Place: Austin's Bar & Grill
Locale: Tahoe (North - Incline Village)
Austin's Bar & Grill Website
Visits: 1
Food: 2 out of 5 on the Fork-O-Meter
Venue: 2.5 out of 5 on the Fork-O-Meter
Will I return?: The kitchen jury is still out on this one.
NARRATIVE:
For the most part, I gather ideas for new stops during drivebys. This is especially true around Reno. Outside of our home base, I rely on interesting reflections collected from other sources. In the case of Austin's Bar & Grill, it was more of a hybrid. While looking for a good lunch spot to take visitors from the Atlanta area to Lake Tahoe three years ago, I stumbled across reviews in Yelp. These were mostly favorable, so it ended up on the shortlist. As it turns out, we ended up eating elsewhere (at Jake's on the Lake) simply because we wanted to dine "on the Lake". Austin's was thus put on the backburner.
Fast forward three years. As often as possible (and possible happens a lot), I tune into a locally-produced program on the telly called "Tahoe Life with Meghan Burk". She provides really good half-hour sessions highlighting otherwise little-known eateries, shops, and activities in and around Lake Tahoe. It was on one of said segments that I witnessed a supplementary view of Austin's. The hybrid reviewing had me locked in once again.
We had kin staying with us for the weekend. They were in from England (one of them from Northern Ireland originally), and have traveled extensively throughout the world. One place they had not seen was Lake Tahoe. This couple took Linda and I on a wonderful personalized tour of the Antrim Coast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland two years removed during our visit across the pond. Here then was an opportunity to return the favor in the States.
One thing Linda and I love to do with visitors is to tour them around Big Blue, so it was a no-brainer for our latest guests. All told, we circled the entire shoreline, making stops at significant spots along the way (Emerald Bay, Sand Harbor, Heavenly Village, etc.). By this time, as a group we got hungry, surprise! There were a couple new places I had in mind to try near Heavenly Village, but due to the holiday weekends, parking was ridiculous as were the throngs of people. Time to unlock my rusty steel cage of a mind....AUSTIN'S it is!
Austin's is almost directly across the street (Country Club Drive) from the Hyatt at Incline Village. It is within a multi-purpose strip mall. The interior is much smaller than what I imagined in my mind and saw in online pictures, a little deceiving (not meaning any harm however). There is a bit of an outdoor dining area also, but on this February day, no tables were in place to go al fresco. Although it was a mixed crowd of skiing families alongside people just out for the holiday weekend (like us), our foursome was seated immediately.
Austin's has a bit of that log cabin look inside - faux timbers along the walls, etc. Along with the usual table and chair seating, there were a good handful of seats for dining in their small bar area (yes, alcohol is available). While it is not an open kitchen, it is very close in proximity to the dining room.
Not sure whether it was the helter skelter of a crowd on this day in particular or whether the staff was not completely organized, but the service was initially lagging. Our server was quite nice and friendly, but I felt that a certain expected flow of service (drink orders, drink serving, menu order, food delivery) was a tad disjointed.
In any case, we were seated, we were hungry, so no turning back to the streets just yet. The menu is not huge, but the choices I thought were ample and varied enough for anyone to find a well-suited choice. The chicken-fried steak sandwich with buttermilk fries and garlic aioli called out to me and I answered. This is where time started to stand still. There was a step missing here between the time we ordered and the ultimate arrival of our meals. It was too long a stretch to discount as just resulting from a busy kitchen. Whomever was expediting in the kitchen had apparently fallen drowsy at the wheel. To Austin's credit, they brought out complimentary mini cornbread muffins and honey butter for the table - a nice touch, but not enough to discredit our hungry tummies.
Eventually (had to be at least 25 minutes) our plates were settled into place. To be honest, I have had much better chicken-fried steak, although it was not all that bad. The house steak sauce listed on the menu was not really noticed by me, so I ended up dipping my sandwich French-style into the aioli (which was quite tasty). The best bites for me were actually the buttermilk fries, also drenched by me in the aioli. As I think about it today (a couple days removed), were it not for the fries, I could easily
forget I even ate here.
My dining partners ate their choices up just as did I, but none of the quartet offered anything in the way of glowing reviews. Remember I said that we were quite hungry when we arrived, so some of our acceptance here was merely to avoid driving away to find another eatery.
In retrospect, I think I would choose to ignore my growling stomach and continue driving further down the road. A revisit is leaning more to a "NO" vote methinks.
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