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