Dining Out
The Best Food In Austin
Beyond the Mexican food and barbecue are restaurants with style and tradition that can hold their own with the best in the state.
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The latest additions at the Old Vienna are a semicircular pebble driveway (for carriages?) and a hideous olive drab waterproof canopy. Nobody questions the principle that luxurious decor can make a meal more pleasant, but it seems a shame to spend money on this sort of gaudy excess when the food and wine are not yet what they ought to be. There is hope, however. A new chef was scheduled to arrive straight from Vienna sometime in January; if he is able to assert his authority in the kitchen, Old Vienna may yet deliver what it promises.
MarCo's is another restaurant with old Austin ties, albeit quite different from Green Pastures. Opened in 1973 by Mary Kaltman, an associate of the late President Lyndon Johnson and former manager of the Driskill Hotel dining room, it got off to a roaring start but has lately begun to show definite signs of slipping. The original chef was recruited from Old Warsaw but left before Christmas to join the Polonaise. Such a departure can change a restaurant overnight, and it seems to have had an adverse effect on MarCo's.
In no other major Austin restaurant (except possibly the Inn at Brushy Creek) is there such a wide variation in the quality of individual dishes. On our recent visit, the highly-recommended supreme of chicken with artichokes and fresh mushrooms was brilliant in concept but flawed in execution: the sauce was greasy, the chicken bordered on medium-rare, but it was still clearly a dish that began as a fine idea. The accompanying frozen mango salad was not only a perfect companion to the entree, it was superb in its own right. Coquille San Francisco (crabmeat and sole with avocado) was excellent. Chicken Livers Parisienne, on the other hand, was disastrous. Described on the menu as "an inspired medley of sauteed chicken livers, onion, red peppers and sour cream," it actually consisted of mercilessly overcooked livers, no onions, pimentos instead of peppers, and a teaspoon of sour cream on top. The taste was downright unpleasant.
Onion soup was far better than the Polonaise's, with particularly good grated cheese. Strips of store-bought (Mrs. Baird's?) bread, flavored with butter and garlic, did not suffice as the appetizer they were intended to be. Key lime pie was easily the best of the desserts, but the bread pudding and chocolate mousse were also good.
MarCo's (the peculiar name is an abbreviation of "the Mary Company") is not a serious contender in wines. There are no distinguished bottles—just one Bordeaux, one Burgundy, and so forth, apparently made available simply to sate your thirst for the grape and not to impress anyone. Prices are moderately high but not prohibitive.
Faced with an almost unmanageably dull building near a freeway intersection, Ms. Kaltman has done the best she could with the cavernous dining room. The lobby has some welcome touches; there is an 1896 Marshall Field catalog to read while you wait, and in December one wall was lined with intriguing pictures by fourth-graders interpreting the Mona Lisa and other classics.
The service is friendly, relaxed, and unpretentious. These are nice folks.
The AlpenHof near Lake Travis is one of the best German restaurants in Texas. It is also the only fine restaurant in the Austin area which serves good wine at reasonable prices, and that fact alone should make it worth a visit.
For those who expect a brawling, beer-hall atmosphere (or even a smoky Rathskeller), the AlpenHof's intimate dining room comes as a surprise. The warm decor, candles, red tablecloths, and a crackling fire in winter are reminders that the place is aptly named: it is the image of an Alpine lodge.
Affable Bob Lowe, the white-bearded manager, moved here from Patti's in Houston. A connoisseur of German wines, he had carefully selected 20 or so different estate bottlings from the Rhine and Moselle, along with a handful of French reds, and put them up for sale at prices that do not exploit the customer.
The food is straightforwardly German. Sauerbraten was a little dry, conservatively seasoned, but hearty and satisfying. Rouladen (rolled beef) was nicely done but might pose a hazard to those who do not like pickles, inasmuch as the core of the beef roll was a pungent dill. The excellent, rich lentil soup cried out for some dark German bread instead of the bland, soft American rolls that were served. Bean salad, a Texas picnic favorite, was very good indeed.
Eighty percent of the AlpenHofs clientele come from Austin, about 20 miles away. Although the restaurant would be an ideal spot to sip wine on a sunny afternoon, it is unfortunately only open for dinner.
Authentic Chinese cuisine is relatively new to Texas. Even now there exist only a handful of good restaurants serving the real thing, and until recently none of them was in Austin. The opening of the Hunan in October, 1973, brought exceptionally good Chinese food to the Capital City for the first time.
Specializing in the spicy dishes of Chairman Mao's native province (for which it is named), Hunan is literally and figuratively the hottest thing to hit Austin dining in years.
Manager Frank Yi owns the Lotus Eaters restaurant on First Avenue in New York City (he also has a degree in Library Science, but that is another story). His chef is "imported" from Manhattan and offers his guests the same attention to detail that New York Chinese food connoisseurs demand. Only medium-to-large fresh shrimp are used; beef dishes, even the minced ones, employ only flank steak because no other cut gives exactly the right flavor; fresh ham is used exclusively in the pork dishes; chicken legs and thighs are used in dishes like Kung Pao that call for chunks; the breasts are reserved for dishes requiring strips of poultry, and the rest of the bird is simmered for homemade soup broths.
Among the many interesting and outstanding dishes available are Moo Shee Pork, rolled at your table in thin crepe-like pancakes made on the premises; Shrimp with Walnuts, a beautiful creation consisting of lightly fried shrimp, English walnuts, onions, fresh snow pea pods, and a tangy red sauce; Sauteed Shredded Beef and fragrant Hot and Sour Soup, both about as fiery as tender Western palates can endure; sizzling Beef with Scallops; and delicate Kung Pao Chicken with Peanuts. There are many more items, like Beef with Peppers all the way to such exotic treats as Squirrel Fish and Honey-dipped Bananas.
Since acquiring its beer license in December, Hunan is able to serve the cold, frothy beverage that is the best possible accompaniment to their highly-seasoned foods. Tea is also available but it is made with Lipton tea bags, a scandalous practice that should shame Mr. Yi in his dreams. There is plenty of fresh loose tea to be had in Austin Chinese groceries, and his customers can tell the difference.
Next to Andre's, Hunan serves the best food in Austin. On uncrowded evenings, the service is more communicative and helpful that most Chinese restaurants provide. The decor is best forgotten: a suburban shopping center store-front offers few possibilities for atmospheric dining, and none has been developed here. Hunan earns its star despite its setting, strictly on the strength of its quality cuisine.
—"WHEN I WAS THE CHEF aboard a Belgian passenger liner," says Andre Graindorge, "a woman passenger got so hung up on the cooking that she came down to meet me." That was eight years ago, and the woman is now his wife. Her parents lived in Austin, so the young couple moved there and Andre put to work the skills he had acquired in the cooking school at the Ecole Hotelier in Brussels. He also began to blend his Belgian heritage with Central Texas informality: you may see him shopping at an Austin market wearing cowboy boots, a western coat, and a pearl button shirt. But when he gets into the kitchen it is Belgium all the way.
Andre came to Austin with the desire but not the wherewithal to start a restaurant of his own. He organized the kitchen at the new Polonaise, then switched to the Swiss Chalet, and even spent a few months as a carpenter (one of his hobbies) before taking charge of the cafeteria at the local branch of I.B.M. Those were traumatic months. "I'd never seen a chicken fried steak," he says, rolling his eyes skyward. "But I had a good assistant from Bergstrom Air Force Base. He knew how to fix it, so I watched him." The I.B.M. kitchen had no stove or skillets, only a steam oven, griddles, and pots suitable for cooking 50 gallons of mashed potatoes at a time. "I told myself, I've got to do something else: I can't go on like this." He smiles the smile of a man who has passed successfully through Purgatory.
He opened his first restaurant in March, 1970, doing most of the interior reconstruction himself. Two weeks before the scheduled opening, the place was nothing but bare boards and a pile of debris. But the restaurant opened on time and was a success from the first day. He has now remodeled an attractive Hill Country inn with far more ambience.
Andre got his taste for cooking from his grandmother, who raised him. "She cooked all day," he says. "She started in the morning making her soup, peeling asparagus for lunch, baking bread. There was something wonderful to smell every minute." His personal ideal for a restaurant is the little French auberge, a country inn that specializes in game dishes, rather than the splendid urban palaces of classic cuisine like Lasserre or Tour d' Argent in Paris. He likes the intimacy, the personal contact between owner/chef and guest, that the smaller places can provide. Texas law, however, has thrown a serious roadblock in the path of his plans to serve game: in contrast to European custom, it is a criminal offense to sell wild game like vension or rabbit commercially. Fortunately his next door neighbor raises domestic rabbits, and quail can also be purchased on the open market. He has done wonders with both.
Andre has one policy that is almost unique among the better Texas restaurants: he has never advertised. His reputation has spread solely by word-of-mouth from his loyal clientele.
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