I have to admit that I've been sitting at basketball games the last couple of weeks unable to resist checking out the Cooking Channel TV College Eats Bracket Battle. It's pretty exciting to see our Vitek's Gut Pak knocking off food dishes from around the country.
In case you're just catching up, in the first round the Gut Pak dominated the N.C. State Mimi's Sausage Dip, then the Gut Pak held off the Duke Greek Devil Gyro in the Sweet 16.
[ If you want a nice, concise descriiption of the latest Waco sensation "Wacotown" then I'm not sure I can give one. Basically, our friend Mike Trozzo had the itch to paint a mural with the Wacotown insignia on a downtown Waco building and he added the Heisman bear for good measure. Then, before we really knew what was happening, all the cool kids were walking around with Wacotown T-shirts and conversing with Wacotown on Twitter.
So we wanted in on it, to the extent that we asked Wacotown to give us the five best restaurants in Waco. Mike decided he wanted to write about the five most important restaurants in Waco. ]
[ "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. ]
If you're a longtime Wacoan, you have very likely made Kitok's one of your Waco traditions. If you haven't, then shame on you. But it occurs to me that we have a whole segment of our population that arrives here, stays for three to five years and then moves on (ok, that's true of most towns, but still). And some of those people might not have made it to Kitok's yet. Two words. Do it!
UPDATE: The Best College Eats Elite 8 has started and the Gut Pak is indeed matched up against the Papa Del's Stuffed Pizza. Go here to vote for the Gut Pak. Go here to vote for Papa Del's Stuffed Pizza.
We didn't really know what to expect when this tournament began.
We felt like we had a chance, but we've only seen the opponent on paper. We had no idea what they might bring to the table and how strong their fan support might be. But we got into that first game and realized we had a chance in this thing, at least in the opening round.
Waco recently got some love from Eater.com. Not as much as West, relatively speaking, but still.
Former Wacoan and now Austinite Nick Piesco passed this along to us via Twitter earlier this week. With so many Texans and non-Texans wandering around the state during Spring Break, and so many people making a journey to Austin for South By Southwest, Eater.com decided to give tips on places to stop on the way.
As we roll into the heart of the spring semester, the Baylor Student Government has rolled out version 2.0 of a program we're very excited about: Passport Waco.
If you're a Baylor student, you'll want to get in on this. If you know a Baylor student, pass this along to them.
I have some difficult news for you, Styrofoam cups. Please step into my office and take a seat.
Common Grounds is moving in a different direction. Your services will no longer be required. As painful as this must be to hear, you have become outdated and you obviously don't have the ability to blend in to the environment.
Oh, man, this is really coold and we're a part of it.
CookingChannelTV.com is putting on a "Best College Eats" Bracket Battle and featuring 32 dishes from college town restaurants. Vitek's Gut Pak made the field.
It's on, friends. As of 5 p.m. Sunday evening, the level of my attention devoted to college basketball went up from around 60 percent to around 95 percent. If you understand that I'm referring to the NCAA Tournament, then you understand my obsessions. If it took until the second sentence of this blog to get that, then you can probably skip the rest of it.
I am still going to roll out some interesting (I hope) restaurant stuff this week, including a cool thing happening with Vitek's Gut Pak this afternoon. But I'm mostly devoted to my own bracket projections early in the week and then zoning out on March Madness beginning Thursday morning.
I know that every time I write about the Cafe Homestead special dinners in this space, I make it read as if it's going to be the meal to end all meals. I promise I'm not inflating my opinion for promotional purposes.
It's just that every time I see the menu, my reaction ranges from "Mmmm, that sounds promising" to "Oh my gosh, I have to eat that." So I honestly hope that I'm not desensitizing the audience here when I rave about this month's Cafe Homestead special evening meal.
