Greening Austin Daily

Restaurant Review Friday: Jack Allen’s Kitchen

17th February, 2012 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I went to the Natural Gardener, located in Southwest Austin, to pick up some soil for our garden and some plants.  It’s pretty out-of-the-way for us, so we decided to get dinner in the area on the way back.  On a whim we stopped at Jack Allen’s Kitchen, which we’d never heard of before.  The parking lot was very full for Saturday at 5:00 PM, so I assumed it was going to be filled with families and maybe some older people, serving uninteresting food.  I was wrong (about the food). It was AMAZING!  I loved it and I’m going to go back there every time I need to go to the Natural Gardener and combine it all into one exciting trip.

Not only was the food amazing though, Jack Allen’s Kitchen uses  local ingredients whenever possible.  (You can read more about that here.)  I thought the menu was very unique with a lot of choices, and the prices were very reasonable.

To start, we were given complimentary homemade pimento cheese spread with crackers, a very nice touch.

Then we ordered the blue crab gratin, described as crab baked with artichoke hearts, spinach, Parmesan and grilled ciabatta.  It was very good although one of the more expensive appetizers ($10.99).

My husband had the Country Club Fancy Chicken Salad, described as being composed of grilled achiote chicken, figs, pears, candied walnuts, crumbled bleu cheese and champagne vinaigrette ($11.99).  It was a really fresh, large salad and I especially liked the use of figs.

I had the veggie and portobello South Texas Taco Platter ($9.99), which was also delicious.  The tacos seemed homemade, the portobello was really well cooked (not rubbery at all), and the salsa and rice were tasty.

Finally, we had an amazing dessert that I can’t remember the name of, but it was some kind of chocolate cookie pie with nuts.  Not too sweet and really good!

The service was excellent, the place was really clean and efficient, and it had a great atmosphere that would be great for a romantic date or going with a family.  And with wonderful LOCAL food at reasonable prices, I will be going back again for sure!