The Great Austin Burger Hunt - Wally's Burger Express

Wally's Burger Express
8107 Mesa Dr, Austin, TX
(512) 345-7441

They are not off to a good start.  The first thing was trying to get the burger out from under the fries, and there was so much juice coming out of the burger that it burned me.  The meat patty is so hot that it burned my mouth.  It was blistering hot, in the way that I associate with a microwave oven.  I find it hard to believe that anything came off a cooking grill, got put into a burger and arrived at my table that hot.  The bottom bun is completely soggy.  The lettuce is mostly overly thick and chewy sections of the leaf, and because of the heat of the burger it was basically soggy before it reached me.  Minutes after arriving at my table, it is still very hot.  Everything about this burger points to the key word in the name being express, rather than burger. 

The taste of the burger is okay, but there is nothing here to rave about. The meat tastes like meat, but there is little or no spice on the burger.  The bun is a complete loss, basic plain white bun, tasteless, and it was soggy when it arrived and went downhill from there.  I finally pulled the lettuce, and again it was terribly hot, and the lettuce was a complete loss, adding nothing positive to the burger and going soggy before more than a bite or two could be taken from the burger.

The fries are okay.  They are very basic fries, hot, crispy, tasty and they seem to have pretty good legs. 

Nothing special on the drink front.  They have Diet Dr. Pepper, but not Coke Zero.

The restaurant is pretty common burger place, a step above McDonalds, but only one step.  Of course, the fly that hovered about through about half of my meal did not help.

And now to the last problem with Wally's Burger Express.  A half pound burger, with small fries and a small drink was over nine dollars.  That is pushing up into premium burger territory for something is no where near a premium burger.  I would add Wally's to my Not Again list, but they do make a good chili dog and I might be back for that.

A Disappointment of Onions

Is there anything more disappointing than biting into a sandwich and finding it full of onions?  I understand that many sandwiches, and most burgers come with onions by default.  It is one of the defining factors of my existence, that I have to special order things and tell them to....

....wait for it....

Hold the Onions!!!

But, three times recently, I have been annoyed to find that what I bought had been infested by a disappointment of onions.  Yes, I just coined the phrase.  You have a murder of crows, a pride of lions, a mischief of mice, and now, I am adding to the English language...

A Disappointment of Onions

Which, shall be defined as...

Enough onions to ruin whatever dish they are added to.

If I ruled the world, every menu would be required to include ONIONS in big red letters beside any dish that included onions.

When I can see the onions in the picture of the item, or can reasonably assume that onions will be in the dish (you do not know how hard it is for me to put "reasonably" and "onions" in the same sentence), then I am careful to order them without the offending onions, but today's sandwich showed no outward sign of onions (and there was no big red ONIONS on the menu), and since it was a chicken sandwich rather than a burger, I gave no consideration to the possible presence of the evil onion.

Well, I think that this is my first onion rant, but I doubt it will be my last.  The last two onion offenses were both by browned onions, I am not sure I would call them caramelized, but I am betting that they do.  But, onions on a BBQ chicken sandwich?  That is simply not necessary, and it is not listed on the menu, nor does it show in the picture.  Unfortunately, it was a fast food restaurant and I had driven off before I discovered the onion pollution.

Well, at least I will remember next time.

Hunan North

Hunan North

9306 N Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX 78753

(512) 837-2700

I cannot think of a clever way to start this review, so I am just going to jump in. I ordered my usual Sesame Chicken. It was a little above average in price, being over $8 including tax. It it's even more above average when I discovered there was no eggroll included. I was rather surprised. The meal did include Hot and Sour Soup.

It smelled good as I carried out out to my car. The pieces of chicken were quite large, some thing else that was above average. I cannot say the same for the portion, which was adequate. There was broccoli mixed in with the chicken and an adequate amount of sauce. The soup cup was filed right to the top.  The rice was fried and their was a double scoop, once again above average.

Unfortunately, the taste was not above average. The chicken was fatty and often chewy. The sauce was a little on the sweet side, and worse had very little flavor depth behind the sweet. It was a bit bland. The rice was much worse, since it was very bland. Fortunately there was enough sauce to flavor most of the rice.

Now any regular readers of this blog will know that I am more of a fan of Hot and Sour broth than I am of the soup. The first I tried it I was rather put off by the unidentifiable floaty bits in the soup. Much later I discovered that the worst looking stuff was the egg that is put in at the last moment.

Hunan North's Hot and Sour Soup was in keeping with the rest of the meal, large in portion and average or maybe just below average on taste.

Patty Melts and Sloppy Melts

Now, I am a big fan of patty melts, and I have been for a long time.  In fact, I have been a fan so long that I remember when patty melts did not come polluted with caramelized onions, and before people forgot that the proper cheese for a patty melt is swiss.
 

Patty Melt
 

Ingredients, per patty melt

• 1/4 lb ground beef
• 2 slices rye bread
• 2 slices swiss cheese (maybe more)

Form the patties so that they will fit the shape of your bread, season to taste, and then cook as you would cook any hamburger patty, then set aside to rest.
 

Butter one side of each slice of bread, and cover the other side with cheese (this is where you may need more than one slice of cheese, depending on the size and shape of your bread).  Place the burger patty between the slices of bread and grill the entire sandwich on both sides until golden brown.  Extra points for getting the cheese to melt down onto your pan so that it can fry into an extra bit of crispy goodness.
 

So, I made Patty Melts for my son and myself the other day, and then a couple of days later, I was trying to think of something to do with frozen ground beef and I came across the idea of Sloppy Melts.
 

I started by defrosting the beef in a pan.  As the outer layers soften, they can be scrapped away to speed up the process.  I then made the browned ground beef into sloppy joe meat by adding barbeque sauce, mustard and Worcestershire sauce, along with my usual burger spices, salt, pepper, garlic and onion...powdered onion, of course.
 

Then, I did roughly the same thing as above, except that we only had Colby cheese in the house, so I used that.  Rye bread, cheese, sloppy joe mix, cheese, rye bread.  It turned out pretty good.

First Try - Spaghetti Carbonara

So, I have decided to give a special title to something that I have been doing all along.  I like to experiment with food, and some of that is trying new recipes....well, almost.  When I try something new, I will title it as First Try.

I have seen Spaghetti Carbonara on several cooking shows recently and thought I would like to try making it.  I read several recipes before tonight's experiment.  Most of them were for more food than I wanted to eat.  Tonight, it was only me and my son, and we don't need a pound of spaghetti.  The other problem is that you get totally different ratios of ingredients. 

The basic ingredients of Spaghetti Carbonara are:

• Pasta
• Bacon or Pancetta
• Olive Oil
• Garlic
• Eggs
• Parmesan and other Cheeses

All but one of the recipes called for 1 pound of Spaghetti, and the lone man out called for 12 oz.  I decided on half a pound of pasta.  The problem is that the amounts of the other ingredients changed wildly.  One called for a pound of pasta and 8 eggs, while another called for only 2.  So, I decided to go with an amalgam of several recipes and it looked a little like this.

• 1/2 lb. Spaghetti
• 6 thick slices of bacon
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese

Now, I had to make a few substitutions because I was lazy and making this during a bit of a thunderstorm, so I was not going out to get fresh garlic, or fresh parmesan.

I fried the bacon in the olive oil, which looks rather a mess in the middle, as the bacon begins to render it's fat, but hasn't started crisping.  I also thought I might end up in a time crunch, as the timing seems to be pretty important.  Just after the bacon started to crisp up, I tossed in my garlic, which started browning pretty quickly.  I finally had to turn the bacon off while waiting for the pasta to cook.  I mixed the two eggs with the parmesan cheese and set that aside. 

Drain the pasta, toss it into the pan with the bacon and garlic and mix until all the pasta is coated.  Then stir in the egg and cheese and mix until it no longer looks like raw egg.  The pasta should be hot enough to cook the eggs, so you cannot let it sit after draining. 

A minute before pulling my pasta off the fire, I turned the bacon and garlic back on so that it would be hot. 

It came out really nice, though I think it could do with a bit more garlic, but I am thinking that fresh garlic will make the difference.

This is not really all that hard, and it is delicious.

Great Austin Burger Hunt - Elevation Burger

Elevation Burger
2525 Anderson Ln #1-200
Austin, TX 78757(512) 419-7444

 

I do not mind paying more for a burger that tastes better, but I really have to wonder about a place that advertises something you cannot taste. That is my first reaction to Elevation Burger...but, let's go back and start at the beginning.

 

I ordered the Elevation Burger, with two slices of cheddar, fries and a regular drink.  The total was over $11.  For a place that is not a sit down restaurant, that is definitely a premium burger price. They do not ask how you want your burger and it was delivered so quickly that I can only assume that they pre-cook their patties.  I do not  believe that it is possible to cook beef, even unfrozen, all the way through in the amount of time that passed before my burger was on my table.  It arrives on a metal baking tray, the kind that is used for baking sheet cakes, or I believe more properly, half-sheet cakes. I was shocked to see that the burger was quite small.  For $6, with cheese, and without fries included, I expect more.

 

The burger comes in a little half bag, and then wrapped in waxed paper.  I took it out of the bag, which was a mistake and took a bite, and ended up with grease on my shirt, and all over my table.  Yes, you could say that the burger is juicy.  You could also say that it was greasy.  I ordered it with lettuce, which was wilted and disgusting after about 5 seconds.  I removed it. The burger is tasty, but not tasty enough to warrant that price.  The burger is go greasy, that as the grease drained off into the wrapper, it looked like it took about half my cheese with it.

 

The fries were on a par with Mighty Fine, and 5 Guys.  Greasy, but tasty.  One thing to note, while their order of fries is not as large as the one at 5 Guys, it is still quite large and can easily be shared by two, or maybe even three, unless you really like fries.

 

I find the idea of a Health Food Burger Shop to be a bit of an oxymoron, but that is what Elevation Burger is trying to be.  Organic, Grass-Fed, Free-Range Beef, at least that is what their sign says.  Fries cooked in "heart healthy" olive oil.  Fries may be...healthier...when cooked in Olive Oil, but somehow I doubt that makes them "healthy."   And, while organic grass-fed beef may be healthier, I do not see that making a burger a healthy choice.  To me, what they are selling is the antithesis of a great burger.  Now, that would not matter one bit to me, if they delivered a great burger, but they don't.  It is a good burger, but not great.

 

One interesting side note.  Some time back, I reviewed Terra Burger.  The location that I tried is now an Elevation Burger.  They both sold organic beef burgers, but the burgers could not be more different.  The Terra Burger was dry, and the Elevation Burger has gone too far off the opposite end of the scale.

Unless Organic, Grass-Fed, Free-Range beef is the deciding factor in your burger choice, you can do better than Elevation Burger...and for a less.

Great Austin Burger Hunt - EZ's

EZ's Brick Oven Grill
3918 N. Lamar 
Austin, TX 78756 

(512) 302-1800 

 

I have driven by EZ's dozens...heck, possibly hundreds of times over the last few years and never stopped in.  My wife and I fixed that situation a few nights ago.

 

The restaurant on Lamar is done up in a sort of retro 50s style.  It reminds me of Mighty Fine, but that is the 50s as done by a big national corporation.  EZ's is a smaller chain, with only 5 stores and they have done a better job with their retro style.

 

We both ordered Bacon Cheddar Burgers.  I ordered the Curly Fries and my wife ordered the Sweet Potato Fries. The problem is that I ordered a soda, and when I made my way to get my drink and found that they are a Pepsi house, which is a big negative for me.  Worse, they had no Diet Dr. Pepper.  I ended up having to drink Diet Mt. Dew, and that is nasty.  This is definitely a case of a restaurant not caring about their customers, especially those who want or need to have beverages without sugar.

 

Our food arrived quickly, and the burger was pretty good.  It would probably make my top ten.  It comes on a wheat bun, and that is without them asking me, so I have to assume that is the regular bun.  The meat was well cooked, and the bacon was crispy, which is a big plus.  The only negative, it was a little bit heavy on the mustard

 

The sweet potato fries were very crispy, but the chipotle sauce that came with them had crusted over.  It tasted okay, but the crust made it less than appetizing.  Now, when it comes to the curly fries...well, it is going to take a bit of explaining. 

 

When you put the words "curly fries" on the menu, it carries a certain connotation that goes beyond the shape of the potatoes.  Curly fries are seasoned fries, but not at EZ's.  Also, they were not terribly crisp.  They were alright, but not great.

 

Because of the beverage situation, I will not be putting EZ's on my list of places to try again.  The burger is not good enough to make up for having nothing to drink.  After seeing a few of their pizzas, I may be tempted to brave the lack of drinks to try the pizza.

New Mandarin Chinese Restaurant

New Mandarin

212 E. Oltorf St.

Austin, TX 78704-5531

 

Today's review is on carry out food, which is not new, but this time someone else went out to bring it back, so I got it probably 15 or more minutes after it was prepared.
 

Now, if you remember my review of Rice Bowl Cafe, you may remember that I was looking for another restaurant in the same area of town.  Well, that was Mandarin Chinese and I think they may be connected with the north Austin Mandarin that went out of business about two years ago.  I say this because the New Mandarin website is using exactly the same template as the site for the out-of-business Mandarin website.  Fortunately, the south Austin Mandarin, or New Mandarin is still going strong.
 

I ordered my usual.  Sesame Chicken, Hot and Sour Soup, Fried Rice and it came with an eggroll.
 

The Hot and Sour Soup is quite peppery, and quite good.  Now, I am a fan of Hot and Sour Soup, but mostly I am fan of Hot and Sour Broth.  I do not mind the egg, but the mushrooms, tofu and other ingredients are not something I care for.  I tend to skim off the broth and leave the rest.  Well, when I got to the bottom of the bowl, I found that there wasn't much left, so I give them an extra point for giving me lots of broth.
 

The Eggroll was in the box with the rice and chicken, so it is a bit soggy, though it does retain some of it's crunch.  Tasty enough, considering that I did not have to move from my desk to enjoy it.
 

The sauce is quite dark, and a bit less sweet than average, but still good. The chicken is cut into smallish pieces and mostly cooked properly.  As I am eating it, I hit occasional pieces that are a little overdone and chewy, but mostly the chicken is done correctly.  The pieces are well coated, but there is not an abundance of sauce.
 

In an unusual but welcome surprise, there are no vegetables or onions in the fried rice.  It's a bit bland, but a little soy sauce takes care of that.  I wish there were more of the sesame chicken sauce to mix with the fried rice.
 

I managed to miss New Mandarin in my own searches for Chinese restaurants, but I will be happy to give them another try.

Great Austin Burger Hunt - Burger Tex

Burger Tex
5420 Airport Blvd
Austin, TX  87851
(512) 453-8772

 

I ordered the #3 with Swiss Cheese. That is a half pound burger with fries and a drink.  I was prepared to be disappointed when I saw that they serve Pepsi, but then I saw that they have Diet Dr. Pepper so it is okay.  The building on Airport is really old and when you walk in it looks like an old Barbeque joint, with unfinished wood floors, or at least it looks like they have not been refinished in my lifetime.  Now, don't take that as a negative, I didn't.  Small hole in the wall burger places are often very good, and though this one is not all that small it does have that hole in the wall feel to it.

 

The food came quickly and then I had to hit the salad bar for condiments and fixings.  That makes it feel a little like Fuddruckers, but again, that is not a negative.  The first bite of my burger had me very impressed.  I would have to judge it a little below Phil's Icehouse, but Burger Tex might be in second place. To the lady in front of me, the gentleman behind the counter was bragging that they make their own buns, and that may be true, but it is not much to brag about.  There is nothing wrong with them, but they just do not add much to the experience.  I do have to give them one plus point for having brown mustard.

 

I was tempted to ask if they double fry their fries, because they were excellent with a very crispy crust that I associate with double frying.  They were good from first to last and never got soggy and saggy.

 

Overall, I was very impressed.  The burger was tasty, and the fries were great.  Burger Tex goes on the short list of places that I will look forward to visiting again.

Cheese Sticks

When I was in France, almost 40 years ago, I remember buying these delicious cheese sticks. I remember them being crunchy and light and filled with Swiss cheese flavor. One of many fond memories of France.

Fast forward some 20 or so years, and I remember a bakery in Austin, Texas, Upper Crust Bakery, that had these delicious Cheese Sticks. They might have called them Cheese Twists, and they were nothing like the ones from France, except that they were crunchy and light, just not as light as the ones from France. Upper Crust Bakery used a Cheddar, at least I think that was it, and they were delicious. I used to stop in there when I passed and buy as many as I could afford, or as many as they had left.

One day, they stopped having them. Now, I wasn’t able to get there as often as I would like, and I have checked back several times, and nothing.

Now, as you might imagine, I have been looking for a way to get these delicious things that I remember, and not long ago, I watched the Hairy Bikers making something and it sparked my imagination. They made twists, with Parma ham and gorganzola, and you can find the recipe here.

I tried this once before using Philo Dough, but that turned out to be way too much work and while the result was edible, even approaching tasty, it was not really a success.

This time I tried Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry sheets and some Extra Sharp Cheddar. I unrolled the dough, spread on some butter and then sprinkled on cheese. I folded it, rolled it out, trying to get is to the original thickness and then repeated the process about four times, using about 4 oz of cheese.

Now, one problem is that I was doing this on Super Bowl Sunday, and my Niners were playing, so I was not in the mood to experiment with backing. I cut the dough into strips, attempted to twist them, and loaded up our baking stone at 350 degrees.

When I checked on them later, they had sort of fallen over and partially opened up, and the grease dripping from them was phenomenal. They did not look too appetizing, so I tried flipping them over. That got both sides crispy, and they were pretty good.

I have still got more than a little way to go before they match my memories, but I think I might be on the right trail. Next time, no butter, more cheese, and I am going to experiment with cooking, both on a pan, and on the baking stone. More news at 11.

Rice Bowl Café

So, actually I headed off to try to find Mandarin House Chinese Restaurant. Funny thing, I called the number and it was answered, but with a different name that I did not catch right away. I got my order placed, and headed off to the address on the website, and it isn't Mandarin House anymore. So, I called again and I wish I had paid attention to the name they said as they answered. I got directions and headed off to what I assumed was the new location, which was a couple miles up the road. But, when I arrived there, no Mandarin House. I called again, and this time I heard it, Rice Bowl Café, which I had seen where they said they were. Turns out that Mandarin House has been closed for two years. They need to shut down their website.

 

So, this review is about Rice Bowl Café, not Mandarin House.

 

Rice Bowl Café

11200 N. Lamar Blvd.

Austin, TX 78753

(512) 835-8888 (number on the banner on the end of the building)

(512) 837-6361 (the number on the Mandarin House website)

 

After the mix up over the restaurant and the location, I was amused, which would normally put me in a forgiving mood. I picked up my order and headed back to work, as I always do. Sesame Chicken, lunch portion, Fried Rice, Egg Roll and Hot and Sour Soup. And I would have been in a forgiving mood, until I paid the bill, which was over $9.00. That is a lot for a Sesame Chicken Lunch. Unfortunately, it got worse.

 

So, the first demerit comes for putting the egg roll in with the steamy rice and chicken. I did not wait all that long, but it was awful. The egg roll was completely limp, with no crunch to it. It was the worst egg roll I have ever eaten. Now some might argue that the restaurant cannot be responsible for the egg roll going limp in a to go order, but I disagree. All they need to do is drop the eggroll into a bag, say one just like the bag of friend won ton strips that came with the lunch and were not in the styrofoam container with the rice and chicken.

 

Now, there was one good thing about the eggroll. It wasn't loaded down with onions. As you can imagine, things loaded down with onions do not rate highly at Hold the Onions. There were onions in the sauce. There were onions in the Fried Rice. There were onions in the Hot and Sour Soup. I have never seen onions in at least two of those items. Now understand, I don't mean a few finely chopped onions, I mean massive slices of onion in massive quantities.

 
 

It got worse. The sauce was full of both onions and some sort of relatively small, but whole peppers. This made the sauce hotter than most I have tasted, but not by a lot. The real problem was that the sauce wasn't very sweet. Actually, thinking about this now, while writing this review, it was sweet....for barbeque sauce! Actually, it wasn't even very sweet for barbeque sauce, but you get the idea. It was savory, and not completely bad, once you separated it from the onions and peppers, but it wasn't very good. Also, the sauce was gloppy and unappetizing to look at, with a gelatinous consistency that spoke of too much cornstarch being used to thicken the sauce.

 

When you combine less than stellar sauce with overcooked chicken you get a fairly unpleasant combination. The chicken was chewy in a bad way, and over cooked or dried out until parts of it were stringy. Things are not looking good.

 

The Fried Rice was overloaded with onions, though onions in Fried Rice are fairly common. Once you separated the Rice from its onion prison, it wasn't too bad, but in a meal that is really suffering, it did not shine out either.

 

So, at last we come to the Hot and Sour Soup, which was also loaded with onions. Now, I generally only want the broth anyway, so I did not really suffer too badly from the onions in the soup, and finally, it seems like they got something right...well, almost. The soup was a little bland, though tasty, without the kick of spice that helps clean out the sinuses while eating a bowl of Hot and Sour Soup.
 

 

So, in conclusion, we have a limp as a rag eggroll, overcooked chicken in gloppy unappetizing sauce with a side of bland friend rice followed up by a mediocre soup, every last bit of buried in onions, as if that could save it, and the whole thing overpriced.
 

Needless to say, I will not be going back to Rice Bowl Café.

The Great Austin Burger Hunt - Moonies Burger House

Moonies Burger House
13450 Research Blvd.
Austin, TX 87850
512-257-9000

 

I had seen this place before, it is just across the street from Half Price Books at 183 and Anderson Mill. Other times I was not ready to stop for food, but finally, I decided to stop, after spending some time at the bookstore. In a first for the Great Austin Burger Hunt, I am trying sliders, because that was the special. They offer a variety of burgers, with a selection of cheeses, American, Cheddar, Swiss, and Pepper Jack. The sliders came with American cheese and grilled onions, which I asked them to leave off.

 

Now, let me ask a question. What is the use of placing a special order, if they ignore it? That's right, none. The special was for sliders with grilled onions, and obviously, as the proprietor here at Hold the Onions, I asked them to Hold the Onions. So, what did I get on my sliders...yes, you guessed it, onions, so big point against them.

The sliders come dry. Now, that might be okay, except that the first thing I thought when I bite into was...this is dry. The meat is dry, and that is not a good place to start a burger, and I say that with the admission that I generally like dry burgers. The tiny bit of american cheese is barely noticeable. The bun is soft, but not too soft. In fact this is a pretty good little slider roll. It probably deserves a better piece of meat. In fact, the roll is the best part of this slider. Now, I do not want anyone to think that the meat was bad. It was a bit over cooked, but it was tasty and had a nice char on it. It isn't bad, it just isn't great and they are changing a good bit for this burger. I expect more at this price.

The fries are good. There are breaded and quite crispy. They are no spiced, but they are excellent with catsup. They have good legs, as they were still crispy, even when they were cold.

Their only diet drink was Diet Coke, which I count as a point against them.

It looks like a sports bar, but none of the TVs were on when I was there in the afternoon.

 

I cannot really say what the regular size buns are like, but the ones I saw go past my table certainly looked like the ones on my sliders and I think that is a good thing. The sliders are on the high side of average, with an extra point for the nice buns. I won't skip Phil's Icehouse for Moonies, but I wouldn't mind coming again.

Tacos

Tacos seemed to have changed over the last few years.  Now, we sometimes hear about "authentic" tacos, but I am not even sure what that means. 

 

When I was a kid, my mom made tacos.  Now, you need to understand that my mother was born and raised in Utah.  Only many years later, not too long before I was born did she move to California, where she may actually have encountered  tacos.  The late 1940s in Chicago does not seem a likely place to encounter tacos, though I could be wrong.  So, what she did was fry corn tortillas in a pan, and then fold them part way through cooking.  There was ground beef, grated cheese, cheddar, and shredded lettuce.  No taco sauce, picante sauce, salsa or hot sauce, just catsup.  I loved them, because she would prepare everything and then we would bring it downstairs and eat in front of the TV.  Just about the only time that ever happened.

 

From that introduction, I moved on to Taco Bell, which was very big in California when I was High School.  Back then, it was a cheap and fun place for my friends and I to eat.  Usually before heading off to a movie, or just an evening of cruising 4th Street in San Rafael.  By the way, that is where the cruising scenes in American Graffitti were filmed.  Now, on occasion, when we had a bit more money, my friends and I would hit a real Mexican restaurant, and I suppose I might have eaten tacos there, but I do not remember it, as I usually preferred the Enchilada plate.  There was also Jack in the Box, where the tacos were deep fried and the seasoned meat was already in the shell when they went in to the frier.  I ate my share of those, and also cooked my share of those, as Jack in the Box was my first job.

 

Now, I often fix my own tacos, as I did the other night.  Now, we start with both corn and flour tortillas, which are warmed, but not cooked...again.  Now, funny thing, but we have a very nice ceramic tortilla warmer, but we do not use it.  At least, we have never figured out a good way to warm the tortillas IN the tortilla warmer.  Even Google could not help me there.  All Google wanted to do was sell me a tortilla warmer.  Now, we just wrap the tortillas in foil and toss them in the toaster oven.

 

So, to fill the tortilla warmers, we have the usual, at least to me, ground beef, cheese and lettuce.  Now, the "authentic" tacos do not seem to have the same ingredients, but I do not really care.  These are my tacos, and I like them.  For years I would fix tacos without seasoning the meat, beyond salt, pepper and a little garlic.  My wife thought they were bland, so I started adding a bit more spice, usually cayenne, chili powder, or cajun seasoning, but it still started off as plain old ground beef.  My wife even tried making her own taco mix, but I never really liked it, or any of the package mixes.  I prefer the beef relatively unspiced, and I add the spice in the form of taco sauce or Pace Picante.  We buy Colby Longhorn at HEB and sometimes add Sour Cream and refried beans.  Another addition suggested by my wife.

 

Simple, and relatively cheap.

Meatballs and Franken-sauce

I've been experimenting again.  Actually, it is one of my favorite things to do in cooking.  Sometimes, I like to actually use a recipe and sometimes I like to use a recipe as inspiration.  Usually what I create ends up edible, occasionally tasty.

I bought some Hot Italian Sausage and my first use was in a pot of chili.  It came out good.  So, I had the second half of the rough ground chili beef and some additional sausages.  I added some spices, an egg and some bread crumbs.  This recipe was my inspiration

Swedish Meatballs

Now, I admit that I did not follow this recipe exactly.  Well, okay if you must know, I did not really follow it at all, but I did use it for inspiration.  I added garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, cilantro...yes, I was going for a slightly Mexican flavor... and then I added a bit of paprika and some nutmeg, because that was in Alton's recipe.  I fried them off and then put them in a glass dish in my toaster oven to stay warm and finishing cooking.

So, then I started on my sauce, the Franken-sauce.  I drained off as much of the fat from the pan as I could, after frying the meatballs and deglazed with a cup of water.  I transferred that to a sauce pan and added a beef bouillon cube.  After that started to dissolve I decided I needed a little more water, and I also added a tablespoon of brown gravy mix.  Yes, there are a number of odd things in my pantry, why do you ask?  Then, I added some milk, and then a bit more milk, and then a bit more.  Finally, I simmered that until my rice was done, trying to reduce it and hoping it would thicken a bit.  The sauce never really did thicken very well.  I tasted it and I was not sure if I thought it was a real success, so I added a bit more onion powder to it.

So, finally it was ready to serve, rice, with meatballs and a somewhat thin sauce.  It was in conjunction with the meatballs that the sauce really came to life.  The meatballs were okay by themselves.  The sauce was okay, alone, but together they were great.  I won't say that it was better than the sum of its parts, but at least the two added up to more than either alone.

So, there is the story of a successful dinner experiment.

Shu Shu's Asian Cuisine

Shu-Shu's

8303 Burnet Rd. Suite 1
Austin, TX 78757
512.291.3002

I was actually heading to a different Chinese restaurant on Burnet Road, but I think that one has closed and about a block up the street I saw Shu-Shu's, which did not snow up on any of my searches. That is not really a good sign for a restaurant that appeared to be quite new. But, it looked very clean if a little plain on the inside, so I grabbed a menu.

 

Now, the first thing to know that Shu-Shu's is a new style oriental restaurant, which from what I can tell means one run by Americans, and probably big business Americans rather than good cook Americans. Now, how can I tell? Because you do order dishes, you order in stages.

 

Stage One-

• Beef
• Chicken
• Veg/Tofu (that is how it is listed on their menu)
• Shrimp

Stage Two-

• Noodles and Rice (four choices)
• Shu Shu's Specialties (13 choices, but wait, there is more)

The point here is that for most things, you choose your protein (again, their word) and then choose the sauce you want with it. So, I was able to find my usual Sesame Chicken, but I had to order it as Chicken Sesame.

 

The more is that there a few items under Shu-Shu's Specialties that specify the protein, like Chicken Teriyaki and Ahi Tuna. I guess they wouldn't want anyone ordering Sesame Ahi Tuna or Teriyaki Beef, that would just be crazy.

 

Now, before going on, I should note that I was looking at the Lunch Menu on the back of the menu, and one thing stood out. It did not actually say what comes with the lunch, except to say that it come with eggroll OR soup. Please note that OR, because it is important. Getting both eggroll and soup requires an extra $1.00. Now, that would not be too bad, except that the Chicken lunch is $6.75, which is at least 50 cents more than most, and almost a dollar more than some, and this is the first place where I had to pay extra to get both egg roll and soup. Not really a good plan to charge extra for what others include.

 

But wait, there's more. I was offered the choice of rice, white, brown or fried and I chose fried, which added another dollar to the total. I have never been charged more for fried rice. Either it is offered at no extra cost, or it isn't offered as part of the meal.

 

So, let me make sure you understand.

 

Chicken Lunch $6.75 (which is on the high side)

Egg Roll $1.00

Fried Rice $1.00

_________________________

Total $8.75

 

Make that $9.47 with tax for something that usually costs two dollars less.

 

Okay, so they are proud of their food. I can deal with that. I was expecting $7.75 plus tax, so when it came out at another dollar higher I questioned it and the only answer I was given was that fried rice was extra. When I pointed out that the menu does not say that, the girl at the counter rather rudely reached into the tip jar and handed me a dollar. I was rather shocked. Now, it turned out that the extra charge for fried rice is on the inside of the menu with the dinner prices, and if she had shown me that, I would merely have suggested that it should be added to the lunch menu on the back to avoid confusion.

 

So, Shu-Shu's is not doing well on my count. Strike One - high prices. Strike Two - rude counter staff (there are no waiters). But, possibly the third, the food itself, will make up for everything else. It isn't overpriced, if it is better than the others, right?

 

So, I have my usual order, Sesame Chicken, Fried Rice, Egg Roll, and Hot and Sour Soup. Now, as often happens when I am getting Chinese for lunch, I started eating while driving back to work, so the Sesame Chicken and Egg Roll got tasted first, and the Soup brings up the rear.

 

The Chicken was tender and well cooked, and the sauce was sweet, but also the tiniest bit bland. There was no real zing to it. It was hot and clearly fresh, so not bad. Unfortunately, the Fried Rice was largely the same. When the first bite I took had several large onion bits in it, I was prepared to say it had too much onion, and as you can imagine on the blog Hold the Onions that does not go over well. However, it seems like I got about half the big onion bits in that first bite, so I have to give them a pass on that. But, remember I started with unfortunately? The fried rice was bland.

 

Both the rice and the chicken were better with liberal splashings of Soy Sauce, but "Soy Sauce made it better" is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

 

The Egg Roll was made with the lighter type wrapper and it was very crispy. It was very nice and crunchy, but the blandness persisted. Soy Sauce would have made it better.

 

Last, I come to the Hot and Sour Soup, which, unlike some of those I have tried recently, was actually Hot, and I do not mean the temperature (which was fine). By the bottom of the bowl, my sinuses had cleared and my lips were burning. I was impressed.

Now, when I pay more for food, I expect one of two things, big portions, or better food. Now, from what I have written above, you will see that I did not get better food. It was okay, but certainly nothing to justify $2 more. So, what about the portions? They were small. There was only about half the chicken I would expect with just about the same amount of rice. There was a healthy serving of Broccoli, but I do not buy Sesame Chicken for broccoli. The Egg Roll was small, though I have noticed lately that egg rolls are getting smaller everywhere. The Hot and Sour Soup was exactly the same amount I get at other places, and is probably one of the top three that I have tried.

 

So, I can give a resounding thumbs up to the Hot and Sour Soup, but that puts Shu-Shu's on the same level as Panda Express. For everything else that I want from Chinese Food, I can get much better for less money from at least three other places in town.

Give Shu-Shu's a miss and try somewhere else.