Austin Trip, the food
This is going to be short compared to my typical restaurant reviews. I believe each of these is famous in their own mind, and some of the fame might have escaped into the general population. Seriously, I would never have found most of these places if my wife didn’t go to college in Austin. They were all worth finding.
- Hut’s Hamburgers: As the name implies, it is a burger joint. And the burgers are good. I ordered a side of onion rings I could have done with out. They weren’t bad, just not what I expected. A half order of onion rings are only 4 onion rings, and you can order a quarter order. Each onion ring is about 4 inches thick, heavily breaded with cornmeal and pepper, and fried to the point that the onion just starts to lose its crisp, but is still 90% crisp. The onion rings end up not being sweet, the onion just being mild with most of the flavor coming from the corn meal and pepper. If you want Sonic onion rings, order the fries, I wish I had. Like I said, not bad, but not what I was looking for. The burger was great and nothing fancy. Meat, toppings on a bun probably baked my Mrs. Baird 3 days ago. Typical hole in the wall burger joint. They do take credit card, which surprised me.
- Magnolia Cafe: Now this is a diner. We walk in a wait, most of the tables are empty. Guys wipes down a table and says, “You can sit here.” Comes by with menus, “can I get you something to drink?”. Brook orders coffee, and I order espresso. “We got coffee.” I order coffee, and it wasn’t bad. My plate has so much grease on it that my omelet slides across the plate while the plate slides across the table every time I go to cut it. My wifes omelet had so much ham in it was shaped more like a baguette then an omelet. Again, I was surprised when they took credit cards.
- TRIO: This is where we ate for lunch so we could make use of our free wine card, and neither of us were very hungry after being stuffed like turkeys at Magnolia. I have already mentioned that I was confused by the service and the food was decent in a previous post. This was our most expensive meal the entire trip, we only order a main course and drinks were free. And really, that is saying more about the high class dining establishments that my wife wanted to go to rather then how expensive TRIO was. TRIO would be very expensive if you were drinking with a 3 course dinner.
- Guero’s: I think we went to Guero’s more to take in South Congress then to eat at Guero’s, but their food was good. And I am well versed in the ways of Tex-Mex. I would pass on the margaritas unless you like the original recipe of lime juice, tequila and very little triple sec over ice. I wish I had ordered a Pacifico, but if you are into margarita recipes that are a little more Mex then Tex, give one a shot. We both had the some kind of tacos, meat for me and fish for the wife. Both were good. It is a taco bar, so order the tacos.
- Chuy’s Hula Hut: Seriously, WTF is this place? Polynesian Tex-Mex? You know what kept me from making fun of my wife for picking this place? I just took her to a Tex-Asian place in Dallas, and we liked it. Smartly, I kept my mouth shut. Chuy’s, the normal Tex-Mex place, has some of the best pico I have ever had. Hula Hut, which is a Chuy’s spin off, has a Polynesian pico that they serve with the chips that is also great. Other than eating two bowls of Hula Hut’s pico, I had chicken+steak fijitas. What made their fajitas stand out was they served plenty of sides. I had enough cheese, sour cream, guac and onions to pair with all the meat they brought out. This is somewhat of a rarity. The meat itself was good, again it had a polynesian twist that worked well.
- Trudy’s: Yes, more Tex-Mex! Brook was finally tired of Tex-Mex after, but not before, 3 meals in a row. Trudy’s was good, and it has a few things that are WTF on the menu. First, they are famous for their mexican martinis. This is simply a full shaker of margaritas on the rocks, where you get a little tiny fucking martini glass and the shaker with the strainer. After the first glass, I ditched the glass and drank from the shaker. High class I know, but I was keeping Austin strange. Now their ratio of tequila to tripe sec to lime is closer to my fav 3:2:1. They were good, but don’t make the mistake that I made. When they ask you if you have a tequila preference, the answer is YES, even if you don’t know what it is. What a freaking head ache the next day for what? I wasn’t even buzzed when I left Trudy’s. Ok, enough about alcohol. The food was good, whlie mostly Tex-Mex, they had some BBQ thrown into the mix. Whatever I ordered was a cheese enchilada with chili con carne, fijatas and a jalapeno sausage with a side of bbq sauce. The sausage, which was like a kielbasa, was great with the bbq sauce.
All in all, good meals. Stubb’s was supposed to be in there so there wasn’t so much Tex-Mex, but Brook wanted to hit all three places, and we could only eat so many times.