I recently took my mother out for dinner. We chose La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant at I-10 and Kirkwood instead of our usual dinner spots since we’ve heard a lot of good things about La Fiesta from friends and such. People we know tend to be picky eaters with high expectations, so we instinctively expected a great meal at La Fiesta.
We chose the Katy Freeway location since it’s relatively close to our neighborhood. We came in around 6:30PM on Friday and were seated immediately. The restaurant had a good amount of people in it, but was not crowded by any means. It took almost 15 minutes before anyone even acknowledged us at our table, and it took even longer to get the usual chips and salsa. The salsa was also very cold… as if they’d just pulled it out of the refrigerator. Good salsa should never be served cold!
When we finally got the menus, we were very surprised to see that the food was cheap compared to other Mexican restaurants in the area. With food prices the way they are today, it’s very rare to see a fajita dinner sold for less than $12, so it was surprising to see that La Fiesta had fajitas for $9.50 or so. We placed our order — fajitas for me, a quesadilla for mom, and some queso to enjoy with our chips and salsa.
The food came out a short while later. My fajitas were pretty decent. The meat was cooked nicely and had a good flavor to it. One thing I did notice is that the portions were very small compared to other restaurants. I wouldn’t consider this a “filling” meal were it not for the chips and salsa that were included. Most restaurants include a round container full of tortillas with an order of fajitas. La Fiesta did this as well, but included only 3 tortillas inside the container. This made the meal pointless, and I had to ask for more tortillas at least three times during our meal.
Mom’s quesadilla didn’t look very good either. I originally thought that they brought out the wrong meal since her quesadilla looked more like two tacos on a plate than a quesdailla. Quesadillas should always be served as part of a very large tortilla, which is cut up into small triangular slices; like so. La Fiesta’s idea of a quesadilla seems to be putting taco fillings into a tortilla, wrapping it up, and calling it a quesadilla. Not good.
All in all, our meal came out to about $26 before tip, which I think is pretty cheap for a dinner for two at a “sit-down” restaurant. Even with the food being as cheap as it is, I don’t think we’ll be coming back to La Fiesta. There’s nothing fun about mediocre Mexican food, so I’d much rather spend a few dollars more at a place that offers good food and good service.
I recently had the chance to spend some time in Austin with my mom. Several friends recommended The Oasis Restaurant on Lake Travis for the breathtaking views and amazing food. Unfortunately, our experience was neither breathtaking nor amazing. I suppose you could say that the restaurant was more of a “Disappointment on Lake Travis” than an Oasis on Lake Travis.
We came in on Friday night at around 9PM. The restaurant was empty for the most part so we were able to get a table immediately. My mother and I immediately noticed the beautiful furniture, clean and well decorated building, and view of Lake Travis, which was amazing despite the fact that it was already dark outside. If someone were to ask me about my experience at that point, I would have said that we were off to a good start.
Unfortunately, the good start came to an end when it was time to order our meals. My mom ordered a Margarita with her meal, which she found bland and improperly mixed. I had my usual Dr Pepper which came out just fine — then again, I don’t think it’s possible to mess up serving a soft drink.
I went for the Beef Fajitas while my mom gave the Beef Fajita Nachos a try. My fajitas did not come out well. The meat tasted like it was reheated in a pan instead of taken fresh off the grill. The condiments (rice, beans, guacamole, sour cream, etc.) were nothing to write home about, either. My meal tasted like something you’d expect to get at a greasy fast food place or out of a van at a construction site… it certainly wasn’t worth the $16.99 price tag.
Mom’s nachos were yet another disappointment. The first thing we noticed was that her “Beef Fajita Nachos” didn’t seem to have a lot of fajitas on them. We searched her plate for fajita meat but were only able to find 2 or 3 strips of it. We complained and our waitress was somewhat helpful, bringing us a plate with more fajitas, which were also poorly cut (huge chunks!) and undercooked as well. I would’ve expected them to take the entire meal back and bring back a properly done plate, but this just didn’t happen.
In the end, the cost of our dinner came out to a total of $42 for the two of us. We were not charged for the extra meat, but I still feel that we would’ve gotten a better meal at Taco Cabana or some other fast food Mexican joint. Service was good, the view was amazing, and the building was clean and spectacularly decorated. Unfortunately, bad food killed the entire experience for both of us.
I don’t think we’ll be back in the future. 
My broadband situation sucks at the moment. I’m currently subscribed to AT&T’s U-Verse VDSL service, which has been great up until the last week or so, when they’ve started making a lot of changes to the service. I’ve spent a few hours tonight researching alternate providers for broadband here in Houston. There are three choices from two different companies here in my part of town, and all of them seem to suck one way or another. Let’s look into this a bit more:
AT&T DSL
Price: $34.99/month plus $14/month for phone line (required)
Speed: 6016/768
Pros:
No limitations whatsoever on bandwidth usage. I’ve pissed away 1TB/month before — no issues.
Consistent broadband speeds. Service does not slow down at all during peak hours.
Good official support on DSLR.
Cons:
Slow speeds. I was able to order 6mbps service back in 2003, and they still can’t do any better than this!?
Phone line required. This adds $15/month to an already bloated bill.
No IPTV service available, have to get satellite TV, which is a bit of a pain in the ass.
Overall:
Great service, but it feels “so 2003″. The packages haven’t changed at all, the speed is crappy at best, and the service itself just seems like it’s stuck in the bowels of time!
AT&T U-Verse (VDSL)
Price: $ I have no idea, because at the time of writing I can’t even log in to my account to check the bill — all because the site is “down for maintenance”!
Speed: 6144/1024
Pros:
Static IP address
Consistent Internet speeds, just like DSL.
No bandwidth limits, just like AT&T’s DSL service.
Fastest upload speed in town. That’s nothing to brag about though, since 1024kbps isn’t all that fast. This should probably be a con.
“High tech” — well, at least higher tech than the DSL service. AT&T’s new U-Verse service at least has more room to grow than antiquated ADSL, which has a protocol limit of 8192/1024…
No POTS phone line required!
Cons:
Awful TV service. They took away all the west coast feeds, the DVR is choppy, the interface (while better than Comcast’s) still needs a lot of help.
Weekly outages for “maintenance”.
Disorganized call center staff — you’re better off just going to bed and hoping that the service will fix itself by morning.
Overall:
U-Verse used to be great, but now it feels like it’s starting to go to hell. The Internet speeds were never that great to begin with, but the TV service (I really loved having west coast feeds!) really made up for it. Now that those are gone, I’m having a really tough time finding something I like about this service.
Comcast Cable
Price: $54.99 without TV, slightly less with cable TV bundles.
Speed: 8192/768
Pros:
Fastest downstream in town. 8mbps with temporary 16mbps boosts.
DHCP IP address, which won’t change unless you swap the modem.
No POTS phone line required!
Cons:
Dealing with Comcast. Imagine getting kicked in the testicles by one of those football players who does the kick-off or whatever it’s called. That’s how bad talking to Comcast is.
The downstream means nothing. Comcast will shut you off if you’re one of the top users in the area — heavy NNTP, P2P users beware!
Crappy upload speed.
Much more expensive than the other options, even though you get only slightly ‘better’ service.
Cable TV service is expensive, interface is crappy, outages are frequent in my area.
Final Words
As you can see, all three of the major options here in Houston suck badly one way or another. This brings me to the question I’ve had on my mind for a few years now: How hard could it be? I’ve spent a lot of time browsing AT&T’s and Comcast’s sites, only to read things about free virus protection and free access to over 10,000 wireless hotspots. Frankly, I don’t give a damn. I don’t want Comcast’s bloated security software, and I don’t want to sit at McDonald’s like an idiot with my laptop, using my free AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspot service. I have no need for “state of the art anti-spam” or a “best rated Internet user portal”. I want an ISP that gives me a fast Internet package (let’s say 15mbps down, and at least 2mbps up), a static IP address, and maybe (if I should be so lucky) IPTV service that doesn’t suck.
Essentially, I want an ISP that wasn’t designed for absolute idiots. I want common sense from my ISP. I want good, honest, reasonable service. I just want… things to work.
How hard could it be?
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