I ran down to Austin on business on Tuesday. For real, business-related errands had to be run by two friends and me and, for the most part, we accomplished our goals and did so in an environmentally friendly way (i.e., carpooling).
Did we also play TopGolf and spend happy hour out Uchiko? Yes. We did.
[ "How 'bout …" is the logical extension of our tagline "Where you wanna eat?" Because we've all been there when someone says "Where you wanna eat?" and then everyone stands around a little awkwardly until someone cautiously offers up "How 'bout …" and then the name of a restaurant. It's also a way for us to highlight the restaurants that we want to highlight. Here it goes. ]
Clay Pot serves fantastic Vietnamese cuisine, including but not limited to traditional Vietnamese soup (Pho), fried rice, banh mi and an impressive variety of vegetarian options, in an elegant-yet-casual setting. The restaurant in the red-and-yellow building near the Baylor campus has been family owned and operated for 20 years.
Cross another one off the list, and an important one at that.
In my quest to dine at all of the Texas Monthly Top 50 barbecue joints, I've been procrastinating checking off Lambert's in Austin. The only reason for the delay is that it's not a pop-in joint. For example, on Wednesday night I called at 6:15 to see if I could reserve a table for three at seven. No such luck on an idle Wednesday night in June.
Just want to let everyone know I did something to help my barbecue credibility over the weekend. In Fort Worth with a little extra time on my hands because of a long lightning delay at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, I decided to consult the Texas Monthly BBQ Top 50 and try one of the Fort Worth places on the list.
That took me to Longoria's just off of I-35 in south Fort Worth (only about an hour and 15 minutes from Waco). It was also 2:30 in the afternoon, so I felt pretty confident I would be able to speak with the proprietor if he or she was in the building.
Now that we've been doing this WacoFork thing for almost two years, I'm pleased to say I've learned a few things about our local restaurant scene.
One of the more rewarding tidbits: perhaps my favorite burger in town comes from the unlikely source of Sironia Cafe.
Let me begin this blog by identifying the items in the photo, which was taken at Louisiana Catfish & Chicken on Tuesday.
Front and center are alligator tail nuggets, behind them to the left are hush puppies, which were maybe the best hush puppies I've ever tasted, and back right are catfish tails. This was the lunch my friend Kaley Eggers and I enjoyed, dining in at LC&C.
Part of living in a city like this, that is a medium-sized city with a college in it, is that people filter in and out on a regular basis. So you have a lot of friends who are new to town.
Inevitably, the subject of Kitok's comes up and, if I'm lucky, they've yet to try it. That's when I insist they dine there and I offer to dine with them.
[ "How 'bout …" is the logical extension of our tagline "Where you wanna eat?" Because we've all been there when someone says "Where you wanna eat?" and then everyone stands around a little awkwardly until someone cautiously offers up "How 'bout …" and then the name of a restaurant. It's also a way for us to highlight the restaurants that we want to highlight. Here it goes. ]
Cafe Homestead partners with local and organic sources to provide guests with the highest quality dining experience. The cafe is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. for breakfast on Saturday and remaining open until 6 p.m. Also, be on the lookout for their special dinners, one of the best culinary treats in town.
There is no barbecue sauce on that spot on my shirt at the top of my belly that seems to be the place where sauce always lands. For the first time ever, I felt a twinge of disappointment to find my shirt clean as I stood up from the table at Franklin Barbecue in Austin.
Let the record show that was the only disappointment I felt during my first adventure to Franklin.
Originally, the plan was to dispel the myth that small-town barbecue joints are automatically better than their city counterparts. It would have afforded me the chance to write that the only two things that are better in the country are traffic conditions and deer-processing butchers.
But I changed my mind because making that comparison between Bunkhouse Barbecue in Clifton and Franklin in Austin would have been unfair. So I'll just tell you what happened.
