Southwest Bistro at the Hyatt

I got a free appetizer coupon for staying at the hotel so I thought I would give the place a try at lunch time. My server was fantastic. I didn’t want any of the appetizers (they were all nachos of some sort) and she let me sub in a tortilla soup. The soup was good, no frills. Got a cheeseburger as my main and it was a very good burger. Hard to argue with good Texas beef inside brioche buns. It came with a side thin cut fries which I enjoyed as well.
Fairly good for a hotel bistro/​grill type of thing. If you are staying at the hotel and short on time it’s a good option.

Uh oh not so great. Too bad because the hotel is quite nice.
The menu for dinner was not very balanced. Some fish, chicken, and beef offerings. Very complicated preparations that were off putting. When you are staying in a hotel, it is my opinion that while you do want something regional to where you are staying, you also want something comforting because you are traveling away from home. This menu misses the mark on that point. I ordered their Niman Ranch New York Strip. I was told they were out of the 8 oz portion but could offer the 4 oz. (uh 4+4=8 right? just checking) I ordered medium rare. When it arrived it was maybe closer to 3oz as in 3 bites of steak? and well done. The sides were all separated into little tiny bowls balanced on a huge plate around the tiny steak. It was like a «I fell down the rabbit hole» presentation. I ordered the posole as well to start my meal and the very sweet but misguided waitress told me it wasn’t too spicy. Ha. Couldn’t eat it, mouth on fire. Asked for bread to put out fire. Nope, no bread, only pay for chips and salsa… however she kindly brought me some crackers.
Go out of the hotel for dinner.

I was shocked at how poor the service was for a place that is rated so highly. One would think that if you are paying $ 30 for a meal that the waitress is going to be attentive and know the menu. I paid way too much for a sub par evening with friends and family. Did I mention we were the only people in the restaurant? And, the highlight of the night was the bats flying over our heads. $ 400 later I am not a happy camper.

Food wasn’t bad, but far from special. Service was just okay.
Rather spend money on a cab and go elsewhere.

Food was ok, very limited menu. I had the steak and shrimp. Shrimp were cooked well, but overseasoned. Barley side was gritty, and had an odd consistency. My hubby’s steak was supposed to be med rare. It cam out med well. Great view of the river.

My mother and I had just finished the bat tour on the lake. We didn’t want to stray too far from the hotel because we were tired, and so the Southwest Bistro seemed like a good choice.
The food was pretty good. I ordered the Pure Luck Salad which had goat cheese, balsamic vinaigrette, and salmon (which I added on for additional price) The salad was all right, but the salmon was absolutely delicious. Salmon being both my favorite food, and favorite fish rarely disappoints me. I ordered a side of steak fries which were equally as good as the salmon. The menu advertised the «spicy ketchup» along with them. The ketchup was brought out, in addition to an absolutely FANTASTIC horseradish sauce. The sauce was by far the most delicious part of the meal. Even my mother had to try it and we unanimously decided it was amazing.
When it came time to leave our waiter hadn’t checked on us in about 20 minutes. This was extremely frustrating as we were honestly exhausted. We eventually asked another waiter to find him so he could bring us the bill. After 25 minutes we were not pleased, and therefore I have to lower my rating.
For a chain hotel restaurant, it does pretty well. And the view of the skyscrapers across the lake was certainly a highlight of the restaurant. But unless you’re staying here or have a longing for delicious sauce, it’s mediocre.

I must say, the price for the breakfast buffet is a bit outrageous because I’d never eat $ 20 worth of breakfast food to get my money’s worth. However the times that I have eaten at this restaurant, I’ve always enjoyed the attentive service, the food options and being able to just stay a while and take your time with a nice view. I think it’s better to come really early to get the fresh foods too else you’ll be getting the foods that have been sitting in the Warners for a while.
They have a variety of breakfast pastries, fruit, a chef making your omelette, oatmeal with great toppings, cereal, typical breakfast foods like scrambles eggs, bacon, sausage and potatoes. I like the fried French toast and pancakes whenever they have it with fresh hot syrup.

Our waiter was named Prometheous and was very nice and helpful. Our food was very good and the view is. We had the lucky salad (5 stars), the nacho sampler (4 stars), and the vegetarian encheladas, (4 stars)
We came here because the view and the reviews and we were not disappointed.

As I eat lunch here on a Thursday afternoon, I am pleasantly surprised at the friendliness of the staff. I ordered the Richardson Farms BBQ Chicken Burger and am content. They nice staffers did give me complimentary salsa and chips. The salsa is fantastic, it’s fresh, and very Texan. I’d say the burger isn’t the most flavorful, but it is fresh and definitely better than average. Fries are fresh also. Not overly crispy, but not soft. It’s great right in between. The favorite part of the burger I’d say is the pickles given on the side. The pickles are a little more sweet than sour and I love that! I like this place, tho, its a little more expensive than other places. The waiter is nice, he asks how I’m doing every 3 minutes. Overall, I like the place!

This was a nice surprise to me. I would never have picked this for Christmas dinner but my Dad did. I did not want to be scrooge like so I agreed to go. (bah humbug chain hotels! but I was wrong as this is kind of Austiny. :)
When we arrived to the parking lot, the Hyatt almost looked closed as about 2/​3rds of the lot is under construction. But, we found a convenient parking space! (much better than any of the holiday shopping parking fiascos)
The best part is the view of Town/​LadyBird Lake. It is fantastic! And the food was very good.
The staff were very sweet and laid-​back. But not too laid-​back. It was relaxed and they gave us free drinks because we had to wait a few minutes due to an Open Table reservation issue.
Overall: The view is amazing. The food great and inexpensive. Staff is lovely.

Went here for drinks with a some colleagues of mine when I was staying at the Hyatt. It was filled with white collar types as expected. Service was mixed. One woman acted like she hated her job and the other was super nice. I had a sugar craving and had the peanut butter brownie which was just OK.

This place is so-​so. The food is not bad but it is fantastic. It is in the Hyatt hotel downtown on the second floor. They give you complemantary chips and salsa. We got the chicken fajtas for 2 and a side of the southwestern mac and cheese. The fajtas were pretty good and the mac was good too but it had cilantro on it and I can’t stand cilantro.

After an amazing experience with Marker 10 sushi, and SWB’s guacamole, I was eager to return. Unfortunately, the new menu proved to be a let-​down. We started off with the poketini, a tuna tartare dish that promised wontons (usually thin cracker-​like substances are offered with tartare anyway). My server brought it out without wontons, and when I asked if I could get them I was scoffed at. She said they didn’t even carry anything like that. When I showed it to her on the menu she explained it’s a new menu, and they probably overlooked that or may have them in the future.
My partner started with a shrimp and chorizo flatbread. It both looked and tasted like one of those cheap oven pizzas from the grocery store. He moved on to the pulled pork sliders, which were delicious, and I re-​ordered the famous Marker 10 sushi roll.
The view is still great, and some items are still great, but about 50% of the items were extremely subpar. Here’s hoping they work out that new menu.

The wife and I had an event downtown, and, harkening back to our younger days, had fond memories of the fajitas at the second floor of the Hyatt, overlooking town lake. So, we dropped into the Hyatt, dressed to the eights (we weren’t as dressed up as we could have), before our dinner/​dance party at the Omni.
Parking is a nightmare. It’s like parking at short-​term at the airport, but without the charm. There is lots of conference space, and on that Saturday there was apparently some training of scary people involved obviously in some sort of sales. They were a little too rah-​rah for my liking. They had just let out and were roaming aimlessly in the parking lot. And in the lobby. And the escalator. And the upstairs area. It was like a fraternity 20 year reunion, only with more desparation.
Luckily, there was no wait at the restaurant, and plenty of empty tables. The only ones occupied were… the ones with a view of Town Lake. Booo… So we ended up in a high-​backed booth, which, ironically, gave us no actual sense of privacy over the din of noise and the thump-​thump-​thump of apparently a dance club («Somebody call 9−1 – 1!»).
Service was terribly slow, every step of the way. Slow to order, slow to get food, empty drinks. Apparenly the booths only gave us privacy from our waitress.
And the food was highly mediocre, Taco Cabana style fajitas at best. If we needed to feed a family of 7, it might have been fine. But the two of us, going somewhere after, so no «doggie bag», it was pretty pathetic. I think the recently redesigned «SWB» (umm, why would you name your restaurant after a defunct phone company?) is trying to be T-​G-​I-​Hyatts, without the flair. Even the crème brûlée my wife described as «a decent refrigerated custard that looks like someone spilled some sugar near».
Then there was the WAIT WAIT WAIT for the bill. I am usually extremely patient, and stood up twice trying to find ANYONE to make eye contact with. Ends up, she was in the back splitting up a bill with multiple credit cards for a table of 12. Fun fun fun.
She ends up discounting our food off the bat, without us even asking. Though really we just wanted to get the hell out of dodge, and not discuss how we saved money «for the trouble». Seriously… we were there over two hours (validated parking is only good for the first 2 hours) and knew going in what we were going to order. Not cool.
Ambitiousness of menu: 4 stars
Execution of menu: 2 stars
Service: 2 stars
View from restaurant: 5 stars
View from our table: 2 stars
Watching people enjoy riding the glass elevators overlooking the Atrium as if they’d never ridden «one of them fancy building flying devices»: 3 ½ stars
Overall: 2 stars

Fully aware that come Monday I was going to start my new «fitness/​nutrition lifestyle» régime aka «diet» (I hate that word).I stuffed my face silly here.
Well actually I almost HAD TO stuff my face. I had to meet the «quota». That seemed to be the token word all night.
I had a
coupon that entitled me to $ 50 off the bill, but I had to buy $ 100 worth of food (alcoholic bevies not to be included in the $ 100 sum). So I invited 3 other friends to bask in the gluttony.
The restaurant is in the Hyatt off of Townlake, so we had a nice view during dinner. The place wasn’t too crowded either which made for a pretty tame and quiet setting.
To my surprise the menu was quite reasonably priced. We ordered appetizers, side salads, side soups, entrees, AND dessert.
Here’s the run down:
–chips and salsa trio was a nice variety of colorful salsas and a smoky queso. Made for a nice starter.
— Pure Luck Salad with goat cheese, red grapes, and candied pecans. absolutely deee-​licious
— Southwest Mac n’ Cheese with green chiles and ham. Man it was so heavy and rich, but soo good. I couldn’t finish it all.
— Fajitas, the boys seemed to be happy with them. A nice heaping helping of guac and warm tortillas which looked to be served in a nice wallet as opposed to your usual tortilla container/​holder
— Fried Avocado tacos, good but not at great as Torchy’s
— Dessert Fruit Crisp, Apple Cobbler thingy. REALLY good, but I might have barfed on the way home if I tried finishing it all
All in all the food was pretty darn good. Enough to make me stuff myself silly and induce a full out food coma on a Saturday night.
Jeans definitely felt quite restricted after all was said and done. perhaps a flowy dress would have made for a better wardrobe choice? But hey, we made the «quota» and that’s all that matters.
I would definitely go back coupon or no coupon. Perhaps when I decide to go on my next gluttonous excursion?

Great food, a nice but awkward waiter, plastic twist tie in food…
I saw good reviews on this place on Unilocal so I decided to try it out. Unilocal,as always, came through brilliantly. I had beef fajitas that were both seasoned and cooked perfectly. I highly recommend the dessert as well. Flan with a Graham Cracker was delicious but the Toffee pudding was amazing. It really made up for the experience I’m about to talk about.
So why only 1 star? Well for starters, the waiter took his sweet own time to get to us. Then our appetizers got delayed because someone dropped it in the kitchen and new one had to be prepared. (though in retrospect, I guess I should be happy they didn’t just put the dirty shrimp back on the plate) While eating the fajitas, we found a PLASTIC TWIST-​TIE. It’s one of those things they tie bread bags with!
Needless to say, I let the waiter know. The bright spot of the experience was that we now got our entire meal for free. If it wasn’t for the twist tie, this would definitely have been a 4 star review.

SWB is tucked away on the second floor of the Hyatt, but it feels like a local restaurant.
The view of the hotel interior from there is right out of Logan’s Run, and I had this weird idea for a minute of how cool it would be to have a Logan’s Run-​themed hotel. If you’ve seen the film, you are probably smirking right now at the possibilities. If you haven’t you are probably getting ready to go on to the next review.
Wow, sci-​fi digression. Sorry.
The food was thoughtfully prepared and used local ingredients whenever possible. The service was impeccable, on par with what I’ve experienced at FINO or Uchi. The room felt cozy even though the expanse of the hotel was on one side and Town Lake on the other.
I heard talk of the creation of sushi and sake menus. If that’s the case, I will definitely be back to try it out, too.
Even if it means venturing into Cathedral and risking a Cub attack.

Disclaimer… I’m still a little giddy from getting married on Friday. Add to that this is my 100^th review, I wanted to save this for something special. How about my wedding night dinner for my 100^th review… Yep, bring it on baby.
I was fortunate enough to have participated at a dinner at the Hyatt several months ago, and promised I would definitely do this again. The Southwest Bistro has a great concept called the community table. It was perfect for our 9 guests to join us. I visited with the manager on the phone, Mano, and he coordinated with me my budget and made arrangements for my two non-​drinkers and my shell fish allergic wifey. They could of totally up-​charged me here, I was curious as to what do folks generally do and they simply asked for my budget and they would run with it. And, boy did they ever!
Chef Kevin put together a 5 star dinner. The community dinner is one which is made up of local produce and game. And he didn’t miss a beat. Starting with a Chile Dusted Shrimp on a home made tostada and Guacamole as the amuse bouche. My Susie got a pork empanada for hers. They paired this with Champagne and non-​alcoholic Champs. Next up was the Pan Seared Scallops, Suzie got house made bacon served on arugula. This time a wonderful Chardonnay was served. I went for the Lamb with Arugula Pesto… very small complaint the chops were not french cut, but nonetheless perfectly cooked and seasoned, I spied several of us chopping down on the rack in search of one more small bite. I don’t drink red often, but the cab which was paired, I even enjoyed. This led us to the final yummage. A toffee pudding cake. This was incredible. Food is suppose to heighten your senses and what can I say… one bite of this cake, I was back in London, as a school boy in my little uniform, beanie hat, and blazer eating Christmas dinner at one of my neighbors. It reminded me of the Christmas Pudding that I grew up with. It was fantastic.
My reviews are usually a little snarky and I try to be funny. but you know, I am so humbled that the woman of my dreams accepted me as her husband and to be followed by such a perfect evening just humbles me to no end. SWB… you gave us both an evening we will never forget, for this you will always have a very special place in our hearts.

We go out to eat fairly regularly and love to try new places. We also love to support local businesses — so it just never occurs to us to dine in a restaurant at one of the big hotels. In my experience, hotel food is usually either really overpriced or really bland and lacking in local color.
This is definitely not the case with the Southwest Bistro at the Hyatt on Town Lake.
We had been to a special event there about a week prior where we were treated to a sampling of their appetizers and entrees — and since it’s really not fair to review a place when your meal is comped, we held off. But we had an anniversary coming up and I suggested to my husband that we give SWB another try as regular paying customers — and we’re really glad we did.
We had told SWB it was our anniversary when we made the reservation and upon arriving were greeted enthusiastically by the hostess and the manager, Mano, who offered us complimentary champagne in honor of our special day. We were seated at a great table overlooking the lake and Congress Ave bridge. The view from SWB is outstanding. The atmosphere is upscale but comfortable, waitstaff is professional and friendly. There is no snootiness here.
We started with the guacamole, made tableside by our lovely waitress Connie. All fresh and very very good. We sampled the crab cakes which were probably the best I have ever had. Yes, I said *ever*. Made of almost all delicious crab with just enough nicely seasoned breading to make the cake. After that, I went with the chef’s special dinner including appetizer (like I needed another?), entrée, and dessert for $ 30. The appetizer was a chilled avocado soup — nice and thick — dressed with three large, southwest-​seasoned grilled shrimp. The shrimp were so good that I think they could stand on their own as an entrée. But had they been my entrée then I would have missed my real entrée which was a version of Salad Nicoise made with pacific salmon grilled to perfection atop fresh baby arugula, fingerling potatos, sliced cherry tomatos, and hard boiled egg in a lovely light dressing.
Jacko opted for the peppervine salad which was adorned with glazed roasted pecans, goat cheese, grapes, and pulled chicken in a delicious dijon viniagrette dressing. He followed that with the Southwestern Mac and Cheese — a dish we never thought we’d be ordering in an upscale restaurant — but at this point we were so impressed with everything else that we figured we could not go wrong. We didn’t — and have a new appreciation for this old american standard. It was excellent.
We were almost too stuffed at this point to carry on. But carry on we did, because the desserts sounded too good and we’d been so happy with everything else. They did not disappoint. My dessert was the special of the evening — a poached pear served with a dollop of whipped goat cheese (lightly sweetened) and a homemade graham cracker all dressed with a port glaze — who ever had goat cheese as part of a dessert before? Not me — and it was unusually delicious. The flavors all complimented one another very well. Hubby had the chocolate ancho cake which was rich and dense and filled with steamy dark chocolate, with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and a few fresh raspberries. Both desserts were excellent.
We were duly impressed to find out that Chef Kevin had been to Boggy Creek Farm just that morning to choose items for the evening’s dinner offerings. Virtually all of the produce used in our meals was locally grown — and you could tell. Even my whipped goat cheese was none other than our own Pure Luck from Dripping Springs. We had a chance to chat with Chef Kevin who mentioned that he goes down to Boggy Creek, picks up whatever looks good, then gets back to the kitchen and lays it all out to begin figuring out what he’ll create for that evening. He’s a very creative and talented chef.
We know that SWB is known for their fajitas, which I am sure are fabulous and probably make up 80% of their sales — but I highly encourage you to veer off that path and try some of Chef Kevin’s true creations.
I am giving SWB one of my coveted 5-​star reviews because really, I cannot think of anything that could have made the evening better. Outstanding service, outstanding view, outstanding food — with a price tag that doesn’t make you gasp. And the fact that they support local farms is just the big fat cherry on top.

This was one of the few places I was still able to get a 9 p.m. Valentine’s Day reservation 2 days in advance. We were not disappointed.
Upon our arrival we were told our table would be a few minutes, but we were given complimentary champagne. Our food took a while to arrive, but our waiter was friendly and apologetic. The lobster and crab ravioli was only okay, but the chicken breast I ordered was fabulous. Soooo juicy and wonderful. I forgot chicken could be that good. Then we were told the desserts from the fixed menu had run out, but they would make us a tray of whatever the waiter could find… well we couldn’t have been more pleased. We ended up with a wonderous combo of peach cobbler, chocolate ganache balls, and some brownie thing. And they brought us extra champagne on the house for the delays.
I wasn’t too impressed with the décor though. It’s basically open to the lobby which makes for a rather informal dining experience.