I want to like it.
The fried calamari and satay appetizers are pretty good, and I was very impressed with the seafood soup (which had a nice bite to it). The service is perfectly acceptable. So why aren't they more crowded?
It might be the main dishes. Frankly, I haven't found one yet that I like: the kitchen seems to have a heavy hand with the bell pepper, and a light hand with everything else (including meat).
A shame: Thai Village could be a contender, but right now, they're just a pretender.
I like it. It's not Thai Kitchen, but I like it.
First, the beef satay appetizers are the best I've had in Austin, tender and juicy. (They originally only brought us five instead of six, but quickly rectified the error when we pointed it out to them). The calimari was also good (though the portions could have been more generous), with a very light and crispy batter. The seafood soup was a bit of a disappointment, not being up to Thai Kitchen's offering (much less their Tom Kai Gai).
For my entree, I had the Kra-Prow-Moo (Basil Pork), a dish that was fairly tasty, but not nearly as hot as I like it (then again, I forgot to ask for extra heat).
Service was good, though they didn't seem very busy, and the wooden interior is nice. About the only knocks I have on them are that there aren't enough spicy dishes, and that the food isn't quite up to Thai Kitchen's standards. Still, with the change in ownership at PooThai, the precipitous decline of Thai Garden, and the lamented closing of Thai Orchid, Thai Village seems to have moved up into second place.
A near campus burger joint, noteworthy as one of the few (non-chain) remaining.
The burgers and fries aren't much better than Dan's, frankly. (But I do like the fried mushrooms.) I don't understand what Lawrence sees in the shakes, but I'm not that much of a shake expert anyway.
Pass, unless you're a student.
Player's makes a fairly consistant hamburger, but it's nothing to get excited about. The bottom bun is too thin, resulting in premature loss of structural integrity. Fries are adequete, if unexciting. The only place Player's really excels are in it's shakes and malts. The Ubershake (our name, not their's) gives you a truly astonishing amount of shake for the price. It's very good, too, though until they move to real ice cream instead of a mix, it will never be great.
I wish there were more to get excited about at Players than there is. If it weren't for the shakes, it wouldn't rank any better than Nau's Pharmacy (or even Burger King). Since the demise of the G/M Steakhouse (and the hamburger downsizing at Hangtown Grill), there's not a truly great hamburger joint within walking distance of campus. (Dirty Martin's sucked 15 years ago and I've heard it's gone downhill since.) Sad.
The new Ruth's Chris location is a vast improvement, at least in terms of appearance. The polished wood interior reminds me of the sterotypical English private gentleman's club, but with better lighting and food.
Once you get past the front desk, it actually is a vast improvement. Sadly, on both of my recent visits to the new location, the people handling seating and taking phone reservations seem to have adopted what Calvin Trillin calls the "steakhouse attitude": not outright rudeness, but more of a "You may be the customer, but we make the rules." approach. I actually had to call twice for reservations: the first time I called, I was informed (with excessive bluntness) that they wouldn't seat a party of more than four. When I called to reconfirm the following day, I found that my reservation had been "lost." As it turns out, this was prom night, and they were crowded: I'm willing to make allowances, but a little more courtesy on the phone wouldn't hurt.
Once we were seated, though, our waiter could not have been more pleasant, attentive, and efficient: he even bent over backwards to accomodate latecomer Andrew "Carlos Hathcock" Wimsatt.
The move and decor don't seem to have changed the food at all: of course, one of the things Ruth's Chris seems to be selling is a consistent dining experience. I was very happy with the sauce for the Cajun shrimp: I was less happy with paying $1.66 per shrimp, though. The French Onion soup is nearly the best you can get in town: the salads are hefty and nearly unfinishable by mortal man (at least, if he wants to eat his steak), and the various variations on french fries are all well prepared with nary a trace of oil remaining.
Nice steaks, too. Now if they'd just bring back the free Wall Street Journals and do something about the phone crew...
Though we had eaten at Ruth's Chris before, this was the first time we had tried them since their move to 6th & Congress. In addition to being more spacious and better lit, they seemed much better staffed than in previous years, with a small army of waiters flitting between tables. Our own waiter was very attentive, even when Andrew "gun runner" Wimsatt made a late appearance.
We started out with the Cajun shrimp as an appatizer. It was good, but the portions were way too small (6 shrimp) for the price charged ($9.95). I also had a bowl of the seafood gumbo, which was quite good (if a little thin on meat) and more reasonably priced for the portion. I opted for the Italian salad, whose anchovy and boiled egg slices were nice touches. It was also big enough to be a meal in and of itself, and I actually didn't finish it, mainly so I would have room for the main entree and dessert. This proved to be a wise precaution.
I opted for a cowboy ribeye (rather than my usual T-bone) and a side of julienne fries. Like all Ruth Chris steaks, it was cooked in sizzling butter (both Dwight and I ordered our steaks with "extra butter") and arrived mouth-watering hot and juicy. Exquisite as it was, I think I like the T-bone better. The fries, with a dash of Cajun seasoning, were very tasty as well. For dessert, alas, they had done away with my favorite, the blueberry cheesecake, so I selected the creme brulee instead, which was, as you expect, very good. By the time we were done I found it hard to walk.
All in all, it was an excellent dining experience. Though Ruth's has improved markedly in their new location (reclaiming the excellence they had displayed in year's past), there are a few drawbacks. First and foremost, of course, is the price. Don't even consider going there unless you're willing to drop a minimum of $50 (I spent $65). However, unlike Zoot, I didn't feel ripped off (I got about four times the steak for the same price, and it was better cooked to boot). It's pricey, but you can see where your money went in the size and excellence of the portions. Also, they no longer serve Dr Pepper (though they do have Coke). (I would like to remind the management of Ruth's Chris that this is Texas, and that they should reconsider their Dr Pepper apostasy.) Finally, they were a bit slow offering up their famous pepper grinder for our salads.
Unless you're rich and immune to heart disease, Ruth's Chris is hardly the sort of place you're going to eat every night, or even every week. However, for special occasions, when you want to eat a feast fit for a king at the top of the food chain, Ruth Chris is the perfect place to have a great steak.
Kim Phung probably deserves to be in the top rank of other-than-Chinese Asian food in Austin. I say "probably" for a reason.
The soft spring rolls and fried spring rolls are quite good. Kim Phung is one of the few places of this this type where you can get an individual size bowl of hot-and-sour soup: their version is...interesting, but I'm not sure I like longhorn orange soup.
While the pho and vermicelli are good, the squid with lemon grass I had was a disappointment: a bland brown sauce, slightly overcooked squid, and a lot of brocoli.
Interestingly, Kim Phung seemed a lot less crowded this time than on previous visits: has the center of Pho gravity shifted down 183, or was our timing good?
What I have to say about Kim Phung is pretty much the same as everyone else has to say about Kim Phung: Pretty good, and pretty cheap, Vietnamese/Chinese good. For pho or vermicelli, it's hard to beat. What has perhaps been under-remarked on is the fact that Kim Phung also makes some of the best eggrolls in town, very crispy and extremely tasty.
The only drawbacks are the mediocre nature of the rice dishes (we had a side of fried rice that was quite undistinguished), and the occasional difficulties in finding parking. Still, at an average price of $4.95 for an extremely filling dinner, you can't go wrong.
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