Ties are just targets for bean dribbles and spaghetti spills.
This is a city where dining is supposed to be fun, not an exercise in tailored torture. In the last two decades, the Austin restaurant scene has ridden the same economic roller coaster as the real estate sector, falling in the doldrums in the mid-1980s only to rise from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix. In 1998, the phoenix was soaring with restaurants popping up in converted bungalows in old Austin neighborhoods, sprouting on street corners and slipping into strip shopping centers whenever a storefront became available. Some of the new restaurants are franchises or outlets for a national chain, but many are homegrown. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of Asian restaurants in the city as immigrants from that continent have found a home here.