Jens B.
Yelp
A bit of a conundrum really. We haven't seen some friends for 5 yrs and made the trip up to F-Burg from ATX to visit and celebrate with them. They live in F-Burg. Knowing this establishment is very, very popular we wanted to get there early, be seated and leisurely have some appy's and then dinner. The bar keep and the front of the house staff at Hotel Albert recommended them as well. So, off we went and arrived promptly at 4pm. We were seated in a lower room adjacent to the kitchen. Which is fine for me since I like to peek over to see what's going on. Jonathan was our waiter and came by quickly and grabbed our drink orders. He came by a couple times and we choose to order the Sausage/Cheese plate and the Hummus plate to share, while we visited and caught up.
Jonathan came by and checked regularly on us, which is fine since he wasn't being obtrusive or anything. I get it, since this is his table and his income depends on turning tables efficiently. We had been there for an hour at this point and we did eventually order dinner. I'm always nervous when a server doesn't right orders down, but there was no need, he got it right. Time passed and he came back by to let us know that, he knows our dinner was running long, it would be here soon. I believe it was another 15mins + before our dinners arrived.
I will say that the Sausage/Cheese board was very good, fresh fruit, lightly toasted bread points, big helpings of sausage and cheese abound. Easily big enough for 4 folks. The hummus was also very good. Unique, being black-eye pea based, but it worked very well. Even with the celery bites as part of the blend. I ordered the Red-Fish $38 and my Suzie the Bison Bolognese $24. Unfortunately, a huge disappointment. My filet was warm to cool at best and was served with cilantro chili butter, pineapple pico de gallo, warm chili-lime street corn esquites. I dunno, perhaps a 6oz small filet served on top of 5-6 tablespoons of pico-de gallo, looked very bare on the plate it was served on. I think that because of the temp it was served, the filet was not very flakey. The pico was somewhat bright due to the corn esquites. The esputies being my favorite part of the entree. For $38, I felt a little gypped. Suzie got the Bison Bolognese with pappardelle pasta, parmesan cheese, burrata, fried basil,
and garlic toast
. I did have a taste and felt it lacked the punch of perhaps red chili flakes and the fried basil, really didn't add much to the dish. I like the idea of burrata and probably will add that when I make bolognese myself. Unfortunately again, her entree was barely warm. She didn't share this with me till after we left the restaurant. Jonathan did come by and check on us. I did let him know my entree was cool and he immediately asked if he could replace it. I choose not to. I didn't want to wait another 20 or so, he made sure of my decision politely by the way. No pressure. I did eat the whole plate. Suzie left half of hers and we opted not to take it to go. Our guests had the Coconut Shrimp and an awesome looking cheeseburger. They enjoyed their meal. Perhaps that would of been a better decision.
We asked for our tab and Jonathan let us know he had talked to management/chef regarding my filet and they wanted to offer us a complimentary dessert for the delay in our meal and the temp issue with my Filet. We were frankly fine, but he playfully twisted our arm and grabbed the bread pudding, which we managed about 3 bites of. Very large serving, easily enough for 2 big helpings or 3 folks. It was tasty and Jonathan mentioned it travelled well, so we got the rest to-go.
I do wonder if our meals would of been better if they were hot and ready to go. Perhaps they sat at the expedite bar to long and were waiting on the burger/tacos for our guests to complete bringing the meals to our table. That being said, this place was BUSY.. I mean there had to be 50 plus folks waiting in line and getting on a list at 7pm on a Saturday PM. They have a large outdoor seating area, not sure if they provide service for drinks out there, but they had a cowboy singing a way. Jonathan was a fine server and I did make sure to provide him with a 30% tip since we had taken his table up for almost 3 hrs, some of that was the long delay receiving our dinner.