Expect to pay about $5 more per person than you would at most other Thai places.
The honey barbecued pork with Chinese sausage was an interesting combo, though perhaps a bit more sweet than I like my main dishes. The soup and appetizers were both perfectly acceptable, though I'm not sure what the double-cooking process (blanching and frying) really does for the satay.
I think, for upscale Thai, I would give Satay a slight edge over Thai Passion. However, I don't usually look for "upscale Thai", and, at these prices, I expect more than "okay".
Satay specializes in sort-of Thai food with some SE Asian/Indonesian touches thrown in. The food was generally good (though still far from Thai Kitchen standards), but the portions were just slightly on the small side. Plus the satay itself shouldn't come out lukewarm. Service was very good, just a couple of notches below fawning.
My big beef with Satay is the same beef I've had with every Thai place except Thai Kitchen I've eaten at in the past 12 months: WHAT THE HELL DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET MY FOOD SERVED AS HOT AS I LIKE IT?????? When the dish is marked as the hottest thing on your menu, and I make a special effort to tell the waiter "I want my food very, very, very hot," what I DON'T want is for my dish to come out with as much heat as you get in Pace Mild. Yet this is exactly what happened at Satay, just as it's happened with every other Thai pretender.
Satay offers decent almost-Thai food if you're up in the area. But until you can get something as hot as you like it, it's never going to offer great Thai food.
Changos (which means "monkey") has a reputation for good, cheap Mexican food. Now that I've eaten there, I can half agree: it's reasonably cheap.
I had the tacos al pastor combo plate, which was probably a mistake. The pork was reasonably tasty, but the quantities were way too small, and there didn't seem be any pineapple present. The chips were nearly tasteless, as was the hot sauce. The chicken quesidillas were good, and you got free refills on Dr Pepper, but those seemed to be the only points in Chango's favor.
I heard a lot fewer complaints from the people who had enchiladas, which seemed to be a far better deal for the price. However, they didn't seem to be nearly as good a deal as the enchiladas at Freebirds, to which they are often compared. Freebirds also offers quicker and more efficient service.
So far, the monkeys at Changos seemed to have thrived because there's no other fast food TexMex place on this strip of Guadalupe. However, I can't even rate Changos as high as El Patio, and since they're next to Thai Kitchen, they're not even the best restaurant on the block. Pass.
Turkey City time again.
Decent food in generous portions, competently served at reasonable prices. One would think that these four axioms would be self-evident for running a successful restaurant. Sadly, there are far too many Austin establishments that don't even seem to make the attempt. That's what keeps us coming back to Castaways in Round Rock. Though the food isn't as outstanding or imaginative as it could be, they still do a good enough job with all the basics to keep us satisfied.
We started out with fried gator tail and corn fritters, both of which were good, solid appetizers, though the garden salad proved merely adequate. This time I opted for a pound of the Alaskan King Crab legs, which were delicious (then again, I've never had bad crab legs). The service was also quite attentive as well, our waitress sometimes bringing my Dr Pepper refills before I asked.
Castaways isn't perfect (they could have a wider selection of entrees, and I prefer thinner fries than their "steak fries"), but what they do offer is served up with admirable consistency.
Yet another pho place near the Ohlen/183 Little Vietnam cluster. The food seems a bit better than average, and the service seems much better than average for a pho place. Everything came the way we asked for it and reasonably quick. The bun (vermicelli) was among the best I've had in Austin, and the chicken and pork on it and the fried rice dish Dwight and I split seemed very well grilled. They don't offer you the side garnishes (mint, jalapeno etc.) most pho places provide, at least for bun, but they do have a wide array of condiments on the table, including num moc (fish sauce) and three different hot sauces. The only place where Tan Tan isn't a leader is in the eggrolls: they're a tad better than average, but not nearly as good as those served at Kim Phung.
Tan Tan is definitely better than Pho Cong Ly or Fortune Pho 75, and gives Kim Phung a hard run for it's money. As with most pho places, I'd like to see a wider variety of appetizers. Well worth a visit for the pho devotee.
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