March 28, 2017

The Rotten Bunch – Austin, TX

I stumbled across the little gem known as The Rotten Bunch as I was perusing the list of restaurants on my American Airlines Advantage Dining Program to help boost my miles. I’m always looking for ways to earn more miles, so this was a great find. Living in North Austin, my usual destination for good food and wine is in the Domain, but now I’m adding the Rotten Bunch to my list. I had a great experience with high-quality food and equally good service.

We started with the olive and truffled burrata small plates. Both were delicious, but the burrata was absolutely exceptional. The burrata was accompanied by crispy ham and asparagus, which made for a very balanced dish. For dinner, we had the Sapphire Salad and Tuna Tartare lettuce wraps. The Sapphire salad was amazing, it had such depth and character to the mix of flavors. It reminded me of a Greek salad, but fruit and a hint of mint.

Service was excellent from start to finish. It did seem a bit scripted as if it was straight out of a server training manual, greet, compliment, recommend, follow up, but nonetheless well received. I guess management requires staff to make three dish recommendations as our server even said, “I can’t just pick three, so here’s my five favorites.”

This practice showed good management and training that many restaurants, especially in Austin, should probably adopt. We had a slight kitchen issue with one of our dishes, but it was quickly corrected and the manager even came over to talk to us and apologize. Since they responded and corrected the issue so quickly and without any hassle, that dish did not negatively influence my experience at Rotten Bunch.

We have returned many times after our initial visit and the quality of both the food and service have continued to impress.