Monument Café

Posted By Michael Stern on May 22, 2008 7:17 AM

A half hour north of Austin, The Monument Café has a menu that says it was "designed to be reminiscent of Texas roadside cafes of the 1920s to 1940s." Fans spin overhead, tables are chrome-banded, and windows are hung with Venetian blinds. Service is fast and efficient and the food is a roster of Lone Star classics at their very best. One blackboard itemizes the daily specials. Another lists the gardens, ranches, farms, and orchards from which the kitchen's provisions are obtained. Lunch items include crunchy fried catfish, charred chicken with poblano sauce, and a fine two-alarm (no-bean) Texas chili; but the meal we recommend most is breakfast.

Waffles are elegant, not the big, dried-out Belgium-tread manhole covers served by so many cafés nowadays. Pancakes are big and fluffy; biscuits are served warm; and the sour cream coffee cake is a sugar-crusted masterpiece. One hot breakfast unique to the region is migas, Mexican scrambled eggs that include melted cheese, chunks of tomato, and small ribbons of crisp tortilla that soften in places but stay crunchy in others. On the side of migas, you get red salsa to heat it up along with grits or hash browns and a soft flour tortilla rolled in aluminum foil so it stays warm.

The Monument Café makes some of the best desserts anywhere in Texas, using the finest ingredients to produce classic sweets. There is usually a fried pie (fruit fully enclosed in a pastry crust and fried to a crisp); we have had superb baked tapioca pudding as well as angel food cake with fresh strawberries; and the cool cream pies are dazzling. Chocolate pecan is dark and fudge-like, loaded with chunks of nut and topped with a ribbon of pure white whipped cream. Coconut cream pie is every bit as wonderful, but more angelic than sinful: light, silky, fresh, and layered on a flaky light-gold crust.

pie

Chocolate Cake

Chicken Fried Steak

Monument Chocolate Pie

coffee cake

migas

chili

Lemonade

King Ranch Casserole

Posted By Jim Nadeau on May 9, 2011 9:22 AM

What a terrific concept! We took a slight detour on our way back to DFW from Horseshoe Bay and were so pleased we did. All the food is so fresh and natural.

I started with a very good tortilla soup, rivaling that found in any Mexican restaurant, and followed it with a luscious chicken fried steak that ranks at the top of my all-time CFS list. The beef was wonderful, with no hint of grease whatsoever. The absolutely wonderful thin-sliced onion rings are grease free too. A side dish of chile pepper squash casserole, recommended by JJ, our waitress with personality plus, was another winner. My wife enjoyed the freshness and quality of her grilled chicken breast sandwich but nowhere near as much as the Monument chocolate pecan crusted pie.

Be sure to visit their market, as we did, to take home some of their meat and produce. We will return to try their freshly squeezed lemonade, visit the soon-to-open beer garden, and visit the many shops in Georgetown's square.

Onion Rings

chili pepper squash casserole

Grilled Chicken Breast Sandwich

Tortilla Soup