A dump, but with good pizza. You should be prepared for the Austin slacker "two-tattoo minimum" vibe (to use my parent's description).
The pizza here is pretty good thin crust pizza, and reasonably priced. I'd have a hard time picking between this and Home Slice just up Congress. I think the service was a little better at Home Slice, but it's easier to find parking here, and I like the ability to refill my own Diet Dr Pepper.
Though they initially screwed up our second pizza order, they won big points for giving us the mixed up pie for free. (Of course, they lost points for the bathroom problem. A restaurant should never, ever, ever allow the restrooms to run out of toilet paper.) Plus there seems to be a complete lack of desserts on the menu.
But if you want a good, no-frills pizza joint, this amply fits the bill.
I've been here a few times, and will probably end up going back a few more. My problem is that Titaya's has always been just average; I don't have to drive that much further to eat at Madam Mam's or Thai Kitchen, both of which I prefer.
Imagine that all possible puns on the name have already been made. OK, with that out of the way, let's continue the review.
This is a pretty credible Thai place a stone's-throw from the main Half Price Books at Lamar and Koenig. The Tom Khai Guy soup was really good, pretty close to Thai Kitchen's offerings. The Titaya's Wings were nicely spicy, but I thought the Todd Mun was disappointingly bland.
My beef dish was pretty good; it wasn't as hot as I asked for, but wasn't totally wimpy either.
The biggest problem with Titaya's is the location some 20 blocks from Thai Kitchen. While definitely superior to Thai Village, the other nearest Thai competition, Titaya's still has a ways to go to challenge Austin's longtime Thai king. For one thing, all the house specialties looked like seafood dishes, which I'm not always in the mood for; a little more creativity here is probably in order.
But do give it a try if you find your stomach grumbling while walking the shelves at Half Price.
How many running-dog lackeys of the bourgeoisie does it take to change
a light bulb?
Two. One to exploit the proletariat, and one to control the means of
production!
Lawrence wanted to give them another try, since Hill's was named "best burger in Austin" by the *Statesman*. So we went back; and, while everyone else ordered burgers, I had a steak. What can I say? I was in the mood for a steak. And it wasn't a great steak. But it was a credible steak; not a Lambert's steak, but maybe the kind of steak you'd find at a really good truck stop cafe, where the guy behind the counter has been cooking steaks for years...
Excellent burgers. I like their spicy mayonnaise, and the sweet potato fries were also excellent.
If I lived south rather than north, I'd probably find my way here considerably more often.
Same as it ever was. The Three Cup Chicken remains the best Chinese dish in the Austin area, the dumplings and scallion pancakes are still excellent, the special wonton soup is above average, and service continues to impress.
They do seem to have abandoned the sushi bar experiment, which is probably for the best.
See the logs for January of 2008.