3009 Guadalupe
474-2575
Dwight's comments:
There's a reason I've been going here for the past few years: the food's good, I always get treated well by the service staff, and the restaurant is comfortable.
What more could you ask for? Call it Thai comfort food.
Lawrence's comments:
An old favorite. The fried dumplings are quite delicious. I enjoyed my #24 chicken, but it could have been hotter. Also, leaving the mussels shells in the seafood soup was a bit odd.
2909 Guadalupe
476-1021
Dwight's comments:
Back in the old days, when we first came to Austin, Milto's was our gold standard for pizza.
Then Mangia's and Reale's opened, and we moved away from the campus area, got real lives, and didn't go to Milto's for quite a while.
Today...well, I'm still fond of Mangia's stuffed pizza, and Reale's thin crust, but Milto's deep dish pizzas (especially the Lone Star Special) have held up quite well.
Yes, you can still feed four people on a Lone Star for less than $5 a head.
Milto's also makes a pretty good house salad, and serves a fine assortment of bad for you desserts.
Finally, Milto's is cozy: the building is small, but comfortable, and they don't seem to attract the wild screaming suburbanites with children crowd that Mangia's caters to these days. I like this.
Lawrence's comments:
An old favorite that still makes a good Sicilian pizza. The Lone Star Special is still a hearty meal for four people, even if it doesn't quite measure up to Mangia's stuffed-pizza offerings. Worth a visit if you want a good sit down pizza dinner in the campus area.
11150 Research
345-9781
Dwight's comments:
Even though they have crab legs and shrimp on the buffet, Hwa Yuan didn't impress me much.
I'm sorry, but it's just pretty much your generic Chinese buffet: not as bad as some places, but not signficantly better than, say, Buffet Palace, in my opinion.
It may just be that Chinese food (especially things like egg rolls and dumplings) doesn't take that well to the steam table.
Lawrence's comments:
Another pleasant surprise, as Hwa Yuan (pronounced "Fa Yen") turns out to have the best Chinese buffet in town. In addition to well-done renditions of such standards as General Tso's Chicken, they also offer sushi (with some plenty potent wasabi on the side) and (drum roll please) boiled crab legs, not to mention a decent selection of desserts.
The only drawbacks are no drawn butter for the crab legs and charges for soft drink refills. Since the price for the latter was under $1.00, I'm willing to cut them a little slack. Still, a glass of Dr. Pepper has to cost less than a crab leg...
Worth a visit, and better than Buffet Palace.
1504 Town Creek Drive
462-9119
Dwight's comments:
When a place advertises seafood with a Mexican flair, I expect something...exotic. Marisco's doesn't deliver. The menu seemed to be pretty heavy on the usual seafood suspects: deep fried combination platters, et al. There were a few non-fried menu items (such as the snapper Veracruz), but nothing you couldn't find on the menu at many Mexican places.
However, Marisco's does do a pretty decent job with what they do serve: not quite at the same level as Castaways or the Captain's Oyster Bar (on I-35), but certainly credible.
I think Marisco's is worth a shot if you're looking for something other than Red Lobster or Long John Silver's, but not quite at the price level of Landry's On The Lake or Gilligan's. If you can find a coupon (try the Austin Chronicle) Marisco's is a pretty good deal for the money.
Lawrence's comments:
Yes, "Mexican Seafood" is a Nirvana song, but it's also what they serve at Marisco's, and they do a pretty good job. My Snapper Vera Cruz was cooked just right, the drawn butter on the side providing a perfect compliment. The shrimp and fries appetizer we had was good if rather ordinary, though I think their gumbo had too much okra and not enough seafood or sausage. Save for having to wait on a soft drink refill, the service was good as well; they didn't have the Buffalo hot sauce listed on the menu (try it sometime; its one of the best hot sauces to come out of Mexico (though not as good as Melinda's)), but ear-ringed Anglo waiter volunteered to have some serrano peppers cut up in the kitchen. The hot sauce was pretty wimpy, though.
Though I'm not sure if shrimp and tortilla chips are an ideal combination, Marisco's is good and (by seafood standards) cheap. Worth a visit if you want something a little out of the ordinary.
Send e-mail to Dwight Brown (stainles@bga.com).
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See the logs for October of 1997.
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