A Girl Walks Into A Bar
A turn toward elegant at 1900 Lounge
By Moira Muldoon
Web posted: Aug. 3, 2005
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Bar
Review-
Lately,
I've been dreaming of elegance. After five years of going to class
in T-shirts and writing columns in my jammies (which, I admit, I'm
doing now), I want to wear soft dresses and linen shirts that need
ironing before being worn. I want to develop a facial skin care regimen
that includes things like toner and pore refining. So far in my quest
for elegance, I've managed to fill my house with roses -- Central
Market had a big sale -- wax my hardwood floors till they shone and
discover the 1900 Lounge at The Mansion at Judges' Hill.
I first heard of the boutique hotel several months ago, when a friend
offered to take me to dinner there for my birthday (we ended up elsewhere).
The restaurant rates four stars, according to our own Dale Rice, and
the Lounge, open only since April, exudes a quiet elegance.
Located just down the road from the University of Texas, the Mansion
has a long front terrace with tables for those stout-hearted enough
to brave the heat. As I climbed the handful of steps to the porch,
I felt a breeze -- for the first time all day. Though it was likely
chance, rather than any mystical breeze-pulling powers of the terrace,
it seemed like a portent of good things to come.
Sitting at the oak bar, drinking a red mojito made with rum, muddled
mint and pomegranate juice, I looked out the windows at the courtyard
with its enormous crape myrtles, supposedly the oldest ones in Central
Texas and the only plants left from the mansion's original owner Ella
Wooten's turn-of-the-century garden. I alternately listened to the
music (lots of '40s big band and jazz greats piped in) and to occasional
bits of conversations near me (political; one a chat about Texas judges,
ironically enough) and read my book (escapist fiction set in cold,
cold Scotland). Service was consistently good: helpful and attentive
without being obsequious or intrusive, and so didn't impede either
my reading or sidelong forays into absent-minded eavesdropping.
One Friday afternoon, friend Matt and I dropped in for 4 p.m.-7 p.m.
happy hour specials: a selection of $5 specialty martinis, including
the Texan with Tabasco; $2.50 domestic beer (seven options, all bottled),
$3.50 imported (seven options, all bottled); and $4 frozen margaritas
(during the last hour). Beginning Aug. 12, the 1900 Lounge is going
to start serving 30 mini-dishes -- smaller versions of the meals they
offer in the dining room, such as sea bass and tenderloin. They'll
range from $5-$12 and can be paired with half-glasses of wine -- "tasters"
-- which will cost about $3.50 or $4.50.
When Matt and I arrived, a birthday was being celebrated: 25 or so
people nibbling delicacies and sipping drinks. Though they nearly
filled one of the two rooms in the bar, there were still big, heavy,
comfortable chairs for us to sink into, watch the afternoon wane through
a bay window, catch up on work, life, etc., and discuss why the lovely
green of the walls would be a bad color to paint my house.
A month or two ago I reread Shirley Hazzard's "The Transit of
Venus" -- one of the best books written in English. Each sentence
is perfect: the language spare and elegant. Returning home from the
1900 Lounge, arranging the roses to place next to my bed with its
clean, white sheets, I thought of this line of Hazzard's, which has
stayed with me: "Eventually he would learn this too -- to speak
confidently and leave a room." How much we have to learn.
'A Girl Walks into a Bar ...' alternates with Jonathon Goodsell's
'Night Moves.'
Please visit the 'A Girl Walks into a Bar ...' archive for more reviews.
Contact Moira at bargirl@covad.net. |
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