Matthew "Violet Newstead" R.'s Profile

I used to live down off of Rainier, and I was always frustrated at the lack of places like this one.  Now that I live elsewhere, I can appreciate the effort to bring a little bit of variety to this part of town.

The staff are extremely accommodating and friendly, and they have a wide variety of drinks.  Little perks like "free cookie day" really make this worth the stop.

Its reputation precedes it - a bastion of quality in an area that seems to be lacking it.

The cleanliness is astounding, and the prices aren't too bad when you wash everything together in the largest-sized washers.  I accidentally spilled some liquid detergent on the floor, and before I could do anything about it someone else already was.  

There is a parking lot and the adjacent cafe next door, which I have also visited.  It's nothing to scream about on its own, but the combination of these two together are pretty unbeatable in east-central Oakland.  Let's hope that more businesses with this standard of excellence come to the general vicinity.

I might be the only "old school" Austinite that does not miss the patchouli stink of the old Ruta Maya, in all its pretentious Chichen-Itza-in-Texas glory (and by glory, I mean lack of air conditioning).  I was SO relieved when Halcyon opened up, for Austin finally seemed to be accepting the fact that it is, in fact, a city and not a large bungalow commune.

I am thankful that this place exists, because downtown is far too singular in its approach to socializing - expensive restaurants and bars are not enough.  The other coffee shops downtown are too limited in their hours or are branches of Starbucks - Halcyon makes good use of its central location and straddles the line between coffee shop and bar pretty well.  Sometimes I spend an hour or two working with a cup or two of coffee, then shut the laptop off and have a drink with a friend - it's a great transition from business to casual.  Their wi-fi is faster than my home connection, and they have tons of plugs for laptops.

My coffee beverage of choice is the thai iced coffee, but they have a number of other things that are decent.  After 10 or 11 pm, though, it feels like coffee becomes an afterthought amongst the employees, but I am not holding that against them.  For whatever reason, people love the s'mores, even in summer.  

There are a few negatives - mainly the prices on some of their products (something like $3 for a Mexican coke when every other place charges $1.75).  And I am not a fan of the type of live music they bring in, it's too precious and "ethnic-folky" for my taste.  And the crowd sometimes leans in the direction of the type of person who might say to themselves - "I live at the Spring or 360, but I am hip because I am spending less than $10 on a drink and I am slumming it in my designer pretend vintage distressed something or other."

But overall, Halcyon is a welcome fixture on 4th Street.

Part of my beef with Oak Lawn stems from its schizoid on-off personality - a neighborhood that is shockingly dead during the day and way too crowded at night.  This establishment, however, does its best to buck that trend by providing a social gathering place during the daylight hours.  

It is pleasantly airy inside, the coffee drinks are decent, their foodstuffs are above average and cater to a wide pallette, and they have free wi-fi with lots of plugs for laptops.  A winning combination for someone like myself who prefers to work remotely from his computer - yet nobody else seems to do the same.  Am I the only person not cruising my neighbor?

There are downsides, though, and they're merely stylistic - the gay-themed everything is a bit much in a neighborhood that's already displaying its jazz hands on a bit too frequently.  I'd much rather order a small, or a tall latte, and not a "Butch".  However, the place displays a bit of flair in other places - kudos to whoever penned the pun 'Chai-coff-sky'.  That's the kind of creativity this neighborhood needs.

Well, there are two ways to review a place like this - how good it is in relation to Austin, or how good it is in relation to the major metropolises of the US.  

In relation to Austin, Tapelenders is the only place to go, because it's the only place like it, really.  It's not a steel barn off the Interstate with a maze-like entrance, containing enough shoddily made toys to make China blush.  It's a place of quality and human proportion - downstairs contains a generally good selection of porn, a decent selection of cock rings, an above-average selection of lube, and other assorted sexy notions for the gay folk.  The only weak spot in terms of merchandise on the first floor is the leather/leather-related section - it's not nearly big enough considering that there aren't really any other businesses in town who purvey such wares.  This is a niche that TapeLenders could stand to capitalize on a bit further.

Upstairs is a store within a store, skivvies.  Not fond of the logo, or the name (TapeLenders has one of those pleasantly passionless, verb-intensive names that obscures its horny undertone, but Skivvies sounds like something from insular Sweden, or a disease of the 19th century).  

Anyway, Skivvies is the underwear/swimsuit portion of the store, and it contains the widest variety of men's underwear in Austin, without a doubt.  It features a number of popular premium brands as well as a few lesser-known, but nonetheless high quality labels.  Prices are incredibly average when compared to the internet or bigger cities, so no complaints there.  

Occasionally there will be a closeout sale that will find you tempted to bring home several bright-colored varieties of underwear, just because.  

I should also mention that the staff at TapeLenders are extremely nice, very patient and sufficiently attentive.  They are the part of the business that maintains brand loyalty and respect - even if I don't find much that I want to buy, I always check back.

Overall, give TapeLenders credit for being a solid and respectable gay men's emporium, a place that fills its niche very well.

PS: The operating hours are too short - I would suggest Wednesdays and Thursdays close at 12, and Saturday close at 1 or 2.  But what do I know?

Parkside is a restaurant in its torrid adolescence, a shockingly ill-fitting attempt to behave like an adult in the middle of high school gym class.  The restaurant's contradictory nature appears very close to the surface, leaving diners tired and exasperated, forgetting that the food was rather good.

Everything about this place confuses - it's located nowhere near the side of any park, it is a seafood restaurant with the aesthetic trappings of a brasserie, and its menu features many comma-delimited appetizers, a nearly-equal amount of comma-delimited entrees, but very little variety in terms of alcohol or anything else, for that matter.  The mid-90's faded TrueType font on the menu looks a bit tired and sad, like a Duncan Sheik album cover.

But the most confusing part of all is the way orders are taken and bills are tallied.  We placed our orders, and then moments later were promptly delivered everything we didn't order - steak tartare, calamari, other assorted fishy odds and ends, Zesta crackers, and admittedly lovely bread and butter.   We assumed that this appetizer gravy train was on the house, since the party consisted of two people who worked for businesses on 6th street; we were told it was a "perk" of "being in the industry".

At this stage of the meal, we were enamored with Parkside, thinking that it not only served decent food but contained a brash, self-confident demeanor with the way it thrusted its appetizers at us, as if to say they are ready for us to reaffirm a reputation for being a bastion of civilized eating in an otherwise barf-laden party boulevard.  

But, like all delusions of grandeur, the artifice of the place was revealed.  Time was dragging on, and none of the entrees were appearing.  

Instead of serving us the food we had ordered, oysters, chicken and steak, the waiter said that he assumed we didn't want our previous orders, despite the fact that nothing was ever mentioned remotely suggesting such a thing.    He offered to have the kitchen actually fulfill the order we had placed 45 minutes ago, but it was midnight and we weren't going to wait.

This put us in an awkward position of having eaten all of the appetizers without having anything but drinks to balance the ticket out with - we didn't want to leave looking like we had been cheap, or otherwise taking advantage of their generosity.

But have no fear, we got the bill, and they charged us for all of the appetizers and all of the drinks.  So this ridiculous schizo restaurant decided to ignore our request and instead deliver based on their internal whims.

What kind of restaurant does this?  Apparently, one that is already rife with contradiction.  Parkside still doesn't seem to understand that what they did is like Cher's papa selling Dr. Good, it says one thing but does another.  

I hope, for the sake of its own mental health, that Parkside figures out who it wants to be when it grows up.  If it wants to be a restaurant, then learn to take people's orders, cook them, and then charge them for it.   Just like an adult has to use their blinkers and file their tax return, there are some simple steps to doing things correctly, and I suggest that Parkside remember that before it tries to shuffle our food orders like a stacked deck of cards.

Rio Rita is, quite simply, the Austin I missed after all these years.  After 5 years in New York and Seattle, I returned to my hometown feeling disoriented and unfamiliar.  While the HEB's have gotten larger and all the more garish, the condos have been piled sky high and the toll roads have opened the floodgates into a new suburbia, the "essence" of Austin has moved a bit east.  

Everything they make or do is good - whether it's a bloody mary, a chai or the effortless popping open of a bottle of Topo Chico.  The jukebox is decent, the atmosphere kind of tacky but always endearing, and the bartenders/baristas are a supergroup assembled from all the other coffee shops I used to frequent in my yesteryears.  The free wireless makes this my work away from work; the unusual vodka infusions, pickled okra, and East Side Pizza make it a home away from home.

Rio Rita is a familiar place to me, even if it's a newer establishment.  It is old in spirit, and that's what counts.  It is Austin, pre-Highway 130 Austin, in quintessence.  I will miss it when I depart this city for good.

I was in need of an inspection/emissions test as well as an oil change for my '91 Miata and decided to stop here.  It's not in the best part of town, but I am a native and know not to fear the intersection of Loyola and Manor.

I am quite glad I stopped, because they were well priced, efficient, fast, and very nice.  The technician was very friendly as well as thorough and they were working on my car within 10 minutes of dropping in.  They even have a barber shop inside in case you need your ears lowered while your chassis is raised.  The clientele was a cross-section of Austin's ethnic groups, and they made everyone feel welcome.

I'm definitely going here for all my oil changes / minor servicing needs for my car, regardless of what part of town I live in.

Bird's sprang up literally overnight like a pack of Irish Travellers.  I lived away from Austin for about 5 years and bam, they're everywhere!

Yeah, the cut was great, I didn't have to wait, but the real reason I'm throwing out the ol' five-star rating is because I have such a crush on the person who cut my hair.  He just moved here from Portland (I know, does that narrow it down?) Just being honest here.  

Thanks for a lovely hair cut and stuff.  If I weren't unemployed I would have had my ears lowered again the next week just to see you.

Blah blah blah beer, good hair cut, good price, good location, blah blah blah, cute boy hairstylist.

I've watched Zen grow from the original location on Anderson to a cross-river chainlet, and it's always held true to what I felt was its prime underlying goal - to provide a pleasant pan-Asian meal at a pleasant price in a pleasant environment.  Consider that you can walk in and out of Zen for the same price as many fast food places, yet you can bring your laptop or linger a bit if you want.  While the Anderson and Brodie locations are only "okay" for atmos, the South Congress has sidewalk appeal and the Guadalupe location is architecturally decent.  I remember when that building was a whole lot of nothing, and they helped open up that portion of the Drag to pedestrians, as much as one place can.

Their food is pretty good if you ask me, but I am not looking for perfection; for that, you pay more.  They could stand to improve the selection and quality of their sushi, but other than that, no complaints here, and I've been going regularly for a long time.  Keep it up!