Thursday, February 24, 2011

Sagra - 1610 San Antonio St, Austin, TX 78701

They have great linen napkins and wannabe-great paper tablecloths.  

Our waiter seemed perfectly nice.  He never asked me what I wanted to drink, though.  He asked everyone else except me.  I was barely able to get his attention before he fled from our table.  

Me:  "Hey, can I get a French press, please?"
Waiter:  "Oh... uh, sure."
Me:  "Gee, thanks."

I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat.  This was partially because they have such a small brunch menu and partially because a couple of different things actually did sound good, so I had trouble making a decision.  I am one of those weird people who can make most life-altering decisions looking cool and without much of a second thought, but ask me what I want for lunch and I'll easily get as flustered as a hypochondriacal Woody Allen character.

I finally blurted out "French toast" when the waiter came to me.  Also ordered a bellini for $1.  

The bellini was sickeningly sweet.  I hadn't had French toast in a good long while, so I was interested to try it again.  Sagra's French toast wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, either.  It was drowning in canned sauteed peaches.  I like eating raw peaches, but these sauteed peaches just weren't shakin' my bacon.  [Mmmmm... bacon.]  Took me a minute to rake all that crud offa there, but I finally managed.  My momma makes much better French toast, and she's not a restaurant.  She doesn't cook anymore, though, except at T'giving and Xmas.  [Mmmmm... T'giving.]  The toast had very little taste to it unless I dipped it in the ramekin of maple syrup with which they provided me (thankfully, they apparently knew that their French toast was lacking taste).  I was expecting a little powdered sugar.  Isn't that pretty standard on French toast?  I guess there's a reason you shouldn't order French toast at an Italian restaurant.

We also got a couple of complimentary baskets of various starches:  two kinds of smurf muffins and some sort of cubed bread pieces.  I say "smurf muffins" because they were approximately 1.5" in diameter and they were merely muffin tops instead of entire muffins.  After I picked out the raisins and slapped some butter on them, they were great.  I couldn't tell you what flavor they were, unfortunately.  Nothing distinctive.  No one tried the cubed bread.

Two of my tablemates got Eggs Sagra, which is essentially Eggs Benedict (Hollandaise sauce, spinach, salmon, poached eggs... and the same kind of bread used for my French toast).  They complained that the bread was too hard, so the manager brought out a plate of, I guess softer, bread.  I really don't know how that was supposed to help since the bread is supposed to go on the bottom of an Eggs Benedict/Sagra meal, but whatever.  I wasn't too concerned with it since it wasn't my meal.

I don't like how certain restaurants automatically add gratuity to the bill for parties of 6 or more, because they count on you forgetting that they added gratuity already.  It worked on me, anyway.  My bill was $16-something.  I put a $20 bill in there and forgot about it.  My friend mentioned later that they added gratuity already, so I had no choice but to curse myself for giving my merely average waiter a double tip.

On the upside, I saw much closer parking spaces I could have chosen as I walked to Sagra from my spot at 18th and Guadalupe.

I admit I didn't do all the necessary research on Sagra before I went, but I did read that parking might be a problem.  I noticed two signs outside of Sagra that mentioned "more parking in back".  So try that first.  Don't be a boob and walk 2 blocks in high heels like I did.  Granted, 2 blocks is not far at all, but it can seem distant when you're wearing heels.  Shut up, male species.

Verdict:  Not to eat

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