Highs and Lows at The Hightower
When you walk into The Hightower for the first time it feels like you're at a pub, but it's really a restaurant. There's a dark and homey atmosphere inside. It gives you this vibe that you can disappear for a little awhile... which is sort of nice. My husband and I ordered six dishes to share. The waitress told us most of the plates are designed to be split. I must confess a couple of the dishes were average, one was fairly poor and the rest were top notch. So if you go to The Hightower... be very selective. The ricotta toast sounded delightful. It comes with house-made lemon ricotta, soft cooked egg, white bean puree and salsa verde on a grilled bolillo roll. But it was a mess. It looked rough and it tasted rough. There was a lot of mush all piled together and no real flavor. It was the biggest disappointment of the night. The pretzel and pimento cheese was pretty average. The cheese was actually pretty tasty, but the pretzel was soft and too gooey on the inside. The gnocchi with brussel sprouts, butternut squash puree and almonds tasted adequate. But nothing stood out in a positive way. Thankfully the final dishes really brought some flavor. My favorite bite came from the roasted pork jowel. It's the last photo above. It's served with rice, soft egg, burnt avocado, cucumber, pickled shallots and sriracha sauce. The pork was tender and sweet and when we mixed all of the ingredients together it was incredible. Sweet, spicy and savory all at once. The hangar steak was also tender and packed full of flavor. And the brussel sprouts were incredibly tasty. A lot of Austin restaurants do a special take on brussel sprouts and this is definitely one of the best. It's made with peanut butter, golden raisins, sambal and lemon. The depth of flavors in that one vegetable dish is impressive. Overall, we would def visit The Hightower again... but we would be very careful about our orders.
