Guest Contributor: Josh Kerr

[Note from Josh: I curse a lot in this review which isn't my norm, but I could not find any better suited words.  Also, toward the end of the night it got really dark and I got really drunk so the photos aren't as good as I'd like them to be.]

Stick a roaring fork in me, I’m done.  Hung over that is.  Last week Maggie and I got invited to a tasting at the new Roaring Fork location in North Austin.  It was without a doubt the most fun I’ve ever had at a tasting.  I haven’t seen Maggie this morning, but chances are good that she is drinking her diet cokes (the first sign that she too has a hangover.)   Let me tell the story.

Maggie on her first of like ten drinks.  Its all smiles right now, but wait till the next morning.

I’ll start by giving you a little background before I get to the good stuff.  Roaring Fork is owned by the Eddie V people Guy Villavaso and Larry Foles.  I’m a big fan of Eddie V’s and its in my top ten list for best restaurants in Austin.  I’ve been to the Roaring Fork downtown location and its good, just not great.  Lisa O’Neil is their marketing director sent Maggie an invite for a tasting.   Usually invitations come from a public relations firm, but the Eddie V’s group is so big they have their own internal PR person.  I’m getting this big chain corporate vibe.   Maggie offers to let me use her invite to take someone else.  Clearly she feels the same way.

From the outside the Roaring Fork looks like an office building.

Fast forward to the day of the event.  Maggie and I both know its on Stone Lake BLVD, but we didn’t know quite where.   While driving on Stone Lake heading toward Braker I remember thinking that this area of town is so ugly.  Lots of  concrete, no hills, no lakes, just plain and ordinary.  I pulled up to Roaring Fork and its this massive concrete squarish building with a huge parking lot.  Exactly what I would’ve expected from this area.  This place couldn’t be more corporate.  It might as well have been an office building.  I walk up the door and enter.

Did we just enter paradise?

So up to this point I had zero enthusiasm about going to this tasting so my expectations were about as low as can be.  Walking through the door was one of those holy shit, did this just happen type events.  You see, when you walk into the restaurant you get this beautiful view straight through the restaurant past the decks out back and to the massive lake.  Yes, there is a lake behind this restaurant.  Its a quarry actually, built accidentally when a truck was digging and opened up a natural spring.  Legend has it that that truck is still buried in the lake because the water filled up so fast they had to ditch it, but I digress.

Seriously, this is the view at Sunset.

Lucky people get to sit on the deck.   The quarry is seen in the background.

The restaurant is decorated in a modern very tasteful but clearly expensive manner.  It is bustling with the open kitchen to the left and the massive bar to the right.  This is no Roaring Fork, its more like THE flagship Eddie V’s, but with the lights turned on and a big ass lake out back.   The hostess tells me that there is a reserved table on the deck but that I’m the first to arrive so I head to the bar.  I meet up with one of my favorite bartenders in Austin who is training the guys here.  Lance works at Eddie V’s downtown mostly, but he helps to train the staff when they open new restaurants.  Lance hooks me up with a Saavy Martini.  (See our review of the drink here.)  A few minutes later I walk out to the deck to meet Lisa, the marketing director of Eddie V’s.   She is about as far from corporate as you can be.  She is independent, works from home, brand new to this job and absolutely a pleasure to talk with.  How could I be so wrong about this event I start thinking to myself.    Lisa tells me a little about the new restaurant as a few folks show up.  This is not the normal blogger tasting crew, but rather a bunch of  food critics, bloggers, writers and VIP’s.  As we all meet each other drinks start coming out.

This bar is a lot of fun.

Something to much on while we wait for our table.

The deck probably holds about 60 people.  It is massive and has an area to drink and mingle and lots of tables where you can dine outside.  The entire restaurant faces the lake and at sunset it is a beautiful view.   After a few drinks we head in to our tables.  My table is inside the restaurant, but because the walls of the restaurant open up, I was basically sitting outside.   Immediately after we sat down a flight of margaritas are placed on the table.  Up till now I haven’t written much about the drinks because at the time, I wasn’t really thinking about them and probably had 4 before the flight of margaritas arrived.  I’m feeling very good.

A margarita tasting?  Count me in!

Conversation is flowing freely now, the flight of margaritas is delicious and gets all of us pretty drunk. A plate of chips and guacamole is served.  Been there, done that.  I try a bite just to be polite to Lisa, our host, who is sitting two people away from me.  Amazing.  Best fucking guacamole I’ve had in a long time.  I am a pompous food snob and this guacamole just humbled me.  Conversation dies down quickly as we all start stuffing our mouths.  I notice several of those chip fights that happen when two or more people descend with an empty chip to the same plate of dip and battle it out to see who gets to go first.  I win two of these fights, but I’m at a table full of girls so what would you expect?  (When I get drunk, the male chauvinist in me comes out.)  This guacamole is now in my top ten best.

Its a guacamole fight!

Let me back up a little bit and tell you about our server.  She comes by our table when we get seated and starts to speak.  Well, her lips are moving, but I can’t hear anything.  Maybe its that I’m really drunk and my ears are ringing.  No.  She has laryngitis and can only manage to speak at the volume of a small mouse.  I can’t hear a thing she says, so I’m completely in the dark as to what is coming or where we are in the meal.  I have two things to say about this.  First, I’m a dick for pointing out a debilitating sickness that she obviously has no control over.  Second, she manages to provide outstanding service with a complete lack of the ability to be heard.  Certainly no small feat and just a small example of the quality of good people they have working here.

A yummy salad.

So we finish the appetizers and the server comes back over.  Her lips start moving again and I know she is telling us something about our next course.  Suddenly five servers come over eat holding two plates a piece.  These are not normal size plates, they are massive family style plates loaded with food.  They all descend on our table.   A big smile forms on my face and I dig in.  First to the Green Chile Pork Stew.   Absolutely fantastic.

The Green Chile Pork Stew.

JOSH  Maggie, you have to taste this.  I know you are a pescatarian, but just this one time, you are eating pork.

I fold the stew covered in cheese into a soft warm flower tortilla and pass it over to Maggie.  She eats it willingly and smiles.  We both agree that this is something we will order again.  She continues to eat the rest an obvious sign that she loves it and basically all her moral convictions about eating meat go out the window.

Smoked Salmon with horseradish creme dill sauce and toast points.

I’d say four out of the five dishes we ate were solid.  The pork stew was my favorite of the entrees, but everything was good in terms of quality and taste.  Its not the Eddie V’s menu per se, but it certainly is the Eddie V’s consistency.   Now remember that I’m getting all of this great food and drink for free so as much as I try to maintain objectivity, there is probably some subconscious bias in favor of this restaurant.   If you do decide to try it out, you’ll find me in the bar eating half price appetizers including the guacamole.

Shrimp and Grits.  Clearly my inebriated photography is showing.

Combine great food and service with Oasis style views and you have a winner.  Plus, you don’t have to drive all the way to Lake Travis.  The Roaring Fork also does brunch on Sundays and seats about 400 people, so they can handle larger parties.   I now have a new reason to drive to North Austin for dinner.

More drinks!  After this round of drinks, I’m lucky that 1 in 10 photos is not blurry.

Build your own Mahi Mahi Tacos.  They looked great in person, but I’m too drunk to focus correctly.

I think this was the Pineapple Upside Down Cake, but I might be mistaken.  I’m so drunk at this point, I don’t even know what I’m eating.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Bars.  The last thing I remember of the night.  That, and the cab I took home.

Roaring Fork Stonelake 10850 Stonelake Blvd Austin, TX 78759 www.eddiev.com 512-342-2700 plus a downtown location