Everything seemed about $2 - $3 higher than it would have been in town. Which wouldn't have been bad, except none of the dishes I tried were really compelling or superior versions of Thai food. The pad thai, for example, was $10, and not as good as Madam Mam's.
A pefectly nice restaurant, which didn't give me a single reason ever to go back.
Thai Harmony has much to recommend it. The interior is much swankier than you find at the average Thai place, the service was quite attentive (despite a fumble when they forgot to ask us for drink orders at the beginning of the meal), and the prices are reasonable, especially given the location. They start out by giving you a basket of fluffy chips (pork skins?), that were quite nice. For appetizers we got a bowl of the Tom Ka, which was a very credible version of the dish, as well as the Harmony Combo, which provided a variety of things, including some very good chicken satay, and an interesting vegetable-heavy "golden cup". My pork larb was acceptable (though not even remotely as spicy as I like it). I also had a significant portion of Dwight's Pad Thai, which I thought was the best version I've had of that dish, even better than Thai Kitchen. The fried ice cream was very good.
Caveats: This is way the hell out in Stiner Ranch, they couldn't make my dish as hot as I asked for, and I don't find nearly as many interesting dishes on their menu as I do at Thai Kitchen. I wouldn't drive across town to try it, but if you're out this way, it beats the hell out of Thai Spice.
Hot and miserable, which wasn't their fault. The mediocre pizza was, though. I had one slice of the meat lover's and wasn't impressed. They did put a lot of meat into the wedge salad, though; I'll give them that.
I can't see driving from anywhere for this pizza. Including Cedar Park.
Sometimes we pick a place on exactly the wrong day. This was one of those days.
I don't ask for much beyond a decent meal at a decent price, but one non-negotiable requirement is air conditioning. In Texas. In May. Now, I know air conditioners break, and if it had gone out during the meal, I wouldn't have had anything to complain about. But if your air conditioner is already broken, a conscientious restaurant puts a sign on their door informing patrons of this fact. As opposed to say, after you've ordered and paid for your pizza and go up to the counter to ask why it's so damn hot. "Yeah, the AC's out. Sorry, it's brutal." Thanks for the heads up, register biscuit.
And how was the food once you get past the sweltering? A really mixed bag. The meat lover's pizza we had was really good, but the Mama Mia pizza had a strangely unpleasant undertone to it, as though the cheese had gone off before they baked it (maybe the fridge was out as well). The spaghetti was nothing special. In addition to the AC problem, service was set to "slacker".
You might try a meat lover's and see if you like it, but I'd call to see if their AC is working first.
Nostalga is a moron. Beyond that, avoid the cheese fries unless you really like that viscious orange nacho "cheese" glop.
As a restaurant critic, Roger Ebert is a fine movie critic. Since it was time for burgers to come round on the guitar, we decidedly to give his favorite chain's new location a try.
We weren't impressed.
First, they seemed to have trouble getting organized. They brought me a Diet Coke so watered-down it looked like iced-tea, and it took ten minutes to get a replacement. John and Susan showed up late at about the same time, and had trouble obtaining menus.
The burgers are cheap, and seem to be decently sized, until you realize that the patty is, in the words of Monty Python, "wafer thin." We probably should have realized something was wrong when they bragged that their triple was "almost a third of a pound of meat!" Oh really? A whole third of a pound??? Wow!!! In Texas we call that "an appetizer." Steakburger or not, some adjustment seems in order. The fries were very thin and perfectly adequate, but not outstanding.
The only area they excelled in was the "shake" part of their name. I had a banana malt that was really excellent, one of the best malts I've had in town. But that doesn't really excuse the fact that I finished an ostensibly full meal and thought to myself "Gee, maybe I should stop by Wendy's and pick up a burger on the way back."
On the way there, I noticed that a new Mighty Fine Burger just a few blocks away. Though I can't recommend it, if you want to try Steak'N'Shake, you should probably do so fairly soon, since Mighty Fine is going to kick their ass.
Cheap and surprisingly good Chinese food. Some Vietnamese dishes, too, including pho and bun. The inside's a bit dumpy; I get the feeling their business is mostly to-go.
This is a fairly decent and inexpensive neighborhood Chinese place. The pot stickers and dried dumplings were both fine, and my scallops in garlic was reasonably good. The portions for the Chinese dishes (they also serve pho and bun) seem a little on the small side.
This seems like yet another place worth trying if you're in the area, but not worth driving across town for.
I note for the record that I had a fairly severe case of gas later than night, but I couldn't swear that the Chinese food was the cause of it.
Much like the south location, a solid neighborhood pizza joint, serving a good and fairly traditional pizza. I think this is a lot better than the alternatives (other than Mangia).
We had tried the South location of Craig O's some five years before, and pretty much liked it, so we thought it was time to give the north location a try. (It also helped wipe away the memory of Garlick Joe's.) I actually think I like this location better than the South version; the pizza prices don't seem to have risen as much as those in the rest of Austin, making specialty pizzas like the Meat Lovers a comparative bargain and pretty tasty to boot. Also, the dining room configuration, though small and significantly under-adorned, is a bit better laid out, the half-salads still remain impressively large, and they have Diet Dr Pepper on tap. Both wing and garlic cheese bread appetizers were adequate implementations of those old standards, but better can be found elsewhere. Service was pretty quick.
I would still pick Mangia's, just a few miles away, over this, but Craig O's is a perfectly fine pizza joint, is just a little bit cheaper, and provides a nice change of pace if you're in the area. And it blows away The Original Brooklyn Pie Company.
See the logs for June of 2009.