Burgers, brats and (exceptionally good) pretzels complement the extensive beer selection, but the menu has aspirations beyond simple pub grub. Beer and cheese pairings round out a small selection of charcuterie including smoked salmon and sopressata, all of which come in generous portions in any combination you wish. There are salads (yes, salads) and the omnipresent wraps. Pizza, sandwiches, nachos and a bewildering variety of fried and sometimes drenched potatoes provide the remainder of the alcohol-absorption duties. Sorry, no fish and chips.

I admire any kitchen that is willing to decorate a plate of cheese-drenched nachos with sausage – I mean, why the hell not? The Beer Brat Nachos are a perfect over-the-top accompaniment to a 12% Belgian abbey ale and a couple of shots of Irish whiskey after you've just gotten the bad news from your broker. Caramelized onions are a welcome – but oddly panty-waisted – addition to a dish that needs no further accoutrement. Toss the aioli over your shoulder at the 12-top of giggling Chi-Omegas and just pour the rest of your buddy's Guinness on the damn plate. That's about the only thing that could improve it.

That's a bold statement, to be sure. I've suffered through years of public school lunches; eaten dried up, shrink-wrapped burger-like things from a gas station microwave; hell, I've even been to Jack in the Box. In most of those cases, though, you have an expectation that the meal will stink. The relative level of disappointment is thus much lower.

At the Flying Saucer, I galloped through juicy bratwurst, creative sandwiches, the aforementioned nachos and a few other dishes before trying the signal dish of the American beer bar: the cheeseburger. For whatever reason, the kitchen sent me a desiccated disc of cardboard so dry and flavorless that it made me long for the virtuoso gourmet stylings of the Plano Independent School District. This burger was, truly, a piece of shit.

I'm not sure where it came from, or whether it was even made from actual flesh of an animal, but the server verified that the wispy, arid patty was not the veggie burger. Whatever it was, it was thin and worthless and indistinguishable from simply eating a dressed hamburger bun. Avoid it at all costs. Even better, order one from Galaxy Cafe next door and have them deliver it to your table. Think of it as a public protest. A burger like this one is a true American tragedy, and a black mark on an otherwise respectable drinking, eating and retching establishment.

Recommended, except for the burger.

For those pining for a dining experience designed by Stanley Kubrick, the ascetic white and orange minimalism of the new Galaxy Cafe will leave you wondering where, exactly, the HAL 9000 is located. Soaring ceilings, Gilliam-esque duct-shaped light fixtures, stark Ikea chairs and an Orwellian flat screen presentation of a mesmerizing, animated logo (and nothing more) bring to mind the lighter side of fascist architecture. Indeed, as you are channeled via a low, colored ceiling back toward the strangely dark ordering counter, one has the impression of entering an exquisitely designed abattoir.

Thankfully, Anton Chigurh is not manning the register here, although the sound of compressed air might send me running for the door. Galaxy is an order-at-the-counter, "fast-casual" joint like sister establishment Zocalo, and if the food wasn't worth a damn at either one of these places, the sheer force of image management and clever grace notes would be oppressive. Galaxy Cafe is sort of an anti-matter version of Applebee's – just as calculated, but engineered for a hip, health and design-conscious audience.

As to the "signature wraps", that whole debased burrito-renaming concept fell out of favor with me five years ago when KFC started offering the things. These are burritos, and in general they're pretty good – dense and customizable, as a burrito should be. Unlike some of the other morning offerings, the breakfast burrito will fuel you well into the afternoon. Other dishes didn't fare as well. The migas were insubstantial and, worse, pretty bland. The french toast is generous but gets cold before you can make your way through much of it. The salads are, by and large, competent.

I like what Galaxy and its sister establishments are trying to do – reasonably priced food with healthy options, sandwiched somewhere between sit-down dining and fast food. The overabundance of calculation and cuteness does make for a slightly cold dining experience, as if the concept got overtaken by engineers at some point. When you suck the character out of the environment, we search for warmth in the food. Galaxy's food, while decent on many counts, doesn't exactly scream character either, and the lasting impression is perhaps just a bit too clean for me.

Recommended.

I've railed against arbitrary and useless qualifiers of "Mexican" before, but "modern" certainly sounds appealing—though it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Indoor plumbing and some kind of attention to hygiene rank high on my list of requirements for modernity, but this could just as easily refer to some new interpretation of cuisine, or perhaps a Joycean riff on the menu descriptions: "The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. And from the sea, pescado a la veracruzano!"

No such luck. In the case of Sago Modern Mexican, "modern" apparently entails the brazen juxtaposition of bright paint schemes with a mirror-tiled disco wall and some inoffensive light techno in the background. Or maybe it's the traditional tin ornaments contrasted cleverly against the miniature Ikea cactus pots on the tables. Whatever. We get it — this is not Amaya's Taco Village. Or, as my attorney put it, "this place looks like a stash house in Juarez."

Nevertheless, my hopes weren't high for a weeks-old "modern" Mexican restaurant given my previously stated predilection for all things larded and a healthy suspicion of dolled-up, high-dollar ethnic cuisine. The first surprise was the menu—it showed unusual attention to the glory of the pig, with pork of some kind gracing the descriptions of a good quarter of the menu items.

The next surprise was that most of what we tasted was damn good. No earth-shattering revelations or eye-rolling, transcendent mouthfuls of flavor, but solid, tasty stuff with a twist here and there—mostly hits and just a few misses. The posole, for instance, atoned for its initial blandness with a healthy chunk or two of roasted pork and a subtle, earthy broth. I'll try it again and hope it gets a touch of heat to it.

If Sago has a signature dish, it should be the pork gorditas. Stuffed with pork shoulder and deep-fried, Sago's gorditas are rich, hearty and oddly un-heavy for a deep-fried hunk of masa. The masa comes flecked with little bits of cilantro and the gorditas arrive exploding at the top, ready to release their porky bounty into your waiting gullet. And, yes, I did feel dirty writing that. You'll understand once you have a couple of these fried delights.

Also of note: Sago's charro beans are superb—deep, meaty, thick with bacon and nearly worthy of a meal on their own. Pork enchiladas were deemed good by my attorney, but we both agreed that the honey cilantro rice with both of our entreés was an experiment in contrast gone slightly awry. "Modern" and "fresh" Mexican tend to push this sweet/hot contrast as if it were culinary gospel. I've yet to see it work particularly well.

Sago's lunch menu is well-priced considering the location and the potential crowd; I haven't been for dinner yet. It's a bargain compared to the always-packed, inconsistent Mandola's across the way, so the next time you see a line out the door at the Italian place, give a modern Mexican a shot.

Recommended.

If you've never had the pleasure of entering a restaurant with glistening ducks and pigs hanging in the front window (it's common in Asia), you'll enjoy seeing the specialties of the house prior to their surrender to the cleaver. I recommend dragging a couple of vegan friends along for comic relief, though they may not dine out with you again. That's too bad, because Din Ho does a better job with veggies than most Chinese joints. If you've had your fill of greens drenched in grease and hoison sauce, order up a plate of Din Ho's snow pea leaves with garlic - they're simple and very nearly "light," and your stomach will thank you for the roughage once the onslaught of oink and quack begins.

Once you've worked your way through the critters in the window, try the soups and some of the other specialties. The snow pea leaf soup with tofu and ground pork is earthy and straightforward. The "salt pork chop" is actually slices of pork deep-fried in a mildly sweet batter served with hot peppers. Turns out, it's not spicy at all; in fact, it's the closest thing I've ever had to a pork beignet, which, if it exists somewhere, would be a damn good thing.

DIn Ho deftly balances heavy with light; consequently, if you get your kicks from the overwhelming deluge of rich, sweet sauces typical to stateside Chinese cooking, you might leave disappointed. This is simple stuff, like Texas barbecue, and it's really all about the meat. Atmosphere is minimal; decor is dated and wood-paneled; service is attentive but impersonal. Food is damn good and inexpensive. What else do you need?

Recommended.

But Italian is hard (and even harder to write about, what with the Tuscany-summering, message board-patrolling authenticity police lecturing random sandwich eaters on the correct singular construction of panino), and the spectrum of Italian restaurant quality is a bell curve with a gut full of mediocrity. The gulf between merely edible and good is tremendous, and while Asti was closer to good, it couldn’t make it there every night.

Fino shares little of the dark intimacy of Asti; instead, a bright, modern space was crafted in the shell of the late (and not particularly lamented) Granite Café. A large community table gleams just behind the bar and the inevitably young, attractive hostess, but there is plenty of standard seating both inside and outside, and a surprisingly inviting patio waiting area that may be one of the best spots in town to enjoy a quiet cocktail. Occupying a nether region that is neither downtown nor campus nor north Austin, Fino is mercifully bereft of the open-shirt, pointy-shoe crowds of wealthy young jerkwads urbanites that overrun most of the decent restaurants downtown and just south of the river.

Fox’s Mediterranean/Spanish (Middle Eastern and North African are thrown in for good measure) concept mixes some crowd-pleasing standards – the Serrano ham and Manchego sandwich at lunch is an instant classic – with seasonal specials that often incorporate local and/or organic ingredients. Cravings for Greek salad or fried calamari can be satisfied at Fino, but the restaurant’s gems are the many small plates and a few well-crafted entreés.

Among the best: A nearly perfect chicken tagine with preserved lemon (this seems to appear seasonally); a flatbread with Serrano ham and Manchego small plate, nearly rudderless in its standard form but transformed into high art with the addition of a fried egg on top (you have to ask for it); a generous bowl of soft polenta with house-made chorizo and spicy tomato sauce, so hearty and comforting you want to personally witness the passionate act of Spanish-Italian intimacy that must have given birth to it.

The misses here are few, but they are notable. The salads are often uninspired, overdressed or both, Fox’s admirable preference for local greens notwithstanding. The wine list would benefit from the same adventurous spirit that informs both the kitchen and the bar; while I will never, ever try a blueberry-infused bourbon again, God bless the unhinged maniac who thought it might be worth drinking. And our last trip was marred by a couple of lukewarm dishes; to their credit, the waiter and the manager took care of the problem promptly.

Fino is one of the more enjoyable restaurants in Austin, which is not to say it is one of the best. There is more exquisitely crafted and imaginative food, and better service, but Fino is affordable, friendly and often very good. Try it for lunch and you might be surprised at the meal you can get for a reasonable bit of scratch. Dinner is more expensive, especially when booze enters the picture, but you can nosh your way around a few small plates and a couple glasses of wine and walk out happy. Spend a fall evening out on the patio and you’ll see what I mean; you might even see me, flush from too much Rioja, jabbering well past last call.

Recommended

So, I come at the opening of Zocalo, which advertises its freshness in a tagline-logo package that appears predestined for highly profitable franchise opportunities, with an admittedly jaundiced eye. After all, I see nothing un-fresh in the greasy al pastor of a good taco wagon or in a lard-infused molé. Neither is light, but both are as fresh as any pineapple salad. Then again, I am both pro-death and pro-lard, so there you go. Death by lard for me, and I am going to enjoy every goddamn minute of it.

Zocalo's blank interior gives nothing away, but the menu exudes "think different" goofiness with signature items like make-your-own guacamole and "stacked" enchiladas (the latter, much to our dismay, did not look or taste anything like a massive pair of tits). We opted for both, along with a carnitas taco plate and a grip of sides. The results were mixed, though generally pleasant. And, yes, goddamn fresh.

The guac was a bust, a silly, literally half-ass attempt at the "made-at-your-table" guacamole sensation sweeping the country like a bad Cobb Salad. When the avocados are already mashed into a paste back in the kitchen, this becomes a thrilling exercise in garnish application. Yee-haw. Bring more salt. The house-fried tortilla chips were crispy and just oily enough; they disappeared quickly with the guac and some tasty salsa.

The stacked enchiladas looked suspiciously like stacked tostadas to us, so I'm not sure where the name comes from, but they were artful, if a tad insubstantial. The pork carnitas came on three quite small, handmade tortillas and required a lot of maneuvering to add veggies, but the pork was excellent, very tender and moist. A side of pineapple salad had enough heat to send me back inside for a tea refill. Spice-phobes should avoid it, but if you want an unusually sweet kick in the teeth, this baby's got cojones.

The jicama salad might have worked as a small palate cleanser, but it wasn't up to the duty of a full-fledged side dish. A notch too far over on the "cooling counterpoint" scale, its bland, abstract sweetness was reminiscent of that Swedish exchange student you sorta had the hots for in 9th grade, until you realized she was nothing like a porn star and was doomed to a life of pickled fish and chronic alcoholism. Ah, Britt, where are you now?

Zocalo is a decent alternative when you've got to lunch with those three "zone" diet dudes from inside sales but you need some pork and a little heat. Sit outside if you can; the interior is oppressively minimal, and the scenery along West Lynn is always entertaining, a seemingly endless stream of 6-series BMWs, Aston Martins, Range Rovers and skinny fresh-mexican restaurant servers on bullhorn single-speed bikes.

And one day, undoubtedly, a dusty, sad-eyed blond piloting a Volvo wagon hurriedly onto 9th street, destination Wiggy's, for another bottle of Aquavit, just a little something to take the edge off. There you are, Britt. I'm glad you're safe.

Recommended

A good breakfast taco needs to satisfy three basic requirements. First, it needs to be cheap — otherwise you might as well sit down and order a plate of food. Second, it needs to be filling, so you can make it through your hellish morning without opening fire on your co-workers. Finally, of course, it needs to taste good — and, given the slightly monochromatic porkiness/saltiness of most breakfast ingredients, that means good salsa.

Don't be daunted by La Victoria's early morning line; they crank the food out fast enough, and at $0.99 for a two ingredient taco (plus one thin dime for each additional), this is a bargain breakfast. The tacos come out hot and improve with a car ride to work (or a bus ride to the courthouse) because the cheese has time to melt. The salsa won't win any awards, but it's just right for the eggs, a touch of fruitiness and heat to cut through the grease.

If you're still pulling in the unemployment checks and have some time to kill, try to find an open chair or one of their charming, busted old booths and relax in the lost-in-time, semi-industrial ambiance of a place that looks like it hasn't changed a light bulb in thirty years. The "authenticity" police call this atmosphere; most others might note a lack thereof. I'll leave it at funky, weird, angular and damn tasty.

I keep going back to Connie's for the breakfast burritos - really, somewhere between a burrito and a taco, if you subscribe to the Mission-size criteria for true burrito-dom. "Stacy's" burrito packs egg, machacado and avocado into a homemade flour tortilla and makes a solid breakfast for under three bucks - in some ways, it's a better deal than two breakfast tacos, and a welcome break from the holy grease/cheese/egg trinity of Texas mornings.

Sadly, the light hand didn't fare well for the carne guisada, which was slightly bland and, worse, insubstantial. A dish that brooks no "light" interpretations, carne guisada should be hearty and plentiful, but this entree was neither, despite a big push from the server.

Whatever you get, try some green sauce with it, because Connie has refined her tomatillo recipe to a near-perfect blend of flavor and heat. This is a model green sauce, complex and bracing, showcasing every ingredient without allowing one to dominate. It's smack-your-mama stuff, making even the oppressive Mexican Jesus music recede for a moment as you revel in its verdant bounty. Uh, or something.

Recommended.

Whether or not Austin needs another purveyor of bank-breaking prime beef and over-oaked cabernets is really beside the point; Three Forks appears by all accounts to have been implanted into the earth directly from outer space (outer space being Dallas) and its pitch-perfect, humidor-like dimness gives one the distinct sense that a complex network of tunnels supplies the establishment with cattle and kitchen help that rarely see the light of day. Were it not for the lamentable intrusion of plasma televisions, a shadowy booth here would be the perfect place not just to plan but to execute your next murder.

On the topic of murder, Three Forks has its knives out for your expense account, so expect the same kind of tab you'd run up at any of the aforementioned joints, with another 10-15 percent thrown in for the Forks' particularly intense brand of service. In fact, any harm you could do an estranged business partner would be cleaned up so quickly and discreetly by the staff that a few well-greased palms might make this the perfect place to dispose of your latest problem.

A special of beef medallions with andouille sausage and grilled prawns showed some creativity, with a heavy but not morbidly rich sauce and prawns that teetered on the wrong side of overcooked. The wine list is tilted predictably toward massive cabernets, merlots, Bordeaux and their ilk; we stuck in the relative (ha) bargain land of the southern hemisphere and clinched our teeth through an obsessively tight South African red blend to arrive at a perfect Argentine malbec.

With what appeared to be a genuinely heartbroken realization that we weren't going to top off our Saturnalian consumption with dessert, the staff offered up homemade Irish creams on the house; to me, they tasted slightly of Coco Lopez (the server confided, unsolicited, that the recipe was a closely-guarded secret, though none of us had asked), but the cocktail was a pleasant surprise.

Of course, such grace notes should be expected when you drop five or six bills for dinner, so I predict a rush of price increases and pointless flourishes as the downtown steak wars heat up. Three Forks' secret weapon may be the cheesy, pastoral-painted plates that the entreés arrive on; you've got to admire the cojones of plating up a forty-odd dollar dish on something that looks like a platter picked up at an estate sale in Midland.

Should you drop your hard-earned coin here? They don't appear to need yours, or mine for that matter, but they've carved out a reasonably entertaining niche: completely over-the-top conservatism. If you can put aside the cattle/oil riches theme-park aspect of the experience and you find comfort in precise, obsequiously attentive service, well, you're probably nodding quietly to the WSJ editorial page right now instead of reading this codswallop. Have your assistant make that reservation immediately. The rest of you should go to Hofbrau and save your money for binging on expensive scotch and esophagus surgery.

Recommended for high rollers

Luckily there is more here than meets the eye. That's good for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is a decor and ambiance that could best be described as mid-century cowboy dadaism. High-modern pendant lights float over wood planks and cow paintings, and the wait staff sport matching black western shirts and enough body ink and piercings to staff Emo's on a weekend.

Whether or not Louis Lambert recognizes – or even cultivates – the irony of this sort of democratization is beyond me (the tumblers are one notable carryover from the old establishment), but I've never found wine served this way (especially light and medium-bodies reds) to be as enjoyable as a real wine glass.

The democratic implications of a $32 steak are another matter altogether. Our bone-in strip was impressive both in size and preparation, a murderous swath of meat big enough for two, cooked perfectly and accompanied with thin-sliced fried onions. I chose the herb-crusted prime rib, which came smoked and then finished on the grill. The meat was superb – smokey and tender – but the horseradish sauce had so little kick to it that it might as well have been mayo.

We tried smoked bacon braised collard greens and spicy ranch beans from the menu of family-style sides; both were hearty and authentic. Our waiter was kind enough to comp a dessert for us (we had let him know at the outset of the meal that his fly was open); we opted for coconut cream pie and – as you would expect from a renowned pie master – it was spectacular. Light and airy, sweet and flaky, it was the perfect postscript to our meaty narrative.

Fancy barbecue? Well, yes, I do. Fancy barbecue? The concept demands a a series of logical twists to swallow – but we can probably trust Mr. Lambert to get it right over time. Austin seems to have an unlimited appetite for meat at both the high and low end, and I applaud Mr. Lambert for using natural and local ingredients as much as he does. Lambert's is a bit pricey for the service, but the food is undeniably good. If you want to save yourself a trip to Lockhart or Llano and prefer a big red over a Big Red, you can't do much better than Lambert's.

Recommended

Let's start with the wine. The focus seems to be French wines and big California reds, to the notable exclusion of much of the rest of the world. In the midst of 25,000 square feet of wine and food, I counted perhaps 20 bottles of Italian wine, although it may have been closer to a dozen. Much the same can be said for Spanish, Australian, New Zealand and many other prominent producers. The ratio of French and California reds to all of the other wines combined is probably two to one.

Despite the odd selection, there are some good wines to be had, and I appreciate the chain's 5% discount for cash/check/debit purchases. The beer selection is good, though not great — if you want that really obscure Trappist ale, you're still better off with Grapevine or CM.

On the gourmet food side, Spec's packs in a competent array of chocolates, coffees, sauces, olives, crackers, chips and a few unique items in the freezer section. The meat counter houses a small selection of prosciutto, ham, turkey and other meats, along with very good take-and-bake bread, including a pesto loaf that was spectacularly rich and satisfying.

Two small cheese cases frame the meat counter, but I found the cheese I purchased (a Montegrappa and a Cabrales) improperly wrapped; both grew additional surface mold quickly and were dried out within 4-5 days. Someone needs to turn on the heat on the shrink-wrapper.

I hope Spec's adjusts their wine mix for a wider audience. Classic French wines are wonderful — and there is much to discover here in the Rhones and others — but I'm not sure that they deserve to completely dominate a modern wine shop along with entire rows of merlots and cabs. Give us some variety and we'll be back.

Not Recommended.

The bánh mi leaned toward the insanely spicy side the night we visited, with copious jalapeños and pickled carrots. The heat of raw jalapeños is often a crapshoot, so who knows how spicy these will be next time around. If you're timid, grab a milk-based bubble tea next door before you order.

Lily's has a good selection of cold drinks but not much else; this is not a full restaurant like Tam Deli. If you can tune out the insanely loud DVD of Vietnamese entertainers on the TV above the drink cooler – or if that appeals to you – you'll enjoy the same kind of pleasant, brightly-lit strip-center ambiance you've come to expect from Austin's best Vietnamese restaurants. Then again, you may want to follow the lead of the majority of the other patrons and get a big bag of sandwiches to go.

Recommended

Sometime during the nineties, the great minds at De Kuyper decided that Clintonesque triangulation between the sick, cough syrup nastiness of Jagermeister, the cloying, girl-drunk saccharine sweetness of schnapps, and the frat party poison of grain alcohol would be a really marketable idea. Thus the creation of Firewater and a dozen other alcoholic syrups that could be not just palatable to the average sorority sister looking to get loosened up, but also weird and edgy enough for the half dozen Sigma Nus waiting to pull a train on her in the attic game room at 4 am.

Anyway, I began to wonder what I could do with a case of Hot Damn! Some thoughts:

1. A really interesting blowjob contest
   
2. Mixed with the proper amount of ripe tomatoes, DXM, some fresh lump crab meat, and a dollop of hake foam, I could create an edgy, El Bulli-style gazpacho
   
3. Biodiesel
   
4. An extremely short-lived colonic irrigation practice
   
5. An extremely short-lived Jello wrestling contest
   
6. A continuing education course in date rape
   
7. Red-eye gravy
   
8. Justin Timberlake
   

You simply cannot go wrong with any of the baguette sandwiches - my favorite so far is the charcoal pork, but all of them are dressed with a decadent homemade mayonnaise and a brace of pickled veggies and fresh jalapeños. Served warm, they are so good and inexpensive that you'll be tempted to order a few more to go. You should, because they're even cheaper packaged for takeaway.

Don't miss the spring rolls, which are softer and more delicate than most; the roast chicken spring roll is a welcome change from the usual fillings of shrimp and pork. Finally, be sure to indulge in one of the numerous house-made pastries that grace the glass counter. I haven't dug deep into the pastry selection yet, but I'll update the review when I do.

Recommended.