Trudy's Tex-Mex

Since moving closer to the U.S./Mexico border, I've noticed a huge increase in both Mex and Tex-Mex restaurants. Weird, right? So why not try out one of Austin's many Tex-Mex destinations, Trudy's.

It doesn't take much to get me to agree to go out to eat. Will there be food? Check. What about cold, refreshing beverages, both in regular and adult natures? Check. How far away is it? Will I have to attach a cowcatcher to the truck in order to push our way through hippies, college students, or bums? Because if I have to fight traffic and then fight a hippie...I'm not going. Luckily the north location of Trudy's three restaurants is less than a mile away from our apartment, so I agreed to go.

Once you get to Trudy's, you have no choice but to notice the building. It is painted in pastel shades of rust, Scope "Original Mint" mouthwash, and a white that reminds me of the sheets Scooby-Doo and Shaggy would hide beneath. The building is reminiscent of an adobe hut. One of those adobe huts that the Spaniards of the 1700's might place in a strip mall. And how convenient! Trudy's is in the corner of a strip mall! I hope those architects got a bonus for being historically accurate. Trudy's also has a patio attached to the building. It's surrounded by desert plants and tall shade trees. None of which provide any protection from a vehicle that might careen off of the street that is four feet away. Another shining gem of the Trudy's experience is the parking lot. I suggest tuning in to NASCAR when you arrive so you'll feel like you're doing something active while you run laps around the lot. Since Trudy's is located within a strip mall, the parking lot is always packed. And God help you if you think you're going to eat on Friday or Saturday night. You'll need to pack a lunch and a spare five-gallon gas tank.

Six hours later we step foot inside Trudy's. Visibly dizzy from our reenactment of the Daytona 500, the hostess offers us a seat on one of the benches in the foyer. Looking around at the interior decor, it's strange to see two of everything. No, wait. That's just my head still spinning. After a few minutes, I noticed that they have two bars. I shook my head, assuming that I was still dizzy. But there are in fact two bars located within Trudy's. They don't have separate themes, they don't serve different drinks, but they do discriminate. There is one bar that is upstairs; fat guys need not drink there. The rest of the interior is kind of...jazzy is a word that comes to mind. It looks like a shirt DJ Jazzy Jeff from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air wore came to life and took a whack at interior design. There are signs however, of an old Mexican restaurant in the warm wood finishes of support beams and tabletops. There are daily specials written on a chalkboard next to the host's station, and an overall open space for many tables to occupy. The restaurant has a lower section of tables that surrounds the lower bar, and that is encircled by a ring of booths overlooking it. I assume the people seated beneath are to fight for our enjoyment.

The hostess, having a keen eye, notices our color has turned from a sickly green to a normal flesh-tone and asks "Party of two today, or are you waiting for others?" I hold up my hand, showing only two fingers and respond "Yes, just the two of us." These seemingly insignificant sentences are important, so remember them. She grabs two menus and leads us to our table. Our table is a grand table. Warm worn wood, six big comfy-looking wooden high backed chairs... That's right, the two of us were sat a table for six. Sure, it sounds great. We'll just spread out and have lots of extra room! But this table was gigantic, and had a diameter of at least 10 feet. So if we wanted to spread our dishes out, we'd be forced to play the worst game of musical chairs ever. Remember how I held up two fingers and the waitress only grabbed two menus? Why would she seat us at an empty table for six? I thought it was hilarious that this table happened to be situated next to an empty booth. Did we switch? Hell no! Why ruin a perfectly good opportunity to look like the biggest losers who's friends ditched them?

Our waiter approaches after a minute or two and informs us of the specials, and takes our drink order. Never once mentioning the four empty seats at our table. He was friendly though, and I suppose that's all you can ask for nowadays. Little did we know, this would be the last time we would see him... The menu is a comfortable tri-fold, with no inserts. Those are my favorite type. If a food fight were to break out, I'd have a ready-made fort at my disposal. Those inserts, while they look like they may provide extra stability, only end up toppling the fort from the interior leaving your face, chest and arms vulnerable to flying salsa. The menu is clearly written and follows the Tex-Mex theme of the restaurant. All of the descriptions are concise and direct, and also create a clear picture in your head as to what might end up in front of you. I decide on the Chorizo Stuffed Chicken and my girlfriend orders the Texas Star Nachos. A new waitress returns with our drink order and takes our food order as well.

Now, as we have a few minutes between placing our order and actually shoveling it into our gullets, we enjoy some chips and salsa. Trudy’s green salsa is very good. It’s extremely spicy but not without some actual chile flavor. Their queso…leaves much to be desired. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just Velveeta. As we munch on some chips and salsa, and move the queso toward one of our invisible diners on the opposite side of the table, I quickly run out of Dr. Pepper. Trudy’s spares no expense on hiring wait staff, seeing as though the person who came to refill our glasses was an entirely different person than the first two. We have had three different people wait on us since we arrived. Four if you count the hostess. Which I will.

Our food arrives along with a fresh new face. At this point, I’m not sure who actually works here anymore. Maybe it’s family who couldn’t pay their hefty bill, so they’re working it off. Who knows? The new waiter sets our food down in front of us, and I get my first glimpse into this gastronomic gallop toward new territories. It’s not a good vision, my friends. My stuffed chicken is drowning in chili con queso. It should come with a little snorkel. I like the idea of sauces, I really do. But when I have more queso on my plate than there was in the bowl that was served to me earlier…that’s too much. Much too much. And if the item that I ordered is swimming in sauce, what are the odds that I’ll end up tasting some of that delicious chorizo? Nil. It may as well have been stuffed with chicken and I couldn’t have told the difference with all that queso in my mouth. The nachos that my girlfriend ordered, turned out well. They weren’t soggy; they were appropriately covered with cheese and chicken…pretty much the opposite of what was on my plate. So once again, happy to just have food in front of us, and because we don’t have enough money to ship any of it to those poor starving people within Sally Struthers’ gravitational field, we finish our mediocre meal.

And with the check comes yet another new face and a new problem. Who am I supposed to tip? Certainly not the hostess. Or should I tip the hostess? She seems to have a problem with math, I could tip her $.50 and she’d think she hit the lottery. Do I tip the guy who brought the food to our table, or maybe the Manager who refilled my glass that one time? Do I tip enough for all of them to split? I ended up tipping based on the total bill because I started thinking that if I tipped based solely on the performance of our wait person, I couldn’t afford it.

Trudy’s Tex-Mex was worth just slightly less than the total check. It didn’t come out as expensive as Kerbey Lane, but it wasn’t as cheap as the authentic Mexican tacos served out of the U-Haul trailer across the street in the car wash parking lot. With the bill in the mid-$30’s, I was OK.

Although, with as many people as they have running around getting paid, I think we got a hell of a deal.

Kerbey Lane Cafe

So my girlfriend wanted to go out to eat. Since I treasure peace, I agreed.

When arriving at the Northwest location of Kerbey Lane, the first thing you notice is the plain façade. I mean, you really have to look for this place. I thought we had parked in the back. But then I noticed the 3-foot brick wall surrounding the restaurant. I figured the building is attacked by hordes of Mongols on a daily basis, so that's why they need a wall. I'm no army general or architect, so I still don't know what the purpose of that wall is.

Once we made our way around the wall and to the door, I was relieved to see that there was yet another set of doors three feet in front of me. Good. I'm glad there's an air lock in this building. Is there a point to the second set of doors? This area can't be a waiting room, it's much too small. Is it a staging area? Am I supposed to wait for the green light and then race to my table like a horse out of a chute? And good luck if you happen to be wheelchair-bound. By the time you open the second set of doors wide enough for your hand to get through, your wheels are wedged back against the first set.

So if you're one of the lucky few that make it through the air lock, you'll be pleased to see the bar as soon as you walk in. I have nothing against the bar at Kerbey Lane Cafe. I have loved many a bar in my short time on this planet. What I don't like about the bar is the people at the bar. When I walk into a restaurant, I don't want to be greeted by drunks yelling at each other. And there's more good news: your journey to the dining room is split in twain. The hostess could choose the safe path to the left of the bar, and seat your party without risk of being showered in backwashed beer. Or the hostess could take the dangerous path directly through the bar. Weaving in and out of tables occupied by drunk yuppies like an Olympic skier on the slalom course. Hooray. Our hostess is a daredevil...and I left my umbrella in the truck.

We made it through as dry as could be expected to our comfortable booth. Looking around the dining area, I began to notice something was amiss. Well, everything was amiss really. There was a promotional package of Apple Wheat pancake batter on our table next to a small vase filled with Spring flowers. How nice, a comfy country-style restaurant. Looking to our left, an abstract painting in the style of Jackson Pollock. Ok, so we've crossed over into a hip, artsy restaurant. Then shifting my eyes toward the dining tables, I can think of only one place...Denny's. Imagine an art show inside a Denny's that's combined with a Cracker Barrel; Kerbey Lane Cafe.

The waitstaff was friendly, even though she had lost her trainee. Oh good. I'm going to trust you to remember what I order, and you can't remember where you lost a person. The menu itself was nice. Not too big or cumbersome, and had only one insert listing Kerbey Lane's specials. But this thing must have been written by M.C. Escher. Trying to find the beer list was like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I was constantly turning pages, going back to pages I read four minutes ago, flipping the menu over just to see if maybe they had a special section where my meal was predetermined and all I had to do was hand the waitress my license...but to no avail. There was no beer list at all. I know they have beer, I passed 20 people who had beer not five minutes ago. So I decide to play it safe, keep my drink order simple so our waitress can join the search and rescue party for the lost trainee. A Dr. Pepper for me, an iced tea for my girlfriend.

We placed our drink order along with an order of Hummus and Pita. I hate hummus, but with the Cracker Barrel/Denny's/Modern Art Museum fusion that the dining room had, I was willing to give it a shot. Who knows, maybe it comes with biscuits, gravy and a biography of Andy Warhol. The hummus and pita arrived promptly, looking like brain matter, with a dusting of cayenne pepper. While mulling over our entrée choices I noticed something about the menu. There is no unifying theme. Kerbey Lane Cafe is all over the place. The menu must have been made up by a retarded kid spinning a globe. There's American hamburgers, Greek chicken dishes, Tex-Mex enchiladas, Middle Eastern salads...at that point, I wasn't sure if I was even still hungry. So I decided to pick something easy. Something light, something refreshing, something with a little bit of "zing." I saw Blackened Salmon Pasta. This pasta had everything that I was craving. It had the spicy zing I was looking for in the blackening, it had the refreshing crisp taste in a promising lemon vinaigrette, and it even had pork! Who doesn't love pork? My girlfriend ordered the Kerbey Chicken. This sounded scrumptious as well. Stuffed with a combination of kalamata olives, cream cheese and mushrooms, and served with a side of loaded mashed potatoes...wait. What? Loaded mashed potatoes? There they go with the crazy mash-ups. Greek influenced by American Continental? But who am I to judge? Maybe it'll work out.

The food arrives, along with the recently rescued trainee. By the look of his face, he must have gotten tangled in a fishing line. So many piercings, he looked like the Hang Tough course from American Gladiators. Everything looks spectacular. The reds were red, the greens were green, the blackened salmon was blackened. With the exception that my meal was presented on two plates, everything looked like we had expected. I kept both plates because it elevated my food, thus reducing any tiny bit of effort I might need to get this beautiful food into my mouth. But this is where our meal took a turn for the mediocre. The blackened salmon might not have been salmon at all. The blackening spices overpowered the fish. Not to mention the somewhat compact nature of the fish I received. It was like cutting into chicken breast. And that lemon vinaigrette that I so anxiously awaited...canceled out by the peppery capers. The pork, thank god, was porky. As for the Kerbey Chicken, it was some kind of culinary frankenstein. The flavor of the stuffed chicken and the loaded mashed potatoes just didn't mesh well. And the chicken breast wasn't technically stuffed! It was sliced in half and presented like a sandwich. Cheaters.

We finish our respective plates because we're not assholes, and our waitress returns with her trainee (his face must act as some sort of locating bell.) "Here's our dessert list, in case you decide you want something sweet" she offers. My girlfriend is an aspiring pastry chef who has made every dessert item on every menu. Don't believe me? Look at any dessert menu. Does it have cheesecake on it? Sure it does. How about a brownie/ice cream concoction? Yep. They're almost all the same, dessert menus. So she's kind of dejected when it comes to dessert at restaurants. She decides on her personal favorite, Tres Leches. A direct translation is "Three Milks." So what shows up? A piece of dry yellow cake, sitting in a puddle of milk. Mmm. It was as if the kitchen tried to make a deconstructed Tres Leches.

We got the check, which was entirely too expensive for the food we received, and paid. Our waitress thanked us and we heard a slight "jingle jingle" from the trainee who had once again disappeared. We made our way through the bar, once again remaining dry, and into the air lock. Once we made it past the Mongol barrier we were home free. Kerbey Lane Cafe was not a bad restaurant. It wasn't worth $47.22 either. Will we ever go back? Who knows. Kerbey Lane is open 24 hours a day, so I'm sure we'll make a drunken mistake sometime in the future.