While never gargantuan, the portion sizes at Cafe Spiazzo seem to have gotten smaller sinc our last visit. Though tasty, neither my chicken breast entree nor the somewhat bland pasta accompanying it were overly generous, and the cheesecake was Lilliputian. Moreover, the calimari was unusually chewy. Only the garlic bread and salads offered a decent bang-for-buck ratio.
All of which is a darn shame, since they used to be one of the better restaurants in town. And they now charge $1.25 a glass for Dr Pepper refills. You know the drill, right kiddies? This is an UNACCEPTABLE POLICY and results in a mandatory rating of NO STARS until it's changed.
Too bad. They used to be a contender.
This is a nice local Chinese restaurant. Though the wonton soup tasted too much of cabbage, and the dumplings seemed undistinguished, my "double delicacy delight" chicken and lobster dish was very tasty and quite affordable. (And everything else on the menu can be had for under $10).
The biggest drawback, at least from my vantage, is location. China Dynasty is way the frigging hell down south at Slaughter and Manchaca. Now if I lived down there, I can see myself stopping in on a semi-regular basis. But with Pao's, Tien Hong and Twin Dragon all much closer to me, I can't see making a repeat trip out here anytime soon. But it's definitely worth a trip for anyone living south of the river.
It's not Kreuz Market, but it is mighty fine BBQ. Black's also offers a few things that it's competitor doesn't, namely a wider choice of sides and later hours.
If you've never tried Lockhart's "other" BBQ place, it's well worth a trip all on it's own, and makes the regional Top Five regional list behind the Salt Lick (Driftwood), Kreuz Market, Cooper's(Llano), and just edging out Crosstown (Elgin).
Turkey City.
See the logs for March of 2001.