Razoo's is the best of the three "concept" places in this center. And if you're looking for a lot of seafood, especially fried seafood, it isn't a bad choice. The wings are only okay, but the other appetizers are pretty good (especially the popcorn shrimp and crawfish). The fried seafood platter offers an impressive amount of shrimp, crawfish, and catfish for $14 (though the fries/seafood ratio has seemed a bit high on my last few visits) and is served with an excellent cherry-mustard dipping sauce: so good, I'm tempted to try to duplicate the recipe myself. I'm also partial to the stuffed shrimp. Service at Razoo's is always efficient, and the female waitstaff is generally pleasant to look at (without that under-dressed look of Bone Daddy's).
I think Razoo's is a better deal than Pappadeaux, and I slightly prefer it to Castaways. (Razoo's offers a bit more food for the dollar, in my opinion, as well as being closer to home). For faux Cajun, this is pretty good.
As fake chain cajun places go, Razzoo's is pretty decent. The wings and gator-bites were perfectly adequate, as were the salads. I thought my blackened catfish and etoufee combo were somewhat undersized, but that's maybe because I had them leave the potato and vegetable off the plate. Service was good.
Razoo's is OK if you're in the area, but it's not even in the same league as Pappadeaux.
The only thing that Texas Rib Kings has going for it, in my opinion, is the all-you-can-eat special. The barbecue itself doesn't impress me that much: I think Rudy's is better, and Texas Rib Kings is at about the same level as Pok-E-Jo's.
At $15 for all you can eat, Texas Rib King offers up a pretty good BBQ bargain. The pork ribs were pretty good, ham, brisket and sausage were all decent, but the beef ribs seemed sub-par to me; the Iron Works does a better job here. The potato salad is also pretty good, though I only had a bite of that due to the Atkins thing.
Pet peeve: Guys, having all the plastic cafeteria trays sopping wet from the washer doesn't impress me with your hygiene or attention to detail.
While I think the BBQ at Rudy's is better, Texas Rib Kings is cheaper for the amount I eat. Not a bad choice for BBQ in North Austin.
Ciola's seems to be very much a family run sort of place, along the lines of Reale's. (There's apparently a second Ciola's somewhere up North.) You get the feeling that it's popular among families in the Lakeway area.
The food is pretty good: I'm not a big fan of mussels with marinara sauce, but that's just a personal thing. I liked the clams Ciola: the clams could have been a bit bigger, but I suspect that's a limitation of fresh seafood in Texas. My stuffed chicken breast was well executed and tasty.
Unfortunately, there were some initial problems with the service: frankly, I think our first waitress got ticked at our ever-increasing party and decided to abandon us. Once the second waiter picked up our table, though, we were okay (but it did take a few minutes for him to pick us up).
Is Ciola's worth a drive out to Lakeway? While good, I think Reale's is slightly better. On the other hand, given the current road conditions on 183, I think you can get to Ciola's (at least from my location) almost as quickly as you can to Reale's: possibly even quicker on a weeknight. I think Ciola's has enough going for it to justify doing the drive at least once, especially if you're looking for something new.
Note the "Italian American" designation in the name, which is key to the ambiance and decor of Ciola's. The large photomural of Frank Sinatra with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. outside the restrooms is a case in point.
And the food? Pretty good, actually. All of the appetizers (calamari, mussels, fried mozzarella) were tasty. The salads were a bit on the small side, but the fresh ground pepper and parmesan cheese helped make up for it. My only real complaint is that my veal piccata entree seemed somewhat undersized.
After our ever-expanding party was abandoned by our first waitress, our new waiter (Tall Guy) did an excellent job keeping up with us.
The restaurant's main drawback is the location. Ciola's isn't a bad choice at all for Italian food, but it's not really compelling enough to drive all the way out to Lakeway for.