretty darn good. I wish I had tried the greens: perhaps next trip.
I was too full to even sample anyone else's dessert, so you'll have to depend on Lawrence for that. I will say I want to go back. I'll also say that I'll skip the salad, and probably the soup as well.
Once you can get over the fact that Lambert's BBQ:
Lambert's is actually pretty good. They're sort of a meat-heavy Fine Dining place with a number of unusual items, an idea I can firmly get behind.
The boar ribs were easily the best boar ribs I've had; of course, they were the only boar ribs I'd ever had, but they were quite tasty none the less. I also liked the deviled eggs, which had just the right touch of caviar on top to add zest without overpowering the taste. Unfortunately, the $8 wedge salad Dwight and I split was unimaginative and not worth the hefty menu price.
My prime rib, while quite good, was no better than many competing (and less expensive) prime rib offerings, and didn't seem to benefit from the "herb encrusting" mentioned on the menu. And while the macaroni and cheese was good and the waffle fries adequate, $6 is pushing it for the quantity served, and the potato salad left me pretty underwhelmed.
The biggest drawback to Lambert's was the tendency to not explain several key details. Like failing to mentioning that a certain soup was served cold, or that the "Warm Carmelita with Cajeta Caramel" was more like a brownie than anything else (and, it turns out, a little dry).
I like Lambert's well enough to make a return trip, but they could certainly do a better job communicating exactly what each dish is like to avoid such unpleasant surprises.
See the logs for June of 2007.