Lawrence was in Houston.
Juarez Mexican Restaurant makes much better use of the space previously occupied by the late, undistinguished PhoNam. It looks like the owners took a good, hard look at Austin's labor shortage and designed a low price TexMex place that avoids all the hassles of not having enough waitresses to go around. You order at the counter, and get your own chips, hot sauce, and drink refills, so all the waitress has to do is bring out your food.
And the food itself seems pretty good, and pretty cheap. I think that, in the same general area, Enchiladas Y Mas does a slightly better job, but Juarez is quicker and cheaper. Well worth a trip for a 183 TexMex fix.
I have fond memories of the G/M Steakhouse on the drag. You got a huge, 3/4 lb. hamburger, grilled to perfection, with all you can eat fries, soft drink refills, and free abuse, for just over $5. It was a great Austin institution in it's heyday, and I was saddened by it's demise.
Now there's a place in Pflugerville using the GM name and offering up burgers, but man, it just isn't the same. The burgers are OK, but not as big or perfectly grilled as they ones the classic GM used to offer, and you don't get free fry refills. We also tried a couple of appetizers (potato skins and fried mozzarella sticks), both of which proved disappointing.
Other people must have been disappointed as well, since we were the only people in the restaurant besides the chain-smoking staff one table over. Also, call me a Philistine, but seeing a staff member walk out of the kitchen with a lit cigarette doesn't exactly thrill me.
The return of the original G/M Steakhouse would be a cause for celebration. This isn't it.
I wanted to like Cherry Creek Catfish Company, but it turned out to be a very mixed bag.
The prices are reasonable and the service was quick and attentive. The gumbo was good, if not in the same league of that Gumbo's used to serve. The appetizers were reasonably tasty, though the portion size could have been larger. Calling the salads an afterthought is entirely too kind. Cherry Creek's definition of "salad" is evidently "a few pieces of chopped lettuce next to a few pieces of chopped tomato." Plus it comes on one of those mess-tent style compartmental plates; fine for BBQ, but a little chintzy for seafood, IMHO. My entree, the blackened catfish, was underflavored and dull compared to just about anyplace else in town that serves cajun food. And the portion size on the "Seafood Feast" Dwight ordered left me singularly unimpressed.
Cherry Creek isn't bad, but it's not in the same league as Castaways or Top Cat or even the Catfish Parlor (Ben White). OK if you live in the area, but not worth a trip from north Austin.
See the logs for April of 2001.