Veg Out! Austin

My friend Ms. Particular and I visited Elsi's for lunch today, a first in a series of veggie lunch place reviews. Here's what we thought.

BEN: They've recently moved to a new location on Burnet where the old Academy store was. Their old location was a nice little house converted into a restaurant, but the new site doesn't have much character. It's got warm, inviting colors, but feels a little like a corporate cafeteria.

MS. P: We started with chips and salsa. Ben tried the salsa before I did, and boy was he right when he said it was spicy. I'm not usually a salsa fan because it's often boring, but this one did not have that problem. Nicely done.

BEN: Their menu is a mix of Mexican and El Savadorian dishes, and they have a special section for vegetarian items, although there are also a few veggie appetizers. I ordered their vegetarian chalupas ($7.25), while Ms. P ordered the Aquacate Enchiladas ($7), enchiladas in a mild ranchero sauce filled with guacamole. My chalupas were a stack of guacamole, black beans, tomato, and lettuce on hard tortillas, served with a side of white rice.

MS. P: Thumbs up on the guacamole! The ranchero sauce looked a little strange, but it was very tasty. The beans and rice were underwhelming but inoffensive.

BEN: We also got a small side of queso ($4) to go with the chips. I'd remembered this as being Mexican white cheese, but I was wrong. It was American cheese slightly spiced up, and while it had a good consistency, it didn't impress us.

After the meal, we noticed that they had a lunch special, enchiladas with a red mole sauce, cabbage, and cheese. This looked interesting and I wish I'd seen it before ordering the meal.

MS. P: Props to them for giving me options aside from a giant slab of cheese with some sauce on it. That's often how I feel when I'm at a Mexican place. Here everything was very fresh, I got all my veggies, and I'm very happy.

BEN: It's not a bad choice for lunch, and I'm sure the food is a bit healthier than many of the Tex-Mex joints. The salsa helped spice up the lunch, but the prices were a little high for what we got. Taking advantage of the lunch special would have helped that out, as would have skipping the queso.

MS. P: If you visit Elsi's, you might want to bring a Nerf ball gun to get your server's attention if you're in a hurry. They weren't lackadaisical, but it was did take a while to get our check.