NoRTH at the Domain Opens with a Bang!
NoRTH at the Domain Opens with a Bang!
We went to one of the preview dinners for the new restaurant NoRTH at the Domain off N. Mopac last Thursday. In a word, we were impressed.
The scene was chaotic, as is almost always the case when new restaurants try to get everything smoothed out for opening night. But the food looks like it going to be very enjoyable.
We had the Crisp Calamari with baby arugula and it was as described: nice flavors and lovely texture. We also tried North’s version of Caprese Salad with fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes, sweet basil and aged balsamic. This was also very good. The Spinach Salad with a tart pancetta vinaigrette and goat cheese was another winner. The only appetizer that wasn’t an immediate slam dunk was the Bruschetta. It was satisfactory but the Crescenza cheese (which resembles a mild cream cheese) didn’t go that well with the Prosciutto di Parma.
Three entrees were absolutely terrific. The Strozzapretti Pasta with mushrooms, wilted spinach, pine nuts and parmesan cheese was excellent. And the Short Rib Osso Buco with white polenta was tender and amazingly tasty. The polenta was the perfect complement. And the Shrimp Fettuccine with a Spicy Garlic Sugo sauce had sensational flavor. The Snapper (fish of the day) was a tad dry but still showed potential.
NoRTH is now open at the Domain. Go to the MENU section of www.diningoutwithrobbalon.com and click on Italian to see NoRTH’s Menu.
Westlake: The Restaurant Woes Continue
It’s such a regular headline that it’s almost becoming monotonous: Restaurant Closes in Westlake.
The latest two owner-operated stores to bite the dust are Austin’s Cheesecake Kitchen (formerly Ruggle’s Grill) and the Red Bud Grille.
How is it that an area with one of the highest per capita incomes in the state can systematically fail to support its restaurants? I’ve lived in Westlake for 23 years and I am continually stunned by the restaurants that fail there.
And location doesn’t seem to matter. Las Palomas, a good Mexican joint located at the very back end of a strip mall with very poor visibility from Bee Caves Road is routinely packed. Yet Bombay Grill, a great little Indian restaurant in the same center is having trouble keeping the lights on most nights. Ditto for Lotus Hunan, a very decent Chinese restaurant in the same center. And Tin Star is the third concept that’s gone into one location in the past three years in that same center; prior to that was the Holiday House, then a sit-down Sonic, both of which crashed and burned quickly. When I went into Tin Star last week at on a Tuesday at about 7:30pm, there was ONE table that actually had customers. And the food’s good. Across Bee Caves at the Randell’s Center, Linda Cheng’s Chinatown is not exactly SRO, and Jason’s Deli continues to make a living off Westlake High kids and their parents. Amy’s Ice Cream does well in the total absence of competition (and besides, it’s Amy’s).
Across the street, Red Bud Grille’s demise was preceded by a long line of disasters: Rock Fish, Serrano’s, Chez Fred, Interurban to name just a few.
And this phenomenon is by no means limited to the Bee Caves/Walsh Tarlton area. There’s a store next to Breed’s Hardware that has housed so many restaurants that I literally can’t remember them all (Café Spiazo, Dragon Gate, Madame Nadellini’s are a few that come to mind).
And down the road, the excellent Belgian Restaurant hung on for years before finally disappearing in a mysterious fire. Further up Bee Caves, near where Lucy’s Cakes now does business, a place called the Blue Moon Café crashed and burned followed by a Chicago-style pizza place that didn’t fare much better.
The Albertson’s Shopping Center has seen more than its share of failures as well. The Ruggle’s Grill location first housed a Mexican restaurant which failed. And at the current site of the Wachovia Bank, there were two good restaurants: The Canyon Café and then the Four Corners. Neither lasted for more than a couple of years.
And the Davenport Center, smack dab in the middle of one of the most upscale areas in Austin, has failed to support at least a half dozen restaurants that have come and gone. The site where the Salt Lick now stands was the site of several failed steakhouses and Italian restaurants. And from what I hear on the rumor mill, the Salt Lick out in Driftwood continues to overwhelm the Davenport Village location in sales. The excellent Dragon Gate which moved from the aforementioned spot across from Breed’s should be packing them in but business is spotty at best. The only restaurant that seems to do a very consistent business there is Maudie’s: you guessed it, another Tex Mex.
So if you look at the sum and total of restaurants that have had any real staying power over the years in Westlake, three are Tex Mex (Las Palomas, Tres Amigos, and Maudie’s) one is BBQ (County Line on the Hill), one is Amy’s Ice Cream Parlor, and the other is the excellent Bistro 88, Jeff Liu’s pan-Asian fusion restaurant that has the benefit of being very close to Mopac. Now I’m not counting the Taco Bell at Walsh Tarlton and Bee Caves or the McDonald’s further down the street. They both seem to have steady business: in fact, come to think of it, they have REALLY steady business. Maybe I’m missing something there! Or perhaps it’s just that many of the people who live in Westlake got all that money by not spending it on dining out. Or perhaps they choose to dine out downtown up uptown or anyplace but Westlake. Or maybe they are amazingly myopic in their dining tastes. Should we look for a rash of new Tex-Mex joints in Westlake?
What do you think? Email rob at info@diningoutwithrobbalon.com.
