This Mexican restaurant boasts fame from its cuisine alongside atmosphere. Cascadas has both indoor and outdoor dining, a tequila bar, landscaping complete with a waterfall. I had dinner here on a Friday night, well after dark. We sat outside, much to my astonishment, wasn’t that bad. The weather was a little chilly, but I had my jacket.

We sat right in front of the mini-waterfall, and it even had a sign that says, ‘do not swim’. There are palm trees in the back which really tries to bring you away from the fact that the busy street of Westheimer is a 5 feet away. The outdoor dining area supplies diners with iron patio chairs and table… I’m not too fond of sitting on those thing to begin with, I think they really should of used nicer setting for outside. I guess, thank goodness it wasn’t plastic lawn furniture. Besides that it was dark, but they had waterfall lighting up near the ‘wet’ area. Some like the dark mood setting… but for me, again, I love bright fluorescent lighting. Makes me able to tell if a place is clean or what not… Dark places are usually a hit or miss with me.

So we grubbed on some chips and salsa and margarita. I’m not a big margarita drinker so I can’t really say if they serve good ones here, but it was very sugary sweet.

The appetizers are skipped in hopes of, once again, a light dinner (Friday night people! You know what that means). I ordered the Carne Asada, mesquite grilled beef tenderloin cooked to perfection Mexican style. I was just going for meat that day and was very surprised. It was served on a hot plate and it came in two pieces, perhaps 12 oz together. One was plenty for me that night, I ended up taking the other piece home. Underneath the tenderloins we have squash, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes. The ‘Mexican style’ of this dish is a special sauce. I can be compared to the Chinese black pepper sauce, very peppery, but delicious. The tenderloins themselves were extremely tender. I am not sure what technique or spice they used, but I desperately NEED to have it! Even though I ordered my steak medium, it came out medium rare. But I ate it anyway because it was so tender. The tenderloin cut does not have a lot of fat distribution, so I wonder if they beat this piece of meat for the better part of the day…

The Carne Asada comes with rice, beans, pico de gallo, guacamole and tortilla. I didn’t get a chance to try the tortilla to tell you all if it is the good homemade kind, but I am sure it will be better than store bought at least. Not really crazy about the rice, actually it had a weird flavor… I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I didn’t like it. Everything else was the same as anywhere else.

This place has potential to be a great place for relaxing outside, next to a man made waterfall that is, sipping on margaritas… all afternoon. If you go, you definitely must try the Carne Asada, very very tender and not shabby for $16 at dinner. I, however, must go back a second time for experimental purposes. I need to try it again to make sure that it is consistent, yes.

So, like always I am behind… this should be dated 2/11/07. Anyhow, Texas Roadhouse (big chain) is much like the other Roadhouses with offerings of steak and bbq and country food, mmm. As you enter the restaurant you will know how Texan the place actually is by the placement of peanut shells all over the floor and a huge barrel of roasted peanuts greeting customers at the door and and decor of course. Yes, the peanuts were delish, I probably ate a whole bag full waiting for seats. It was a Sunday around noon, there were lots of families (probably off from Church), the wait was around 20mins.

One cool thing is that the hostess showing us to our seats carries a basket of soft rolls to the seat with us. It’s so convient, we can eat right when we sit down, and also, a small tin bucket of peanuts also awaits us at the table. The service here is quite like no other… it was awesome, the attention our server gave us was amazing… we must of had 4 baskets of rolls brought to us one after the other. The great part about the rolls is that they come with a sweet whipped butter, probably consisting of cinnamon and brown sugar, it was different and enjoyable.

Now… for my lunch I ordered the country fried sirlion steak (because I am still on the CFS obsession right now, trying to find the best in town) with sides of Texas house chili and steamed veggies (~$10). The chili was pretty good and hot on a cold day. The cfs was different because it was sirlion they used and not the usual cubed steak, I could tell the difference. The meat was thicker and better tasting. But, I don’t think their batter lives up to some others. It was just okay though, not crunchy, and very very oily. I had to use my napkin to dab off excess oil because I felt like it was swimming in it. The white gravy was very very thick and I prefer something in the middle. The steamed veggies, like the post before, was probably marinated in butter oil before steaming… tsk tsk.

My friends had ribs, ribs, and some steak. The ribs were pretty dang good, I think I would come here next time for the ribs. It has the usual thick red bbq sauce and fall of the bone pork meat…. kinda like Tony Romas (yum!). The steak was okay, cannot compare to TLC. Loaded baked potatoes are always welcoming…

All in all, the food was decent, but the service was way above par. I think if I was craving ribs, I would definitely go back, otherwise, maybe not so much.

Ah… Texas Land and Cattle… this is not the first time I ate at the L and C, but quite a few times. I remember that this was always the place to go in Austin when my parents would visit me back in college. TLC I believe serves one of the best steaks in Texas for the given price. Prices of steak range between $8-20, so its not too tight on the wallet. Closer on the $20 end you would have combos, like steak and shrimp, or steak and lobster, stuff like that.

We began the night with the all famous Texan steakhouse appetizer, Shoe string onion (fried onion strands). I like the awesome blossom (Outback) better, because the stringed onion is so thin, all the taste you get is batter and oil. I like it when they cut up the onion into bigger slices.

My favorite cut of beef is the ribeye, seriously, I think one must be trying hard to actually mess up a well graded ribeye. I like this particular cut for its marbled (fat distribution) qualities as well as the tender meat. BUT… I did not have one on that particular night (2/9/07). I instead chose the smoked sirlion (guilt issues)… their sirlions are pretty damn good too.

This is the 8oz. regular smoked sirlion with broccoli. I had the Chicken tortilla soup before this, but forgot to take a picture… it was actually dang good too! Next time will most likely opt for soup rather than salad. Instead of the regular smoked sirlion, I think you can also order the prime sirlion for more money… I just wanted regular grade steak today. Look at that pink center! It was delish and smokey and tender, nothing really to complain about. And and and… I didn’t even get a chance to use A1, which I love using on my steaks, the flavor is enough. I think it has pepper and salt crusting on the sides. The only thing I don’t quite like, in this restaurant and all restaurants, is the use of butter all over my veggies. When they say steamed, they meant steamed with butter. And most of the time if you request no butter, they say that the veggies are already seasoned that way.

My friends shared a 16oz ribeye (wimps… I would eat 16 by myself) with sauteed mushrooms. I didn’t taste it, but I know what it tastes like and I bet it was pretty good. One raved about the ribeye, the other tried my sirlion and liked it more… either way, I don’t think you can go wrong at TLC. Unless… you order your steaks well done… ewww.