Plank Provisions — Restaurant in Austin

What a truly amazing experience!!! 100 stars if I could.

For real, I actually cried after I took the first bite of dessert.

Ambiance - 100% obviously a bit crowded since everyone’s trying to get a table but the sea is fully captured in the atmosphere. Awkwardly even as we sat in the bar area and the cross breeze from the patio door made it seem like we were on a boat or at the coast.

Staff - 100% oh how I can’t rave enough about Sienna (sp), our server, Adam, manager I believe is his title, and the chef - idk who he is but I hope that person is blessed with a life that is nothing short of joyful happiness. I have more than a few allergies and Sienna made it possible for me to enjoy every bit of my meal without fear of mistake. Adam was so attentive to everyone around the place and made us feel so welcome. And the FOOD... COMPLIMENTS TO THE CHEF!!! I finally understand the meaning of it.

Food - 100000% I struggle a lot at restaurants not only getting my order right but then it tasting good. Everything here was immaculate!! I added pics, descriptions below... let’s just say we were not disappointed. I’ve never had such a perfect dish after dish after drink after drink. We go back in a few weeks for my birthday to enjoy the entrees but as we saw them walking them past I said I am going to try everything on this menu!

Not pictured - Sea Foam Margarita, I was so enamored by everything I forgot but they add a salt foam topping instead of a salt rim and it was a little salt in every sweet sip!

PEI Oysters - may be slightly better than Clark’s. Fresh, smooth and the little droplet bottles make putting a little vinegar and spice on so easy!

Strawberry Surfer - comes with coconut but I opted out, like a strawberry lemonade! So refreshing!

King Crab Legs - let’s start with the fact that they cracked and serve you just the meat! The ease and no mess! The flavor combinations made us make sure we found every piece that we may have missed. Paprika looks like a lot but it’s just the perfect pack of flavoring.

BBQ Okra - Idk what I was expecting but smelling and tasting that grilled/smoked bbq taste during each bite was phenomenal. Not sure what the sauce is but the combination was so good!

Lemon Tart - lemon and blueberry tart, usually comes with a coconut whip but had them switch it to this honey fresca and when I tell you I cried tears of joy, my partner was left speechless and they aren’t even...

We dined at Plank in the Domain after a "shopping afternoon" on a Friday. It was a decent meal. We really wanted it to be great. As usual, we showed up for happy hour, and then mostly ordered off of the regular menu. HINT: happy hour is not that great of a deal at Plank, nominal savings on most things.

DO NOT treat Plank as a "happy hour go to" for great deals... minimal savings on the things you really want. Treat it as a full fare restaurant any time you're there. It's a chain seafood restaurant, nothing "spectacular" that you'd expect from a truly "local" restaurant.

High points: The house margarita is made with only orange and lime juice, better with tajin on the rim! Shrimp toast and the Golden Beets salad were good, but not "you gotta get this" quality. We've had better beet salads. We had a bottle of Selena pinot gris which was delicious, on point, and served at the right temperature (we took the leftovers home!).

Low points: The oysters are average, all East Coast... which we do not understand when we have monster-sized delicious Gulf oysters everywhere in town (HINT: again, chain restaurants don't understand we have GREAT oysters here... CHEAP!). The "uppity crowd" may demand PEI oysters (any East Coast), they pale in comparison to "our" awesome local oysters!

The special of the day was grilled sole, the fish was great! The bed of broccolini on which the fish was served was severely undercooked, virtually inedible... a big miss there. The lemon tart dessert was OK, served chilled... the filling was tasty, the crust reminded us of the bad pie crusts at our grandmother's house. Make the crust fresh, it's not that hard!

Finally, a word about ambiance and service... cool place, decor fun and nautical. Service not that great, slow most of the time, and dirty dishes left on the table for way too long (it was not bush or crowded when we were there!).

Bottom line, not a "go to" for us. For the prices and the location, you have to do a lot better to...

Overall, we had a good lunch experience at Plank. Service was friendly, and the star of the show is the upscale casual environment and design. The food selection is New American seafood with Asian notes.

Good: Our favorite dish was their Thai chowder. The miso crunch salad was executed fine and is similar to CPK's Thai crunch salad. Price point for lunch specials is also reasonable given location and quantity.

Okay: The calamari was okay, but also includes fried vegetables mixed throughout when we were only expecting all calamari. The batter also did not adhere very well, so there was a pile of fried batter left on the dish at the end.

Could use work: (1) Sushi rolls. It feels like they may be trying to cover too many different types of food and not to the best quality. For example, I'm not sure that maki should be offered on their menu if they're going to offer basically a fast food version. The rice comes out of an automatic machine, flattened in a perfect rectangle, and isn't seasoned like it would be at a Japanese restaurant. The combination of fish/toppings was fine, but it was executed like a grocery store roll. (2) Carbs. Fries were also mid, feeling very similar to McDonald's. The top bread on the po-boy was severely hard and inedible -- perhaps it sat under a heat lamp for too long? -- so we abandoned it and only ate the inside. (3) Fruit flies. Very unfortunate, but about 4 fruit flies decided to make our table their home base. It was easy to shoo them away, much easier than regular flies, but it did detract from the dining experience. Maybe from all the potted poinsettias?

If I need a place to eat at in this part of the Domain in the future, I would be ok with coming back to Plank, and trying something different next time that hopefully is more up their alley. The group room in the back also looks nice if I needed a place for a group of 16. But if I wanted seafood in this price range and wasn't constrained to location, I would probably go to Salt...