March 23rd Blog
Fogo de Chao, Beau Knows Villas, Goodbye and Hello at the Driskill Grill, Airports to Avoid: Mexico City
March 9th Blog
I managed to make it unscathed through three days of hosting the Jeff Ward Show on 590 KLBJ-AM earlier this week. Aside from the usual 4-page, invective laced single-spaced email from someone with more time than sense, the feedback was good. Topics ranged from HPV vaccinations to the latest blunder by the Texas Supreme Court, […]
March 2nd Blog
For those of you who are fond of the genre of talk radio you can catch me next week on 590 KLBJ-AM on Monday-Wednesday (March 5-7) from 3-6 pm. Those are the hours normally occupied by Jeff Ward. Hosting a live call-in talk show is an absolute blast. But it is also one of the […]
February 26th Blog
Our Gonzo Gourmet Club dined out Sunday night at Fleming’s Steakhouse downtown at 2nd St. We had a superb meal in every sense of the word. Fleming’s has the most amazing BBQ Shrimp in the area. The rib eyes were delightful as was the salmon. But I must share with you one genuinely embarrassing and […]
February 23rd Blog
I was the MC last night at the Busby Foundation’s fund raiser for ALS. I personally picked a dozen of Austin’s finest restaurants for a Taste of Austin event including Jeffrey’s, Mirabelle’s, Chinatown, III Forks, Eddie V’s, the Roaring Fork, McCormick and Schmick’s, Sicola’s: A Culinary Experience [private dining], Moonshine Patio Bar and Grill, Kenichi, […]
February 14th Blog
Happy Valentine’s Day. While the origins of this day remain shrouded in mystery, many scholars attribute the impetus to St. Valentine, a christian martyr who died around 300 AD. The roman emperor at the time had apparently decided that single men made better soldiers than married men. So, in the true style of Rome, he […]
February 5th Blog
Booking a restaurant for Valentine’s Day continues to be a total freak show. I’ve gotten hundreds of emails from a variety of panicked men who thought that calling Eddie V’s or McCormick and Schmick’s two weeks in advance was more than enough time. No way Holmes. Basically, at this point, the downtown restaurants are full; […]
February 1st Blog
One of the more rewarding aspects of being a food critic is the often fascinating people I get to meet who run restaurants. I don’t often get to write about them because I tend to concentrate on their menus and service et al. But this blog gives me some more latitude. So I’ll tell you […]
January 29th Blog
Saturday night was fun. We went to Café Mangu in Pflugerville with our friends Carol and Skip. Café Mangu, is in my humble opinion, the absolute best Caribbean fare in the Austin area. This place is hands down better than Habana. The flavors are more nuanced, the mojo is to die for, and the food […]
January 23rd Blog
I saw a piece in Austin Fit Magazine about the Ton of Fun weight loss contest that I participated in last year. The idea was that ten local celebrity “fatties” would assemble teams and raise money for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Danny Baker, GM of FOX 7 TV, got me involved last May. I was already […]
January 17th Blog
Well, these have been a couple of really crappy days if you’re in the restaurant business. Not much more to say about it. Many restaurants couldn’t even open. Those that did probably saw a bunch of empty tables. Got to hand it Sharon Watkins at Chez Zee though. She lost power, battled the elements, and […]
January 15th Blog
Dinner at Sampaio’s sat night was, for the most part, excellent. The yucca cakes with mozarella cheese and a light marinara sauce were very tasty. I didn’t like the salmon croquettes as much; the taste was a bit strong for me. A little too “salmony.” (Is that a word?) However, Marge liked them a lot. […]
January 12th Blog
I’m heading up to Beluga in Round Rock tonight for dinner with Marge, my daughter Jenn and her new husband John. Fish and Jae, two of my favorite restaurant owners, are having some kind of Russian rock band in to mix with their killer menu. Now there’s a combination: their classic Ahi Tower and Ivan […]
January 10th Blog
People often ask me why I don’t open up a restaurant: as if the fact that I write about restaurants would somehow make me a candidate to run one. Well, as T. Soprano would say, “fuggadaboudit.” I have seen how hard restaurateurs work. It takes constant care and feeding to run a successful operation and […]
January 8th Blog
Not good news for restaurants on Congress in downtown Austin. Due to the inexplicable deaths of sixty-three grackles, everyone’s favorite bird, the avenue was closed down from the Capitol to Cesar Chavez. Many restaurants had to close for lunch, losing valuable weekday revenue. Paranoia over this event was so high that even The Department of […]
