Our crowd eats fairly regularly at Hoover's, so I've had the chance to watch it develop. I'm still fond of the place, but the foundation is starting to crack.
Service can be pretty hit-and-miss: there's one waiter (Kevin) who generally belongs in the Austin top ten (but he seemed to be having an off night last time I was there). Chance dictates if you'll get him or not, though: the rest of the staff seems to come and go, and ranges from average to poor. (I vividly recall a particular breakfast: it took forever to get the food, and our waiter explained that one of the cooks had suddenly quit. I'm not unsympathetic, but I have to wonder what kind of management was going on there.)
Same with the food: the hot wings and the jerk ribs have both gotten smaller (and the ribs have gotten drier and less tasty). On the other hand, I lucked into a very nice grilled boudin special a few weeks ago. On the gripping hand, the worst at Hoover's (at the moment) is just average, which is more than I can say for some Austin "institutions" (such as Threadgills, where I've had several horrible meals, or Good Eats.)
I don't know what to tell Hoover: I like seeing the place full, and I enjoy eating there. I'd love to see a second location (and even a third...). But I think he needs to do some weeding first.
I like Hoover's, but I also have (excuse the restaurant pun) reservations. While the entrees and sides are quite hearty, the appetizers seem much smaller in comparison (and much smaller than last year). Both the quesadillas and the hot wings came in pretty small portions for the price. While I had no complaints about the size of my fried pork chops, I don't think they're as good as Hoover's chicken fried steak, which I'll probably go back to next time I'm there. Fries were good, the salad was adequate, and the now that I've tried the cheese grits, I don't have to do that ever again. As for the blackberry cobbler, the crust seemed a bit thick and chewy. Service was good.
Hoover's offers a pretty good bang for the buck, but I can't escape the feeling that they're still not firing on all cylinders.
I was disappointed to find that Mama Mia's had closed: but this disappointment was tempered by knowledge of Piccolo Italian Cafe. We wanted to give them a few months to shake out the kitchen before we did a formal review, though. Now that they've had that time...I'm still mildly disappointed.
Piccolo just doesn't seem as good as Mama Mia's was: I'm not sure why. The prices seem a little lower, but the menu seems much shorter (and missing a few of my favorite things). The decor is...odd, and the booth seating I thought was somewhat uncomfortable. In fairness, my opinion may be colored somewhat by memories of eating at several other previous occupants of this space (including Hangtown Grill and the short lived really bad chicken wing place).
The important thing is the food. I ordered the Pollo Carbonara, one of the dishes I ordered frequently at Mama Mia's. It was okay, but just okay. This was a pretty good dish: at Piccolo, it felt like listening to white folks play the blues. They got all the notes right, but the soul was missing. I wonder if they kept the same chef when they moved?
Piccolo is worth keeping an eye on: I hope they make a go of it, but I think the location is working against them.
I've heard that Piccolo Italian Cafe was founded by the same people who ran the late, lamented Mama Mia's, and it shows. The food here is reasonably good and comes in moderately generous portions (though perhaps a tad less generous than those Mama Mia's used to serve). Both the calamari and the fried mozzarella were quite tasty, though the escargot were far less impressive, tasting too much of lemon and not enough of butter and garlic. My mixed greens salad wasn't bad, if a little strange and without a choice of dressing, and next time I might opt for the Caesar salad. My Veal Parmenganio (sp?) entree was quite satisfying, as were the few bites of the Chocolate Wave dessert I had (though true chocoholics may be disappointed).
Unfortunately, there's one area in which Piccolo falls rudely short of Mama Mia's, and that's in it's heinous tipping policy. Here's yet another restaurant which has high-handedly decided to impose a tipping percentage above the traditional 15%, in Piccolo's case 18%, for parties of six or more. You know the drill, right kids? This is an UNACCEPTABLE POLICY and results in a mandatory ranking of NO STARS until the policy is changed.
Which is a darn shame. The campus area could certainly use a good Italian restaurant. But until they change that policy, there's no way I can recommend Piccolo Italian Cafe.
YA Turkey City.
Asia does a pretty fair lunch trade, and is probably the best Chinese place near my office: I actually prefer it slightly to Wan Fu. But mother of mercy, did we hit them on an off night! Broken fridge, deserted dining room...ugh. A shame and a disappointment. Stick to lunch, I think, unless you're very close by.
Since there will be very little praise offered in this review, let me serve it up early. The wonton soup was quite good; it was very flavorful and had richer ingredients than the average bowl of wonton to be had in Austin (though not up to the standard of the late, lamented Asian Restaurant). The roast pork appetizer (more on this below) was also reasonably tasty, if a bit overpriced for the portions. Generally the prices were cheap.
However, everything else about Asia sucked.
For starters, the place was deserted, which is always a bad sign. And by deserted, I mean that at one point we were the only diners in the restaurant. Moreover, when I tried to order some barbecued ribs, I was informed that they were unavailable because they had suffered "a problem with the refrigerator." Oh, lovely! That's just what I want to hear before I eat in a Chinese restaurant! Hence the roast pork instead. Finally, my Szeheuan Pork not only wasn't particularly spicy, but the amount of meat compared to the surrounding vegetables was fairy small.
Dwight says they do a decent lunchtime business on weekdays. I can believe it, because they certainly aren't surviving on the weekend traffic. There are several good Chinese places in Austin better than this (Pao's Mandarin House, Tien Hong, Twin Dragon)--in fact, there are several mediocre ones. Avoid.
Nothing more than a very decent fast-food style fried seafood place. I wouldn't drive out to Round Rock for it, but I'd probably visit if I were in the same strip mall, or lived in the area and wanted a quick cheap meal to go.
I like it! Good, cheap fried catfish on par with Catfish Parlor (183). Thinking I would get as much as at, say, Long John Silver's, I ordered a six fillet basket. As it turns out, the fillets were huge, and I had plenty to take home. Though the batter is pretty standard cornmeal fare, Top Cat offers descent fries, hushpuppies, and serve-it-yourself soft drink refills (and crackers), and my companions availed themselves of the free beer (which I suspect will last until they get a liquor license). No atmosphere to speak of, being strip mall fast food functional, but that's in line with the low prices.
Drawback: The Gumbo sucks and was nearly meat free. But stick to the catfish and you shouldn't have cause for complaint. Despite being even farther from the coast than Austin, with Top Cat and Castaways, Round Rock now offers two nice choices for Central Texas seafood lovers.
See the logs for October of 2000.