Just on the west side of I-35, a short drive down Leander road sits the 1000 Oaks Center and two great restaurants: Asian Cuisine and Greek Gyros (reviewed recently). And a few other restaurants I haven't tried yet including an ice cream dessert shop I'm definitely going to visit.
If you've tried Asian food around town and felt that the recipes were too sweet or salty, give Asian Cuisine a try. You'll need to recalibrate your palate if you've been eating Panda Express. The excellent Woks-it-2-U combines spices and sauces to make their recipes distinctive and they reach out from the plate and grab you. It's a rock band of flavors over there.
Asian Cuisine recipes are completely different. Flavors are subtle but there's variety, and textures are delicate which was a nice change for me and exactly what I was hoping for.
I like spicy soup so I started with the Tom Kha that blends coconut milk, half-and-half, and lemon grass with green chili peppers and garlic. Yeah! Nice! Asian Cuisine restaurant isn't about bold and hot. It's about variety. You can taste the lime and cilantro and the mushroom and tender chicken go really well in this soup. One order is a very full serving so be sure you like leftovers.
A single order of egg rolls is 4 pieces (but you can get a half order if you ask) and they are dark golden brown, crispy crunchy outside, with just enough oil remaining to give them a smooth texture inside. Not greasy or bland, or over the top salty like some shops make them, Asian Cuisine egg rolls are just right. Unfortunately there isn't a vegetarian option. That would be a great addition to the menu someday.
If you like pineapple, the dish you should start with is the Pineapple Fried Rice. You have 6 options for meat or vegetables. Flavors are light and the rice perfectly cooked. A little bit of light oil tossed in when cooking helps the rice hold together without being greasy. The pineapple isn't overloaded so it has a chance to add some flavor instead of be the flavor.
If you like shrimp, a great house special at Asian Cuisine is the Crispy Walnut Shrimp. I ordered that just because of the walnuts. Most shops way over do a shrimp plate by drenching it in a sweet sticky sauce and sprinkling the resulting lumpy mass with sesame seeds. Yuk. But at Asian Cuisine their shrimp comes out battered and lightly fried over a bed of steamed rice. Walnut halves are mixed in with the shrimp. Not a sprinkling of tiny walnut pieces. You get large, whole walnut halves also lightly fried but this time without the batter. A sweet mayonnaise sauce comes on the side but it's not what you are thinking. It's not thick like a dip. It's more like a dressing and adds a nice touch if used in moderation. This dish was good stuff!
Last, I tried the Special Pork Rice Plate. It's thinly sliced pork lightly stir fried and served over steamed rice with a soft fried egg on top. The fried egg along with the rice make the flavors of this plate pretty bland so I added just a sprinkle of soy sauce. It comes with a fish sauce that wasn't remarkable (it's the same served just about everywhere at Asian restaurants) and tends to over sweeten the rice. It's hard to find a good tomato these days and the sliced tomatoes included were small and grocery store ripe. They are OK but I think the pork plate would have better off without them. I didn't like this plate as much as the others but the pork is still worth trying.
Most of the recipes include a sauce on the side and soy sauce on the table. I recommend using them carefully or you could end up right back with "too sweet" or "too salty". Taste the food first and then accent with a sauce.
Two soups, egg drop and hot-n-sour, are complimentary at the self serve bar. I recommend skipping these as they are no different than that served at just about every Asian restaurant in the country.
The interior of Asian Cuisine has gotten a bit "hole in the wall" partially due to all the unexpected remodeling the Covid 19 rules require. Don't judge the...
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