Restaurant: Manuel's in Austin

I'm not going to call these reviews, because I don't really have the expertise to accurately criticize restaurants yet. However, I think it's interesting to explore how I feel about various places, particularly to come back to later. (Let's face it--everything I write here is pretty much for my own use.) This is for writing practice, and to remember what I like and what I don't. If you end up traveling to one of these places and decide to check out restaurants I've discussed, please remember that food blogs aren't necessarily the most accurate assessment of an eating establishment. For details on why this is, check out The Amateur Gourmet's discussion of the topic.

On to it, then. This weekend I went out to dinner with my boy and his parents at Manuel's in the Arboretum. While I hear the downtown installment of the sliiiightly upscale Mexican joint is more interesting environmentally (they apparently haven't updated the decor since they opened sometime in the 80s), the one we went to wasn't so bad. I liked the fountain. The booth we sat in was a little small for four people, and the back of it forced you to sit up ludicrously straight, but good for one's posture, I suppose.

Drinks
We all had their "Austin's Best Margarita" which is so prevalent in these parts (unless your tex-mex place of choice offers the alternative, "Austin's Favorite Margarita"), and they were pretty tasty. Not overwhelmingly sweet or limey, they also weren't so boozy you couldn't drive home after two. Plus they had plenty of kosher salt on the rim, and I've found that I like my margaritas really salty. The boy had a pomegranate margarita as well, and apart from being a lovely shade of dark magenta, it was a little intensely flavored for my taste. Sidenote: have I mentioned how ABSURDLY SICK OF POMEGRANATE I am? Jesus. There are other fruits! There are other interesting fruits, even! Anyway, they had a cucumber martini I want to try next time, with Antigua Cruz Silver, Cointreau, lime, and "a hint of fresh cucumber," whatever that means. How you could taste cucumber over the other ingredients I have no idea, but in any case it's nice to see them pairing cucumber with things other than melon.

Appetizers
We got two of their appetizers, the Baja Taquitos and the Gorditas. The taquitos, while tasty, weren't really what anyone expected. Tiny bay scallops were battered and fried and served with a chipotle coleslaw and tortillas. I'm not really sure what makes these not-tacos apart from the fact that they're on the appetizer menu and not the entree menu. I guess I just like my taquitos, I don't know, deep fat fried? I don't understand fancier restaurants not wanting to deep fry shit. People don't drop fifty bucks a pop to eat healthy food, right? And you know they can afford the deep fryer. Anyway, the gorditas were better, a mix of masa and mashed potatoes stuffed with venison sausage and lightly pan-fried. They were served with Manuel's supposedly famous mole, which was, you know, all right. I like my mole slightly...dustier? I don't know, when my grandparents rented a room to a Mexican grad student she made us mole from scratch and it involved a lot of stale corn tortillas used as a thickening agent, and it tasted dustier. And better.

Entrees
The boy and I each got Chiles Rellenos, and they were, in my opinion, the best part of the meal, apart from the drinks. I had the Chile Relleno del Mar, which was a mixture of bay scallops, shrimp, and blue crab topped with a "Crema del Arbol" (the hell is that?) and cheese. It managed to be light and summer for a baked dish, which was exactly what I was looking for. I have a tendency to order heavy in hot weather because my natural inclination is towards winter/fall foods. Speaking of which, my boy ordered the Chile Relleno en Nogada, which is filled with a pork/almond/raisin mixture and topped with a brandy cream walnut sauce. OH. MAN. It was awfully sweet, but come January or so I am going to have some serious cravings.

Dessert
We split an order of coconut flan between the four of us, which I was really excited about, but sorely disappointed with. (I'm taking a break from school, I can end as many sentences with prepositions as I damn well please.) I imagined something that used coconut extract, or had the big flakes of coconut found in my precious German kokoseis strewn throughout, but no. The coconut was of the teenytiny shredded Malibu/sunscreen flavored variety and was on the bottom of the dish (the top when it baked). This resulted in giving the flan a crumbly texture, the kind of thing that happens when the sugar overcooks and the whole thing gets grainy. The thing is, the flan itself was perfect. Smooth and cool and sweet and rich. And they wrecked it. Sigh.

Tonight I'm going to Din Ho for the first time and I am terribly excited. Din Ho is a family-style Chinese restaurant that's supposed to be incredible.