Roux

So, after a long afternoon of handing out Unilocal stuff, a hot dog, a pizza and a bottle of champagne walk into Roux to have a drink. This is a real story I promise. They make Bloody Marys with sriracha. It’s delicious. They make a mimosa in a pint glass. It’s alcoholic.
But, here is a story I feel should be shared about my experience at Roux. I’m dressed like a bottle of champagne and I go to the bathroom. The girl in the stall next to me asks for toilet paper. We do a whole exchange about TP and handing a roll back and forth. She exits her stall first and is washing her hands while I’m standing in my stall. I’m just thinking to myself, «Do I tell her I’m dressed up? Do I just wait it out standing in here until she leaves? Do I go out there?»
So, I ease the door open very slowly. She looks up in the mirror to address me. We’re bathroom friends now you know? Because of the exchange of toilet paper. I say, «Hiiiiii…» She says, «This isn’t what I was expecting.» I could only think, I was glad she wasn’t expecting a giant bottle of champagne to exit the bathroom stall because one that’s just strange and two she would spend a lot of times being disappointed in a bathroom.”

God I absolutely hate wasting my money when I am out of town on food that everyone says is delicious and ‘authentic’ something. First of all when someone offers the term authentic as thier first description it’s either because it’s so good there are no words to explain how good it was OR they have no idea what they are eating and normally wouldnt. Unfortunately most people including myself sometimes fall into the latter category.
I have to say the bartender busted her hump attending to us and everyone there was happy and made sure we were. If I had to grade this place based on thier version of some sort of wilted baby salad saturated in lackluster balsamic vinegrette I would give it a 1 of 10. However the bison burger and bisque were alright. I want to punch myself in the face, I should have went to Bejucos again.

Darn… wanted to go here for crawfish tonight and just called. they arent serving food anymore ;(((just catering … DARN, the crawfish were most similar to the ones in New Orleans that I had found here in Austin…

Well, all good things come to an end. Roux no longer serves food and I no longer play the Happy Hour there. So this review is just a bit of nostalgia now:
My band plays at Roux on Wednesdays for their Happy Hour. I enjoy this gig because the management really tries to create a good atmosphere where food, drink, music & socializing all work together. Austin restaurant-​bars have a lot of competition and are always angst-​ridden about their bottom-​line, but the point of Austin is quality of life (right?), and Roux does its best to give a little lagniappe back to the community.

On a cold Austin night, my friend and I made the walk from Emo’s (where we’d later have our faces rocked off) down to Roux. Freezing my azz off along the way, I was really looking forward to warming up over dinner. Too bad the temperature inside seemed only slightly warmer than the freezing cold outside.
Stepping into the large expanse of the restaurant I could hardly remember its Jazzy past. Gone was all the Mardi Gras influenced New Orleans décor that once gave this place character. Now instead you get some random art hung on the exposed brick, but not much of it which makes the place look really unfinished.
Our waitress came over right away and took our drink orders. She was quite peppy and somewhat frenetic, enough so that I thought maybe she needed to cut back on the skiing if ya know what I mean! I didn’t expect much from the food considering the look of the joint. But here is where Roux managed to completely amaze me. For starters we chose the Southern Fried Green Tomatoes served up with micro greens and Cajun Remoulade (isn’t all remoulade Cajun?). When our appetizer arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the presentation and then floored by the flavors! The tomatoes fried to perfection and easily the best remoulade this side of the Mississippi!
I couldn’t decide between the Braised Swamp Ribs and the grilled skirt steak (which I’m sure had some kind of corny Cajun inspired name like everything else on the menu). So, as is my custom, I asked the waitress for a recommendation. It was only her second day she squealed as I rolled my eyes because not having recommendations from the staff is always a big nuisance to me. So my friend and I ordered one of each and split them. Yay for friends who don’t mind sharing! Both were out-freakin’-standing!
And while looking down at my fancy plate of food then up at my surroundings, I couldn’t think of a more disjointed dining experience in my entire life. That’s not to say that it was a terrible experience, just a very odd one. Considering its proximity to The Parish, it wouldn’t take much to convince me to stop in again on a night out. Especially since I didn’t get to try out their drunken bread pudding this time around.

Roux … more like Rue.
I was disappointed the Gumbo wasn’t amazing, considering the NAME OF THE PLACE. Apparently the original recipe for the roux used to be a dark chocolate roux, but sounds like the cooks can’t reliably duplicate the roux… sometimes good, sometime burnt rubber grit. Well screw it, they said, and went with the «peanut butter» roux for the «new and improved» gumbo…
Meh. I’ve experienced better.
Also, it arrived not so steamy and it was a breezy day so the windows and doors were open… so it cooled quicker than I could eat it… I think I had to pay extra for the lumpcrab too which was understandable yet irksome.
Beer was cold… wish I could give a half star for that.
I would eat here again given the choices of getting a good meal on 6^th street… but would be better off at Gumbo’s on colorado… now THAT is some roux.

Can’t say much about the food… but I tried «The Exorcism» specialty drink. yummmm… I had only one, any more and I know what they call it «The Exorcism»!

I have been to Roux on several occasions with old friends I felt that when my date asked me to pick a good creole place I choose Roux with ease. I arrived and was instantly greeted by several people at the door and I quickly was escorted to my date.
I was surprised that they had a new menu and I was not going to be able to have my favorite étouffée that I had been thinking about all day long. We started off with the Cajun Crab cakes that was served with roumalade balsamic reduction. I have had this appetizer in the past but this time it was deep fried instead of pan seared and the taste was different. It was still good but when I go looking for good crab cakes I have found that I lik’em pan seared. My date loved them as they went well with the beer he was sipping on. The reduction was awesome though but I was disappointed that they did not have their usual hot sauce and instead only had Tabasco sauce. Boo hiss! One of those casualties of trying to reduce costs I was told.
We followed this up with some Gumbo and Pontchartrain shrimp served with dirty rice and a bourbon sauce. This is where it gets good because they still serve some of the best Gumbo in town and now they are serving it with a cheddar bacon biscuit. The bourbon sauce that was served with the shrimp dish was thick, flavorful and complimented the dirty rice extremely well.
Now for those of you who know Roux was the Jazz kitchen before it was Roux and they still sport the same décor as Jazz Kitchen did. The service is a little spotty but the servers are great as they will go out of their way to please you with the meal. The owner was there on this particular night that we were and he was spending time interacting not only with his staff but with some of the customers as well.
Roux is one of those places that people should try if only for the décor because it does remind me of NOLA. I just wish that they would not have cut back on some of the things that help make it a wonderful dinning experience. The food is good and the kitchen is very accommodating if you have special needs.

I volunteer for Big Brothers, Big Sisters and a few days ago I found out that Roux donates food to them, in addition to to helping out with Habitat for Humanity.
Dammit.
How do you give a restaurant that supports causes you love 1 star.
Answer? You really can’t. Being a solid contributor to your community counts for at least 2 or 3 stars, period.
I’m bumping my rating to 3 stars to thank Roux for supporting BBBS and HYP and I plan to drop in soon to see if, perhaps, I just hit Roux on off nights.
I’m praying for an awesome bowl of Gumbo and maybe a shrimp po-​boy that makes me feel like I’m in nawlins because I sure want to like this place.

If fried, greasy, fatty foods are what you are into, you might like this place. I didn’t like anything that we ordered. The fried green tomato’s were weird, they tried to gourmet them up with capers, which didn’t go. the sauce wasn’t good either. the queso thing was like cheese wiz with chorizo. Everything was just bad.
Avoid at all costs!

DISGUSTO!!! Dandruff? What about CHIN-​ruff?
Yep. That’s right. Dried disgusting flakes that float off your chin like a miniature blizzard you find in one of those Christmas water ornaments with a little house that you shake around to see the fake snow fall and go «WEEEEE… looks like… boring…».
That’s what our waitress had. She was bubbly, and definatly blockaway cute (as in, she was cute, but only from a block away). As she stood by our table taking our orders and answering our questions, she constantly scraped at her chin, and to my horror, let the little flakes of dead chin plankton fall to our dining table. The other 6 guys were to busy to notice as they all zoned into the funk in her trunk. But me… I’ll never look at snowfall the same again. Yeccch!
So… the food… I have mixed reviews.
The GOOD
— artichoke dip with tortilla chips. Was a pleasant surprise. We punished that dish with a quickness
— Mashed potatoes. I think this was a side dish to an entrée, but I’m not sure as we all ate family style. But this stuff was AMAZING.
— Fish. I’m not sure what kind we had, but the table ordered 3 different fish dishes, all pan-​fried, and you know what? All were amazing. Absolutely blew away every other dish I’ve had all week.
The Mediocre
— Fried green tomatoes (how can u go wrong with this in Tey-​has)
— crab cakes
— the corn bread
The Butt-​plugs
— Gumbo… ugh. Was like bitter rubber with seafood bisque. Terrible.
— Jambalaya. Tasted like sun-​dried Uncle Ben’s rice with dehydrated andouille sausage, week-​old shrimp, and hot sauce stolen from Taco Bell. I was truly disappointed.
So… will I come here again? I suppose so. Admittedly, the atmosphere isn’t bad. Drinks and appies with friends would work well on a regular basis, but Chin-​ruff chick and most of the entrees cause my gag reflexes to kick in.

I was surprised to see how low the ratings on this place were, since I look forward to coming here on every trip to Austin. It used to be called «Jazz’s», then changed owners and became more expensive (with trendier food like tuna tartar added to the menu).
What brings me here however has not changed much — their amazing crawfish. The crawfish comes with corn, potatoes, and sausage and is absolutely amazing. Probably my favorite crawfish place outside of New Orleans.
I also tried their Queso dip with crawfish, which was also simply incredible. However I was not a fan of the seafood bisque (a bit too heavy and too tangy), which was promptly taken off my bill when the amazingly attentive bartender, Decker, noticed that I wasn’t eating.
Decker owes a special mention. She’s friendly, attentive, holds up a great conversation, and everything you would expect from a great bartender. Some of the other people sitting at the bar also commented on how «the bartenders were really good at this place».
The other Unilocalers that give this place less than 5 stars are probably very accurate in their assessments of whatever food they tried. But if you want the best crawfish in Austin — come to Roux!

Showed up a little before two pm.
Not many people. Mostly sitting at the bar/​cocktail area.
No hostess, so I waited patiently to be seated. For awhile. Not a huge while, but enough to be uncomfortable. No worries. I know what that time of day is like in a restaurant.
I ordered the house special margarita made with Patron and handmade sour mix. Cool! And shaken until chilled served on the rocks? Badass. Except that it wasn’t. Shaken, that is. In fact, it didn’t even look like it’d been stirred.
The wine list was pretty dreadful. 3 whites. Maybe 4 reds. Nothing special. The drinks are devoted to fruity liquor cocktails.
I like the décor of the place. Feels like NOLA sitting there on the street watching the passers-​by. The weird artwork definitely lends a crazy Voodoo-​like tinge to the place while still making it look nicer than most cajun food places with license plates and LSU banners do.
Food:
The first things that caught my eye were the Crab Cake and the Fried Green Tomatoes for my apps. Love both of those!
Crab cakes with remoulade sauce? Mmmm.
Um…no. Crab Cake means ONE crab cake. This is on the menu, but still is a pet peeve of mine, because you could easily make one big cake into two or three nice sized cakes and everyone knows what that looks and tastes like. It came out sitting in a huge pool of remoulade with micro greens. Plus, there was for some reason a drizzle of balsamic around the edge of the plate. Ok. I’ll give it a shot. See, when you only have one big honkin cake of crab, it’s hard to get it to cook quite right. In order to make sure it cooks through, you have to cook it a long time. This means it’s likely going to be overcooked. Plus, it was mostly bread anyway with little crab added for flavor.
Fried Green Tomatoes with beet oil and some other kinda oil drizzled over and served with a caper tapanade type thingy? Cool. Hit me with it!
Ok. FIrst off. When you’re going to market something like FGTs, there’s one little detail you have to keep in mind. It’s a very small detail and it may be overlooked from time to time. You MUST (and I’m not kidding here) use actual GREEN tomatoes. Just a little thing I have about this dish. Because Fried Red Tomatoes don’t have the same texture, flavor, and they’re fucking RED!
Oh, and the menu obviously was lying to us, because it came without that lovely beet oil setup and instead in the crabcake setup, swimming in a pool of remoulade. I don’t think they even put the caper stuff on that one, just the crab one that didn’t mention the capers at all!
Second course:
So, I was feeling a little greasy at this point, what with remoulade coming out my ears.
So, I went for a nice soup and salad combo.
I ordered a cup of the seafood bisque with crawfish and shrimp, served with cornbread. I paired this with a ½ order of their «cajun» Ceasar salad.
My friend ordered their crispy shrimp po-​boy.
When it finally came out pretty much everything was cold. I mean, the fries were tepid at best. The bisque was hardly warm. The crispy shrimp in the po-​boy were just plain.cold.
So, we politely sent it back. It wasn’t looking like it’d sat under heat lamps. It looked like the kitchen just plain f-​ed up.
Well, these things happen. So, let’s enjoy the Ceasar salad in the meantime. It was, fortunately, the correct temperature.
For those of you who think this dish is Italian at all, it was invented in Tijuana, Mexico in 1924. That doesn’t make it any less delicious, though. I usually have a problem with under-​seasoned, under-​cheesed and just plain thin Ceasar dressing that doesn’t effectively cover that pesky lettuce that people still insist in putting in my salads.
Eureka! This dressing was great! Croutons? Lovely! Lettuce? Perfect vessel for the dressing. It was one of the better Ceasar salads I’ve had in a while. What made this a «cajun» version, I can’t fathom.
The food came out much faster the second time, and quite hot and fresh.
The Bisque… Let’s discuss what a bisque is, shall we?
Bisque is a thick, creamy, highly-​seasoned soup of French origin, classically of pured crustaceans.
First off, I couldn’t taste any cream in the bisque at all. There was likely little seafood actually in the bisque, and they put like three little pieces of shrimp to make me think there was. Ok, to be fair, there was likely some ground up seafood in the soup. There wasn’t any thickening agent (certainly not the pureed shells). It tasted like shrimp tomato soup. The cornbread was pretty good, as it sat soaking up pseudo-​bisque in the middle of my bowl.
The po-​boy was pretty good as well. The fries were nice and crisp. The shrimp were crisp and hot. Melded with the sauce and lettuce and tomatoes, it made a pretty good sammich. The only problem there is that the menu talked about cabbage slaw. Not lettuce and tomatoes. Once more, the diabolical menu has lied to us again!
Don’t know if I’ll be back again.

This place probably deserves two stars, because it’s a cajun restaurant that doesn’t do great versions of the cajun standards. Their gumbo is very bland and the jambalaya is not great either.
I give it three stars because for lunch they make a very solid shrimp poboy. It’s now the only thing I eat there.
The poboy probably brings it up to 4 stars for lunch, but I have to take one star off for the ridiculous «art» that’s on the walls. I’ve been to lunch there probably 12 times with the same coworkers and we still can’t make it through lunch without talking about the crazy paintings. They are really distracting and not at all in line with a cajun/​southern theme.

If I’m ever in Austin again, I’d go back to Roux — just for the crab cake sliders. Whether it was because I was drinking on an empty stomach, or because I was just that hungry, or the food was that good, those crab cakes were amazing.
What was most interesting about this place was the artwork. Lining the restaurant are these little dolls wearing white dresses with outstretched arms and huge smiles. Each doll is standing on a small white pedestal with a different word on it.
Intrigued, but not being able to make the connection between such words as «car», «death», «uphold your dreams» (if that counts as a word), or «tree», and the others, I asked the bartender. Apparently, all of the artwork in Roux is from the same artist and it all ties in to his daughter’s imaginary friend. The daughter’s imaginary friend doesn’t speak in words, but communicated in symbols and each symbol means something different. Each one of the words on the pedestals of dolls in white dresses is symbolic of one of the symbols.
Wow. If that isn’t some crazy, interesting art to look at while eating yummy crab cakes, I don’t know what is.

I would have given 3 stars but they made us wait 15 minutes, even though there were numerous tables open — they said they were understaffed. But eventually they put us at one of those exact tables!
The menu wasIt was my first time having fried green tomatoes and they were delicious. The shrimp po boy was a little light in the shrimp department but still tasty and the home made cornbread was hot and crumbly.
Finally if you’re with others (or want to get sauced) you can share a Moron Bowl. A massive goblet of cherry flavored vodka joy…
I agree, it’s probably a little touristy but still fun ;)

Roux, Round Twoux
After a second visit, this place has earned another star, perhaps a star and a half if I could award such. If you recall, back in ’07, shortly after they opened, I was underwhelmed by the food and the service. Well, noticeable improvements in both food and service made me glad I stopped back in. [I removed my old review]
First off, the menu has been pruned and trimmed to a more manageable size, indicating a desire on the part of the chef and/​or management to do a few things well rather than try to do everything for everyone. Good idea. On this night, eponymous companion and I sat at a table near the back instead of the bar, and received friendly and attentive service from a nice server named Crystal. She happily recommended a few favorites, and brought beers fairly quickly, albeit without the «really cold glasses» advertised on the beer menu.
I was thinking about some oysters again, but they were not on the menu. Odd, as I saw them delivered to an adjacent table. Crystal said yes, they were available, but not on the menu for some reason. From a distance, I saw the sauce ramekin contained a healthy dollop of horseradish, something woefully lacking in my last plate of oysters. They looked promising, but we decided on Fried Green Tomatoes ($ 6) and the recommended Seafood Bisque ($ 8 bowl). The tomatoes were flavorful and dressed with a Cajun remoulade – not traditional perhaps, but tasty. The bisque was peppery and creamy, with a big hunk of cornbread in the center; subtly flavored, it was just right.
Two steaks arrived after a longer delay post-​appetizer than I would have liked, my steak Oscar ($ 24) and friend’s Ribeye ($ 23). The Oscar was an 8oz filet topped with lump crab meat, on a bed of tasso potato hash and asparagus, was perfectly cooked to medium rare, though it cooled rapidly thanks to the ceiling fans set to rotation speeds suited to a summer day in Houston. It was breezy enough to blow my napkin off the table – on a 50 degree night. Companion’s ribeye was crusted and seared with a peppercorn demi glaze and he pronounced it yummy, also cooked as ordered to medium.
Roux has come a long way in six months, and deserves consideration if your tastes run to Cajun and «Southern Fusion.» The meal was tasty, and the appetizers and entrees well prepared, if a bit oddly paced. Service was friendly and competent, but no more. The chill from the ceiling fans was an oversight and a distinct annoyance, but clearly, Roux is working to be a great restaurant. It is not inexpensive however – dinner for 2 with appetizers and 2 beers apiece came to about $ 100 with tip. If Roux is going to play in that price range, there is a still a bit of work to be done before it feels totally worth it.

This a mediocre Cajun restaurant that I sometimes go to for lunch.
I always go expecting a delicious, spice-​filled meal straight from a Louisiana Cajun god or goddess but end up with an ok, vaguely-​spiced meal. I realize my spice tolerances may be much higher than most but I taste very little complexity & hotness in their dishes.
I’ve had their gumbo — nice colored roux (better be when the place’s name is roux) and fairly decent. It is just never as good as I want it to be & for nearly $ 7 for a fairly large cup of gumbo, it is still pricey. I have also sampled their shrimp po-​boy, not very memorable & recently their etouffe.
I was one of the few patron dining there and the service was quite slow.
Overall the food is decent but I always leave wanting more. The prices for lunch are high and did I mention how dark the interior is? It’s like a huge wooden cave. Some better lighting would be nice so I could see the color of my Roux…

The 2008 update:
So I have been back here for drinks a couple of times and the service has been better. Since it sits below the Parish, it’s a great spot for a pre-​show drink. And your tab can be transferred upstairs, when you are ready to go see the band playing. Extra points, definitely.
And I plan on coming back for dinner once they work out some of their «newly-​opened restuarant» kinks.
===
So I went here last night for dinner with a Bachelorette party before going dancing at The Parish. My experience started off great and slowly went downhill.
5 stars.
I got free parking a block from the restaurant (has nothing to do with Roux, I know) Our group of 15 was promptly seated in the back, and our host closed off some curtains to make our party feel more private. Then he enthusiastically told our about their house specialties, which included seafood bisque, steak and homemade hurricanes using fresh juice.
It seemed like our drink order got a little mixed up, but I’ll go easy on them, because we were a big group. So we get our drinks sorted out and we are all happy.
Downgrade to 4 stars.
About 30 minutes go by, I am close to finishing my beer and I think, «I sure am ready to get our food «Then our waitress stops by and asks «Are you ready to order?» OMG, we haven’t even ordered our food yet?
Downgrade to 3 stars.
Since the seafood bisque came highly recommended I decided to start with that and have a Caesar Salad. As we waited and waited for our food, my beer is completely dry and there is no water on the table. So I am hungry and thirsty which should never happen. The waitress was nice enough to bring us a bowl of chips because our food was taking so long, but for a group of 15, we each only got about 3 chips. I appreciate the gesture, but it didn’t help my hunger much.
Then our food finally arrived in bits and pieces. Then, we had to ask our bus boy for utensils and water. He came by with a pitcher of water, but we had no glasses. His curt response was «No one brought you water?» Luckily, he came back with a glass of water for each of us and we all got to eat!!! Wahoo! My bisque was okay. I thought my Caesar salad was better, the dressing had a bit of a kick to it which differentiated it from other Caesar salads.
Overall, the food was fine, service needs a lot of improvement.
Downgrade to 2 stars.

I know it’s on 6^th, but it’s spacious, almost like an arcade used to exist there, and the eats are solid. I was slightly bent that their Rich Boy sandwich had regular tomatoes in it instead of heirloom, which they had advertised, but at least they weren’t the nasty pink kind.
Also, go check out the sinks in the bathroom. They are so fucking cool.