Loma Vista residents have benefitted from a steady growth in local shopping, personal services and dining options that allow homeowners to enjoy themselves close to home.
Escarpment Village, Austin’s first green retail center featuring rainwater-harvesting cisterns and solar panels, as well as more than 25 shops and stores, is less than 5 minutes away. Most of the neighborhood homeowners do their grocery shopping at the Village’s “hybrid” HEB, which incorporates many of the gourmet aspects of Central Market. Other popular retailers include Starbucks, Oasis Day Spa, Massage Envy, Eye Tech Optometry, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Allstate Insurance, an Animal Hospital and Tomlinson’s Pet Supplies, among others.
Escarpment Village also has six restaurants. For a casual meal, locals have a choice of several beloved Austin institutions such as Torchy’s Tacos, Waterloo Ice House or Kerbey Lane Cafe (famous for their pancakes and Bacon Pesto chicken with parmesan mashed potatoes), followed by ice cream at D’Lites, which boasts 150 gluten-free, naturally flavored varieties.
In addition, there are three regional shopping malls within 10 minutes of home, including Barton Creek Square Mall, and Arbor Trails and Sunset Valley Market Fair. Together, these major retail centers include over 300 stores and restaurants.
Authentic Interior Mexican Cuisine
Local foodies flock to Hecho en Mexico, which serves food based on the owners’ experience growing up in San Miguel de Allende. The owners assert they’ve blended the street food, restaurant fare, and home cooking of their hometown with tastes from each distinct region of Mexico to create an authentic Interior Mexican menu that is like no other. Even the breakfast menu adds flavorful items and ingredients like the dynomite taco that includes nopalitos or the huevos motuleños that feature a huarache (a masa-based oblong flatbread stuffed with beans named after the huarache shoe).
The dinner menu is extensive, and features a number of appetizers, soups and salads, taco/burrito options, specialties of the house, enchiladas, and desserts. And each section has tempting and adventuresome items that you don’t see everyday, even in the Mexican-food rich environment of Austin. For instance, one of the salads features marinated rabbit in chipotle peanut sauce with onion served on a bed of lettuce and garnished with sour cream.
Some of Hecho en Mexico’s popular specialties include mole blanco, cochinita pibil, tacos al pastor, chiles rellenos, and dazzling, unique seafood and meat dishes. And the creativity and play continues all the way through the dessert menu. Loyal patrons love them all — the nieve de mole (vanilla ice cream topped with a special dessert mole sauce), crepas de limon con salsa de zarzamora (crepes with a raspberry-lemon filling), and flan de cajeta (flan with caramelized goat milk), or Oaxacan Tres Leches cake served with a coffee-chocolate sauce.
Classic, Rustic and Traditional Italian Dishes
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Verona Ristorante Italiano from the outside. It is, perhaps, a little non-descript, a wee bit generic looking. But locals know that within that somewhat plain wrapper is a charming, romantic, and intimate Italian restaurant serving top-quality Italian dishes.
Verona elevates classic, sometimes rustic, dining traditions by approaching each dish with care, creativity, and an abiding respect for the ingredients. Many of the dishes are familiar, for instance the calamari fritti, Caesar salad, and a selection of pasta-based dishes including ravioli, lasagna, and tortellini. But the restaurant also serves entrees such as the very popular Scaloppini di Verona – veal cutlets with capers, garlic, and mushrooms in a light white wine sauce and a variety of fish and chicken dishes.
Homeowners at the Heights at Loma Vista love Verona’a, whether for a date night getaway or just a delicious lunch with co-workers.