Elizabeth Street Café — Restaurant in Austin

I really wanted to like this place but...

1a. Food is not good. I ordered the sweet rice with pork belly sausage, basil, and poached egg. The egg wasn't really warm (seemed like it had been sitting there for awhile) and pork sausage was undercooked (couldn't chew through the fatty parts - they should have been cooked until crispy). Sweet rice was flavorless -- should have been steamed with some pork and sauce/seasoning. When you cook rice as a dish like this, it is important to flavor the rice so that it tastes cohesive with the other ingredients.

1b. Cortado coffee had too much foam -- please learn how to make a proper cortado!

1c. Pork belly buns are mediocre at best. I don't get why some reviewers are saying this is "outstanding". What? I'll give you an example of outstanding pork belly buns. David Chang's Momofuku. That's outstanding and worth the price. Or just go to any place in Taiwan that sells gua bao. They are fresh, delicious, served super quickly, and cost about $1 each! They should not cost $14 for two tiny baos. Even in larger markets like NYC or LA, these do not cost that much (unless if you just don't know any better).

Wait staff was not friendly. She never even stopped by to ask if our food tasted ok, or refill our water. Also, she seemed bored and just really did not want to be there. We ended up tipping 20% anyway because we felt obligated to, not because the service warranted it.

Way overpriced. This isn't NYC! Seriously. You cannot charge big city prices like this because real foodies know the CP value is low.

If you are going to charge $25 - 40 for an entree that is considered "breakfast", the food should taste exceptional. Unfortunately the quality and presentation of the food here do not justify the price.

Parking here sucks. We had to park all the way down the street in front of someone's house. We didn't want to do that but where else could we park?

I'm giving two stars for the decor.

I will say that I am slightly biased because I've lived in mega cities with more competitive cuisine and that I grew up eating traditional Asian food (Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Thai) and I know how Vietnamese food should taste. I'm writing this review both as constructive feedback to the owners of this restaurant and as a reminder for me not to return so that I won't get...

We found this place by chance and it is now one of my #1 favorites in Austin! It's easy to find and they have parking in front and off street. We came on a Sunday with no reservations but had no problem getting a seat. It's pretty hot these days and really wasn't sure about sitting outside, but they have misters and fans and now without question, I would always sit outside.

Very quaint place with a very nice atmosphere and friendly staff. The menu is a bit overwhelming in that everything sounded amazing and we wanted to try so much. We started off with a butter croissant and simply amazing! Very fresh and clearly they make these themselves. We arrived afternoon so all the chocolate croissants were gone but will have to go back and try those. Freshly baked goods are hard to pass up.

For an appetizer, we had the Spring Rolls; I had mine with the Marinated Grilled Tofu and my friend had hers with Shrimp. Amazing spring rolls! They were so fresh and delicious. The peanut sauce wasn't quite what I've been used to at Thai restaurants; I don't know if the peanut sauce is different at a Vietnamese restaurant but it was a little bland. But by all means, make sure to have an order of the Spring Rolls. They are epic!

For my meal, I had Red Curry Dan Dan Noodles with Chicken, Bok Choy, Sprouts and Thai Basal. First, come hungry because it's a huge bowl. And I hope you like spicy! Not burning your mouth spicy but definitely has some spice to it. What can I say but if I had to come up with my top ten dishes of any food or cuisine, this dish would be on that list (providing it comes from Elizabeth Street Café). The broth was amazing and the ingredients were the freshest ever! From the first bite, I was amazed at just how delicious this mixture of ingredients would be.

If you want authentic Vietnamese food, I know of no better place to recommend. If you are tired of the same old food and want something fresh and delicious, you won't regret coming here! We came without reservations but I imagine they are typically busy so I would check before coming. We can't wait to come back and try other items on their menu. We live out west in Spicewood and as that area develops, we hope Elizabeth Street will consider a new location...

I really wish I could give this place five stars. The food was good to excellent, the wait staff was nice, the bussing staff was wonderfully friendly, and the atmosphere was cute if short of outstanding, but the hostesses were absolutely the worst hosts I have ever encountered. Just dreadful.

They were so incredibly rude and blasé, they had such a look of distain on their faces from the second we walked in the door, and they spoke to everyone like they were something they scraped off the bottom of their shoes. There was a couple who came in after us who were standing off to the side while waiting to be called for a table, and the hostess stomped up to them and rudely chastised them for not being in the waiting area by the front door and pointedly escorting them back there, despite the fact that the restaurant has a system that texts your phone when your table is ready. Needlessly controlling, rude, and tacky. They were bad enough to take down my rating of the service three whole stars and my overall rating down two stars despite the rest of the staff being nice and the good being good.

Despite that rocky first impression, as mentioned previously the food was mostly wonderful and the other staff that we interacted with were nice. As for the food, despite the bún bowls being a generous size, they were kind of light on the serving size of the meat, but they and the various spring rolls were very delicious. The bahn mí, despite the impressive selection of speciality varieties, was surprisingly lackluster and I would recommend avoiding it unless you are just absolutely craving one, not because it was particularly bad, but there are better bahn mí out there and there are tastier menu options here.

Despite the delicious food and pleasant patio seating, it makes me hesitate to go back, worrying that I'll have to deal with the extremely unpleasant hostesses. I think it will be probably worth another visit on a different day but if the hostesses are still terrible, I will have to resort to take out or delivery or just going without because nothing is worth having to...