Daily Grill - 11410 Century Oaks Ter. Austin, TX

(C+)

7/28/2012 - The Daily Grill, a chain restaurant, is a social gathering spot in The Domain Shopping Center in Austin, TX.  David suggested eating there on this hot Saturday afternoon.  The restaurant is located in an "out of the way" area in the back of the Domain where there are few folks walking by, so this isn't the type of place that you might happen to walk past and say, "Hey, let's drop in for a bite to eat.".  We were seated at a walk-up table at the bar.  It took a few minutes and we were cheerily greeted by a young waittress named, "Estee".  She told us we could just call her, "Red". 

You'll know from my previous posts that one of my pet peeves in restaurants is when the wait staff takes your order and writes down absolutely NOTHING and then delivers completely the wrong items to your table later.  Red managed this beautifully!  She took our drink order (1 Pellegrino water with lime & an iced tea) as well as our food order (batter-dipped french fries, artichoke dip, mini-burgers and seared ahi tuna sashimi with fried spinach and cold pickles on the side) without ever writing down a word.  I was very skeptical, but also equally surprised when it was perfect!

The food was served timely and hot.  In fact, Red had to caution us about the searing hot plate that she used to bring out the fries.  That was a good touch by the kitchen to keep the fries hot longer.  Unfortunately, it didn't nothing to help the flavor.  The fries were tasteless, bland, and not very crispy.  They were served with ketchup and I never use ketchup with fries.  In this case, the ketchup made the fries taste better...and that is NOT a compliment!

The artichoke dip was served with garlic toast and a fried artichoke on top.  Very good and very addictive!  David said his burgers were good.  Two mini-burgers were served as an appetizer...alone on a large plate.  I can think of only 1 word for it.  The plate just looked, "lonely" with two mini-burgers on it.  It was as if someone came over with one single pea on a huge dinner plate and grandly stated, "Your dinner, sir!".  Really?!

The seared ahi sashimi consisted of a single 7 or 8 inch long, 1 inch diameter "squared rod" of tuna, rolled in black sesame seeds and seared on a grill, then sliced and laid out on a long plate.  It was served with a VERY tiny bit of wasabi, gari (pickled ginger), fried spinach, and cold cucumber pickles in rice wine vinegar and red pepper flakes.  The tuna was excellent and the crunch of the fried spinach with the pickles really complimented the flavors in the dish.

As we were chatting during dinner, as always, I was looking around the restaurant and glancing upwards, I noticed this...

This is one of my other pet peeves about restaurants.  The light fixtures above our tables were filled with dead bugs and the ceiling vents were caked with dust.  I've been in restaurants where they've forgotten to dust their ceiling fans or the light fixtures were dirty, but never filled with dead bugs.  Our consolation: at least they weren't LIVE bugs!

At the close of our meal, Red again was so pleasant with us that her effervescent personality truly made it easier to overlook any flaws.  A waittress who is this nice really makes the whole dining experience worthwhile! 

Red gets a gold star in my book, but the restaurant gets a C+.  The Domain Shops have the reputation for being expensive and "high-class", but there is not a single thing sold in the Domain that you cannot get for a lower price, and often better quality, elsewhere in Austin.  Like so many restaurants at the Domain, this is just another one that is trying to be very chic, trendy, and sort of "faux-high-class", but it fails miserably in the delivery.  The Daily Grill seriously needs a little more daily work.

Kona Grill - 11410 Century Oaks Terrace Austin, TX

(C+)

4/16/2012 - Kona Grill, a chain restaurant, is nicely decorated, although somewhat dark inside.  I went on a Monday afternoon for lunch.  I was seated near the entrance, not far from the sushi bar where you can watch the sushi chef make some amazing sushi.  The restaurant is decked out like a night club and has several booths, a bar area and a seating area on the terrace overlooking traffic coming into and out of the Domain shopping center.

The waitress came to the table and I ordered an iced tea.  When she returned to take my order, I ordered regular edamame (steamed, salted soybeans - they also offer it spicy), the Sunshine Roll (salmon and avocado topped with salmon and a thinly sliced piece of lemon), Spicy Tuna Roll and Octopus Nigiri.

One of my pet peeves is when a waiter or waittress comes to take your order and doesn't write anything down.  My waittress returned after giving her my order and asked, "Did you order the Houston Roll or the Dragon Roll?".  I replied, "Neither one."  So, I had to repeat my order to her again.  I do have to hand it to her, though, when she came over, she pointed out several nice specials and offerings from the auxiliary menu. 

The steamed edamame arrived first.  It was served hot in a covered bowl and seasoned with Kosher Salt just right.  The sushi arrived after about 10 minutes or so.  The Sunshine Roll was excellent and the lemon is the perfect accompaniment to the salmon.  The Spicy Tuna Roll is pretty much the same Spicy Tun Roll you would get at any sushi restaurant.  nothing really remarkable, but still quite good. 

The octopus, however, was a different story.  Octopus is very difficult to get "right" and this wasn't quite right.  It was still quite chewy, which is normal, but it was sliced very thick and not scored along it's length to make it easier to eat.  Sushi is really supposed to be a "one bite" morsel, meaning each piece is consumed whole as a single bite.  I nearly choked on the first one.  It was a giant piece of rubber on top of rice.  The chef really should have sliced the octopus much more thinly, or at least made some scored cuts on the underside of the slices so they would break down in your mouth more easily.  Clearly they're trying to be generous with the slices, but this is one where you probably don't want the chef to be quite that generous.  The last thing any restauranteur needs is to do the Heimlich Maneuver on a customer because your "one bite" sushi was too thick.

The waittress returned after the meal and I was convinced to try to the small Key Lime Pie (apparently, they have a large one!).  As an ex- Floridian, this would be hard to beat, but they did a good job serving it in a square creme brulee dish with whipped cream, a raspberry and mint sprig for a garnish.  It was very tart, had a smooth texture and a graham cracker crust.  I must say it was one of the better Key Lime Pies I have had outside of the State of Florida.

Damage for this meal was some $43 with the tip.  Expensive, but I would say it was worth it.  Overall, the restaurant is a little too dark for my taste and the waitstaff maybe a little mentally pre-occupied, but the food was excellent and the timing for this lunchtime meal was right on target.

Unfortunately, on another visit  (later, 6/18/2012), when I gave the waiter my order of a Sunshine Roll and a Spider Roll, he returned with a Spider Roll and a Rainbow Roll instead. Again, the waiter did not write down the order and entered it from memory.  This seems to be a prevalent issue among their wait staff. He argued that I did say Rainbow Roll, then asked me to remove the Spider Roll from the plate as he returned the Rainbow Roll to the Sushi Chef. Which leads me to wonder...now that my hands were physically all over that plate, what did they do with the Rainbow Roll?...throw it away, serve it to another customer later? The whole process was just "wrong" on many levels and really lowers my impression of this restaurant entirely. I have MAJOR questions and concerns about their cleanliness, decision making, and the potential recycling of food to customers at this point. As a result, I must lower my rating of this restaurant one entire grade to C+.

Longhorn Steakhouse - 2702 Parker Rd. Round Rock, TX

(C-)

4/15/2012 - I've been to several Longhorn Steakhouses over the years; Dulles Virginia, Concord North Carolina, and now Round Rock, Texas.  Longhorn is usually quite consistent with their food, but this is a new one and I'm not quite sure they have all the kinks out just yet.  I was seated in a booth in the main dining area.  When the hostess seated us, she removed two of the four place settings and bread plates, pretty normal.  She happened to leave two bread plates, one of which was dirty with food attached to the plate.  When our waiter came over to offer drinks and bread, he began to pick up the dirty plate to have it replaced, only to find that the plate underneath it looked like someone had vomited food all over the bread plate.  It was really disgusting.  He noticed me grimmacing and took them both away to replace them immediately.  Definitely a good move.  Apparently, if plates went unused on the table, they were not picked up and instead left for the next customers.  Not a good start to the meal.

So, this gross out definitely called for a top shelf Margarita.  It was a good one.  No salt, served cold and with a shaker that basically fills the glass a couple of times.

I ordered the 12 Oz Prime Rib, Medium (which they claim is still a little pink inside, it wasn't), caesar salad, a baked potato with butter and chives (if you don't specify, then they load it with EVERYTHING...cheese, sour cream, butter, etc.).  The meal was served warm and the steak was seasoned quite well, but the prime rib was fairly chewy. This is unusual since I have eaten here before and the steaks are usually quite tender.  This was an aberration.  One thing I have found they consistently do is overcook the prime rib.  Medium here has typically turned out to be Medium-Well.  I thought about this before ordering this time, but I wanted to see if it was going to be the same as last time (overcooked) or not.  It was.  The seasoning was excellent however, and I never needed to reach for the salt or pepper. 

One unexpected addition to the meal was when the waiter came out with a lobster tail (which we didn't order) and offered it to us as complimentary because the chef had cooked one too many this evening and they didn't want it to go to waste.  The lobster tail was split down the back andd roasted with some mild seasoning.  It was done quite well.

The damage for a steak dinner with a lobster-stuffed baked potato, the prime rib plate above, an iced tea and a top shelf margarita came to about $65 after tip.  In this area, that's a reasonable price for this meal and it was generally OK.  Strikes for sanitation and overcooking, but the seasoning and the wait staff were good.  Overall, this is an OK place to eat, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat here.

Korea House Sushi Bar - 2700 W. Anderson Lane Austin, TX

(A)



You might have surmised from previous entries that I am a sushi achiever.  Yep, I am.  I need a 12-step program to get off sushi, and I'm proud of it.  When I'm at home in Austin, TX, my favorite place for sushi is the Korea House at 2700 Anderson Lane.  Park is the sushi chef there and he really knows his fish!

I first heard of the Korea House when a friend of mine decided sushi was the business lunch of the day around 1995.  Frankly, I was a bit frightened by the prospect, since I had never liked fish, except shellfish, smoked salmon, and canned tuna or maybe a filet-o-fish sandwich.  I'm known to try anything, even if I haven't liked it in the past, so I figured what the heck.  I loved it and never looked back again.

The Korea House is a very nice, family-run business.  I am always greeted with a welcome, friendly smile and an "Osay-o" ("Welcome!") when I come into the restaurant.  The Korea House serves Korean barbecue, standard Korean fare as well as sushi.  There are only about 10 seats at the sushi bar, but you can always order sushi from anywhere in the restaurant, which has seating for at least 20 tables.  During some busy lunch and dinner times, there can be a slight wait for a table.

One of the most common things heard from first timers at this restaurant is, "I didn't order this?".  Believe it or not, yes you did.  You may have ordered Beef Bulgoki and were expecting only a single plate of beef and rice or noodles, but you commonly receive about 5 or 6 additional small bowls of different things such as boiled potato, kim chi (spicy pickled cabbage), sweet baked soy beans, sweet and spicy sliced strips of BBQ squid.  This is normal to be served all of the small bowls of additional foods with your meal.  It may be strange to Western tastes, but try it.  It's all good!

I am usually seated at the sushi bar where Park provides an apppetizer of sliced red snapper in a sweet barbecue sauce with hot Sriracha sauce drizzled over it.  This has the most amazing flavor of sweet and hot at the same time.  Next, I order my "usual"...a bottomless Iced Tea, a Hawai'ian roll (Spicy Tuna roll with orange Masago fish eggs on the outside), Yellowfin Tuna, Eel, and Wasabi Tobiko nigiri, as well as an Eel handroll and 2 Spicy Crab handrolls.  On occasion, I'll add octopus, or if the Uni (sea urchin) is fresh, I'll order that.  If you do order any handrolls, be sure to eat them immediately when served, especially the Spicy Crab.  The reason is that you want the nori (toasted green seaweed) on the handrolls to remain crispy on the outside.  If you allow them to sit for too long, the seaweed will become soggy.

As I mentioned, it's all good, and if you prefer a roll with something added or removed, the chef is always happy to assemble it to suit your taste, even if it's not on the menu!  In fact, I ordered the Hawai'ian roll so many times over the years, he put it on the menu just for me.  Park and his assistant sushi chef do an excellent job at ensuring their customers enjoy their meal.

A quick note on sushi etiquette is called for here, since I see these things so often, I think most people think it's alright to do them:  Be sure to follow these few do's and don'ts and you will be seen by your chef as "skilled" in eating sushi and not a noob.

1)  When you unwrap your chopsticks, don't rub them together.  Westerners do this to remove splinters.  It's also an insult to your hosts because it implies they have offered you cheap, inferior, chopsticks.  If there are any splinters, you'll be able to feel them with your fingers going across the grain.  Gently remove them and discreetly set them aside, if any.  I have rarely found splinters on my chopsticks at most oriental restaurants.

2)  That little empty bowl in front of you is for shoyu (soy sauce).  It's best to use the low sodium or Tamari soy sauce, since you're eating seafood.  The fish will already have a slightly salty flavor, so low sodium is best.

3)  Don't put green wasabi into the bowl for shoyu.  This screams "I'm a Westerner!".  Your chef places a small amount of wasabi onto the fish before serving it to you.  If you need any more, you should scrape a small piece off the mound provided on your plate and either place it into your mouth before or after the fish, or place it on top of the fish before eating it.

4)  Use your chopsticks effectively.  Sushi is normally eaten with clean, bare hands in Japan, but you may also use chopsticks.  The narrow end of the chopsticks are for your mouth.  The broad ends of the chopsticks are used to take sushi from a communal (shared) plate and place it onto your own plate, before you eat it.  Don't use the narrow end of the chopsticks to pick up sushi from a communal plate and don't use the broad ends for placing sushi into your mouth.

5)  That pink pickled stuff on your plate is called "gari" (gahh-ri).  It's pickled ginger root.  Many sushi eaters don't understand it.  It "can" be used as a condiment like the wasabi.  Personally, I enjoy it's tangy flavor with barbecued eel, but it's really there as a palate cleanser.  Take a small piece to cleanse your palate between different types of sushi so you can enjoy the full-on, flavor of the new one you're going to try next.

6)  One final note on chopsticks and if you choose only one of these to remember, make it this one.  Never, EVER, place your chopsticks into a bowl of rice so that they stand up vertically.  It is considered a terrible omen to the restauranteur, your participants at a business lunch, and others in the restaurant.  This one little gesture may seem insignificant, but it is reminiscent of the burning of incense for the dead, and is considered a "major" taboo.

OK, so the etiquette out of the way and an awesome meal under my belt, I leave the Korea House about $38 poorer (with tip), but feeling very full and happy.  Yes, my meal was expensive, but I know I'm eating healthy food and not feeling guilty about chicken wings, burgers & fries, or pizza.  Sure, you can get away with the sushi special for less than 1/2 the price I paid, but the broadness and depth of flavor for what I ordered is incomparable.  In fact, my same meal at any other sushi restaurant in Austin would have been closer to $65. 

I have had sushi in Hawai'i, Norfolk, VA, Florida, Massachusetts, Atlanta, Washington, DC, Nashville, and many other venues.  I consider the Korea House to be an economical steal, with awesome food, pleasant atmosphere, and the nicest family of staff.  In my opinion, the Korea House does not have an equal anywhere else.