Chuy's, Austin, Texas

Almost everyone who lives in Austin has been to Chuy’s. The first location opened in 1982, and they’ve since opened dozens of locations in Austin and beyond, as far away as Indiana. So now you have to get clarification when someone asks to meet you at Chuy’s. On Barton Springs? Sure! College Station? Hey, I could visit a lot of friends at the same time. North Lamar?  No way, José.

The North Lamar location gets a lot of traffic; during happy hour, there’s not a parking spot to be found and if you do find one it’s going to be very narrow. The staff are exactly what you’ve experienced at other locations, which is adept, personable and frequently a lot of fun. But there’s something amiss besides the parking situation…hmmm, what could it be…o yes, it’s the food. They failed on the food.

How can that be? you may ask, and I don’t have a good answer. I’ve never had a bad meal at Chuy’s before Thursday, and I’ve been to three or four locations in the 20+ years I’ve lived in Austin. They’ve always delivered tasty Tex-Mex fare to my table. They’ve expanded into San Antonio, for crying out loud. So again, how can this be?

Let’s start with the chips and salsa. Their table salsa was finely diced veggies in a consistency somewhere between thick sauce and pico de gallo. Fabulous for them! They’ve got some poor guy chopping the ingredients into micrometers. May they pay him well and may he provide the proper paperwork. May he also be allowed to add a little lime juice and oil, and briefly cook it. That’s what gives it a homemade texture, and that’s what takes enough of the heat out that I can put a nice scoop in my mouth and actually enjoy it instead of worrying that my ass will be on fire in a few hours. They also gave us a little bowl of their “creamy jalapeño” salsa. I was a little exited, as I hadn’t tried that before. Woo-hoo! They got their veggie-chopper to mince some peppers into even smaller pieces and…put it in ranch dressing? What the hell? Who do they think they are fooling? I’m totally stealing that idea since it took less effort to think of it than it does to actually do it.

Sad state of affairs it is when the best thing on your plate is the rice. I got the #5 Combo (Chalupa and Enchilada) substituting beef for chicken to fill the enchilada. Should’ve stuck with chicken. The beef was blandy-bland-bland. The cream sauce on it was okay, though. The chicken on the chalupa (tostada for some of us) was decent, too, but the shell itself was one tough mother. I understand that a tostada shell needs to be able to hold up for a few minutes under heat and moisture, but that’s why you put a layer of beans down first. Corn gluten? More like corn glue holding this thing together. You could’ve picked it up, spun it around, Frisbeed it against the wall, all of that and it would’ve held up. Taking a bite without using your back teeth? Cutting it with just a fork? Forget it.

Santi got the Southwestern Enchiladas, which is touted as “A New Mexican tradition. Homemade blue corn tortillas stacked with freshly-roasted, hand-pulled chicken, cheese & Green Chile sauce, topped with a fried egg.” Okay, fair enough. He usually orders that because he likes it. They were pushing it as it’s one of the sections for their “Green Chile Festival” menu. He was underwhelmed. Better at El Mercado, from the look on his face. They also gave him refried beans, when he specifically asked for charro beans. When he pointed out they error, they immediately brought him a bowl of charro beans.
 
It was about this point that I noticed that the charro beans and the refried beans were the same color. My eyebrows knitted as I started spooning around my little bowl of charro beans. They did not move independently. In fact, they were not swimming in broth; they were fixed in a rapidly-thickening sauce. And finally, as I again compared their color to the refried beans, the light bulb went off: they were the same thing. When the saucy-charro beans start getting that not-so-fresh feeling, they just mash ‘em up and make refrieds out of them.

Our waitress Christy was awesome. The whole staff was nice and friendly and not too pierced. The restrooms were even clean and kind of neat.

But the food? Bad. Chuy’s, you got some ‘splaining to do. We went to the original Chuy’s about a year ago and it was great as usual. So was this an off-day for this location? Other than being a meddling kid and solving the Charro/Refried Bean Color Mystery, I can’t give you any answers. I can tell you that by early evening, my ass was on fire.