Jeff K.'s Profile

This place is awesome.  My wife gets sick every time we go, but we keep going back.  The mole enchiladas are great, savory and a little sweet but with a kick.  The torta cubana is as big as your head, I could do without the hotdogs in it, but it's certainly mammoth.  The atmosphere's authentic, the service is friendly, my wife raves about the horchata and the prices are good.  The most authentic mexican taqueria we've been to in Portland.

It has essentially the same menu as P. F. Chang's Pei Wei, but it isn't as good.  Nice people, fast service, but I didn't even touch my leftovers.  If you want good Asian, try Arawan, it's in the same complex.  Hopefully I was just there on a bad day, I wanted to like it.

This place is the bomb.  The dude who owns it/runs it is friendly and bilingual, the Al Pastor and Barbacoa are great.  He usually runs out of gorditas by lunch and sometimes runs out of al pastor, but we've been on a pretty good streak lately.  If you can get the al pastor gorditas, they're killer.

Tacos for lunch run $1.75 each, burritos, tortas and gorditas are $3.50.

You can get drinks inside the convenience store next door and they have an ATM if you're out of cash.

I've worked with clients of Deanna's twice in a behind the scenes capacity and she has always been a consummate professional, even under hectic and stressful conditions.  She does a great job of putting her clients at ease and is quick to share her knowledge with fellow photographers.

This place is great, mainly because you can feed two people pretty good food for the same price as a single order of Pad Thai at the Indian place next door.  The menu has flat bread pizzas, sandwiches, paninis, wraps, and salads.  They have wireless, free refills on the sodas and the place is clean.  There's also a Taco Maker location here, if that's your thing.  There's a lot of over-priced food on the strip in Condado.  Before we ate at Camille's we got two orders of gelato at a place around the corner for $13.  Ow.

This is our favorite grocery store.  In fact, sometimes we go to this Target just to hang out.  My wife can get a Pumpkin Spice Cream thing at Starbucks, they have reasonably priced pizza and breadsticks deals at the mini Pizza Hut, they stock a great variety of nice groceries including boutique spices and sauces like Moles and Kormas that make meal prep a breeze.  Their meat department isn't as good as say, HEB, but it's certainly serviceable, and their vacuum packed ground beef lasts forever.  They have good deals, especially on the clearance endcaps.  (50% off some soda from Mexico I've never heard of?  Why not!)  On top of that it's a Target, so it's perfect for picking up some lightbulbs or a throw blanket or a toy for a kid's birthday party.

For Halloween Target put up huge inflatable Domokuns, which makes it even cooler.  Style for not that much more than Wal-Mart?  And I can sleep at night knowing they treat their employees better and care about design?  Hallelujah!

This is a nice place, the kind of place you'd stop on a road trip down Route 66 if instead of a $5 sandwich you wanted say, a $9 sandwich or a $14 chicken fried steak.  I guess you pay for nostalgia.  They play good jazzy music, the service is prompt and friendly, though splitting the tab for our party of 15 was a comedy of errors.  I can't really blame them, public schooling doesn't result in great math minds, but we split the bill 5 ways and everybody's bill was wrong.

The food is good, I got the combo with a turkey, bacon and avocado sandwich with a cup of their 2 alarm chili and half-and-half fries and onion rings.  Everything was good, though the chili's more on the ground-beefy side than the chunks of meat side.  People seemed really happy with the deserts, but I didn't try them.  Dinner for 5 was $75, so if you're cool with spending that much at a diner, it's a winner.  If it were closer to us, we'd probably go regularly.

Good but pricey Cajun food.  A bowl of gumbo and a soft drink is going to be around $12.  That's too rich for my blood on a regular basis, but the Cajun Gumbo I had was good.  The etouffee one of my dining companions had looked really good, too.  Our waiters were very prompt with the drink refills, almost shockingly so.  Some of the most prompt service I've had as far as that goes.  If it was a couple of bucks cheaper I'd be more inclined to be a regular.

I'll say it now, my wife would give this place a 4 or 5.  She comes in and gets her honeydew pearl drink and her B2 (grilled pork on vermicelli with an egg roll) and is happy as can be.  I've had a bit more trouble.

This is the newest Pho Thaison (or Thai Son if you prefer) in Austin, and the interiors are definitely spruced up compared to the location on Guadalupe or Wm. Cannon.  Flat panel tvs, nice tables, etc.

The service is good and attentive.  You'll see the same folks every time, and if you've been going to the Wm. Cannon location for a while they might recognize you.  They're always friendly.

The menus been spruced up a bit, they've added california rolls (don't bother) and pad thai (eh) .  If you're coming here, though, you're coming for pho or one of the old standbys.  The old standbys like the grilled pork over vermicelli are as good as you remember.  I usually get #54, which has a mix of imitation crab, squid, grilled pork, grilled chicken and shrimp in a broth with egg noodles.  It's good and very filling.  Not particularly flavorful, but I may not be applying the sauces right.

This is a fun place to eat and the food is good.  If you like Italian, you'll probably like it, though more authentic Italian than American Italian.  The main dining area shares a space with some market isles, deli and dessert counters, and the actual restaurant counter.  If you got a table in the corner or outside it might be more intimate, but it's generally just loud and fun.

As far as the food goes, everything I've had so far has been good.  The downside has been that every time I've gone we end up ordering the same thing, since it's good.  It always seems to be the place to go with friends, and then we end up getting the antipasto platter and a sausage and mushroom pizza.  Yea, it's good, but I'd like to explore the menu a bit more.

The antipasto platter is excellent, though pricey.  What's on it varies with who's making it and what's in the deli.  The meats are generally consistent but whether you get those onions or artichokes is luck of the draw.  If you really want something from the deli case, you're probably better of just buying some before hand.

Their desserts are good, their tirimisu is... exciting.

The only problem with Mandola's is that it's too far away from my house.  If this place were in South Austin we'd probably be there every week or two.