Austin Bites: Maru, Buenos Aires Cafe

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Maru (Japanese)
Location: 4636 Burnet Rd [map]
Phone: (512) 458-6200
Cost: Starters $5-8, Maki Rolls $6-13
Atmosphere: Not much to speak of, as it's on a nondescript part of Burnet Road in some modest and anonymous white-walled digs.
Food: There are three reasons to visit Maru, and they are simply the freshness of the fish, the affordability of high-quality sushi, and the modest $5 corkage charge. Maru's decor is as plain as can be, but the food is very good (bordering on excellent) at about 1/3 the cost of dinner at Uchi. Starters of shrimp and vegetable tempura were generously portioned and not at all greasy, while the edamame was strictly by-the-numbers. The lovely "3x3" plate has nine mixed pieces of tuna, salmon, and yellowtail sashimi that are simply huge and provide a good example of what's on offer. The fish is usually melt-in-your-mouth tender, and may be the best we've found yet in Austin. The unagi was decidedly unfishy, cooked expertly, and made for an enjoyable two-piece order. Maki rolls are large in size, with eight or nine pieces to a roll, and are creatively sauced and plated. Service can be spotty, with long wait times when large tables are present. So while you do sacrifice some ambiance and service at Maru, sushi hounds in the area will love this as a regular stop that won't leave them poor.
Link: Maru

Buenos Aires Cafe (Argentinian)
Location: 2414 South 1st Street [map]
Phone: (512) 441-9000
Cost: Lunches $6-10; Dinners $10-17
Atmosphere: Housed in a nondescript little building near South 1st and Oltorf, the restaurant is surprisingly inviting and warm. There's also a small outdoor porch in front for dining or dessert and coffee.
Food: Frankly, it's surprising that there's not a stronger buzz about this little gem. It offers reasonable prices, an intimate setting, and a creative menu. Empanadas were flaky, warm, flavorful, and fresh - and they're cheap to boot. The soup of the day was a ridiculously rich cream of corn offering, which was a delicious, homemade indulgence. We were also fond of the lunch special, a chimichurri- marinated pork tenderloin sandwich. There was literally half of a tenderloin served with the crusty bits from the grill on a toasted bun, and we came nowhere close to finishing the thing. Buenos Aires Cafe has a great reputation for their desserts and pastries, but the other dishes filled us up to the point that we could not even attempt to try them. Service is smooth and friendly, and the servers were very descriptive about the more obscure menu items. What a find.
Link: Buenos Aires Cafe

Images via the Buenos Aires Cafe website. Photographer uncredited.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Tom Thornton in Food on August 28, 2007 4:45 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

guest

Those photos are pretty bad. How about some pictures of the food? And I would love to see Austinist review NEW restaurants or advise us of upcoming openings.

guest

Tomt-

Check out their website above. Under the menu link, there is a link to Lunch Bowls. That lunch list also has some sushi specials on it.

I'm not sure if the prices for individual pieces (2 for $4.50 at dinner) drop for lunch time though.

tomt

#11 - Is the pricing @ Maru the same @ lunch and dinner, or is lunch discounted? Just wondering.

guest

#9 - Maru is almost always close to empty for lunch. On the flipside, the past 2 Fridays for dinner.. there have been lines out the door at 8pm and later.

danimal

Try the J-Bombs at Maru. I totally forget what's in them but they're fantastic.

guest

We had lunch at Maru yesterday and were quite concerned that we were the only people there. I had a caterpillar roll, which was excellent, and my husband had the sushi lunch -- the fish looked very fresh, and it was a lot of food for $13. MUCH better than Uchi.

guest

Buenos Aires Cafe is also the place to go for a traditional yerba mate. The tea is mixed up in a hollow gourd and sucked out through a metal straw that filters the tea leaves.

Shawn Shillington

The food other than sushi at Maru is also good - the Katsu Don and Tempura Udon in particular are super tasty.

guest

word of the day:

atrocious: adj. 1] shockingly bad or tasteless; dreadful; abominable

like yer comments, jerkoffs. start your own effing restaurant!

Thomas Buchanan

Mmmm, maru, some of the best unagi in town.

To expand on the corking charge, that's 5 per table, not per bottle, and with a two bottle maximum. At 3 or more bottles, the corking fee moves to 10 per table.

Still not too shabby.

guest

http://austinmaru.com/

You're welcome.

guest

i'm not impressed. the coffee was no good, the empanadas greasy, they were closed on sunday.....

plus parking is atrocious, patrons always park on the sidewalk area and as a neighbor i have an awful time seeing around the cars or riding past on my bike.

They should extend the patio and market to the multitude of pedestrians/cyclists that pass by, imo.

guest

The service at Buenos Aires, while friendly, can often be atrocious, especially when they are busy. I have had 2 hour lunches there before, and not the "we're slowly enjoying the relaxed Latinesque enjoyment of a long lunch," but in the "we have been here 20 minutes and nobody has said a word, and why did it take 40 minutes to make a sandwich" way. The food is good, but the service makes me very leary any time i go in or think of going in.