The new foodie bait: East Side Show Room

August 2, 2009

“You have to eat there.”

“Oh my God, it’s gorgeous.”

“I PLAN TO DELIVER MY FIRST-BORN CHILD THERE.”

Our friends’ breathless reviews of the East Side Show Room were getting to be a little much. So naturally, R. and I had to go.

Open exactly 11 days, East Side Show Room is a ’20s/’30s-style bistro on east 6th, right next to Shangri La. We heard about it through our buddy Dan who works for Farm to Table, a service that delivers food from local farmers to area restaurants.


East Side Show Room is equal parts pre-Depression music hall, French cabaret, and Amélie. Every detail is impossibly quaint, right now to the small Mason jars you sip wine out of. (Note to gentlemen: Date Night solid gold.)

R. and I ate on the back patio, but my bathroom sleuthing skills and I sussed out the rest of the premises.



See those pics? That’s the bathroom!

For dinner, we split a summer tarragon salad and a lamb / goat burger (forgot to snap pics of those), and since it was Pay Day, we celebrated our replenished bank accounts with a lavender-cayenne chocolate torte.

(You can’t see it here, but R. is peering down at this torte like a wildebeest in heat. Quite unsettling, actually.)

When we arrived at East Side Show Room, it was already PACKED. With moody low lighting, a seasonal menu and a warm, neighborhood-eatery vibe, it’s no surprise this place already has an evangelistic clientele in less than two weeks.

Before leaving I handed Mickie Danae, East Side Show Room’s owner, my card and begged her to let me interview her. For Austinist, this blog, A.V. Austin, the nearest bathroom stall wall….whatever. The public needs to know.

Speaking of writing. On a COMPLETELY different topic entirely, my interview with Pink Nasty and Black Nasty will appear on The Deli early next week. I announce it because if you know anything, anything at all about the Nasty siblings, you know it will be…..how shall we put this, “entertaining?” (The NSFW kind of entertaining.) Possibly the best interviewees I’ve ever had.