Here’s some miscellaneous info on spots the Rab visited during our Texan travels:

The Oasis

The Steeping Room

Jo’s Hot Coffee Good Food

The Oasis is a well-known spot just outside the city where people gather to eat bad tex-mex while catching the absolutely fantastic Austin sunset over Lake Travis. The Oasis is a huge complex, built on several different levels and in summer months, it must be wonderful to sit outside. Because of the weather, we stayed indoors (breeezy, cold!). The Oasis is big eating, family-oriented, and it was absolutely teeming with kids on our visit (although I expect that on boozey summer nights the clientele might be different). We started with big cocktails, margaritas which were relatively well executed, and a slushy rum concoction that Mr. Rabbit’s sister liked. We had chips at salsa, which were passable, along with some OK guac and some Cheese Whiz-y queso. We hadn’t intended to have dinner at the Oasis, but some of the fam was starving so we chanced dinner. Nothing was particularly good. My a shrimp cocktail, which was swimming in a too-tangy sweet and sour-ish sauce, Mr. Rabbit only finished one of his fish tacos(!), the parrotfish was unremarkable, and the seafood stew was pronounced merely OK. I would only recommend a cocktail and some chips at this venue, which is otherwise worthwhile for its remarkable view, and did prove superb and friendly service for a party of eight including two under-three enfants.

http://www.oasis-austin.com

The Steeping Room is a teahouse at the Domain, an outdoor shopping complex in North Austin where we went to do some post-Christmas sale-shopping. The Steeping Room is the only non-chain resto in the Domain, which is why we sought it out, but we would return because the food was excellent and the space was charmant. I had the napa rolls, fresh spring rolls with tofu or chicken (I opted for tofu), which came with a very tasty peanut sauce for dipping. I also had a cranberry scone, packed with berries.  Mr. Rab found it dry, but I think scones are supposed to be a little dry, and I thought it was very good. Mr. Rabbit went with a roastbeef sandwich served with salad greens, which was also very good. Everything was fresh, home-made and felt virtuous and clean after three days of holiday chowing. I would happily have tried one of their desserts, all of which looked fab (I coveted the chocolate caramel cupcake), but I was experiencing post-holiday food fatigue. I have heard others mention that this spot is expensive, and I suppose that at about $25 for lunch this is true (note that Mr. Rab also had a coffee (French Press) and I downed a large bottle of mineral water). Still, I found The Steeping room worthwhile and I would return to and recommend this spot at the Domain.

www.thesteepingroom.com

Jo’s is a lunch spot and coffee shop in Austin’s trendy Second Street shopping district. It’s also situated very close to the children’s museum, which would explain why this place was absolutely squiggling with children whenever we visited (and we returned several times for their fresh, reasonable offerings, and because this spot was very close to our hotel). We found Jo’s to be a happy-busy spot with good-to-great food and pleasant service. During our first visit, we sampled a couple of sandwiches… pulled pork sandwich for Mr. Rabbit and a turkey, brie and avocado sammy for me, along with some fries. My sandwich was quite good, although I would have preferred real turkey to deli meat (picky). Mr. like his pulled pork, but found the bun uninteresting and left most of it (it was rather like an over-sized hamburger bun). The fries were good too. On our second lunch visit, we had a couple of large, fresh salads and an order of chili. The chili was quite good (although it really amounted to a plate of spicy shredded beef — not so many vegetables), and Mr. Rabbit particularly liked the tangy dressing on his Greek salad. My chicken salad was a little boring, but that may be because I ordered it dressing-on-side.

I also returned to Jo’s for breakfast. Twice. Both times I ordered the oatmeal with fresh fruit, a gigantic bowl of cereal served with brown sugar, raisins and nuts. The fruit was usually melon with a bit of pineapple or strawberry. Breakfast was totally reasonable and offered some good clean options rather than the usual eggy/pancake-y breakfasts that I try to avoid. Jo’s is also a good place to linger with the laptop. Do note that service is semi-cafeteria style - you order at the counter and the cashier issues you a number so that wait staff can find you when your food is up. They seem to have this system down, so no complains, but worth knowing.

www.joscoffee.com

Posted on December 30th, 2007 by rabbit
Filed under: Texas, Restaurant Reviews