Franklin BBQ

Okay I will jump on the Franklin BBQ bandwagon too.  I had been here a couple of months ago but I think I forgot to post about it.  As everyone and their mother has already indicated, it is fantastic BBQ.  I had a 2 meat plate with Brisket and Sausage.  It also comes with 2 sides and I chose cole slaw and potato salad.  After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, I finally reached Aaron Franklin.  When I ordered Brisket as one of my choices, I then had an additional choice of lean or with a little fat.  For me, lean is the only way to go.  He proceeded to slice the most amazing looking brisket I have ever seen.  There was a nice thick bark on it as well as the perfect smoke ring.  Then Mr. Franklin added the sausage link to the plate.  Then at the last minute before he passed the plate to the next person that includes the sides, he cuts off the corner tip off a brand new beef slab and adds it to my plate.  Well, that tip of the brisket was the most flavorful piece of brisket I have ever had.  There may have been some fat on it but it was the kind that just melts in your mouth.  I will have dreams about that little chunk of brisket.  The sausage was very good.  I was just enjoying the brisket so much that nothing was going to keep up.

The sides were great as well.  The cole slaw was tart and not too mayonnaisey and the potato salad was nice and mustardy.  The tartness of the cole slaw was a perfect compliment to the saltiness of the brisket. I did not order the beans but they looked great.  I will have to try them the next time.  They had pieces of brisket and sausage mixed in.

The 30 minute wait was well worth it.  If you have to drive to one of the surrounding BBQ towns outside of Austin, it will take you that long anyway.  So go check out the best brisket around at Franklin's

Doing my Part to Keep Austin Weird,

Alan

Restaurant/Pub Crawl North-South

My last entry last week was about a restaurant/pub crawl from East Austin to Downtown.  This week we began at the Triangle at Sago and walked again to Downtown.  The group was a little larger with some different participants.  Randy was the organizer again.  I also added another new experience.  I took a Car2Go to the starting point.  I have been a member since inception but had not actually made use of a car yet.  It worked out great.  There was a car not far from my house and there was car sharing parking at the Triangle.  Worked perfect.

So, we all met at Sago at 6 PM.  We started with an some guacamole and ceviche.  The chips and guac where good but I was not crazy about the ceviche.  The ceviche had too much calamari.  Not my thing.  Since we were at a Mexican restaurant, I started the night with Dos XX.  One lesson learned from last weeks crawl was that we had to move on quicker.  So, one beer and it was time to move on.  It was decided that we would take Guadalupe instead of Lamar to head downtown.  The next stop would be Nasty's.

It was a good walk, about a mile.  Felt like we were back in college again.  The place was empty but it was only about 7PM.  We ordered drinks and got change for the pool table.  The women took a seat to talk about whatever they talk about.  We played pool.  I went with a St. Arnold Lawnmower.  Randy was very excited that they had Hoegaarden on tap.  This place had a great selection of beer on tap.  The bartender has been there for 26 years.  Now this is a great neighborhood bar.  Definitely will have to come back.  Time to move on.

Next we continued down Guadalupe stopping at Madam Mam's for a bite to eat.  We needed food.  We ended up ordering Shrimp Spring Rolls for everyone as well as 3 different Pad Thai... chicken, tofu and shrimp.  The Campus Madam Mam's is my favorite.  The food was tasty as always.  I had only had the Chicken Pad Thai in the past so this was my first tasting of Shrimp Pad Thai.  It was great, very smokey tasting.  This was a short stop and it was time to move on to the next place.  We decided to head all the way down to 6th Street and get drinks at Opal Divines.

This was a long walk.  But, the buzz from the previous drinking was now wearing off from the addition of food.  We were starting to get tired from the walking.  The heat was also getting to us.  By the time we made it to Opal Divines, I was ready for another beer.  I should have kept better notes during the walking event because, I don't remember what beer I had here.  We hung out for about 30 minutes and enjoyed the cool A/C and conversation.  We lost about half of the group.  People had kids to get to, etc.

The remainder of the group continued on to our final destination, The Mean Eyed Cat.  This is where last weeks Crawl ended but this time we made it inside for a drink.  I had never been here before.  Great Bar!  Good beer selection, good vibe and good music.   Since I had tasted the Hoegaarden at Nasty's, decided to order one here.  It is not on tap but the bottle was good and cold.  Again, we hung out and visited and listened to music.  It was early by drinking standards, 10:30 or so but after 4 miles of walking in the heat and 4 hours of time, we were all ready to call it a night.

Each time lessons are learned and the adventure gets better.  I really enjoyed this outing.  We are talking about the next one starting at Hula Hut and walking East to Downtown.  Hopefully, we will wait until it is not quite as hot.  Either way, looking forward to the next Restaurant/Bar Crawl.

Doing my Part to Keep Austin Weird,

Alan

Pub/Restaurant Crawl

I was invited last night to participate in a Pub/Restaurant Crawl.  This was really more of a Restaurant Crawl but there was drinking involved at each location.  My friend Randy put this together.  He along with his wife invited 4 others including me to join them.  We began our journey at Justine's at about 5:45.  This is a French Brasserie located on East 5th Street.  It is in deep East Austin.  The place was already getting full when we arrived and even though it was still a toasty 103 degrees, outdoor seating was the way to go.  Randy and I had decided it was going to be a beer night and the lady's had a Rosé wine.  We ordered a few items to split between us.  We first ordered mussels with frites.  I am not big on mussels but the frites were good.  We also ordered a cheese plate.  There were three different cheeses served with a fig spread.  Very tasty on the bread that it came with.  We followed this with an order of Steak Frites and steamed artichaut with a butter sauce.  All items were very good.  It was then time to move on.  

We began our 3 mile walk to Rainey Street.  We had been instructed that we needed to move over to Cesar Chavez for the walk for safety reasons.  This was a long hot walk but the good conversation made it go quickly.  We headed to Garage Mahal.  This place was packed.  It is all outdoor seating so while we waited for our table, we headed over to Icenhauer's to cool off and have a beer.  We received the call that our table was ready.  Back to the heat it was for us.  Here we all split an order of Tikka Masala, Saag and a couple of orders of Naan.  All of this was really delicious.  It was now getting late and was time to move on again.

We were now heading to the Mean Eyed Cat.  It was much later than we anticipated.  We now realized that we should have left Justene's after our first order of food.  We had spent too much time there.  The original plan was to stop at the Mean Eyed Cat for a drink and then move on to Hula Hut.  But, by the time we made it to the Mean Eyed Cat, it was already 10:30.  Most of us were exhausted.  Since some of our group had left cars at the Mean Eyed Cat and cabbed it to Justine's, they decided it was time to end the journey.  The remaining group which I was a part of went ahead and called the cab to head back to Randy's house and call it an evening.

I enjoyed the experience and would definitely do something like this again.  It probably would make sense to do this in cooler weather and not have such large distances in between the places.  I think 3 - 5 miles total would have to be the maximum.  Last nights schedule would have been a total of 7 miles if we would have continued on to Hula Hut.  By ending at the Mean Eyed Cat, this cut it down to 5 miles. We are already planning the next crawl and are thinking North to South this time.

Doing My Part to Keep Austin Weird!

Alan

Third Time is a Charm

It took me three times to finally get into La Traviata. I kept calling earlier and earlier for a reservation. I finally called early enough in the week to get a reservation. I had read about the Spaghetti Alla Bolognese and already knew that I was going to order this as my entree. I spotted a salad that sounded good and started with the Beet Orange Salad. The salad had baby spinach, beets, orange slices, and goat cheese. It was very refreshing for a hot summer day. My son started with Caprese. I had a bite and it was very tasty.

As I mentioned before, I ordered the Spaghetti Alla Bolognese. It was fantastic. It is made with veal, pork, and beef. There was a smokey taste to it. The spaghetti was the perfect al dente texture. This truly was one of the best Bolognese sauces that I have had. My son had the ravioli of the day. It was Ravioli de Giourno. It consisted of cheese and mushroom ravioli in a butter sauce. He indicated that it was also very good.

My only complaint is very minor and very common. I came to the restaurant with my son and daughter. As is usually the case, I believe the serving staff assumes that it is going to be a low price table so they don't provide their top service. Tonight, the waitress did not ask if we wanted any drinks, didn't offer appetizers, or salads. In fact, after we had ordered our entree, she started to just walk away when I stopped her and ordered salads. Just as I have learned a long time ago, you cannot judge a book by its cover. You never know how much money someone has just by looking at how they are dressed. Just because it was just one adult with two kids, doesn't mean that we are not going to place a large order and tip generously.

I highly recommend La Traviata. I plan to add this to my repertoire of regular restaurants.

As a reminder, don't forget to follow me on twitter to get on the go updates.  @atxfoodanddrink

Doing My Part to Keep Austin Weird,

Alan

Garrido's

Returned to Garrardo's for a second try. I did not remember my first visit being anything special. Tonight was very good. I tried 3 different taco's. One chicken, one brisket and one shrimp. The taco's came with rice and either charro beans or refried black beans. I chose charro beans. They were very good, some of the best I have had. The tacos were all good but the best by far was the shrimp taco.

The bar was full and drinks looked good. Looks like a good place for drinks in the future.

The bottom line is that La Condesa is similar in style but much better.

Doing my part to keep Austin weird.

Alan

La Cocina de Consuelo

I have driven by this place a million times. A few years ago a friend had mentioned that it was his favorite Mexican Restaurant in Austin. Since then, I kept meaning to give it a try. I finally went there tonight. It is a tiny place and you really do feel like you are in someone's cocina. My first test in any new Mexican Restaurant are the chips and salsa. The salsa was fantastic. Definitely a bite to it. The waitress told me that they are known for their signature enchiladas with chicken and tomatillo sauce. It comes with a choice of two sides. I went with rice and black beans. While waiting for the entree, I had the Chili Con Queso Especial. This was queso with a scoop of guac. The queso was good but needed a little heat. The salsa solved that problem. Great combination. The enchiladas arrived and I knew I made the right choice. The rice was one of the better I have had at a restaurant here. While black beans are black beans, these seemed to be very good. The enchiladas were definitely home made including the tortillas.

The entire experience as good. I would recommend this place to anyone. They don't serve alcohol but you can bring your own. My next visit will include my own beer from home. I am also looking forward to trying the potato enchiladas with chili chipotle sauce. That sounds really good.

Doing my part To Keep Austin Weird!

Alan

Details for last Posting

I am going to try to make a better effort to keep the blog up to date.  I last posted some information about the eating, drinking and music frenzy from last weekend.  My postings had stopped at the end of January.  I don't remember all the places that I have been to during the month of February and March.  So, let's just jump forward to last weekend.  I had a couple of old friends from college in town.  David arrived at Midnight on Thursday.  He was hungry and since he has not been here for many years, his memories are of  old standards from our college days.  He suggested Kirby Lane, the original on Kirby Lane.  I had not been to Kirby Lane in many years and not in the early hours of the morning since the 1980's.  David had Migas.  It looked very good.  I had eaten dinner so I just wanted something small.  I had a pancake.  Not so great.  I remember them being so good.  Now, I much prefer either Magnolia or Omelettry.  It was still good to relive an old college experience.

The next day, we hit another old Austin standard, Chuy's.  Of course, we went to the original on Barton Springs.  I have been playing with geographic social media so I checked in while we were waiting for a table.  All of a sudden, I get a phone call from my cousins from Houston asking which Chuy's I am at.  It turns out that they had come in town to visit their son and were at Chuy's as well.  So we ended up eating together.  I know that this is now part of a larger restaurant group now but it is still consistently very good.  I did get something that is newer to the menu, Chica Chica Boom Boom Enchilada.  It was great.  Nice to vary from my usual Chuy's Special.  All the out of town guest were happy with their Mexican food fix.

Friday Afternoon, we met an old friend at Second Bar + Kitchen for a drink.  I had eaten lunch there once with a customer but had not been there for drinks.  The outside patio was a great place to sit and relax and have a drink.  The weather was perfect.  It was cool but not cold.  The waiter knew his stuff on  the drinks and beer.  He was able to give me a good description of the various beer selections and direct me to a great choice.  This is a great place to relax with friends and imbibe.

Friday night we had tickets to go see James Cotton at the new Moody ACL Live Theater.  Our other friend Gregg finally showed up.  It was a great blues show.  Some of the best harmonica playing I have ever seen.  The bass player also was fantastic.  After the show, we were looking for some food.  To my surprise, there are not a lot of options for eating late night in downtown Austin.  I finally found Malaga still open and serving food.  We walked over and ordered a few different Tapas  The food was acceptable and we were happy to find something to eat at that hour.

Saturday morning we got to check out the new Cafe Medici at the bottom of the Austonian.  The coffee was great as usual.  Later off to Magnolia.  As I have mentioned several times, this weekend was all about going to the old standby places from out college years.  I think all three of us ordered the Love Migas.  Some of the best Migas in town.  This also gave us a chance to walk around South Congress.  Not this was not something that would have been popular in our college years.

We ended up having a late lunch since the Migas filled us up so much.  I had intended on introducing my friends to Hop Doddy's Burger Bar.  We still were not up for such a large meal.  So we ended up at Frank's.  I had not eaten at Franks yet so I was glad to try a new place.  It is basically a beer and Hot Dog place.  I had the Chili Cheese Dog.  It was good but I have had better.  Frank's was a good place to sit and chew the fat and have a beer.  The coffee bar at the entrance looked and smelled great.  I will have to go back at some point to check out the coffee.

Apologies for my absence

I have been lazy about publishing post about restaurants.  I have added a new Twitter account so maybe I will be better about at least entering a tweet about my outings.  The Twitter account is atxfoodanddrink.  I  recently ate at Haddington's again.  It was much better than my last posting.  I ordered fish and chips.  Very good.  More later.  I also recently ate at the original Kirby Lane Cafe.  Still not the pancakes that I remember from College days.  More later.  Had lunch recently at the original Chuy's.  Still good food even if it is not the original owners.  Ate at Franks.  It was okay.  Okay, that was all in one weekend.  I will have a post going into detail when I have a chance.

Doing my part to Keep Austin Weird

Alan

Haddington's

This week I had a lunch meeting with a client and a prospect at Haddington's.  We were deciding between Haddington's and one of the new restaurants at the bottom of the Austonian, Second Bar + Kitchen.  I already have a lunch scheduled at the Second Bar so today we decided on Haddington's.  It was described to me as an English Pub.  I was thinking, Fish & Chips.  It is instead an American Tavern.  I was not overly impressed by the menu.  Since it was a running day, I chose to avoid a heavy meal like a Hamburger and chose the Chicken Salad Sandwich instead.  The description sounded good.  The Chicken Salad had grapes mixed in.  The bread choice was not great.  It was either white bread, sour dough or cornbread.  I personally like a good whole grain bread for a sandwich like this.  It was served with some steak fries.  The fries were very tasty.  Considering that right next door at Walton's, you can have a great Chicken Salad Sandwich, I was disappointed.  It looked like it may be a good place to drink but the food was average.  The guys I was with split a hamburger and a sliced lamb sandwich.  The indicated that it was very average as well.  Especially disappointing was the lamb sandwich.  The comment was that it did not even taste like lamb.

I won't be running to eat here again.  Not bad but there are much better places to go.

Doing my part to Keep Austin Weird,

Alan
 

Madam Mam's

I am making up some missing blogs.  I realized I have had a couple of business lunches at some places that I have not discussed previously or at least in some time.  A while back, I went to my old stand by Thai Restaurant, Madam Mam's.  I have to admit, I am not too adventuresome with Thai food.  I usually get Pad Thai, Chicken.  The version at Madam Mam's is a little on the sweet side but I still love it.  Something about all of the flavors coming together.  The noodles, chicken, crushed peanuts, egg with a squeeze of lime.  I sometimes have one of the appetizers like the Spring Roll with Shrimp served with the spicy peanut sauce.  The other one that I have had is the Chicken Satay also served with spicy peanut sauce.  There seems to be a peanut pattern going on here.  The bottom line is I like to get my Thai fix in at least once a month.  I used to hit the Madam Mam's on The Drag.  It was nice to feel young again being on Campus. But I have to admit, it is nice to have a location just around the corner on Anderson Lane.

Doing my part To Keep Austin Weird,

Alan

Ranch 616

Today I had a business lunch at Ranch 616.  I had not been there in a while.  I have never been there for lunch.  I was there with two attorneys.  I was trying to eat somewhat light and healthy due to a training run scheduled for after work.  It was tough.  One of my fellow diners was telling me about how good the burgers are.  From my previous blogs, you know I am always on the hunt for a good burger.  I ended up with a sort of light meal.  It was chicken.  That was the light part.  It was tortilla chip encrusted and served with rice and beans.  I have to believe it was still better than eating red meat before a run.

The fellow diner who told me about the hamburgers of course ordered a burger.  It looked very good.  I will have to go back and try it one day.  The other diner ordered something I am aware of but never seen anyone eat.  Frog Legs!  He indicated that they were very good.  I don't think I am ready for that leap yet

I had forgotten how good Ranch 616 is.  They had a full crowd at lunch.  Glad to know it is a great lunch option.

Doing my part to Keep Austin Weird,

Alan

Takoba

I recently heard that Takoba in East Austin was a very good Mexican Restaurant.  I did not know anything more than that.  We decided to hit it up last Sunday Night.  The restaurant itself was not anything like what I expected.  We walked in and I thought we were just in the Bar area.  I looked around for the rest of the restaurant.  I quickly realized that the 10 or so tables plus bar was the entire place.  I got a little nervous that we had made a mistake with this restaurant.  We decided to go ahead and stay and give it a try.

The menu was limited but looked good.  We both decided on taco's.  Jo got the fish taco's made with Tilapia.  I ordered the vegetable taco's.  While we were waiting for our food they brought incredible hme made tortilla chips and salsa.  We had a Michelada, beer mixed with bloody Mary mix.  This was a problem for me.  A self described chip junkie.  I ate so man chips I did not really need my meal.

The fish taco's had cabbage apple slaw inside and were served with rice and charro beans.  She indicated that the taco was very good.  I tried a bite and they were good.  I am picky about fish taco's.  I just do not like fish that has a fishy taste.  These were very good.  Jo went on and on about the beans.  She indicated that they were the best beans she has ever had at a restaurant.

My taco's had roasted corn, sweet potato, zucchini and queso fresco.  I am not a vegetarian so this was an unusual meal for me.  The taco was great.  I ended up only eating one since I had made a pig of myself with chips and salsa.

While the restaurant was smaller than I anticipated, the food was very good.  I will be back for sure.

Doing my part to Keep Austin Weird,

Alan