Bamboo House Review

Here's my first review of an Austin restaurant since my move back! One of my biggest gripes about the Austin food scene in the past and now is the lack of quality authentic Chinese food options.

Living in Round Rock further limits the options, and I lack the motivation to drive to even North Austin to get food from my past picks - Din Ho and First Chinese BBQ. However, when I heard about how a relative new comer, Bamboo House, serves up Peking duck, I made it a mission to go check it out!

Be prepared for long lines if you don't arrive by 11:45 AM. The good news is that they're able to turnover tables quickly so even though we arrived at 12:45 PM our first time and had to wait, it was only at most 15 minutes before being seated.

After ordering at our first visit, we immediately started gawking at the tables around us. The portions are huge and everything looked delicious!

My mom ordered the braised wheat gluten appetizer, which usually comes on a small plate for diners to pick at while drinking tea and waiting for the other courses to arrive, but this was a legit entrée size platter!

The salt and pepper fish fillet was my husband and daughter's favorite dish. Perfectly crispy, buttery, and savory. 

The surprise hit for my daughter was the duck soup that comes with your order of Peking duck (that's when you know this place is serious). I would have liked more ingredients in the soup. There's a little bit of cabbage and some tofu chunks, but pretty sparse. But the leftover soup and leftover rice make a killer rice porridge the next morning! 

The Peking duck arrives at the table beautifully assembled with all the accoutrements. It's pretty good! I wish that the duck skin can have less of the duck fat attached underneath it, but the duck meat tastes fresh and tender. It's really reasonably priced for all that you get. 

Other Peking duck experiences I've blogged about Dadong Kaoya - 1st Visit and Peking Duck in Shenyang: Yuan Wei Zhai.

Our second visit to celebrate Lunar New Year early was just as tasty, but it seemed like the wait for the duck to be ready is longer if you arrive at the restaurant early. The standout dish we ordered the second time is the lobster noodle with cheese. I don't know where the cheese comes in, but I guess the noodles are very creamy. The lobster was deliciously meaty and fresh. It's a lot of messy work though, so we savored the more challenging parts at home.

We'll be back! There are more dishes I want to try!