Galaxy Cafe: French Toast that is OUT OF THIS WORLD.

I apologize for my lack of food updates. To be honest, I have had an embarrassingly copious amount of great food in the past 2 weeks. My excuse: my 21st birthday, endless amounts of schoolwork, and jobsearching.

I will post about one of the restaurants I had over my birthday weekend: Galaxy Cafe. Surprisingly this one stood out from all of the restaurants I tried over the weekend which included: Eastside Showroom, Korea Garden, and Uchi. You must be wondering... why?!?! I don't know, maybe I was just in the mood for something a little less pretentious. Something that I could feel less compelled to evaluate... food for the sake of food, right? Like... I just wanted breakfast, haha. I didn't want to go to this restaurant because there was a "buzz" ... and it ended up for the best. :)

Our breakfast drinks: Mimosas and Iced Coffee.
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Yeah if you know me, I am ADDICTED to anything related to coffee. Off topic, someone get me some of that Iced Cafe Bustelo in a can please. Where do you find that canned goodness?!??! As an iced coffee guru, I would say that Galaxy's was a bit creamy for me. It was like in between the Mojo from Epoch and the Turbo from Jo's ... but more on the Mojo side of the spectrum. Jo's Turbo is a little overkill for me ... especially if you ask them what the hell is in that glass of a heartattack.


Speaking of heartattacks ... um, FRENCH TOAST DELUXE, let's be friends forever!!! This reminds me of all of the breakfasts I've had at "nice brunch places" ... like Russell's or Magnolia ... where the one thing that would have really been the icing on the cake (or in this case, the strawberries on the french toast) ... would have been super FRESH FRUIT. I don't want mediocre fresh fruit. I don't want canteloupe-tasting strawberries. I don't want mushy watermelon. Give me these beautiful gigantic sliced strawberries PLEASE. And and and thank you for a huge non-soggy french toast... generously covered in powdered sugar. It was awesome. The bread was the cinnamon-y kind of unsweet ... which is perfect because you want your sweetness to come from the garnishings. And garnishings they did provide. Sigh.


And of course, MIGAS! Yeah, still on the search for Austin's best migas. These weren't Austin's best migas... unfortunately. I still have yet to find those, but they were decent. Would have been better with chorizo and black beans. That seems to always be my recommendation, huh. Why give refried beans when you can give black beans? That's all.

Galaxy Cafe
1000 W. Lynn St.
Austin, TX
512 478 3434
www.galaxycafeaustin.com

x,

Franny

Russell's Bistro: A Classy Brunch

Russell's is no Kerbey or Magnolia in the fact that the setting is just so much nicer and it seems so much cleaner. And the prices are still pretty much the same, although the menu options are more limited.

The only thing I'm really going to complain about was the service, which itself wasn't really that bad ... it was just the fact that they seem heavily understaffed or just incapable of handling the brunch rush in a timely fashion. Our waitress did bring us out 2 free snickerdoodles which was really nice and I completely understood that it was the kitchen's fault, not hers. But literally, we got there before noon and didn't leave until after 2 pm. I think that's a little ridiculous.


This is the outside with their fairly large patio. I wish we had the other waiter who kept bringing his tables mimosas to help them forget about the fact that they had been waiting an hour for their food, haha.

They have an amazing bakery that you can shop from and you can also sit down and eat. You can also find some of their baked goods at local coffee shops, such as Bennu.


Not to mention, they have packs of day-old baked goods. All 4 of these muffins cost $3. Well, actually for me they were free due to the circumstances, haha. But in a normal scenario, that is really a steal seeing how the fresh muffins cost more than double the price of 1 day-old muffin ($0.75)!

Bistro Omelet

And finally, my brunch came out, although I was already full from snacking on my snickerdoodle and a little bitter. Nevertheless, the presentation of everything was excellent. The omelet itself was very tasty... I loved the mushrooms. The avocado was good, but could have been more fresh. I liked the potatoes, but in the end I was too stuffed to eat them. The croissant came with strawberry butter which reminded me of Quack's pink vanilla bean buttercream frosting but much much much lighter. It was good! Very interesting idea. And then some fresh fruit on the side that also was not very fresh. I always suggest never using cantaloupe because it never looks fresh. It just looks like mushy goop and it makes all the other fruit taste like cantaloupe.

Yeah, okay so if my experience had occurred in a more timely fashion I think this would have been a much more positive entree. I think Russell's definitely has the potential to be an A+ brunch place, if you don't think it is already. They just need to get in the swing of things during the brunch rush and not let the stress cause them to make mediocre food.

Russell's is located at:
1601 W. 38th St.
Austin, TX 78731
www.russellsbakery.com


x,

Franny