I am sure some people will call me a heretic, but I think the Lone Star Special is actually better than Manga's pizzas these days.
Summary: Same as it ever was. The Lone Star Deep Dish Special is still a heck of a deal, the parking still sucks, the garlic bread is adequate, and I liked their creme brulee cheesecake quite a bit. I still like Mangia's better.
Nice people, good service, but the style of Mexican food they serve is just not one I have a lot of fondness for.
New Mexican restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Serrano's at Anderson and Shoal Creek (and before that, back in the dim mists of time, a Caribbean place called Cafe Tortuga). And it's pretty good. Mostly.
The salsa had a bit more bite than usual (at least after I asked for it), but wasn't outstanding. The nachos and flameada were both pretty credible. I liked my pork dish, one of the house specialties, just fine (I would tell you what it was, but none of the menu links on the website work).
However, skip the fried ice cream. There was an unpleasant edge to the taste, and the portions were small (Mesa Rosa does a much better job in both respects).
I think this restaurant has a lot of promise, but they're not firing on all cylinders yet. I'd certainly be open to trying them again.
Very meh Thai food and kind of pricy. Doesn't do anything for me.
When we tried the Thai Passion downtown over a decade ago, I found the grilled beef Num-Tok dish a bit dry. Here at Thai Passion North, however, I found the Num-Tok...a bit dry.
OK, I'm not going to do that again.
Otherwise, the food here seemed better than the late, unlamented Bangkok Cuisine that previously occupied the space; the Tom Kha soup was decent, and I liked the Tod Mun and satay well enough. The problem is that nothing here was any better than many competing Thai offerings. And though dry, the Num-Tok was otherwise spicy enough.
The interior was nice and the service was fine save for the fact they didn't take our drink orders until we ordered the main meal. I'd certainly be willing to try it again, but for now I can only recommend it if this is the nearest Thai restaurant to you and you don't feel like driving to Thai Kitchen.
Tolerable barbecue, but not great. I wouldn't have put it in my top 25.
Mann's was one of the BBQ joints that Texas Monthly put in its extended top 50 list, so we thought we'd give it a try. And there is much to recommend it.
For starters, they have the largest selection of side dishes we'd ever seen at a straight BBQ joint. In addition to the usually potato salad and beans, they have macaroni and cheese, French fries, onion rings, fried green tomatoes, and several other sides of note. I had the onion rings, and they were very good examples of then thin, spicy string variety.
And the BBQ? A mixed bag. The pork ribs were very good, nice and savory. The beef ribs I thought were the best I've had in Austin; better than the much more celebrated ones at The Iron Works. Alas, I found the brisket much less interesting than some reviewers, not particularly interesting and a touch dry. The sausage was likewise quite dull. I also didn't care for the generic BBQ sauce; strangely enough, even though they were out of the pulled pork, they had a nicely spicy vinegar sauce on the table that was much better. The banana pudding was merely adequate.
On the minus side, the seats are a bit uncomfortable and the soft drink prices are on the usurious side ($2.50 for a 20oz bottle of Diet Dr Pepper); a fairly grave sin given how many BBQ places offer free soft drink refills.
Mann's does enough right that I'm inclined to a favorable review for the overall experience; however, judged merely in the barbeque itself, nothing I had (with the possible exception of the beef ribs) struck me as superior to Rudy's. I suppose your preference for Mann's would depend on how strongly you weight the side-dish variety in your BBQ experience.
See the logs for October of 2008.