I think it would be fair to say that I love to eat and that I'm enthusiastic to try new things; I try to work under the assumption that if some culture somewhere is willing to eat it, there must be some good reason behind it. I also try to be mindful of my contribution to local business owners - there is nothing I love better than a family owned restaurant. Since I have eaten my way across the city several times over, I thought it might be useful to toss a couple of reviews up here in case you're looking for somewhere great to eat in the Capital City.
Prepare yourself to be humbled by this absolute fact - El Pollo Regio makes the tastiest grilled chicken you will ever eat! Hands down, bar none. If you can find better chicken than this....well, eat it. The kicker for Pollo Regio is that they bring the flavor and character of a Mexican street vendor right into your living room. (Which is, methinks, superior to actually bringing a Mexican street vendor into your living room!) One of the ways in which they accomplish this palate-pleasing feat is by ensuring that all of the food is prepared by Actual Mexicans™ who already know what the product is supposed to taste like. You can tell that Pollo Regio is successful in their endeavor by the number of Actual Mexicans™ standing in line with you - always a good sign. As any of your fellow patrons can tell you, the chicken here is both tender and moist, smoky but not smoked, charred but not burnt and spicy yet not volcanic. It truly is grilled chicken at its best. Grab three friends and order a whole chicken (comes with rice, beans, whole onion and some lime wedges) - add an order of rice, beans, an extra onion, six salsas and extra corn tortillas (which translates to a dozen) and I can promise you'll have plenty of eats to go around! Best part: the meal I just described will run you about $18. This means you could feed a family of four a reasonably healthy meal for under $5 a head - ¡que loco! Pollo Regio features two types of salsa, served in small three ounce(?) containers; the house red is your basic tomato-based salsa and succeeds beautifully at that. The green salsa, well, it's the best salsa verde I've ever tasted - and I've tasted hundreds. The house green is quite spicy, so stay away if you think Tabasco sauce is hot, but there is a powerful rustic undertone in the flavor that will compel you to slather it all over your makeshift taco while you daub the sweat from your brow. Now, Regio has plenty of other menu choices as well, I'm just not qualified to comment on them as I've never wanted anything other than their mouth-watering pollo asado; however, I hear tell that the Tostada Estilo Siberia is delicious (also, large enough to feed two people easily). One final note, El Pollo Regio is a Texas-only chain (too bad yankees and granola-geeks) that caters to the busy family looking to be fed with a quickness. That means you'll stand outside of the ramshackle building, surrounded by columns of billowing smoke, while you wait to place your order. When you're done, you can choose to gobble your bounty right there in the parking lot or you can take it home to your waiting family; just don't plan on sitting down Mickey D's style. There are a bunch of El Pollo Regio restaurants in Austin (see the map link above), but my home court (Berkman Drive location) is known to be, far and away, the cream of the crop!
If you've not yet eaten phở then you're missing out on one of the finest meals in the history of civilization. Why do millions of discerning eaters the world over love phở? Is it the starchy mound of rice noodles? The thinly sliced beef? Savory broth? Or is it the ritual of adding fresh, raw vegetables to your bowl while you tease the noodles loose their sticky mass? For me, it's the broth. I've been to countless phở restaurants in my time and the thing that sets each one apart from the other is their broth. At Phở Van, they make My Kind Of Broth™, which is to say that it is fragrant with the flavor of fish sauce, a hint of anise and a healthy dose of onion. You won't find a strong cinnamon note to this broth, which always ruins a bowl of phở for me. The meat is always fresh and cooked to tenderness (where applicable). If you're new to phở, you should go with the #3 - Phở Tái. That's your basic phở and flank steak but it's by no means the only one you should try. Phở Van proudly offers tripe, tendon, fatty brisket and even meatballs; all of which are perfectly tasty and fresh. You'll also want to check out the crispy Vietnamese egg rolls, #22 if I recall correctly, and wash it all down with a cup of Vietnamese iced coffee. You'll find the service at Phở Van to be...serviceable. The food and beverages are served quickly, so if you need to get in and get out at lunch - you're in business, but don't expect to be overwhelmed with hospitality until you've been there enough times so as to be recognizable to the staff. The nice thing is that this family owned restaurant has been in business for at least 12 years and it doesn't look like they'll be going anywhere soon; so, you'll have plenty of time to make friends!