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ON THE WATERFRONT

33) Johnny Fins Floatin’ Bar & Grill

16405 Clara Van Trail, 266-2811

Sunday-Thursday, 11am-10pm; Friday-Saturday, 11am-12mid

www.johnnyfins.com

This floating-dock cafe/bar is a classic lakeside hot spot, open year round with live music on Friday through Sunday nights. The bar is extensive and specializes in fun (if sometimes bizarre) cocktails, shots, margaritas (on tap!), and beer. Although the food runs the requisite gamut of specialty burgers, sandwiches, wings, and nachos, there are some pricier dining options, more ambitious and varyingly successful. Best bet is the fillet-in-foil ($15.95); mine was a nicely prepared snapper with lemon and chipotle butter, served with perfectly steamed broccoli and a flavorful rice. However, our half-pound of boiled shrimp ($11.99) was overcooked, and Johnny’s Chops ($11.99) turned out to be a dry and flavorless slice of pork loin. Fried green tomatoes ($8.57) are yummy – crispy, hot, and generously portioned.

This article appears in July 2 • 2004.

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Wes Marshall is the author of What's a Wine Lover To Do? (Artisan) and The Wine Roads of Texas (Maverick), as well as the Executive Producer of the PBS television series of the same name. Wes has written for The Austin Chronicle since 1999, covering wine, cocktails, food, and travel.

Rachel Feit is an archaeologist by trade who worked her way through college in kitchens in Chicago and Austin before discovering that dishing up words was more satisfying that dishing up meals. She has been writing about food and restaurants for The Austin Chronicle for more than a decade, but still loves to cook.

Mick Vann is a retired Austin chef who is a food writer and restaurant critic, cookbook author, restaurant consultant, and recipe developer. He moonlights as a University of Texas horticulturist with a propensity for ethnic eats and international food, particularly of the Asian persuasion, but he also knows his way around a plate of soul food or barbecue.

Mexico City native Claudia Alarcón has made Austin home since 1984. She worked her way through college in the local restaurant industry, graduating from the University of Texas in 1999. She has been a Chronicle contributor for 15 years and presents lectures and workshops on topics related to the foodways of Mexico, both locally and internationally.

MM Pack is a food writer/historian and private chef who divides her time between Austin and San Francisco. A regular contributor to The Austin Chronicle and Edible Austin, she’s been published in Gastronomica, The San Francisco Chronicle, Oxford Encyclopedia of Food & Drink in America, Nation’s Restaurant News, Scribner's Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, The Dictionary of Culinary Biography, and Southern Foodways Alliance’s Cornbread Nation 1.