Memorable | One of the Best
Hoover’s Cooking
Review by: Michael Stern
“Our commitment is to provide good, homemade foods at a good value,” says chef Hoover Alexander. We say that Hoover’s Coooking makes good on that promise. Mr. Hoover’s spacious restaurant is a place to go for large portions of Texas comfort food. Without flourishes or frills, but with genuine expertise born of a childhood that Alexander describes as filled with mom’s home cooking, this kitchen knows how to make hungry people happy.
We knew we were in for a bigger-than-life treat as soon as our glass of lemonade arrived. In fact, it arrived not as a glass, but as a pitcher with a straw. We had to ask if a glass would be forthcoming; our waitress told us that the pitcher IS the glass: a quart of lemonade to be drunk straight from the tankard. It is good lemonade – sweet, fresh-squeezed, refreshing.
The choice of meals is wide. In addition to meats from the on-premises smoke house, the menu lists chicken fried steak, meat loaf, catfish, and an array of sandwiches that range from a meatless muffaletta (made with a portobello mushroom) to half-pound hamburgers. Accompanying vegetables are so good, and served in such abundance, that Hoover’s offers a three or four vegetable plate, sans meat.
Across the street from the restaurant is Hoover’s Chicken ‘n’ Biscuit, a trailer dedicated exclusively to fried chicken & the fixins.
Directions & Hours
Information
| Price | $$ |
| Seasons | All |
| Meals Served | Lunch, Dinner |
| Credit Cards Accepted | Yes |
| Alcohol Served | Yes |
| Outdoor Seating | No |
What To Eat
Hoover’s Cooking Recipes
Discuss
What do you think of Hoover’s Cooking?
One Response to “Hoover’s Cooking”
Thomas Hilbink
May 27th, 2003
Whether for sheer busy-ness or some coasting, my meal at Hoover’s was rather disappointing. While doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, I was overjoyed to see a Roadfood haunt as one of the closest lunch spots to the archive. I excitedly went over the first noon-time and ordered. I enjoyed the novelty of the pitcher of lemonade — and it was tasty as advertised . My meal, was sad, however. I ordered six jerked pork ribs. The rib meat was extra fatty — not the moist substance typically found in bbq joints. The jerk rub was spicy, but rather flat in flavor. The sides — I ordered black-eyed peas and jalapeno creamed spinach — were similarly flat. The beans seemed to have been dumped from can to pot with little doctoring (a fact made clear tonight when I had the same thing at Threadgill’s). The creamed spinach was not spicy, just off. I can’t explain it. Maybe a return trip is merited, but with many choices in Austin, this doesn’t seem like the place to go. Try the BBQ across the street instead. Now that’s tasty.