Except for the baked stuffed avacado, which I thought was excellent, everything else came across as an average, overpriced version of typical Chinese restaurant fare. If you want to pay a premium price for food that's not as good as T&S, go ahead.
Another Chinese/Japanese place. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, and the unagi was good, but otherwise it wasn't terribly compelling. Maybe worth trying if you live in the area, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.
Really solid Caribbean food. I like the lechon asado (pork shoulder with onions) very much, especially with arroz congri (rice stewed with black beans) and the arroz blanco (white rice). Add some plantain chips, and I'm a happy camper; and probably full, or very close to it, at a very reasonable price. I wish the parking was better (heck, I wish there was parking) and the restaurant was quieter (I think the Saturday night we were there was not a normal Saturday night) but there's not much else to not like here. Strongly recommended.
The food is very good, but the surroundings leave much to be desired.
We started with three appetizers: Alites Deluce (sweet chicken wings), some shrimp fired in a rum batter, and the Tostones and Longanzia sausage and plantain chip plate. Both the shrimp and the chicken wings were very good, each with their own deliciously sweet dipping sauce. The sausage, alas, was fairly lackluster; not bad, but certainly nothing to write home about. For an entree I selected the pork chops, and while not the best pork chops I've ever had, they were more than adequate, and, at $11.95, pretty cheap to boot. The fries were fine, but neither of the two types of rice I had really knocked me out; I ended up spicing them up with the spicy dipping sauce that came with the plantain chips. And the Tres Leches cake was very good, among the best I've had in Austin.
Unfortunately, to enjoy the food, you have to put up with a questionable parking (all of it at the body shop next door, or even farther away) and environs that are cramped, understaffed, and very, very loud. We're talking just a hair less loud than Vivo Cocina Texicana, our previous benchmark for having to yell across the table.
You might want to give it a try when the weather is temperate enough to sit outside.
Decent beer and burger joint with a chainy feel (but apparently it isn't). Comfortable enough, has WiFi, etc. I wouldn't drive to Lakeway for this, but this would be a good choice after a day out on the lake.
I like it. It's essentially a burger joint with a wider range of choices (and a slightly nicer interior) than Mighty Fine Burgers. I thought both the cheese fries and the onion rings were pretty good. The wings are a bit on the pricey side, but they're both tasty and fairly substantial. I thought the Kahuna Burger was pretty darn good, though again, I prefer places that give you one big patty rather than stacking up two smaller ones, but other than that it was fine.
The layout of the restaurant is a bit odd; there's plenty of open space off to one side, but the area between the counter and the nearest table seems an unnecessary chokepoint.
The biggest drawback is the location; nothing about Kahuna's Icehouse is so compelling that I'd drive out to Lakeway to sample it. However, if you do find yourself in the area, it's well worth a try.
Meh. The sushi's okay, I suppose, but I just can't come up with a compelling reason to drive here instead of going to Ichiban, Japon, or Sushi Sake.
I like Umi. They have a very nice interior. I like the Gyoza, and the Tuna Tataki (seared tuna) was the best version of that (a dish I'm not overly fond of) I've had, but the Beef Nakimiki (sp?) didn't do anything for me. The miso soup and salad were fine.
As for the sushi itself, it also was fine. Though not a true sushi devotee, I think I like the unagi better at Mikado, and Umi's shrimp seemed a little lackluster (then again, I'm not really a fan of shrimp sushi). Plus nothing on the dessert menu looked nearly as tempting as Mikado's rum cake. Service was very good.
If I lived down here, I'd probably visit Umi more frequently; since I don't, I tend to opt for Mikado, Japon, or Sushi Sake over it, but that's strictly a geographical preference.
A solid little Italian/pizza place. I feel much better suggesting you eat here than at the Olive Garden again.
This is a nice Italian place, if I either lived in the area, or worked in a black, hellish stygian abyss nearby, I would visit more frequently.
The free bread, sort of light bolillo roll, was quite good, and the dipping sauce (olive oil with generous helpings of garlic, sea salt, and various kinds of pepper) was probably the best of that type I've had; good enough that I didn't miss using it rather than butter. By comparison, the appetizers were a bit undistinguished; neither the calamari nor the Italian salad stood out.
I opted for the five meat pizza, and it was actually pretty good, with a much-better-than-average crust.
Service was very good.
If you live or work in the area, do give it a try.
See the logs for June of 2008.