#221: Shokunin

The Bar

Shokunin. 1009 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/22/2025 @ 9pm.

The Drink

Sushi By Scratch Private Label Sake. $13.

For whatever reason, sake is generally not something I ever really think about or have the urge to grab a bottle of. I have the irreplaceable Texas Sake to thank for giving me a more in-depth exploration of the subtleties of sake beyond "it's half of a sake bomb", but I would still not claim to be an expert on all the varieties of the venerable rice wine. Luckily for me, sake snobbery does not appear to be much of a thing here in the same way that wine snobbery is, and even I could tell that this was good stuff. This is the latter half of a bottle of sake from the group who owns the restaurant; after taking an initial round of toasts, we got glasses of ice-cold Kirin from a special kegerator to drop our second helpings in for shooting purposes. I will be honest that this was neither the first round of drinks we had this evening nor the last, so please don't ask me for detailed tasting notes, but rest assured that it was perfect, as was everything else that we had.

The Crew

Ashley, Lars, Aaron, Mike.

Notes

Shokunin, which had only been open since Halloween, is the Japanese word for "master artisan", and it deserves its moniker, although I do mourn the loss of the former occupant, the excellent Italian joint Gelateria Gemelli. Shokunin is a project of the Sushi By Scratch restaurant group, who I learned are also behind a few other high-end establishments such as NADC Burger next door. Japanese restaurants in the US occupy an interesting place in the culinary landscape; whereas in Japan they obviously have restaurants which span the entire budgetary spectrum, here the absence of the $4 lunch bowls so beloved there is due to our culture of NIMBYism and regulatory failure, which means that almost all Japanese food you'll find in a city like Austin is going to be high-end stuff. This of course is a running theme with essentially all new restaurants on Sixth Street in particular, but especially with a less-common cuisine like Japanese. 

Shokunin is not quite Jiro Dreams of Sushi (though keep in mind that Jiro himself might not be around for too much longer), but it's definitely aiming at a higher price point than Ramen Tatsu-Ya or Domo Alley-Gato. Now, as I alluded to above, we had all had a LOT to drink (at the delightful show the Mutt-Cracker, specifically) before visiting, and we were in an exceptionally Dealer's Choice-friendly mood, so my accounting of the food is not quite up to my usual exacting standards, but rest assured that everything we were served was incredible. This is the kind of place where you can put your drunken dining fate entirely in your server's hands and be fully confident that you will have an excellent meal.

#220: Moderna Bar & Pizzeria

The Bar

Moderna Bar & Pizzeria. 1717 W 6th St Suite 140R, Austin, TX 78703

Visited 12/19/2025 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Sophia Loren. Voga vodka, amaretto, lime juice, "Italian cherry soda" (grenadine and luxardo cherry), lemon. $12.

Somewhat surprisingly, this appears to be the very first rendition of a vodka soda I have been served on this whole Sixth Street sojourn so far, although with this many accoutrements it might as well be a different drink entirely than the humble well classic we know and love. Voga is an Italian brand which seems to have been recently discontinued, as despite a few good reviews (and a cool-looking bottle), the product website is only accessible via archive.org. The main highlight for me besides the amaretto was the "Italian cherry soda", which when I asked for more information was described as simply grenadine and luxardo cherry. I am a confirmed fiend for black cherry flavor in general, and even this sweeter take on it was well-received, and I ordered several more as the night went on. 

The Crew

Lars, Ashley, Mike, Aaron.

Notes

I was excited to visit this establishment, as it used to be Cover 3, where this project kicked off almost 9 (!) years ago. Back to where it all began! If I gave awards for Most Changed Bar then this would be a clear #1 selection, as the transition from the bright beer-drinking bonhomie of Cover 3 to the swanky dinner cocktail ambience of Moderna could not have been more dramatic, particularly given the installation of a gigantic glittering oven in the middle of the dining area like a disco ball dispensing Neapolitan pizzas. Moderna opened about 2 weeks before our visit, after the former Cover 3 location had sat vacant for quite some time. I saw its attitude towards Italian food described as a "neo-traditional", a neologism that made me smile although it is perfectly apt, since Moderna does the expected local sourcing to produce a trained chef's take on the familiar dishes you know and love. Italian is one of those cuisines which has developed an enveloping armature of very particular attitudes towards innovation and progress vs heritage and tradition and all that, which can be either comforting or confining, depending on the situation. 

Well, our situation was that we were starving, so we ordered a bunch of items, including:

• Sausage and peppers
• Eggplant
• Meatballs
• Hell's Kitchen pizza
• Diavola pizza
• Mushroom truffle pizza

And it was all super legit, especially followed by a round of house-made limoncello shots afterwards. I have already ruminated in the review of Sammie's on how the inevitable rising tides of affluence in Austin have affected the creation of new Italian spots and it all remains relevant; while at this rate Sixth Street will most likely never get the kind of cozy neighborhood red-sauce joint that is economical elsewhere in town, there are worse establishments to patronize than high-end Italian restaurants.

#219: Civil Goat

The Bar

Civil Goat. 2000 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 11/22/2025 @ 1pm.

The Drink

Meanwhile Jolly. $8.

1pm is a little late in the day for a coffee for most people (more on that later), but acceptably late enough to start drinking booze without too much judgment from your fellow patrons, especially on a gameday. Civil Goat offers a few types of beer and wine, and I was morbidly curious if my bartenderista would recommend one of the wines (which seemed surprisingly diverse for a coffee shop), but instead I received Meanwhile's take on a winter lager. Winter lagers are typically some combination of sweeter, maltier, and more spiced than a typical lager; I have no idea who invented the style, although winter ales go back hundreds of years, but Meanwhile makes one of my favorites exemplars, with a very light berry flavor that doesn't wear too heavily over the course of a full pint. It is occasionally forgotten that strong flavors in beer can overstay their welcome, and what tastes delicious for that first sip can become a burden once you near the bottom of the glass. As usual for one of my favorite Austin breweries, that was not the case with this very drinkable 5.2% ABV beer, and I was still pleased with it once I had finished.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

First, let's pause a moment and pour one out for the much-loved Cuvée, which had to relocate from this spot last year due to rent increases, though thankfully they landed on their feet on Rainey Street. However, Civil Goat is also an Austin-based coffee chain (the name is evidently a reference to an anecdote in author Stuart Lee Allen's book The Devil's Cup alleging that humans first discovered the invigorating effects of coffee after witnessing their goats perk up upon eating the plant) which has been around for just shy of a decade after starting off in Bee Cave. As this stretch of East Sixth continues to accumulate more offices and homes, the need for coffee shops rises roughly in tandem, and so on a Saturday afternoon there were plenty of folks typing away on their laptops. Civil Goat feels just fine as a coffee shop.

I couldn't stay for too long, however. Civil Goat is currently only open until 3pm, which would seem to make selling alcohol nearly pointless for all but the most dedicated drinkers, but the bartenderista told me that they have imminent plans to stay open until the evening. Peak coffee purchasing hours might be from 8am to 10am, but that didn't help me on a gameday; I was forced to go elsewhere to watch Texas vs Arkansas.

#218: Marfa Lights

The Bar

Marfa Lights. 718 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 10/3/2025 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Mr. Pickle. Bacardi spiced rum, amaretto, lots of pickles, Dr. Pepper. $11.50.

Despite its name, appearance, and ingredient list, this is not QUITE a prank drink in the same way that the "blue wave shot" at Cheers is. Although the bartender cheerfully admitted that their instructions were to be "obnoxious" with the amount of pickles they put in the drink, it's really only about half full of pickle slices, the rest being the actual cocktail and crushed ice. In terms of taste, it lands about halfway in between the sweetness of a (non-flammable?) Flaming Dr. Pepper and the harshness of a pickleback shot. As I was steadily munching my seemingly endless supply of pickle slices (this rivaled a bloody Mary as the most snackable cocktail you can get), it occurred me that this would be a big hit at the State Fair, maybe especially if some of the pickle slices were fried. As our bartender was recommending it as "actually good" he claimed that this was their top seller basically every night, although I don't know if their relentless promotion of it causes a sort of "most photographed barn in America" effect, where people order it just because they've been told that it's ordered. I enjoyed it, but its extreme pickleosity puts it squarely in the "glad I had it once" category. Since the prices were actually fairly reasonable here, we had not one but two additional rounds:

Mole espresso martini. Mezcal Amarás, Kahlua, cold brew coffee, creme de cacao, mole bitters. $15.50.

I've been served a number of espresso martinis so far, but this was the first to have mezcal in it, versus the more common neutral vodka base of the others. I thought it worked out fantastically: the slight smokiness of the mezcal was an appropriate counterpoint to the sweetness of the Kahlua and the bitterness of the cold brew. As I've mentioned, most espresso martinis lean heavily towards the "alcoholic milkshake" end of the spectrum, so it was nice to see one that would actually both wake you up and get you drunk, rather than just accelerate your diabetes. 

Desert Rose. Ford's Gin, prickly pear syrup, hibiscus water, lime. $13. 

This take on a Tom Collins was the clear consensus winner of the "I would drink several of these" award. They gave us a strong pour, which the prickly pear and hibiscus made not a problem at all, and if we didn't have to leave so soon, we almost certainly would have gotten into trouble with more rounds of these. Its price point made it especially copacetic - as I never tire of remarking on, $13 in October 2025 would be $9.75 in January 2017 when I started this blog, and it definitely had the feeling of "a great affordable cocktail". 

The Crew

Ashley, Lars, Aaron.

Notes

Marfa Lights is a literal side project of Kung Fu Saloon next door. The two bars are very different from each other - whereas Kung Fu Saloon has a reputation for broitude (fairly deserved or not), Marfa Lights is a dim, divey, laid-back tribute to the infamous paranormal phenomenon out in West Texas, with a lot of hybrid alien/cowboy decor on the walls and a vibe that attempts to replicate the unpretentious atmosphere of a rural Texas saloon. It's a lot nicer than an authentic small town saloon and much more conducive to sitting and drinking cocktails than Kung Fu Saloon, so props to their owners for having such flexible management capabilities - maintaining even a single successful bar business model can be a surprisingly difficult challenge, so having multiple thriving properties is to be applauded. Despite it being a Friday night we were having a great time, but unfortunately we had to run, as the Modest Mouse show was beginning soon. This is one of the bars I would voluntarily return to, although I've had enough pickles for a while.

#217: Grá Mór

The Bar

Grá Mór. 204 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 9/26/2025 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Matcha Point. Ketel One vodka, lychee, matcha, cacao, oat milk. $14.

Every once in a while I have a real conundrum about which drink to document as the "official" drink of the visit. Generally this is a good problem to have, because it means that there were multiple good options, and that's exactly what happened here: as I was waiting for my friends to show up, I gave my "what's the drink that best represents the bar?" spiel to the cashier/bartender, and I asked her to select "the second-best option" as my waiting drink in order to save the paragon for the blog. She chose the Summer Bounty, which was so good that I ordered another a few rounds later (though I unfortunately did not manage to get a picture). But her actual selection was the Matcha Point, which was great too. Its name is obviously a pun on the tennis term, not the middling Scarlett Johansson movie, and it is basically exactly what you would expect a cocktail from a café to be like: smooth, refreshing, slightly sweet but not cloying. I really liked both of these drinks, but the Matcha Point is slightly more worth it in terms of booze per buck. Then again, if you're drinking to get drunk, you're better off just going next door (more on that below).

Summer Bounty. White wine, blueberry, apricot, black tea, club soda. $14. 

As mentioned above, this blueberry white wine spritzer (cue the Flanders voice) was great, a bright red-hued elixir despite its main ingredient being blueberry. If only Sixth Street had sidewalk space for outdoor café seating, this would be the ideal cocktail for al fresco brunch on the hypothetical patio; you could easily drink a million of these on a leisurely Sunday morning, like a more upscale mimosa. 

The Crew

Ishani, Aaron, Elijah, Nick.

Notes

"Grá Mór" is a brand new side project of the roughly year-old bar The Dead Rabbit next door which they opened within the last 2 weeks in order to draw some of the morning café traffic to the space. Its name is Irish for "big love" (not in the same sense as the HBO show, though). It's an extremely cute venue, in the kawaii sense of the term: cute art on the walls, cute knickknacks on most flat surfaces, and cute paper love notes that you can write yourself and affix anywhere (even their website lets you scribble similarly). They didn't use this term, but its relationship to its parent bar next door reminded me of a brighter, cleaner, more modern version of a snug, the traditionally women-specific smaller bars appended to the main pubs you find in Ireland. Many of our drinks even came from the main bar, like our round of Guinnesses. Unlike a snug, this is definitely more targeted at the coffee crowd, as it closes at 9pm, which is definitely too early for a bar, although opening at 8am seems a tad late for how early people want their coffee. It wasn't too crowded when we were there, though we were on the late end of their hours. Luckily, the Dead Rabbit is great, so as it was getting to be closing time after our several rounds, we just popped next door for some more pints. 

#216: Fish Shop

The Bar

Fish Shop. 1401 E 6th St #201, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 8/15/2025 @ 8pm.

The Drink

Martini rossi. The Botanist gin, cocchi americano, olive, onion, lemon oil. $15.50.

When I looked over the menu before we visited, I was pleasantly surprised to see that unlike so many other new bars and restaurants, especially on Sixth Street, Fish Shop's drink prices were downright reasonable. Because of this blog I have gotten in the habit of using January 2017 as a price reference point, and this martini would have cost less than $12 back then. It's worth every penny, as this was one of the best martinis I've ever had. The gin is The Botanist from Islay in Scotland, which you probably know better for its scotch. Describing it as "balanced" feels like cheating, but even though the scotch on Islay is stereotypically very peaty, the local botanicals in this gin were smooth and anything but aggressive. But the real star of this martini was the cocchi americano, a quinine-based "aperitif wine" from Italy which turned what could have been an ordinary vermouth-based martini into something more like a gin & tonic. One sip of this and I immediately wondered why we've been using vermouths for so long when this has been around since 1891. It was seriously delicious and I immediately ordered another when I was done with the first. I thought it was a nice touch that when they listed this drink's ingredients on the menu, they gave instructions for making it too (mix the gin and cocchi at a 2:1 ratio to recreate it at home). And if for some strange reason you don't like martinis, even ones as nice as this, they have Guinness for $8, which is a mere $6 in 2017 money. Not bad. 

The Crew

Elijah, Ishani, Aaron, Mom.

Notes

Fish Shop is a brand new seafood joint on East Sixth, located in the same building as Mother's Ruin (happily) and Brooklyn Dumpling Shop (less happily). Austin has not historically been a big seafood town, which makes sense for a small, not-wealthy town whose closest coast was the Gulf, a full 3 hours away. Quality Seafood was as good as it got, and we liked it! Well, as I may have mentioned once or twice, we're a big rich city now, so we have better access to fresh seafood than ever. Fish Shop's owners have connections to other high-quality restaurants in town like Uchi, Uchiko, and Justine's, so you can expect a good meal. We grabbed dinner here, and the food was excellent. We had:

• Mezcal octopus.
• Clams.
• Oysters.
• Fish & chips.
• Their take on a Filet o Fish.
• Honey pie.
• Affogato. 

Everything was really great, and reasonably priced for the quality. Two years ago my sister moved to New York City, where top-notch seafood is ubiquitous; my mom and I visited her a month ago, and the seafood here was easily on par with what we had there. All respect to Quality Seafood for holding down the fort for so many years, and welcome Fish Shop to our current stable of great seafood places. Its main flaw was that, like all too many Austin restaurants, it was just too damn loud (and not in the fun way). I will never understand what drives restaurants to significantly worsen the dining experience for patrons with music blasting from the corners, but hopefully they fix that soon before too many patrons swim off to calmer waters. 

#215: Space Fox

The Bar

Space Fox. 701 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 5/23/2025 @ 6pm.

The Drink

Watermelon margarita. Well tequila, watermelon mixer, fresh lime juice. $14.

Kind of a funny thing to recommend as the drink that best represents the bar, but I enjoyed it, especially on the patio given how freaking hot it's been recently. When I asked the bartender if there was anything special about it, he bluntly told me no, other than that it was made with fresh lime juice. Well, it was fine - 7 oz of sweet watermelon refreshment (watermelon is a criminally underrated margarita flavor). The only thing unusual about it was the price: he told me it was $14, which it was, but the receipt broke that down to $12 + a 20% automatic gratuity. I haven't encountered that odd pricing structure at other bars, and while it doesn't make a difference to the consumer, I wonder what that does to tip revenue, especially in this era of tip backlash and tax shenanigans. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

This is the latest example of a bar rebranding without changing ownership. The Gold Fox Hospitality parent company that owned the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Icehouse here on West Sixth recently purchased old Easy Tiger location on East Seventh (sadly the original Easy Tiger location on Dirty Sixth remains unused) and reopened it as WTF Sporting Club (I'm sure a certain media company would have frowned at a "Fox Sporting Club"). A few months later they additionally rebranded this establishment as Space Fox in order to lean into the fox theme, so there's a lot more fox stuff decorating the interior after the rebrand to make the mascot even more prominent than it already was. They have reconfigured the venue in a number of ways, most notably reducing the size of the patio I liked so much, but in business model terms the biggest change might be the shift from being a live music venue to playing EDM. 

West Sixth is a bit removed from both the typical college student/drunk tourist demographic and the recent dramatic mobility changes on Dirty Sixth, but even though the clientele west of Congress has a bit more money to spend and so the bars lean towards the higher end, the same economic forces still apply: a DJ is much cheaper for the venue than a live band, which requires many more drinks to be sold in order to break even. Austin's much-mocked "Live Music Capital of the World" slogan is continually under debate, but the pandemic marked an inflection point where both local affordability trends and nationally shifting musical tastes make a guy with a laptop an increasingly tempting option for venues over the numberless hassles associated with the logistics of being a live music venue. But I guess there's always the Continental Club, and when I visited I was literally the only patron, so my bartender and I had this discussion while he blasted hair metal, completely wub-free. 

#214: Mexta

The Bar

Mexta. 106 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/11/2025 @ 9pm.

The Drink

Mole Old-Fashioned. Bulleit bourbon, mole negro infused simple syrup, habanero bitters, dark chocolate, sea salt. $16.

My 17th old-fashioned! Not that I've been keeping up with my grading system, but I don't think I'm even going to try anymore, and this is the perfect example of why - there's just been too many of them, and they're all so different that often they share only the name. This is not as out-there or showy as some of the old-fashioneds I've had, but it's certainly one of the most distinctive. Bulleit bourbon is an old reliable, but given that Mexta is an upscale Mexican restaurant, they naturally put a Mexican spin on the classic, starting with an infusion of mole negro into the simple syrup. Mole negro is a classic Oaxacan sauce with infinite variations surrounding the core ingredient of charred peppers; its presence here was helped by the habanero bitters (I didn't ask the brand), but especially highlighted and livened up by the disc of dark chocolate. The old-fashioned should never be turned into a dessert cocktail like the espresso martini does so often, but I appreciated how they turned up the dial on both the spicy and sweet aspects of it. I was very tempted to order another one, but I was done for the night.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

The fifth stop of the night. I try not to visit too many bars in one night because my notes and thoughts get a little hazy, but Mexta was on the way, and the moment demanded it. Mexta replaced Simi Estatorio a bit over a year ago, taking one of the prime spots in the Littlefield Building, one of the many holders of the illustrious "Austin's tallest building" crown. They have not one but 2 Michelin star-winning chefs, so they serve very upscale Mexico City-style cuisine (call it "chilango" or "CDMX" for insider points), with foods I've never even heard of ("pork belly encacahuatado, tikin xic salmon with xnipec salsa") on the menu, in a really classy and inviting setting. It made a fascinating contrast with the more everyday decor and street tacos at Chupitos, which I'd just been to 2 stops ago - here you have both the high and low end of Mexico City-style nightlife instantiated a few blocks away from each other. I already talked about the ongoing demographic shifts in Austin in the Chupitos review, and the upscalization of the city in the BOA Steakhouse review, but the juxtaposition was just very striking to me when I was sitting at the bar at Mexta chatting with the bartender. "Mexican cantina" may not have the same definitive form as "Irish pub" just yet, but it will be interesting to see how the market segments work themselves out as the city changes.

#213: Mitzi's

The Bar

Mitzi's. 320 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/11/2025 @ 8:30pm.

The Drink

Rear naked choke. Ilegal rum, Cynar, Aperol, lemon. $18.

Named after the infamous martial arts move, this is one of their signature cocktails. I guess you could call it a rum negroni or a rum Aperol spritz. I generally think of pairing rum with sweeter mixers rather than more bitter/floral ingredients like Cynar or Aperol, but even with both, this worked for me. It did stand out to me as more of a sipping drink: obviously it's not like I'm chugging any of these cocktails, in these advanced years where college is but a distant memory, but some drinks are just more gulpable than others, and this was a drink to linger over.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

I will confine myself to this single sentence lamenting the pandemic-induced death of the Alamo Ritz theater that this establishment replaced; RIP. Anyway, there's a lot to say about Mitzi's, but as good a place as any to begin is to note that it is named after Mitzi Shore, a pivotal figure in comedy history as well as having incidentally birthed the infamous Pauly. The bar is tucked away in Joe Rogan's Comedy Mothership, but is separately accessible from the street should you want to go there without going to a show. I'm not sure what percentage of its patronage is independent of the performances; it doesn't open until 6pm, a mere hour before most shows begin, but when I visited in mid-set there weren't too many other patrons. That was just fine by me, since as you well know by now, a quiet bar is a good chance for me to chat with the bartender.

The main topic we discussed at length was the question of if Austin has become more of a comedy city since the Comedy Mothership came to town. It's tough to say - to use a music analogy, it's not like building a bigger arena in a city produces more musicians in and of itself, but the presence of the arena can draw bigger musicians to visit, which might encourage both more musicians moving to the city as well as more homegrown production due to clustering effects. Of course, many of Austin's most famous musicians were here well before the city had big fancy venues (which we still don't really have, COTA aside), and if anything Austin might be worse at producing musicians now that we're a more expensive city to live in, since the #1 thing musicians need is cheap rent while they work on their art (Exhibit A: Townes Van Zandt's Clarksville hovel). There might be plenty of other reasons for comedians to move to Austin besides large venues, but the parallels between comedy and music are worth pondering - in 2016, Patrick Reilly wrote a fascinating paper on the unique career paths of comedians, and how the lack of copyright protections for jokes help segment the industry into superstars and have-nots, which is of even greater relevance in an era where social media is having vast effects on both the production and consumption of comedy.

Then again, the Comedy Mothership hasn't been open long enough to have any real effect anyway, so it's probably too soon to say. An unanswerable question is the best kind to debate over your fourth cocktail of the evening, so after noting that the interior is comfortably run-down and scruffy, and might make a good venue for small sets itself, I departed this pleasant locale for my final stop of the night. 

#212: Chupitos

The Bar

Chupitos. 311 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/11/2025 @ 8pm.

The Drink

La Palomita. Tequila, grapefruit, agave, lime, Tajín. $16.

This was a great disappointment. Not the drink itself, which was just fine, but the manner in which I received it compared to what could have been. A paloma ("dove") is a standard cocktail, so the diminutive form palomita either refers to a smaller version, or a variant on it, or just a paloma that you particularly like. The bar's intention was that this paloma would be served in a glass bottle of Mexican Squirt, but the absolutely idiotic Trump tariffs made it too expensive to import them from south of the border, so it was served to me in a normal boring rocks glass instead. Ah well, you know what they say about a bird in the hand - it was a great paloma anyway. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

My third stop of the night. Chupitos (meaning "sips, shots") is brand new, like a month old. I have no idea what happened to Tiki 311, and neither did the bartender, but now Chupitos is here instead. It's kind of strange to me that in 2025 bars can still open up and shut down suddenly without anyone having any idea what happened, but there you go. What the bartender could tell me is that Chupitos is a very different bar, being more of a Mexican dance club, like Mala Vida or Mala Fama, and rather than serving Hawaiian food like Tiki 311 did, naturally they serve more Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine like CDMX-style street tacos, which looked really good although I did not partake. While I was walking here I saw a big sign for the Old 6th marketing campaign (run by Stream Realty, which is redeveloping a big chunk of Sixth Street); as Austin has grown and gotten richer over recent years it's gotten less white and more Hispanic, going from about 20% Hispanic in the mid-80s when I was born to just about a third Hispanic now. Bars can be either leading or lagging indicators of demographic change, and while I'm not sure if exactly 1/3 of all new bars opening up on Sixth Street are Hispanic-owned/oriented/patronized, it's interesting to contrast the newer establishments to older ones like La Perla or Cisco's. As the Old 6th campaign kicks into high gear, it's worth pondering on how Sixth Street grows and changes along with the city, rather than freezing certain moments in time. What a happy coincidence that "al centro" can also mean "to downtown"!

#211: BOA Steakhouse

The Bar

BOA Steakhouse. 300 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/11/2025 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Smokeshow. Knob Creek rye, maple syrup, orange bitters, applewood smoke. $20.

There's a famous maxim that you eat with your eyes first. Its truth has been confirmed by research for food, but it's true for drinking cocktails too, which is why skillful preparation and presentation like you see here is always so nice to encounter. This was very-similar to the smoke-shrouded Manhattan I was served at Lonesome Dove, only this take on an Old-Fashioned wasn't served on a platter. Instead, it was served to me on the bar with half of the drink in the glass, chilled by one of those Death Star-esque massive ice spheres, and the other half in a corked bottle that was filled with applewood smoke, which allows you to tailor the smokiness of your cocktail to your taste as you drink it. Not only does it look cool, attracting plenty of attention and jealousy from other bar patrons, but the drink itself was excellent. I've basically lost count of the number of Old-Fashioneds I've been served by now (just kidding - it's #16), but this was the first to have maple syrup, which was a why-didn't-I-think-of-that touch of brilliance and should be a serious consideration if you're making one at home. The bartender was on point too, which made the drinking experience all the more pleasant.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

BOA (pronounced with 2 syllables, as in "constrictor"), which has been open for about a year, is a vivid reminder of the fact that Austin is no longer becoming a wealthy city - it already is one, and in fact it has been for some time. Whether you use a quantitative metric like median household income, nominal or real per capita income, real GDP, number of millionaires, or some other more qualitative measure like in all those tedious sour grapes navel-gazing longreads about how the city isn't all that/stopped being all that/was never all that in the first place, Austin has become a city where an upscale steakhouse that advertises an "LA vibe" in reality feels like just another new high-end restaurant that fits in seamlessly on Sixth Street alongside the high-end Mediterranean at Aris, the high-end Mexican at Mexta, the high-end Texan at Lonesome Dove, the high-end Filipino at OKO, the high-end seafood at Clark's Oyster Bar, or even coming full circle to Austin's heritage with the high-end American cuisine at the Driskill, and so on. This is downtown, after all.

I have zero negative things to say about the restaurant at all - my drink was excellent, the staff was top notch, all of the food looked awesome, the atmosphere was really pleasant in that swanky kind of way, everyone there was having a great time - it's just that every so often I get reminded of how much Austin has changed since I was a kid, in both an uncomfortable way, as it's yet another place which will probably trip your Too Rich For My Blood alarms; and in a positive way, as the average quality of food and drink that us Austinites have access to has risen in a curve strangely reminiscent of all those graphs I was just talking about. Hey, all that extra money we're now making has to be spent somewhere, right? BOA Steakhouse is as good a place to spend it as anywhere.

#210: The Kitchen

The Bar

The Kitchen. 400 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/11/2025 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Hibiscus margarita. El Afan Blanco, Grand Marnier, fermented honey, hibiscus, lime. $20.50.

The Kitchen is one of those places that gives you a cocktail menu in the form of a little book, and the recommendation came from their page of house specialties, although they had another page of gin cocktails which also looked intriguing. The tequila here is Blanco from El Afán ("desire, yearning"), a Jalisco-based distiller. It has a fairly balanced profile, Hibiscus is a solid choice as a margarita base, not only for its complex floral/tart tangy flavor but also to the red color it gives to the drink. Grand Marnier is of course the cointreau/triple sec-adjacent component that adds a little sweetness. I wanted to know more about the fermented honey (AKA mead), like if it was from Meridian Hive meadery or somewhere else local, but the bartender unfortunately didn't have the opportunity to fill me in on the backstory due to the needs of the other patrons (see below). Overall it was a solid hibiscus margarita, although not exactly a great value for the price.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

The first thing about this restaurant you will learn is that it is owned by Kimbal Musk, brother of Elon, being the fourth outpost of his restaurant chain. Normally that would merely be a Fun Austin Fact along the lines of Sandra Bullock owning Walton's Fancy & Staple down the street, but this place seems to be a sort of "company bar" for the entire extended corporate Muskoverse, as sitting near me were employees of Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company, etc., having exactly the kinds of discussions you'd expect while ordering drinks at a rapid pace. The interior is like a diner but nicer, if that makes sense, with a vibe in between "homey" and "high-end". I looked it up and it was designed by Michael Hsu, an architect who has also designed an impressive number of "hey, that's neat" buildings around town and elsewhere. Austin has a cool legacy of artists quietly leaving their their unique marks all around town for those who know where to look, like Gary Martin's signs, or Evan Voyle's neon lighting, so it's neat that that tradition is still going strong even if The Kitchen isn't exactly the same kind of local business as those others. 

The building it occupies on the ground floor, the imaginatively named Sixth and Guadalupe tower, is currently Austin's tallest tower, at least until the Waterline seizes that crown not just for Austin but for all of Texas, and it has a pretty interesting backstory: it replaced a series of hotels, including the Alamo Hotel, which was owned by LBJ's brother and featured in the music videos for Rock the Casbah and Pancho and Lefty. This tower was commissioned by Facebook in 2019 just before the pandemic, when commercial real estate in downtown Austin looked like a can't-miss investment for all the in-person jobs that were surely coming down the pike. Well, things didn't exactly turn out that way, and so Facebook has decided not to move in at all, opting instead to sublease out the whole thing. Those of us who remember the Intel Shell should be relieved that that debacle was not repeated here, and instead of a decaying ruin there is a restaurant, its proprietor's politics aside.

#209: OKO

The Bar

OKO. 1100 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 4/5/2025 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Rock Lee. Citadelle Jardin d'Été gin, pandan, plum, ponzu. $19.

Every so often on this project I get served a cocktail that impresses me more than delights me. Evidently named after a character from the anime Naruto, this was by far the sparkliest drink I've yet been served. A quick glossary: pandan is a fragrant flower often used in Southeast Asian cooking, ponzu is a Japanese citrus vinaigrette sauce, and the Jardin d'Été gin is a slightly more Asian edition of their standard gin, with yuzu, melon, and orange peel. The sparkle came from the edible glitter on the dried plum (NOT a prune) you can see perched atop the rim of the glass. Savory cocktails often provoke a strongly mixed or polarized response from people since your brain spends more time going "hmm, this isn't what cocktails usually taste like" than analyzing the flavors themselves; by the end of this one I knew I liked it, but I might have preferred a simpler gin cocktail with only 1 or 2 of the other ingredients. The other cocktails on the list are all similarly eclectic. When I was looking up Filipino cocktails afterwards I discovered the kagatan, which is sort of their version of an Irish coffee; it's not on the menu, but if I go back, I'll see if they can make that.

The Crew

Aaron, Ishani, Elijah.

Notes

The wheel of time continues to turn on this property; as the sun once set on East Side Showroom to rise on Ah Sing Den, it has now set on Ah Sing Den in order to rise once more on OKO, a very upscale Filipino restaurant that is the latest project from ubiquitous local super-chef Paul Qui. Austin has never been known for its Filipino cuisine, for essentially purely demographic reasons (there are fewer than 5,000 in the city proper), which gives prospective Pinoy restauranteurs the classic dilemma of either opening a low-cost food truck serving mainly street food or opening a high-cost brick and mortar of high-end cuisine. Either option risks neglecting the "middling cuisine", as Rachel Laudan put it, that most average people typically eat and enjoy, which is one reason why immigrant restauranteurs sometimes struggle with finding a business model that fits the food they want to serve in addition to all the other ones of labor, etc. Qui and his partners chose the latter option for OKO (which interestingly is from the Hawaiian word oko'a, meaning "different/separate/independent" and not a Tagalog word), which is a drag from a wallet perspective, but on the other hand the food was absolutely delicious. We had:

• Baboy (pork skewers).
• Manok (chicken skewers).
• Pancit canton (stir fry noodles).
• Roti.
• Basque-style lemon cheesecake.

All of it was superb. Austin might not be as encouraging to new restaurants as it could be (due in part to our zoning restrictions which artificially hamper the low end of the market), but the ones which do make it are usually top notch.

#208: Recreation

The Bar

Recreation. 1630 E 6th St #100, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 4/5/2025 @ 8:30pm.

The Drink

Figgy mule. Tito's, fig/ube syrup, ginger beer, lime. $14.

It's been years, but I have finally gotten over being given 96 oz of Moscow Mule at Unbarlievable - the misery of that sustained assault on my tastebuds has faded, and I can drink mules without the hateful scent of ginger beer triggering my gag reflex, so I promise never to mention it again. I probably wouldn't need to anyway, because Recreation's take on the venerable mule is far superior, not only because it's much lighter on the ginger beer, but also due to the combination fig/ube flavored syrup in it. Ube is of course the purple yam flavor that is popular in Filipino cuisine, and its mild sweetness pairs well with the flavor of fig, and naturally, Tito's pairs well with basically anything. I haven't discussed Tito's much lately, since there's not too much to say about a consistently excellent vodka other than they continue to set sales records and throw their weight around in the unglamorous but extremely lucrative distribution tier of the alcohol industry. It's surprising to me that as late as the 21st century there was still room for a new challenger in the vodka category, a drink which is by definition tasteless and indistinguishable, but if there had to be a vodka Standard Oil, I'm glad it's from Austin.

The Crew

Aaron, Ishani, Elijah.

Notes

I noticed that Drop Kick had been replaced on our way to meet up at Mother's Ruin, so we made this stop #2 of the evening while waiting for our reservation at OKO. I am not sure exactly why Drop Kick closed, and the bartender wasn't too sure either, but Recreation (which is unrelated to Recess on the other side of I-35) only replaced it fairly recently, having opened in August. The new owners also own Ma'Coco a few blocks away, which serves San Diego-style Mexican food (a cuisine which is sadly under-represented in Austin). The new joint is a bit less of a straight up cocktail bar than Drop Kick was, which makes me curious to know more about the success rate of cocktail bars as compared to other types of bars - do you have to go for the very highest of high end atmospheres or else you won't stand out enough, or is the labor supply of those bartenders more constrained than that of "regular" bartenders? - but I didn't see anything to dislike, and in fact the atmosphere reminded me of a sports bar or West Sixth club more than anything when we were here. We stayed to watch some of a ridiculous Houston vs Duke March Madness game, and then it was time to hit up OKO.

#207: Mother's Ruin

The Bar

Mother's Ruin. 1401 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 4/5/2025 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Dressed Tecate. Tecate, Cholula, lime, salt. $5.

As a brief aside, in the 10s I lived a block away from the Thunderbird Coffee on Koenig, and cans of Tecate were $1 on Thursdays. Now, Tecate is perhaps not the single greatest Mexican light beer ever made (as a loyal fan of the Fast & Furious franchise, it can't be anything but Corona), but if you can stand the mild sweetness, a dollar in 2013 for 12 oz of the 4.5% ABV product of Baja California was a pretty solid deal. $5 in 2025 is less solid, but still a perfectly respectable bar price. The moment it was served to us, I thought, "Gee, this looks just like the ArModelo I got at La Perla." I learned that "dressing" beers is actually a specifically Tex-Mex tradition dating back to the days of  Prohibition, when it was done either to cover up questionable brewing practices or, less unpleasantly, merely to adjust the unassuming flavor profile of a light beer to suit the drinker's mood, which is of course more common these days. Which is the better dressed beer, La Perla's or Mother's Ruin's? I prefer Cholula to Tabasco in most contexts (especially as an alcohol accoutrement), and Tecate to Modelo Especial, so I have to give the edge to Mother's Ruin here, but in an ideal world you'd of course do them both one after the other.

Pickleback. Jameson, spicy pickle juice. $9.

I'm including two drinks because that's what the bartender insisted on when I gave my spiel about the project and why I wanted Dealer's Choice. She chose wisely: it runs out that a pickleback does indeed best represent the bar, because TJ Lynch, the owner of the bar, invented it! I went down this rabbit hole after Kung Fu Saloon served me my third pickleback of this project, following ones at The Lodge and The Library before that, so it was nice to try one right from the source, or at least from a franchise of the source. Mother's Ruin has a few varieties of pickle juice you can choose from if spicy isn't your thing (it very much is mine), and you can't go wrong with Jameson as the whiskey. This is a top tier pickleback, if a shot with only 2 ingredients, one of which is pickle runoff, can be said to have tiers. 

The Crew

Aaron, Elijah, Ishani.

Notes

Stop #1 of the night. Mother's Ruin (the name is slang for gin) is a venerable NYC-based bar chain that has just made its way down to Austin. Charmingly, they have a Trudy's-esque (RIP) challenge, where if you visit this location plus at least 2 of the other 3 (NYC, Chicago, Nashville) in 1 day, you get 1 free beer per day for life, and if you somehow manage to visit all 4, free cocktails. We were not feeling that ambitious, but luckily this location, which had only been open for a month, was plenty for us. The atmosphere is somehow both comfortable and nice at the same time; not to rehash my new bar economics spiel for the 10,000th time, but I will always try to highlight new bars in Austin which do a good job of providing cheap quality drinks along with an inviting atmosphere and good service, because it's a very difficult balance to strike, especially over a long period of time, since the audience that's attracted by the premium cocktails whose margins pay the rent is not always the audience who just wants to nurse cheap beers. The food here looked really good, but unfortunately we were planning to eat dinner at another stop of the evening. Onward....