We are always looking for good Indian food in South Austin. In a previous visit, we tried the lunch buffet at Tandoori Bistro (1605 E. Oltorf, Austin, TX 512-383-8210) and liked it, so we came back for dinner to try more things.

Vegetable Samosas ($4)

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What I Ate: September 6th, 2011 (Tandoori Bistro)

A few nights ago we ate dinner at 24 Diner (600 N. Lamar, Austin, TX 512-472-5400), which was recently featured on Crave - a new show on The Food Network.

Corn Fritters ($7.95)
These were more like deep fried hush puppies than corn fritters. They are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The dipping sauce was mildly spicy, creamy, and cumin flavored.

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What I Ate: September 1st, 2011 (24 Diner)

We were in the Bee Caves area so we decided to check out Bee Cave Tavern (11715 Bee Cave Road, Bee Caves, TX 512-477-6535), formerly Zoot where we had dined several times before. We knew that the owner was changing the concept for the restaurant. Whereas Zoot was fine dining in a low key setting, BC Tavern is an upscale, family friendly tavern whose offerings include burgers and other comfort foods. We ordered an appetizer and two main entries.

BC Mac-n-cheese with black truffle ($12)
We absolutely loved this appetizer. We sopped up every last drop of the cheese sauce with our bread.

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What I Ate: August 17th, 2011 (Bee Cave Tavern)

It's no secret that my favorite sandwich place in Austin is The Noble Pig. What I haven't talked about is the incredible once-a-month dinners that The Noble Pig offers. Tina and I went to the March and April dinners (April was vegetarian themed) and found both to be delightful. The meals start at 7pm and run about 2.5 hours for four courses. The cost is $55 per person and you must make reservations ahead of time. I posted an article about the Noble Pig Dinners on Cooking For Engineers with more pictures.

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What I Ate: April 2, 2011 (The Noble Pig)

Hey, everyone out there who lives in Austin or plans on visiting or has friends and family out here - the latest edition of The Fearless Critic Austin Restaurant Guide has just been released and is available at bookstores as well as online at Amazon.com. I spent the last year with the 2nd edition in my car and used it extensively while Tina and I tried out new restaurants. Our experience with the 2nd edition is that the Fearless Critic doesn't pull any punches. If the place is a local favorite but the food is mediocre, the review says so. Everything is rated on an absolute scale unaltered by nostalgia or "just wanting to be nice" (unfortunately, a problem that exists with the restaurant reviews I find in the newspapers here in Austin - how can Get Sum Dim Sum be great dimsum???). Occasionally, our opinions will differ from those of the Fearless Critic, but those slight deviations come down to personal taste. We're always in the same ballpark, so I thought 2nd edition was a great reference to have.

This new edition covers 75 additional restaurants and updates the reviews of pretty much all the restaurants previously included (unfortunately, some restaurants got worse over time) for a total of over 500 restaurants. I'm proud to say that Tina and I contributed somewhat to this edition by being one of the "local critics" that provided reviews and input into which restaurants were good (personal favorites this last year were Ryu of Japan and Zoot) and which were bad (worst experience was Romeo's - a very popular and supposedly "romantic" restaurant that was just the worst food we've had in Austin and more cheesy than romantic. If you read my review and then the 3rd edition Fearless Critic review, you'll see where my input went).

If you want to have a great restaurant guide that tells you the plain truth about Austin restaurants, then $11 (on Amazon; $16 at the bookstore unless it's on sale) is a small price to pay to make your restaurant dining choices a little better. Click here for the 3rd Edition Fearless Critic Austin Restaurant Guide on Amazon.com.

Dinner: Tina and I prepared Chinese hot pot with an assortment of fish balls, beef balls, fried fish cakes, enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, shrimp, and tofu.

Lunch: We finished off the clam chowder in another couple of bread bowls.

Moved my computers from the old hoouse to the new, so I don't have internet access. Will post pictures when internet is up.

Lunch at McDonald's. Big Mac, Filet-o-Fish and five Chicken McNuggets.

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What I Ate: November 20, 2009 (McDonald's, Which Wich)

Dinner: Tina and I headed over to The Driskill Grill (604 Brazos St, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 391-7162) for their Austin Restaurant Week dinner. The dinner was fantastic and at a price of $35 per person, this was a great way to get a sample of what The Driskill Grill does well. Tina and I shared a demi bottle of Vietti Cascinetta Moscato d'Asti 2008 with our meal. Amuse bouches arrived (three of them!): Seared rabbit loin with strawberry-blackberry relish, lemon-basil sorbet, and caramelized onion puff pastry.

Seared rabbit loin with strawberry-blackberry relish - Remarkably tender, but a little disconcertingly so. The rabbit loin almost tasted like ham in both texture and taste. I wonder if it was brined a bit too long resulting in the texture change. Still, it was very good paired with the bright flavors of the strawberry relish.

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What I Ate: September 14, 2009 (Driskill Grill)

Tonight Tina and I dined at a celebration dinner at MacArthur Park Restaurant in Palo Alto, California. This restaurant, opened in 1982, is actually the second MacArthur Park (the first was in San Francisco, opened nine years earlier, slowly declined over the years and closed last year under the faltering Spectrum Restaurant Group). When Spectrum opened the restaurant in Palo Alto, they selected a historic building right across the street from Stanford University (in fact they lease the land from Stanford) designed by Julia Morgan and built in 1918. During the last few years, Spectrum has been in Chapter 11 twice and has been selling off many of their properties. Four months ago, two of the men who helped originally open MacArthur Park Palo Alto (Chuck Frank, an early Spectrum executive, and Faz Poursohi, the first chef at MacArthur Park) bought the restaurant back for a reported $500,000. The started renovating and changing the restaurant back into what their vision was without closing for a single day (pretty impressive).

The party was held in their pleasant patio area in the back of the restaurant. We tasted a variety of food available at the restaurant: smoked salmon, sturgeon, a smoked whitefish, potato skins, onion strings, breaded and fried tomato slices, grilled hanger steak, baby back ribs, bacon, blue cheese and iceberg salad, grilled prawns (huge), corn on the cob, and roasted peppers stuffed with cheeses. All of the food was good and tasty, but not exceptional. But then, this isn't the type of restaurant that you go to in order to open up to new tastes and flavors. From the sampling I had, the food is just fine for the price point of the restaurant (entrees from $15 to $25 with steaks up to $38 [for a pound of T-bone]) and the building and ambiance is quite pleasant. I'm especially interested in returning to the restaurant because the dining room is well lit, which means potential for nice photographs.

MacArthur Park (Google Maps)
27 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 321-9990
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Revival Celebration at MacArthur Park, Palo Alto

A couple weeks ago I had to head back up to San Francisco to do some work in our data center. After I was done, I took my wife to a Thai restaurant that Dave Lu introduced me to: Manora's Thai Cuisine. The food there is excellent AND reasonably priced (around $10 a dish).

Manora's Thai Cuisine (Google Maps)
1600 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 861-6224

Por-Pia-Sod (rice paper rolls stuffed with crab, shrimp, pork sausage, pork, cucumber and mushroom, topped with sweet and sour tamarind sauce). Highly Recommended.

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Dining: Manora's Thai Cuisine