People who don't like Austin......because of the restaurants??? (Houston: real estate, home)

[pbnj07]

I've read numerous posts lately from people who don't like or are leaving Austin because they don't like the selection of restaurants in the city/area.

Granted, we don't have the variety or volume of restaurants of a city like New York, but we also don't have the crime, astronomical real estate prices, or poor school systems.

What is this obsession people have with restaurants? I like to dine-out as much as the next person, but I just don't need 500 Italian restaurants to choose from.

If you can't find the type of cuisine you're looking for, experiment with something new or maybe even pick up a cookbook.

As you can tell, restaurant selection was pretty low on my priority list when it came to finding a residence.

Just venting.

[centralaustinite]

Well, I grew up in a city with an amazing selection of Italian restaurants -- family owned, fabulous places. And I'll never get that here. And for the first few years, it felt like a loss. So, when I go back, I eat nothing but Italian, BUT try finding good Tex-Mex in most of the US! After nearly 20 years in central Texas, I've learned the hard way never to eat anything vaguely tex-mex north of Oklahoma City in a mainstream restaurant.

I do not think that you will find a city of Austin's size (remember folks we are basically a very large town, not a city, comparisons with Chicago or Houston are just not fair, there is a magnitude of order difference) with such great fine dining reasonably priced!

I'd put Zoot's, Wink, the Driscoll's Grill, and many more in a category that's hard to beat at the price anywhere.

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[TexasHorseLady]

I used to send care packages of BBQ to my son the foodie when he lived in NYC, and when he came home to visit he was all about going to BBQ places and getting breakfast tacos - things he said were unavailable in NYC. Now he's home and one of the first things he did was find a great breakfast taco place for before work in the mornings. This in spite of him telling me about the awesome variety of food that WAS available in NYC - but they don't have everything, it seems.

That being said, I have no difficulty finding good to excellent restaurants in Austin and vicinity. You just have to look for them and not just go to "popular" places that everybody else and their dog does.

[love roses]

I agree pbnj, I didn't base my decision to be here on how many resturaunts are here, or what type. Actually, we don't eat out so much that it really matters. And Italian isn't one of my top favorites, I just like it every once in a while. Mexican food and Cajun are my top favorites, add to that general seafood, so I'm doing fine here as far as that goes.

Funny about the care packages. I have a friend in Houston who's brother lives in NY and she sends him bbq care packages from Goode Co. all the time. I had a good friend from NY just come to San Antonio for vacation (she's originally from Texas, hubby is born and bred NY'er). She says you cannot find good Mexican food up there. She brought an extra suit case just to get refried beans, tortillas and anything else she could get her hands on, including certain spices. Even her husband had to agree that the Mexican food down here was better than what you can find in Brooklyn or Manhattan.

[theSUBlime]

Well, restaurants are often indicative of the demographics of a city. I like Austin though.

[schoenfraun]

I had just posted three times on the thread about an Illinoisan's take on Austin, he had posted about food, and I did the same.

Restaurants do not make a city--the geography and topography do, the people and local customs do, the architecture and landscape design do...but don't you think that restaurants are part of local culture? What local people eat is important.

Nothing beats home cooking, ever, I don't think. We eat at home more often than not, my husband loves to entertain, and he is a baker.

But our single friends here always want us to go out to dinner with them. They don't like to eat at home alone, I guess. We have yet to find a restaurant that bowls us over. But we've only just started to look--we have only lived here for 11 months.

But if restaurants don't matter to local culture, what does? What plays an important role in the everyday of Austin? If restaurants and bars and coffee shops don't matter, then there'd be no 6th Street or Drag, right?

I'd stay at home with my stuff all the time, and it would be just like I was living somewhere else, like Nebraska, in a building with all my stuff.

Food and local culture are necessarily intertwined. Again, I'm not saying that restaurants make or break Austin, but they are an important part of what Austin is.

So many people I know rejoiced at the reopening of Mother's. They have lived in Austin all their lives. This restaurant matters to them, for some reason.

[TexasHorseLady]

Being all about the food myself, I'm not saying that restaurants aren't important. I'm saying that you can find good food anywhere, and enjoy it, if you're open to looking.

Azul Tequila. Louisiana Longhorn. Sunflower (Vietnamese food). Buster's BBQ. Aster's. Hudsons on the Bend. Jeffrey's. Evangeline's. Nubian Queen Lola. Sam's BBQ. Dot's. Asian market. Las Manitas. The list goes on (that's just off the top of my head without even thinking about it halfway). Now, not everyone will think my choices are the best there is (in Austin, never mind anywhere), and I might find some of their choices to be puzzling (and if the topic is BBQ, all bets are off!), but good food there is to be had in our fair city and environs!

[schoenfraun]

Las Manitas is super-greasy. Lard-town. It's kinda gross, I think. I love the vibe in that place, I love to go sit there, but I think I'd rather watch people eat there and take it all in before I eat there, myself. Tried it several time. Not impressed with the food.

I think El Sol y la Luna is much tastier and seems less greasy. El Sol is one of my favorites.

But it's nice to people-watch at Las Manitas.

Tell me this: Guero's is very popular. You're in for a long wait at Guero's. I've eaten there several times, maybe a dozen times with different friends, on weekends, weeknights, evening, lunchtime.... And the food is never better than mediocre. The last time we went there, on a weekday afternoon, the food was downright hideous. So why do people love it? I think it's the people watching component. Folks seem to like that. Or they want to be seen, and they see a big crowd, and think it must be good.

Bleh.

Another really popular place, I mean, it's touristy but also popular with locals and a local institution: Matt's El Rancho. Total bleh. Their chips are insanely greasy, and their food is generally un-good. Not good. Bad. So why so popular for so long? Their parking lot on Lamar is enormous, which leads me to believe that folks come from far and wide to pack the place. Why so many people interested in eating there?

I guess I prefer New Mexican cuisine or Mexican cuisine to Tex-Mex.

Question: when did folks from Austin start this obsession with green chile from Hatch, New Mexico? The Hatch Chile Festival is amazing--in Hatch, not at Central Market--and New Mexico in general has my favorite food.... How long have Austin grocery stores and restaurants been trying to steal NM's thunder?

Another question: what restaurants are quintessentially "Austin," are institutions? What is the one place in Austin you would miss terribly if it closed?

[TexasHorseLady]

Like I said, don't go to only the places that everybody goes to. The food is likely to be mediocre (though I will say that Las Manitas, last I ate there, which was quite a while ago, was pretty good food - but the people-watching aspects are the main draw, I've had better Mexican breakfasts elsewhere, had a truly outstanding one twice in a row at Mariachis de Jalisco in Georgetown). Not terribly crazy about Guerro's, myself. I ate at El Sol y La Luna years ago before they were all the rage, and can't even remember what I had - it obviously wasn't particularly memorable.

New Mexican is okay if you're in New Mexico. (Though it's not to my taste particularly.) But you really shouldn't expect it at most Mexican restaurants in Texas, right? Any more than you should expect Tex Mex at a New Mexican Mexican restaurant.

As far as I can remember, the Hatch chile thing started at Central Market. Then everybody else jumped on the bandwagon.

Even though I go to them vanishingly rarely, I'd miss Jeffreys and Fonda San Miguel and Green Pastures as Austin institutions. They'd leave a big gaping hole in the city's fabric, I think, that many of the newer places just wouldn't. Just as I miss Jerry Jacobs BBQ some 30-odd years after it closed.

[schoenfraun]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

New Mexican is okay if you're in New Mexico. (Though it's not to my taste particularly.) But you really shouldn't expect it at most Mexican restaurants in Texas, right? Any more than you should expect Tex Mex at a New Mexican Mexican restaurant.

As far as I can remember, the Hatch chile thing started at Central Market. Then everybody else jumped on the bandwagon.

That's what I meant but did not articulate well. I love New Mexican food, but I want to eat it in New Mexico, not here in Austin, or anywhere else in the state, either. That's why I think the Hatch chile thing at Central Market is lame. I mean, I know they are selling imported produce and all kinds of specialty items, but they should celebrate what Austin is, or Texas is, and really go to town on those items, whatever they are. Pecans? Grapefruit?

I think, to my own tastes, I like Mexican food better than Tex-Mex. I am waiting to find a Tex-Mex place that's truly memorable. They all kinda blend together in one melted-cheesy lump for me.

But I'm glad to get your recommendations.

I'm not looking for seafood here, I'm not looking for New Orleans or Cajun food here. Certainly not looking for Chicago-style pizza or hot dogs or Chicago-anything here. I'll get that when I go home to Chicago.

I'm hoping to find some place that I can't do without, and I just haven't found it here yet. Lots of "eh," the wildly popular places like Kerbey Lane, Magnolia Cafe, Polvo's, Curra's, nothing really amazing.

I know this is all personal opinion I'm asking for, not hard facts.....

Any other suggestions?

Every time I pass the Monument Cafe in Georgetown I think, I gotta go in there, but I have yet to do so. It looks fantastic.

And kolaches...what is the deal with them? Why do people like them? Just a bunch of white flour, no texture, just taste like sugar, no flavor. And Round Rock donuts, those orange things, are grotesque.

So there's a lot of much-loved local foods, I don't get at all.

When I was talking about this a few days ago in the office kitchen, one of my coworkers said, "Stop, you're hurting me! I love these places." So I think there is a great deal of sentimentality or emotion that goes with food that you know, really know. Food and memories. I don't have any memories here, I'm new, so my opinions come across as harsh, perhaps. I don't have any attachments to these places, I'm just talking about tastes, textures, presentations.

I am sure there are people reading this who have very fond memories of late nights or early mornings at Magnolia, for example, or Las Manitas breakfasts. I don't have that....