alc steaks

the restaurant serves greatfoodand the server michael was enjoyable and made you feel welcome. relaxed atmosphere, which i like unless i'm putting on the ritz in my tuxedo.

excellent! i have been waiting to go here for many years. the interior was surprising, it wasn't a stuff up scaled typical steak house. it was a really cool place with a very cool vibe. awesome wine selection. i had 2 glasses of the j. lohr syrah and it was great. great service and great food. i had escargot for an appetizer and the larger filet mignon with asparagus for my entree. wonderfulfoodand ambiance. i'll be back.

great service and very good food. thefoodcame a little out of order and the fries needed to be reordered so they were hot, but we really liked the place! the waiter was great, they had ipads on the table to preview the wine list and a buffalo lamb appetizer that was my best bite in a long time (it should not work, but it does). my wife had the surf and turf an the lobster was great and the filet cooked rare as ordered.

it's good, but.... i'm a little unorthodox in my thinking, so alc fans might be offended at one very important point i'm going to make about this place. but, first, to the review.

the food
austin land & cattle co. serves up a wonderful steak. i ordered a 22 oz. bone-in ribeye, cooked medium. it came out perfectly cooked, with nary a spice blend or evidence of marinating -- which is how a good steak should be served. it is served with a lightly sauteed portion of spinach and julienned carrots. the spinach was crisp tender and delicious. same for the carrots, though they seemed to have some additional sweetener (brown sugar, maybe?). the baked potato was just that -- a baked potato. it was fine.

the service
i've seen several reviewers mention that the servers are upscale, and so on. i didn't get that feeling, other than they all wore black pants and white shirts. our server was humorous and good-natured. she was not overbearing in any way, allowing us to enjoy our dinner, with occasional stops to see how we were doing. i couldn't get over how much she looked and sounded likefoodtv's rachel ray. fortunately, she didn't use corny catchphrases like "sammies," so all ended well.

atmosphere
it's nice. linen napkins. tile floors. a little dark, which is fine, and possibly romantic. there are various black & white screen prints scattered throughout the place ... mostly western. the atmosphere is definitely fancier than texas roadhouse, but it's not exactly the petroleum club.

bottom line
i would come back here in a new york minute. the service was impeccable. the atmosphere is nice. and thefoodis superb. -- but ... if i were to take a blind taste test between the bone-in ribeye at texas roadhouse and the one served here, i would have a difficult time distinguishing them. if you are on a tighter budget (than the $38 alc charges for the bone-in ribeye) and are in the mood for beef -- and don't mind cheesy waiters yelling 'yee haw' when someone comes in to celebrate a birthday ... the texas roadhouse is not a bad substitution. - - - if you want to impress a client or a dinner date, you need to come to austin land & cattle co.

1st of all, not even close on the price. we went here specifically because urbanspoon listed the place at $15-25 per entree. it's an expensive vacation and we were trying to be reasonable on thefoodbudget the lowest option on the menu is $20 chicken fried steak. the porterhouse is $44. once i got over the sticker shock and decided to just stay, i was pleasantly amazed at the yummy mushroom appetizer. and the quality of the meat and perfection of the even cooking on my medium rare $32 sirloin. it was worth the price after all and i highly recommend, but only if you are in the market for a $50 dinner with appetizer.

service started out great with a very attentive waiter. i ordered the braised duck, our table also had kabobs,pork chops, and sirloin. all thefoodwas excellent. after thefoodwas served, wait staff disappeared. no drink refills, plates were not cleared, :( i noticed two other tables akng for the manager or wait staff so our problems were not qniue

tried the place recently for the first time and was totally underwhelmed and disappointed. the place is dated and not very comfortable, the service was functionary and thefoodwas bad. the filet was way over cooked, not juicy and barely hot. never going back.

very good. thefoodhere is very good (not the best), i had a filet with mashed potatos, and veggies. the service was also very good.

not worth it. thefoodwas pretty good but the service and ambiance non-existent. will not be returning.

austin land and cattle. no doubt, thefoodwas perfection. steak cooked to order. sides delicious. salad crispy and large. also large was the menu that spanned the girth of that table, and to open it completely, i nearly knocked over my water glass. the charger plates were way too big for our tiny table for two. granted, a possible romantic setting and the table was set perfectly. had there been ample room to spread out and enjoy with some elbow room while a kept repositioning on my tiny chair, i may have forgiven our server for subsequent snafus. the entire two hours, sitting on a stiff back, wooden chair that i have seen in the grungiest of bars, i organized, by moving this or that when our wine glasses and bottle were placed on our tiny piece of table real estate. and along came the appetizers...four limp looking stuffed new mexico chiles served on a huge dinner plate with no garnish what so ever to give the plate some presence (chilies were good, very rich). i did our servers job by pouring more wine, shuffling unused plates, and moving a lame table candle that added no ambiance or reading light, the service was way low on my list, but thefoodwas making up for it....until...we moved to the bar to finish our wine and have some spiked coffee while enjoy a complimentary birthday dessert (a plus totally) our server brought the birthday goodie, candle lit, everyone's singing and joyful, but the server walked away without leaving us with a fork and napkin so that we could dig in. i had to glance around the room several times to catch the eye of someone, not our server, of course, to bring us a set up. end of story. based on the price point, i won't go back for the food. if the service and comfort level is bad for two hours, no matter how well the steak was, there a many more steak houses in austin to explore.

disappointingfoodand service. my wife and i visited austin land and cattle last saturday night. considering that alc charges $30+ for steaks, we were looking forward to an experience such as that at ruth's chris, sullivan's, and the like. we were disappointed.

at first, we were impressed. the atmosphere was cozy and warm. the dining areas are in small rooms, giving you the feeling you're eating in a comfortable ranch house.

we soon realized that service was going to be slow that night. twenty minutes after we sat down, our waiter arrived for our orders. it was hard to fault him, though. just within our eyesight, we noticed he had 11 tables including a private party room. this seems a bit much for a restaurant in this price range.

the meal began with a bang: the sweet potato clam chowder. it was delicious, with just a hint of sweet potato. my wife liked her spinach salad even though it was heavy on the bacon.

but then came a series of disappointments. a man whisked by our table and delivered our two entrees. by the time my eyes delivered the synapse to my brain that my order was wrong, the man had vanished. instead of a filet, there was a ribeye. and this was the first steakhouse i've ever visited where the server didn't ask me to cut into the steak and check the color. after a 10-minute delay, our waiter arrived and i sent back the dish. in the meantime, i got a taste of my wife's sautéed trout. this was perhaps the fishiest tasting fish (in a bad way) i've ever had at a restaurant, and the accompanying rice was dry and bland. the man-blur blew in once more to deliver my filet and aptly disappeared. i cut into my steak and-no surprise at this point-it was rare (i had ordered medium). i was too hungry to complain. the steak was average and a bit tasteless, certainly not the juicy cut of steak seared to perfection i find at the higher-end steakhouses. i would even rate outback higher than alc.

the waiter did offer us a free dessert because of the entrée mix-up, and we ordered the tiramisu. i thought it was too sweet, but my wife enjoyed it.

finally, a minor point about parking. there's very little near the front of the restaurant, and there's no valet service. we had to park two blocks away and hope that our car didn't get towed. thankfully we were able to drive away with some sense of relief.