Austin

(From June 2011) Inspired by the great seafood restaurants of New Orleans and San Francisco, Eddie V’s feels like a comfortable country club, with its white tablecloths, leather booths, and muted lighting. The service matches the set-ting and the dining room is regularly packed. We loved the wok-cooked kung pao calamari, served atop slivered vegetables accented with ginger, soy, and roasted pea-nuts. Happily, both entrées, lemon sole in a Parmesan crust and roasted Chilean sea bass, kept pace. The latter fish, buttery soft, was served in a garlicky lemon–white wine broth so intoxicating we were tempted to drink it straight from the bowl. To finish, we had the warm bananas Foster cake with butter pecan ice cream. It was as deli-cious—and decadent—as it sounds. Bar.

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(From January 2012)

It's tough skipping the gems of the bar menu, like the fried egg-embellished burger, but we forced ourselves to so we could indulge in just a few of the more-serious creations from Shawn Cirkiel and Justin Rupp, like fresh egg pasta, golden al dente ribbons in a light broth. Grilled peaches, succulent enough to star in James and the Giant Peach, all but overshadowed the braised pork jowls that accompanied them, and while tasty, the whole combo needed a touch of acid or spice to cut the richness. But we might have been a bit overwhelmed since we started with unctuous mini grilled cheese sandwiches. The signaature doughnut holes from pastry chef Steven Cak were, as usual, steaming pillows of pure delight. The casual, spare Sith Street setting contrasts with the lushness of the menu.

Saturday, November 7th, 2009, 8:39 am
Charlie says:
My wife and I had an amazing meal here last night. Utterly memorable. A dozen Malpeque oysters, champagne, the raw salmon, squash soup, brussel sprouts, finished off with chocolate sticky toffee pudding. If you are looking for a special place for a beautiful meal, this is the place!

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(From June 2011)

The site on Lady Bird Lake—featuring box seats for the summer bat-watching season—is enormously appealing, yet the restaurant seems always on the verge of a comeback. We mined a mountain of arugula salad to reach the blood oranges and beets lazing on the bottom, but we quite enjoyed a delicately crusted crab cake, a generous amount of lump crab held together mainly by good looks (i.e., not much distracting filler). A bowl of cioppino, while brimming with tasty clams and other marine morsels in a classic tomato stew, seemed more a star of yesteryear. Nev-ertheless, our excursion ended sweetly with banana cake with strawberry-mascarpone purée. The subtle nautical setting could use freshening (a service door banged shut incessantly during our meal). Bar.

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(From May 2012)

 New chef de cuisine Grant Macdonald is a far piece from home, having come to us from the wilds of Canada (more specifically, the decidedly civilized Four Seasons in Vancouver). But he has wholeheartedly embraced our native foodstuffs, putting them to good use in dishes like the enormously tasty grilled Texas quail with a swipe of prickly pear sauce and a Gulf seafood steam pot with grouper (a tad overcooked), clams, shrimp, chorizo, and a luscious broth that begged for a whole basket of bread. Alas, a smoked Texas ribeye was a bit tough and chewy, though it had a marvelous crusty, brown-butter-graced exterior. Ambience is a mite bit more relaxed than one usually finds at a Four Seasons. But then again, we were outside (happily so), on a beautiful spring evening, on a most pleasant patio overlooking Lady Bird Lake and verdure lawns dotted with hammocks—which a member of our party took full advantage of. Welcome to Austin, Chef Macdonald. Bar.

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