Happy Hour Survey

FFP and I are always saying that we are going to make a spreadsheet on downtown Happy Hour 'deals' and rate the prices and food. Years ago we set out to do a martini tasting with mixed results. Even though we would order one martini (and one club soda) at each place and pace ourselves mightily we found the work slow and confusing and our notes less than legible.

Last night we decided to go downtown in spite of the fact that we had no particular destination. Himself had been downtown earlier for a lunch and had dropped by Ballet Austin's Butler Dance Education Center. He was so excited about the way the place is shaping up and the fact that kids were dancing in the Armstrong-Connelly studio. So braving the Lamar traffic until Fifteenth and heading downtown on Guadalupe we saw a parking place just shy of 6th or 7th and bailed out of the traffic to park and walk. It was six minutes until 5:30, the bewitching hour for most downtown Austin meters (beware of the ones near the Capitol, they retain the threat of a meter person until six). For one dime, FFP secured our spot for the night.

We walked over to the ballet building and admired the beautiful studios. We decided that our future high rise is up to about 23 or 24 floors now. Then we wandered down to 2nd and peeked in Cru where a few folks were sipping wine at the bar. We stopped in the Design within Reach studio, dreaming of modern new furniture for our condo. ("Beautiful chair but I think we'll have to eschew the designers!" I was heard to comment.) We briefly toyed with going to Sullivan's bar for a bite and a drink. Then we decided on Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. However, a sign in front of Starlite ("Happy Hour 4-7") convinced us to try it. We found out that "all drinks were $2 off" and there were no app specials. Nevertheless, we tried a beet salad, a tuna tartare and some wild mushroom and black truffle risotto with roasted fennel. We each had a glass of wine. It was quite tasty. They were a little slow on the delivery, though, and initially presented the three apps to the three top next to us in the bar. And the price wasn't the happiest...just north of the half century mark. Still, good food and sophisticated atmosphere.

We still had capacity at this point. We were noodling about going to the Elephant Room which can be counted on for jazz, any night.

But I digress. And this is photo of the day, not long-winded night life survey. So the photo?

Well, we walked on to Sixth and, near Congress, we ducked into the bar of the Ruth's Chris steakhouse. [Disclaimer: We've known the owners for decades.] As the clock ticked toward seven (surely the end of happy hour times) we ordered to glasses of wine, carpaccio, and a plate of seared tuna. Katie, our smiling server delivered the wine post haste, gave us some delicious bread and butter and before we knew it the apps arrived. The tuna is just visible in the picture beyond the carpaccio with its accouterments of shaved cheese, capers, onions, salad and delicous cheese toasts. Later FFP would be looking for a picture for the July theme day (the color red). Maybe I should have saved this picture for the wonderful color in the raw beef. The apps were half price and huge to boot, making us question whether the bill was calculated correctly. That's happy stuff.

So that's the picture. The rest of our evening? Well, we caught the end of the Happy Hour show at the Elephant Room which was a wonderful performance of the T. Jarrod trio. And we saw Tony Campise there and he said he was playing with Paul White and some other guys at 9:30. So we walked to the Four Seasons and had lavender-infused champagne and a pizza. It's been a long time since we hung out there. We saw people we knew, however. We went back to the Elephant and the show was great but we were tired and didn't see it to the end.

Some happy hours though.