Pepper grinder rating: 4. (I'm being a little too generous here, since I think it was just a few inches too short for a real Rodney King style beating: but I do believe you could do some serious damage with it. Also, the holster is a nice touch.)
Dwight's comments:
Lawrence has suggested that I add a page on aborted dining conspiracies, of which there have been many: we had originally set this one for the north Al Capone's location (one of the few Italian places we hadn't tried). Alas, we were too late, as the north Capone's is now closed. (And many, many thanks to Terri for noticing this and pointing it out in advance.)
So we went back to the site of one of our very first dining conspiracies, Mama Mia's.
I'd have to give this the nod as my favorite Italian place in Austin: good food, reasonable prices, well done bread, fine service, and exceptional deserts.
I usually get Chicken Marsala, but one of the Saturday night specials was a dish with zitti pasta, chicken, proscutto, and onions in a cream sauce; I tried that, and it was wonderful.
Joe Dimaggio (yes, that is his real name) had another of my favorite dishes, the tortellini carbonara (which is much like the zitti dish, but without the chicken and onions). It's also available as an appetizer, and, either way, it is a dish to die for.
My only real complaints about Mama Mia's are the ever present piano players(s), and a wish that they'd add spaghetti carbonara as a menu item.
Still, they're hard to beat.
Additional comments from Lawrence:
I wouldn't say that Mama Mia's is my favorite, but it's definately in the top five (Carrabbas, Stelline, Romano's Macaroni Grill, and The Olive Garden would all get nods as well). I enjoyed the Fettucini with grilled chicken quite a bit, and the rum cake was very tasty.
600 E. Riverside Dr.
441-1010
Men's room rating: 3. (I do want one of the fish posters they have hanging over the urinals.)
Dwight's comments:
The paper's say that Landry's is the second largest seafood chain in the country: only Red Lobster has more outlets.
As much as I'd like to be able to root for Landry's to beat Red Lobster, I'm afraid I can't: both of them are stuck in the slagheap of bland food.
We ordered "crab fingers" as an appetizer: the ends of crab claws cut off, battered, and deep fried. Boy, someone must have spent years at the CIA to come up with that one.
My broiled fish platter was almost exactly the same thing you'd expect to find at Red Lobster: slightly better tasting, and slightly more expensive, but completely undistinguished and unmemorable.
Landry's does have location working for it: we had a very nice table by the water, where we could see the flotsam and jetsam from Town Lake accumulated on the shore, and the ants crawling up the window frame outside.
I'm starting to think that Austin has a serious seafood problem. Gilligan's is the only place we've found that even tries something original with their dishes (and the main courses we tried at Gilligan's were valiant attempts that didn't quite work).
We're stuck in the fried fish/broiled fish/Cajun rut, and no one is attempting to break out. Are we too far inland? Have we drowned our tastebuds in a river of brewpub beer?
Austin chefs, unite! Show us that there's more to life than fried and broiled fish dinners! Break out the spices! Have the courage to recognize seafood's significance in our culture! You have nothing to lose but your deep fat fryers!
Additional comments from Lawrence:
I liked it a bit better than you, and would be willing to give it another try, maybe scope out the crab legs. Again, good service.
Pepper grinder rating: 0/4?. (We weren't offered fresh ground pepper. Cheese, yes: pepper, no. The shame of it is that Bambino's had a very nice Class 4 pepper grinder on one of the shelves, but it appeared to be for display purposes only.)
Men's room rating: 2. (Way too small, and not terribly well kept.)
Dwight's comments:
Bambino's ties with Mama Mia's in my Italian dining catagory (the choice, again, depending on my location at the time). We've already done one dining conspiracy here, but, since our idea of the Iguana Grill turned out to be badly timed (thanks to the Spaceman), and Lawrence's Chef's Card is about to run out, we figured it was time for a revisit.
Lawrence's major complaint is that Bambino's doesn't offer any "sink your teeth into it" appetizers: we ended up with an order of escargot (nicely done) and a smoked salmon capriccio (good, but not as good as the smoked salmon Stelline used to offer). The shrimp and crawfish pasta (a dinner special that night) was also quite well prepared (it reminds me of a similar dish you used to be able to get at Spaghetti Warehouse, but Bambino's does it much better).
I'm also fond of their mustard-tarragon fuseli pasta (a regular menu item). The desserts, on the other hand, are just okay: Mama Mia's has the edge here.
I'm glad places like Bambino's manage to survive, while crap like Al Capone's (north) and Spaghetti Western falls in flames.
Maybe there is hope for Austin dining.
Additional comments from Lawrence:
Great entrees, but they need some "hearty" appetizers. I mean, there was, what, a whole ounce of salmon on the salmon plate?
Pepper grinder rating: 4. (The faux wine-bottle shape was a nice touch.)
Men's room rating: 3.5. (I like the contrast between it and the rest of the building: it looks sort of like they turned Marinetti's Futurist movement loose in the bathroom.)
Dwight's comments:
I had hopes for this place. After all, they seem to be behind a lot of the major local food and wine events, so I figured they'd take some risks with the food.
Boy, was I wrong.
My "smoked" chicken (I couldn't detect any smoking.) and shitake mushrooms with penne pasta was pretty much without flavor: the shitake were few and far between, and the dish wasn't helped by the chopped tomato on top.
I also tried some of Lawrence's roasted chicken with garlic mashed potatos: again, no taste to speak of.
We did have a good order of steamed mussels, but other places do those just as well.
In addition, Sfuzzi does a few things that really jar: we had waiters coming over, while we were still sitting at the table, wiping crumbs. Attentive service? Perhaps. But it makes me feel...reprimanded. (At one point, while Lawrence was in the bathroom, a waiter even came by, refolded the napkin he had left on the chair, and put it back in exactly the same spot. Come on people. This is anal-retentive.)
Then there was the ice tea. Tea is tea, right? Unless you order a spiced tea? Ha. Not at Sfuzzi. Their ice tea is, shall we say, "peach enhanced". After the first sip, I almost spat mine across the table.
And would some one please explain to Sfuzzi that a carbonara sauce does not have corn or tomato in it? That it's a cream sauce, for crying out loud?
I liked the service (despite my comments above): I just wish the food was worthy of it.
Additional comments from Lawrence:
As we expected, overpriced yuppie food with too much of a "neuvo cuisine" focus. The mussels were nothing special. Service was good, though.
Dwight's comments:
Good place. The service has been excellent most of the times I've been there. (This time, the waitress accidently dropped my order as she was serving it. But these things happen, she recovered with good grace and style, and the kitchen did a great job of cranking out a replacement.)
The food is a little more than TexMex: yes, you can get a good plate of enchiladas here (and I'm fond of their mole sauce), but they also have some "interior" (for want of a better word) Mexican dishes that are quite nice.
The pollo or pescado yucatan (chicken or fish cooked with a red sauce in a banana leaf) are especially good. This time, I tried the shrimp margarita: shrimp cooked in a wonderful dark brown (almost black) sauce of ancho, Triple Sec, tequila, and who knows what else.
If you're out that way around breakfast, they also serve hefty breakfast tacos for a very good price.
The nachos and quesadillas aren't bad at all, and the papas are worth trying (though I've come to wish that they were a bit more crispy).
In short, a needed and appreciated counter to Sfuzzi.
Send e-mail to Dwight Brown (stainles@bga.com).
Return to the main Saturday Dining Conspiracy page.
See the logs for July of 1996.