What I Ate: July 11, 2009 (Manna From Heaven Tex-Mex, Hao Hao Restaurant)

Lunch: We stopped in at the Manna From Heaven Tex-Mex restaurant (602 W Center St, Kyle, TX‎ - (512) 268-6900‎) for some chalupas for lunch. The last time we had lunch here we really liked the food, but something was wrong today. The salsa tasted watered down and so did the limeade. The special was the chalupa platter, so we thought we were lucky - but this time there was no meat which severely diminished the flavor.

In the middle of the day, I passed a 7-Eleven and decided to stop to get a free Slurpee. When I came out with my 7.11 ounce Slurpee, Tina thought it looked ridiculous, so she took a picture.

Dinner: While running errands, we stopped at Hao Hao restaurant (1901 W William Cannon Dr. #115, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 447-8121‎) which was a great disappointment (and we had really low expectations going in). We started off with a small bowl of won ton soup (which the Fearless Critic review said was decent - it was not). The wonton skin tasted like the thick doughy noodles that you get at Fresh Choice in the chicken noodle soup. The filling was almost non-existant and what little I got was flavorless except for some salt and the pork (or whatever it was) wasn't even ground - it was like it was cooked first then diced into cubes. The soup was just a little salty - no other flavor.

We then had spring rolls which were equally bland with a couple bites containing from saltiness. It was served with a watery peanut sauce.

The BBQ Pork Vermicelli was really unappetizing. The BBQ pork was super dry and tasted a like cardboard that had been finely ground into dust and compressed into thick strips, colored with food coloring, and then a couple drops of artificial flavoring droped on to make it remind you of Chinese BBQ Pork.

The lemongrass shrimp was okay - the mushrooms and shrimp were fairly flavorful - but this dish wasn't enough to redeem the dinner.