Blue Star Cafeteria Looks Fab, But Isn't.

I’m a sucker for diners. I have vivid memories of stopping in at the Red Geranium Café in Grand Rapids Michigan on snowy mornings, sitting in a booth eating French Toast while the steam fogged up all the windows. I find deep comfort in Austin originals like Kerbey and Magnolia – the Neptunian Landscape is my adopted comfort food. And I love the new breed too, places like Monument Café in Georgetown, which takes a local-organic angle on classic diner food and is one of my absolute favorite restaurants in the universe.

So I was excited to see the Blue Star Cafeteria (45th and Burnet) the other day driving back home from North Austin. Excellent name, a nice patio, and walking in, a case full of pie. All very good signs. It was crowded too, full of what I imagined were Rosedale pedestrians from the neighborhood, since there were many more people inside than cars in the parking lot.

While Blue Star started out strong, the meal didn’t quite hold up to expectations. I ordered Eggs Benedict, and my wife had the cheeseburger. Both good diner standbys. The kids had burgers too, but that was a little complicated. Blue Star sort of undecided on kid-friendliness. There’s not really a kid menu, but there sort of is, if you ask.

Service was friendly, but not speedy. The coffee was hot, but nothing special. And the food was competent. Individual aspects sparkled – the ham in the eggs benedict, for example was amazing. Other elements – the fries and the fruit – were uninspired. And while the presentation was good, it seemed to me a little caught in the space between upscale and nostalgia, without hitting either one with much gusto.


In the end, the place wins on ambience, with clever architecture and a trendy look. And it wins on menu, which has all the right things in all the right order. Where it falls short is the food – decent competent stuff compared to the old Red Geranium, but less than you’d expect from a place with aspirations (and prices) so much higher.

Judging Chili

Every year, starting sometime in early fall, Chili trash talking starts at the Florida Department of Revenue. It gets to the point where you have to account for a good 10 minutes of chili-baiting before a meeting starts, where to inquire about prior year results is as likely as not to lead to a tirade against crooked judges and unjust outcomes.

I've been doing Grubbus a while, reviewing food from a step back and with a little anonymity. This year, I was asked to be a judge in the contest, to judge on the spot, in full view. The experience was awesome.

All four judges were ushered into a conference room and presented with trays with all 13 entrants placed in a unique order for each judge. We were given water, palate-cleansing saltines, and a score sheet. For each chili, we were asked to rate aroma, texture, and taste on a scale of 1 to 5. The final score was aroma + texture + (3 x taste).




The entrants were all good solid Florida Chili, which is to say not Texas chili, and while I was prepared to award an extra few points to any beanless entry, none presented itself. We had African-fusion, Indian-fusion, and a green-chili entrant that seemed loosely based on New Mexico Green Chili stew. Nothing too spicy (again, a lost opportunity for extra points in my book), but plenty of spice; and though all but two followed the same meat/tomato/bean/onion formula, plenty of variety. Some were harder to eat than others, but in the moment, as much joking and playing and costumes were in place leading up to the contest, it was very serious, and very quiet.

In the end, there was a pretty clear top 3. But the one that mattered was third place. After years of pouring heart and soul into chili, after years of showing up in costume, after years of coming just this close to some chili-recognition, Susan took home a medal with her mild and subtlety spiced Nun Better Chili.