Ultimately you hit what counts for civilization, scare quotes manifest in your mental articulation of the word … Home Depots and Walmarts seem unavoidable, especially in Texas. By Austin airport, "civilization" coopted by the oldest profession, a modest windowless structure beckons with a sign, "Landing Strip Gentleman’s Club."

Restaurant recommendations from the trip are not being proffered this week. The limited Texan fare I sampled was unremarkable—the best meal I had was an excellent Pakistani dinner, supplemented nontraditionally with a margarita, at a childhood friend’s home.

But Texas must have got under my skin in more ways than one, because I suggested a local Texas/Southwest restaurant for The Lunch’s critical palates this week. Because of our schedules we postponed the event to a weekend for the first time, our fear that we were breaking the rules of this game—lunches in the context of the workday is what it’s supposed to be about—alleviated by the realization that, hey, we work over weekends oftener than not, and isn’t the weekend such a bourgeois old-economy notion anyway?

Besides, in this particular instance, Bar Abilene in Uptown, a weekday lunch is not an option; during the week the place only serves dinner. By broadening our horizons beyond M-F we broaden the pool of subjects as well. And our pool of dining and reviewing companions. My wife and a cousin (let’s call her C) joined us; the latter has promised a guest review.

Notice that nominally Bar Abilene is first and foremost a bar. No accident, this—an alternative interpretation, that the name refers to a brand as if for a ranch, gets no support beyond the "Bar A" logogram. Evenings and late nights the bar is hopping and SRO; the dining room has as many clientele as, one suspects, the Landing Strip under zero visibility conditions.

As befits the bar-first (careful how you mentally articulate that) image, Abilene features a one page menu and a book of drinks. There are more varieties of margaritas alone than kinds of food you can order. Possibly the drink book was the undoing of the weekday lunch at Abilene—a few too many happy employees making a few too many unhappy employers, capitalist economics winning, once again, the battle against siesta socialism.

In the drink book you’ll see one additional use of the cactus plant than the native inhabitants of the Southwest ever found. Abilene serves an interesting margarita made with prickly pear along with triple sec, lime juice, and tequila. The color is a striking deep fuchsia, the taste mild but packing a bitter back-of-mouth afterkick, the consistency a cross between aloe vera and Metamucil.

We ordered two appetizers for the table, potato-pepperjack flautas and artichoke quesadillas. The flautas are small corn tortillas rolled up and baked with a creamy potato and cheese filling. I’ve had these before at Abilene and they’ve been very good, but this day I was disappointed—the tortillas more chewy than crispy; the filling a ho-hum bland mixture; the slightly peppery tomatillo salsa accompaniment lacking the resolve to lift, single-handedly, the dish over the wall of mediocrity. The quesadilla didn’t do much for me either, although in this case the problem may simply have been that the dish was served lukewarm. The smoked tomato aioli dribbled—and now congealed—on the quesadilla especially suffered. Other appetizers on the menu include a tableside-concocted guacamole, flash-fried calamari, and fiery chicken wings.

Main dish choices are predictable in form, although with the occasional surprise element. Two burritos and enchiladas each and some fajitas constitute the Tex Mex fare—the rest of the entrees and sandwiches include a tenderloin steak, a chicken breast, several types of burgers, and a rolled tortilla chicken club. Our table sampled both enchiladas—I got a Maine lobster variation and B and my wife went with the cheese-and-chicken filling.

The two were quite different from each other. The preparation of my dish was similar to the flautas: similar cigar-shaped tortillas stuffed in this case with sweet, shredded lobster meat. Three flautas/enchiladas came atop a bed of ordinary white rice with a jicama-papaya salsa and a sweet-and-sharp, intense, lemony ginger-butter sauce. Not remarkable, but good enough … unlike the chicken-and-cheese enchiladas, which were overcooked to the point of being almost burnt and tasted of a homogeneous and undistinguished mixture of the ingredients and the tortillas. C ordered a burger and seemed the most satisfied of all of us with her choice—another validation of the stick-with-the-basics-if-you’re-not-sure-of-the-quality maxim.

The service didn’t redeem matters. Our waiter, although personable enough, took ineptness to new depths. Until we stopped him, he was taking and filling drink orders one-by-one, and the enchiladas that B and my wife had ordered first appeared in the guise of burritos.

The décor of Abilene is a throwback to cattle trail days. Metal cutouts of wagons and cowboys-on-horses festoon the interior and the theme is carried over to the upholstery. A large cord of rope hangs amorphously from the ceiling—wouldn’t a noose have been more appropriate?

Now astute readers will note that this is a blatant violation of our rules, i.e., restaurant must be visited during working hours, etc. A’s wife came to our assistance with a clever explanation that not only applies to A and me but I suspect to the vast majority of our readership. We all, from time-to-time, work on Saturdays and one has to eat of course. Bar Abilene is only open for lunch on the weekend so don’t bother to follow The Lunch’s example during the week.

This reviewer will readily admit to an abiding love affair with Texas. As a child I was fascinated with the "Wild West", or at least the version that I was exposed to. How was I to know that my favorite movie, Blood at Sundown, was an Italian vision of the American west? Or that my rejection of western-genre novels of Zane Grey in favor of those written by J. T. Edson was flawed on the simple premise that Grey was an American whereas Edson was a pub going Englishman. I never realized the deception until years later when I discovered who J. T. Edson really was – there were clues, of course, like an occasional, unlikely Englishman doing something dramatically decent and bold. But I was destined to get to know the "real" Texas because I went to college there and lived and worked for a while. The true Texas is a land of great distances with black earth, desserts, pine-covered mountains and oilrigs. The sun at midday is like a hammer blow and I have finally started to understand the significance of the cliched gunfight at noon!

The classic Texas food is beef (the home of the Longhorn cattle) and beans washed down with black coffee or at least that’s how it used to be. Now, thankfully, Texan cuisine has fully embraced the Mexican to form a delightful Tex-Mex fusion. I was going to say how Tex-Mex is really becoming more and more Mexican but recently there has been another trend with the introduction of Native American recipes. The result is that Tex-Mex food is slightly milder than its Mexican cousin but a lot more adventurous in content and presentation. Does Bar Abilene follow this formula? Not completely. The food is decidedly Mexican but there are interesting twists that no self-respecting Mexican would entirely accept: tacos/burritos with lobster (A ordered this) or wood grilled Alaskan salmon for that matter.

The service verged on the incompetent. Our server—a very nice young man—decided to take one drink order at a time, entering it into his station and then returning for the next order. The confusion extended to our meal order as well. Half the orders were incorrect and two of us had to wait for corrections to be made.

A large bar splits the restaurant into what is a bar area and the more formal restaurant side. The location in Uptown on Lagoon makes this a prime spot for pre-or-post movie drinks and dining. The décor attempts a southwestern look. There are metallic scenes of cattle drives, assorted cacti, and a large coiled rope—enough to execute half of Texas—hangs from the ceiling. Given enough Lone Star beer and Amarillo by Morning on the sound system and you could see a nostalgic tear or two from me.

B