Steven N.'s Profile

New east riverside bar expansion from the Beauty Bar folks. Apparently geared towards live music events.

Big space, bars on two levels.

Parking in the adjoining lot is pretty limited. Probably a bad idea to park across the street at the bingo hall.

Came out for a special pre-opening night event with the Lady Circus. Awesome space for this kind of performance.

Pinball at this location (for only 2 nickels per play!)

- No Fear (Williams, 1995) http://ipdb.org/machin...
- Tales from the Crypt (Data East, 1993) http://ipdb.org/machin...

I would give them 5 stars if they had more pinball. :)

Playing Smash TV with unlimited lives is pretty fun!

Kinda pricey for my boba habit. $4.52 for a basic large drink (lemon green tea) with boba.

Boba had a good consistency - not too soft/hard.

Staff was very nice and re-made my drink when I thought it was too sweet.

New EastSide burger joint

So.. Let's break it down:

The Burgers are based on 1/4 lb patties - the standard burger being two patties. A jr. Burger is one patty. Obviously flat-top cooked. Patty diameter compares with Mighty Fine, or in other words its a bigger bun and patty than Five Guys or P. Terry's for example. Standard free fixings are lettuce, pickle, tomato, mustard and mayo. Extra for cheese and bacon.

They offer regular beef (corn fed 80/20) and also grass fed beef. Note - the grass fed option is a dollar more expensive, though this was not entirely clear to me on a quick glance at the menu.

Buns are old school - ButterCrust. Very lightly toasted (I think they could use a little extra toasting as the bottom bun kinda fell apart on my burger.)

Fries are fresh cut and tasty! Serving size compares well with P.Terry's but the fries are a bigger cut (a little fatter than five guys).

In all this is a tasty burger. A little bit messy. Texture is a little soft overall, but this is probably a combination of the very soft bun and the skinny burger patties. I tried the grass fed beef, which is supposed to be a little leaner. I'm not sure I'd really be able to tell the difference between the grass vs. corn-fed.

Pricing is in line with similar burger joints (maybe a dollar more?). Basic burger is $5.10 ish ($1 extra for cheese). About $10-11 for a regular (2 patty) cheeseburger, fries and drink.

The shop is a walk up window in an old gas station building (remodled). They have picnic table seating in the station bays.

I visited on the first day they opened so things may take a little time to get into a groove (like not having any ice tea yet).

I nailed some railroad tracks and got a flat near 5th and Waller. Of course whenever this happens, I'm never carrying a spare tube or tools.  Not relishing the thought of walking 3 miles in bike cleats (or barefoot), I remembered there was a cycle shop up on 6th. Fast Folks to the rescue!

The kindly salesdude sold me a new innertube and let me use tools in the shop to change it out. Awesome!

Great service. They got me back on the road when I needed it most.

Hancock H-E-B in a nutshell:

Don't go on a weekend day (way crazy busy)
Store aisles start to get congested with stockers around 11pm
Solid produce section about 95% of the time (except when only 1-2 of the scales are actually working).
Good selection of most everything except for international foods - The I35@Parmer store wins for that.
Very annoying that they sometimes "close" the bulk food section late night.

Great event. Great new space for Estancia Churrascaria!

What's not to like about this event? Constantly arriving plates of meat, tasty drinks, entertaining bartenders? All good.

I only have one minor concern about Estancia - they want to put a splash Sprite in your Caipirinha. I think it's an americanization of the drink of some sort. Call me a purist, but this is not acceptable in a Caipirinha. If it needs to be a little sweeter, add some more sugar. On the plus side - if you know this ahead of time you can ask your friendly bartender to make your Caipirinha without Sprite and then enjoy the cachaça and limey goodness as it was intended.

It's Crafts! And Stuff! And even MORE STUFF!

Ack!

I have no idea why there's like 6000 sq ft. of stuff in this store to make wreaths or whatever all that dried flower business is all about. Do people actually buy all this stuff?

If I need random crafty things (matte board, glue, paint, etc .), I'll usually check Hobby Lobby since they seem to have some regular sales. However, for art supplies I'll probably check Jerry's first.

Ah... the Shack.

I usually only come here when Fry's is too far of a drive or on the rare instance they actually have some random electronics thingy that Fry's inexplicably does not have in stock.

Random audio cables, resistors, solder - these are what I come for. No idea who would buy a phone at this place.

And don't forget the batteries - the clerks certainly won't

Still four stars for doing the laundry, but 2 stars for taking the pinball machine away.

On average, I'll let them keep the 4 star rating tho.