Podcast: Margarito Maldonado of Los Pinos
This week’s Podcast features Los Pinos owner and chef Margarito Maldonado. Maldonado has combined his training cooking under Jack Gillmore at Z’Tejas and Michael Vilim at Mirabelle. You don’t find many Mexican chefs with this tenure, and his multicultural culinary background shows in every bite at Los Pinos. His first location on Hudson Bend […]
Podcast: John Thompson of Stinson’s
This week’s podcast guest is John Thomspon, who along with his wife owns and operates two charmiing bistros: one at 45th and Burnet called Stinson’s Rosedale, and the other on Lake Austin Blvd. called Stinson’s Deep Eddy Grill Pizzeria and Bar (at the former site of Pizza Bistro). The Rosedale location began as more […]
Podcast: Amir Hajimaleki of District
This week’s Podcast shows what can happen when a guy born in Iran and educated at an Austin Culinary School opens a New American restaurant at Slaughter and Escarpment. Amir, just 29 years-old, started at Freda’s Seafood grill at the tender age of 17. He also worked in various capacities for the Kona Grill, all […]
Podcast: James Sun of Cedro
This week’s Podcast features James Sun, founder and proprietor of Cedro at Lakeline Mall adjacent to the Alamo Drafthouse. James hails from Shanghai, and attended Hotel/Restaurant school in Switzerland. He later finished up at the prestigious Johnson and Wales U in Rhode Island. He may have been from Shanghai, but he preferred to cook […]
Podcast: Ronald Cheng
Ronald Cheng has made perhaps the most significant impact on Chinese cuisine than anyone in central Texas. His amazing first restaurant, Chinatown on Bee Caves in Westlake which opened over 30 years ago, blew me away with its creative approach to regional Chinese food styles and its lovely, beautifully garnished presentations. He would open […]
Podcast: Chef Ben Nathan of Café Blue
This week’s Podcast features Chef Ben Nathan, Executive Chef of Cafe Blué at the Galleria. He also opened the Belmont, taught at the local culinary school, and worked at several fine dining restaurants in Boston, which is his original home. Ben makes what I consider to be the BEST clam chowder in Austin, along […]
This Week’s Podcast: Steven Dilley, Founder and Owner of Bufalina
Steven Dilley’s story, as you’ll hear, is quite remarkable. With no restaurant experience whatsoever, he took his insatiable curiosity about pizza and parlayed that into the very popular (4th in our Pizza Wars 2014) Bufalina on Cesar Chavez. The fact that a brand new pizza joint made it into our Top 5 is nothing […]
Brad Meltzer Podcast
This week’s podcast guest is Brad Meltzer who is the owner of Sumo Japanese Steakhouse, a teppanyaki restaurant on I-10 in San Antonio. Brad has owned teppanyaki spots in Austin in the past, and is a serial entrepreneur who dabbles in many businesses, but teppanyaki is what really floats his boat. From what I’ve […]
Frankie Hoch Podcast, Grillmaster at It’s All Good Bar-B-Q
This week’s podcast features Frankie Hoch, the Grillmaster at It’s All Good Bar-B-Q in Spicewood. He came to the business the old-fashioned way: driven by a lifelong love of Q he competed in cook-offs around the state and across the South. A chance meeting at a competition with one of his future partners led […]
Welcome to our First Podcast on Dining Out with Rob Balon
Our first guest is Chef Louie Ciola, former exec chef of the popular Ciola’s in Lakeway, then chef at some uber-hot Minneapolis restaurants. He recently returned to Austin as executive consultant to the TC4 group which includes the Tony C’s at the Galleria and Avery Ranch, and the League Kitchen and Taverns in Lakeway and […]
