Minor setbacks in food quests

I set out today planning on visiting a few food places: Pao's Mandarin House, Wheatsville Food Cooperative, and Nubian Queen Lola's. I was disappointed on all three counts.

Pao's is supposed to be one of the best Chinese restaurants in the Austin area - Fearless Critic ranked it the third best Chinese food in this year's new edition of their restaurant guide.  After dining there for lunch we found it left a lot to be desired. We had issues with each of the dishes we ordered. Maybe our standards are too high - but Fearless Critic shouldn't have given it a 9.0 - it's not that good.

Wheatsville was a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping that the "best neighborhood market" would be something awesome -  but in the end it was just a pretty standard small organic produce and grocery. Pretty much any neighborhood market in Palo Alto or Santa Cruz looks like Wheatsville. I was hoping the city that spawned Whole Foods and Central Market would have a really kick ass neighborhood store - but maybe I missed the picture. They do cater a lot to the vegan market but also carry some meat (from Niman Ranch! They had signs for local cattle but only one product that I could find - ground beef! What, they have to get their meat from California too?!?) . Maybe they have exceptional prices - I haven't been price tracking for a while so I couldn't tell.

Nubian Queen Lola is supposed to be the best soul food in Austin with an amazing fried chicken. It's supposed to be a one woman show - Lola takes your order, cooks, and serves. We found the place but it looks like it's closed (Lola probably was on vacation). I was bummed but Tina reminded me she is one person and is entitled to a vacation just like the rest of us. We'll try again next time.