Masraff’s

1025 S. Post Oak Lane, 77056.

It’s fine dining time! It took me a while to decide and then finally pick and go to this restaurant. First, it is not well known because it has no ties to a chain of any sort… it is a one of a kind place in Houston. But, there are plenty of reviews online for this restaurant. Finding this restaurant deemed a little tricky, I was not aware that S. Post Oak and N. Post Oak was in fact parallel streets…

Masraff’s is a casually elegant upscale restaurant with a Euro-American dining fare as well as ambiance. The building itself looked like a historical cottage, but very nicely decorated and spacious inside. Went to eat here on a Tuesday night, thinking that the restaurant would be rather empty… but there seemed to be a big event/convention gathering going on with lots of men in business suits.

The dinner started with complimentary bread, butter, and olives! I love olives and the ones that they served were top-notch and fresh.

For appetizer, the waiter helped us decide on a lobster dish. The lobster roll consists of lobster, roma tomatoes, cilantro and asparagus mousse wrapped in a roll then fried. It was served on top of D’Anjou pear puree and tomato beurre blanc sauce. The pear puree made this dish rather sweet. It was okay, but different. There was other things on the menu that I would have rather tried like foie gras and roasted quail.

For my main entree, I chose the caramelized diver sea scallops with Italian soft polenta topped with white truffle oil. You will see that there is a trend with me and sea scallops lately… the scallops were seared just right and they cut softly through. Now, polenta… I love this stuff, fried, cooked, whatever. The polenta was cooked in a white truffle oil and I can definitely taste the creaminess that is the two combined. It tasted like an extravagant gruel to me.

The other dish was the pan seared Chilean sea bass with creamy shrimp and leek orzo pasta, tomato confit, and saffron sauce. I got a little taste of it, the sea bass was fork tender and the cream/confit/saffron sauce was delicious. The orzo pasta looked pretty cool, definite not the usual bore.

For dessert we shared the bittersweet chocolate fondant, crème Anglaise, and vanilla bean ice cream dish. It was essentially melted chocolate inside a hollow cake. Once you cut in, the warm chocolate oozes out at you. Not too heavy or filling. They also offer a bunch of soufflés on the menu.

The only grip that I have with this restaurant was our waiter. I mean, he was polite, but he needed to pick up his service. Be more tentative to filling glasses and asking if things were to our satisfaction. Also, he had an accent, not going to try to figure out from where… but the accent got in the way of him describing dishes to us. I don’t care how authentic or sexy an accent can appear at upscale restaurants; you still have to make sure your patrons understand you. I had to ask him to repeat himself several times and in the end, I just said forget it. But other than that, this is definitely a recommended date, anniversary, birthday place on my list. Dinner entrees range from $20-$35.

Hyde Park Bar and Grill

4206 Duval St., 78751.

Hyde Park Bar and Grill has been a well-known quaint establishment in Austin, Texas since 1982. It is a great place to go on a Sunday because they offer brunch service and ehhmm, a few drinks on the menu too. As I walked in, I noticed right away the bar area in the dead front center of the restaurant, or house as I would call it. They were serving mimosas and bloody Mary’s all morning.

Still a little groggy from the night before and waiting on a friend, we order a half order of their famous fries. Their fries are battered dipped then fried. The batter reminds me faintly of another restaurants calamari batter… buttermilk and seasoned batter. Any how, they are famous and they sure were good. They came with the special Hyde Park sauce which is a mayonnaise mixture. We were afraid that the half order would be too much, but as we started talking, the fries disappeared almost instantaneously.

I’m not a big fan of breakfast food, so I stayed away from the brunch menu… and went straight to the entrees. It was a close battle, whenever I see CFS (chicken fried steak) on the menu, I get sidetracked… No, I told myself I should try to eat a healthier meal for lunch because a big dinner awaits. Healthier meal does not necessarily mean healthy, just healthier. I ordered the steamed vegetable plate which is an anyway-you-like-it combination of 4 of their side dishes. On mines was the macaroni and cheese, cilantro Basmati rice, corn and cheese tamales, and steamed broccoli with lemon pesto butter on the side $8.95, not bad. The mac and cheese was the more runny kind, not the grainy type… pretty good. One can’t really screw rice up… or steamed broccoli… The corn and cheese tamales however couldn’t leave their wrapper home. As soon and I opened the up, they started either crumbling apart or stayed stuck to the leaves. The flavor was okay, but the mixture of the rice and tamale was great. One of the things I have to give props on is that I could tell that they used very fresh ingredients for each dish.

My friend had the same steamed vegetable plate as I.  The same macaroni and cheese, but with fresh steamed green beans and roasted red potatoes.  I think she also got the rice pilaf.

Then there was burgers… the Texas Raised Kobe Beef Burger $7.95… which I totally forgot to ask how it was… It looked pretty scrumptious, but Texas Raised Kobe? I have yet to try… must put that on the to do list!

With beef, comes turkey! The ground turkey patty reminds me of Boca, just lighter in color… but I bet it tasted a lot better than Boca burgers. $5.95.

This is one of those places that makes Austin unique. Small eatery, small dives, neighborhood setting. If I lived in Austin, I would definitely go back on Sundays to just chill with friends, eat lots of battered fries, and wash away my hangover with a big tall Screwdriver.

Rudy’s BBQ

11570 Research Blvd., 78759.

Texas is known for BBQ, and Rudy’s BBQ is a well-known chain in Austin. Went there on a Saturday night, a good/bad meal choice (take your pick) right before a night out on town. I had some BBQ a few days early and was still craving it, so we went to Rudy’s.

For the table of 4, we ordered a lot of food. I would have eaten more, had I not been conscious on the fact that I still have to go out that night, calories are all just a figment of my imagination, and big protruding bellies look good on no one expect the preggies. We ordered 1.5 lbs of moist briskets, 1 slab baby back ribs, 2 links of jalapeño sausage, bread, cream corn, coleslaw, and mustard potato salad all nicely placed on our parchment paper dinnerware. Don’t forget to add condiments! I like to load up my BBQ with lots of onions and pickles.

The briskets were the right level of moistness, which means, a good distribution of fat. I like them fatty! But, it was too too salty. The whole outer crust was nothing but a sodium coating. The sausages were alright, but I had brisket in mind to care too much for that. The baby back ribs were decent, but again, too salty. Always love potato salad, the cream corn was something new for me, never ate it with BBQ before.

Rudy’s BBQ is average in Texas. I’ll eat here if I’m craving bbq, but if I want good bbq, I probably would go somewhere else. Another downside is that they don’t offer combo platters, you have to order everything separately… that sucks.

Mandola’s Market

4700 West Guadalupe #12, 78751.

Mandola’s Market is located in The Triangle (Guadalupe & Lamar), Austin’s new posh center. When you walk inside, it is more like a store rather than a restaurant. There are Italian food items to the right and a dessert booth, decked out with gelato, to the left. Farther down, you start seeing tables, it resembles a food court in the middle of a store. They call themselves ‘an authentic Italian grocery, with fine, hard-to-find Italian imports’.

The line was long on a Friday night, mostly dabbed with the elderly and family. I went with three of my friends because I wanted to try something new, and new I did try. I ordered the gnocchi al sugo, potato dumplings with meat sugo and fresh mozzarella. I’ve always wanted to try the gnocchi, but never got the chance because at an Italian restaurant I’m usually blinded by linguine. Gnocchi was soft and semi-chewy to texture. Kind of like mochi or gelatin thats been sitting for a while in liquid and it gets softer, more dough-like. It was good, the meat sugo, which is a long simmered meat sauce, was okay. I never really did care too much for tomato sauce. The fresh mozzarella was the best! Mmm… I love cheese.

My friends had the spaghetti and Italian sausage, spaghetti and meatballs respectively. I only tried the Italian sausage… as far as sausage goes, it tasted great too. I don’t think you can really mess up sausage, but I certainly love Italian spiced sausage.

My other friend made her own medium pizza. The toppings included fresh arugula, basil, and mushroom. I didn’t taste this either, but I bet it was delicious and very much like rabbit food… kidding.

After that, we had some dessert. Gelato was on order because, c’mon, they had a gelato booth! I got the amaretto flavor one and the other gelato flavor was spkasoiotjlta… um… yeah, forgot what it was. Then there was the inevitable fruit tart.

The meal was simple, homey, and personal… a good café hot spot for relaxing and a good read. I can see it being a yuppie-ish hot spot for lunch though.