Kristen "the librarian" F.'s Profile

It's six months later.  All the employees up front know my husband and me by now.  I always get the same thing- Combo A with 2 rolls- vegetable tempura and AC's maki.  it comes with miso soup and iced tea.  My husband gets a bento box (usually beef) and we share the veggie spring rolls.  It's awesome and cheap.  We go once a week.  It's our "place."  I love you, Bonzai!

This place is always changing names.  I think I've reviewed a bar in this spot three or four times.  But I always like it- since it's always a new joint, it's cheap and not crowded... my kind of situation!

I was in a party of four sitting at the bar.  "Goonies" was on the various TV screens, which was fun, and provided conversation.  The bartender was going through his iTunes playing music, and when we liked a song, he'd play another song by the same band.

I kept thinking the bartender looked familiar but thought maybe it was because he looked like Kurt Loder.  Then, so weirdly, he remembered me!  He used to work the door at Cain & Abel's years  ago when I first moved to Austin!  That endeared me to him and Chupacabra for sure!

$16 for a French manicure. You really can't beat that. Lakeline nails has  a lot of posters of tropical resorts and some of the ceiling panels are replaced with skylight-esque electric paintings that have lights inside. It was like the cheapest vacation I ever took. No frills, but I'll repeat... You can't beat a $16 French manicure!

Above all else, my favorite thing about Quality Seafood was the huge, '60s-stylized "Life Aquatic"-ish turquoise seascape on the back wall crammed in with a bunch of other cool art and giant plaster sharks.  I stared at it the whole meal.

My husband has been dying to eat at Quality Seafood for about five years.  Bless his heart for marrying a vegetarian.  When his family has visited, they picked up fish there and cooked it themselves, so he was super excited to actually eat there recently when a large group suggested it as their 2nd annual post-Leukemia walk destination.  

My husband, sister and the other people in our party liked the food.  Kelly's shrimp queso was to her liking, as was the fish my husband ordered.  I had a side salad and some corn on the cob, but they had many other choices I could've made too, which, to my husband's delight, means we can go back.  

I'll go back just to look at that awesome painting.  Go see it!

Reading the reviews for this place cracked me up- especially Nathan I's.  Good notes, Nathan!

My sister recently moved to Austin and has been hanging out with, as Nathan called her demographic, a 40's-ish divorcee.  She has been so nice as to take my sister under her wing and they go out on the town together.  Naturally, she told my sister Cool River was the place to be.

My first visit, I was torn between the hilarious people-watching and avoiding eye contact to not encourage any 50+ sugar daddies as my trusty husband was not with me.  I didn't know whether to gawk at the cougars or herald their achievements in feminism.  The beer prices were ridiculously high.  It was all pretty funny, but the smoking inside definitely was a deal-breaker despite the excellent visit into another subculture.

I went back on Halloween weekend to find a different crowd.  It was a 20s and 30s kind of place and so fun to watch everyone in their costumes.  The smoke still bothered me but I had a better time and met some cool people.  I have a feeling this was more of the exception than the rule, so I probably won't go back unless I don't have a choice in where we go.

My husband and I are looking to remodel our bathrooms.  Carrie C's glowing review of Top Notch sounded great!  So I put them on our list of people to call to come out for a quote.  

I talked to Robert for about ten minutes.  He didn't want to do quotes on evenings or weekends, but my husband and I both work.  He eventually said "my wife will kill me, but I'll do it on an evening."  He then said we both have to be there in case my husband and I argue and disagree on the work he does, and he couldn't put himself in a position between married people.  That sounded a little weird to me, but he sounded nice otherwise, so I figured I'd give him a shot at the work.

The next day, I got a voicemail from his wife canceling our appointment saying that we "weren't a good fit for them."  I just wish they'd been honest from the beginning and not wasted my ten minutes writing down every detail of the work I wanted and all my contact information and where I'd heard of them if they were just going to cancel immediately afterward.  The whole encounter was weird. Show owner comment »

They didn't take any of my sister's old jackets, but we still had fun regardless.  They have barely worn stuff, and stuff that was never worn.  They do a good job of making sure everything they take is cute.  I bought a $12 purse that has french fries on one side and tacos on the other.  I want to take my husband back ASAP- he always has guilt if he spends too much on clothes and these are the kind of prices that don't hurt with the kind of styles that he likes!

No ice in the soda machine.  No soap in the bathroom.  No friendly smile from the guy who took our order or the young girl who ran our food to the table.  Before I even had my food, I was unimpressed.

I had a cheese calzone.  It was mediocre.  My sister had a tuna grinder and said it was okay- on par with Potbelly.  

There were some cute folksy landscape paintings on the wall that I enjoyed.

I'm the weirdo vegetarian sushi lover.  I don't eat fish, so for most people, this review won't matter, but for fellow vegetarians, this isn't really a place for us.  They had exactly one roll on the menu without fish, and then they have a veggie version of nigiri, where it's two little pieces on rice with a seaweed band holding it together.  Seriously?  Come on.  You can try harder than that.  My quest for a lunch-time Round Rock area sushi joint goes on.

My sister just moved to Austin and lives really close to here.  We started hitting up Saturday Night trivia here at Opal Divine's Marina.  The trivia is fair, balanced, and doesn't require you to be an exact age to do well with pop culture stuff.  It's pretty awesome.  We've done really well and gotten some good food and drinks with our money earned through trivia.  Cheese fries and Ace pear cider, yum! Show owner comment »