Boots in the Oven

Update from ForeclosureTown

Well, I'm not typing from atop a stack of our belongings in the middle of the parking lot, and all in all my adrenal glands are more under control than they were yesterday at 2, so basically it's a safe assumption that everything's OK.

The basic details of how this happened are pretty boring unless you're fascinated by real estate malfeasance.  Suffice it to say that there was some sort of shady underhanded deal that our Austin owner's Realtor might lose his license over.  The Austin "owner" of the condo we've been renting since October isn't on any officially filed paperwork - apparently, he was sending checks to this guy in Cali who was supposed to be using them to pay off the mortgage.

At this juncture, I think we can assume that wasn't happening.

This sleazy Realtor's reaction when he found out that our place was under foreclosure was to sputter repeatedly that the owner in California is a professional athlete.  Sure, those guys are known for their adherence to the moral high ground.

The upshot of the story is that we're seriously considering putting in a bid on this place.  There are some ducks that need to be lined up, but we're starting to feel more confident that we can make this happen.  Assuming the Austin owner and his guy don't find out about it first - the "owner" is on vacation and doesn't get back until Monday.  I sure am happy we blog fairly anonymously... you never know when you might need to hide yourself from underhanded realtors!

Oh F@$#@@#$#$@@#$'n $#@#.

A very nicely coiffed lady came to our door about an hour ago to inform us that our condo has been foreclosed on. 

#@#$#!

And that the person we've been paying rent to since October is apparently not the owner of the property, like we were told.

Double @#$#@@#$#!

I've been spending the time since then reading up on Austin tenant law and trying to track down both the guy we thought owns the place  (who has moved without giving us an address we're supposed to send our rent to) and the guy who apparently actually does, who lives somewhere out in southern Cali.

Further wrinkles just in... it seems like the sale from Cali guy to Austin guy maybe never went through, for some reason, though all parties thought it did?  Oh how FUN it is, being in the middle of this!

Regardless, worst-case we have thirty days from written notice to vacate, which we don't have yet.

Holy poot.  We've turned into a statistic!

Wink leaves us confused.

Since we're in birthday season here, a few weeks ago we visited a restaurant we'd been wanting to try for some time.  It's called Wink, and it's in a small strip mall just northwest of downtown Austin.

The experience was really good tempered with emphatically not good. 

Prosecco by Villa Sandi, for instance, good.  One thing Wink does have entirely under control is their very nicely chosen wine list.

Having to wait a half-hour past our 9:00 reservation?  Well, we didn't really care that much, but I figure it's worth mentioning for those people that get really Teutonic about the timing of their evening out.

Their wine bar looked very nice, and the bar snacks going by were intriguing, but unfortunately the place was full.  We sat with our backs to the camping display at Whole Earth Provisions and watched cars come and go.

When we did get seated, I immediately had the impression that we'd somehow pissed off the waitress.  Perhaps it was just the tail end of a long night, or maybe it's that we're kinda on the young side for this restaurant, but I'd swear she rolled her eyes when we ordered our food.

Wink does offer a tasting menu, but the dishes we wanted to try on their always-changing menu weren't on it, so we devised our own.  Our starter was a kitchen-provided sweet corn soup with chili oil.

BTW, this is a DARK restaurant.  We'd been forewarned and had brought a little tripod.  I'm thinking our waitress didn't care much for this either.

The soup tasted like sweet corn.  It was nice, but not that interesting.  I was a little surprised to see anything with sweet corn on the menu, since Wink prides itself on seasonality and local sourcing, and I'd thought the season for sweet corn was later. 

I do admire Wink for how much they do with local sourcing, and for changing up the menu.  Actually, I'm concerned that the night we were there, we discovered some of the pitfalls of changing basically your entire menu each night.  And this is a large menu - we're not talking four apps and four mains, here.

For instance?  Well, the first thing we ordered, the roasted onion soup with cinnamon oil and brioche croutons ($9) had a pretty strong note of burned onion.  I'm all for the bitterness and small black spots on a good roasted vegetable, but this was difficult to get past.  The cinnamon oil was a nice idea, but the brioche croutons immediately became soggy and their flavor disappeared against the onion.

We do appreciate the kitchen splitting our courses for us, though.

The next dish was more successful - a trio of beets with baby arugula from Boggy Creek Farms and "wink chevre" ($13) - I didn't think to ask if they were making their own cheese?

The trio were roasted, candied, and pickled. 

At first, I thought both the candied and pickled varieties were too strong, but paired together they muted each other's sour and sweetness.  Plus, I'm just a dork for beets - I like them pretty much every which way.

Unfortunately, the next dish returned us to the land of oops.  And we had such high hopes for the seared hudson valley foie gras on pain perdu with roasted cipollini and strawberry coulis ($22).

Let's start with the high points.  The strawberry coulis was nice, quite a bit more tart than I'd been expecting.  Yay for first-of-the-season strawberries!  The cipollini were perfectly roasted, though unnecessary in my mind.  Things started to go pear-shaped with the pain perdu, which suffered from the same sogginess as the brioche croutons - this would have been fine had the outside been crisped.

And the foie gras.  Dangit, it was undercooked.  When our forks cut into it, a puddle of pinkish fluid snaked its way out onto our plates.  The outside was perfectly cooked, but the inside was still just about raw.  If this was a stylistic choice, I'd be surprised... my guess would be that their foie pan was too hot.

Continuing the offal kick- yet another thing I like about this restaurant - we ordered the veal sweetbreads with israeli cous cous, radicchio, and spring onion aioli ($17).  This was much more successful.

The sweetbreads were very nicely done, and I thought the richness got along well with the strong bitterness of the radicchio.  It might have been fun for the aioli to be a little cooler, but I'm sure that would be difficult to pull off in a busy restaurant.  The couscous was fun starchy tastiness.

Our last two dishes came out together - this was fine by us, though we'd been told everything would be coursed.  At this point, however, we'd had some extremely long waits between dishes and the restaurant was starting to empty out.  So, we got our pork belly with our grouper.  Oh well.

The braised karabuta pork belly on fuji apples and caramelized fennel ($15) was nice, but didn't stick with me for some reason.  I'm not sure why, since pork fat and I are always good friends.

It was all good, but nothing really stood out about it.  I know that's sort of an infuriating thing to say about a dish, but I just can't point to anything great or awful about it.  Pork.  Apples.  Fennel.  It's a solid combination that we all know works, and it did here.

The pan roasted grouper on gnocchi with brussels sprouts, fiddlehead ferns, and bcf spring mix ($27) was a little more interesting, though not necessarily in a good way. 

Firstly, the grouper was fricking awesome, cooked just right, firm and meaty and very good.  I was surprised by how good the brussels sprouts were - I wouldn't have thought they'd be a great combo with fish, but they were.  Husbear thought using the two strong vegetables, the sprouts and fiddlehead ferns, was overkill.  I actually liked the two together, but I was a little tipsy by this point and my notes say "FIDDLEHEADS = NATURE'S CURLY FRIES!!!!?!?!!" so maybe I shouldn't be trusted.

But the gnocchi was bad.  Mealy, hard, bad.  I cried a small tear, because gnocchi are my favorite thing in the world (even more favorite than a perfect oyster) and I hate when they're screwed up.

And then we didn't get dessert because it was very much time to go before our waitress tried out the Vulcan death grip.

I have to say before I hit Publish Now on this review that we have food-loving friends who've had terrific experiences at Wink, and I'm certainly not universally panning the place.  But there are a number of other places I'd like to try out before I rush back.  However, our verdict after one visit - spotty food with pretty bitchy service.

Wink: 1014 North Lamar, Ste. E Austin, TX.  512.482.8868.  Reservations strongly recommended, if not mandatory.

Happy Celebratory Birthday Catfish!

Yeah, we're trying not to fall off the face of the earth, we're just not doing a very good job.  Husbear's working his magic for a new movie, and I'm spending my days reading the standardized essays churned out by Texas 16-year-olds.  The job is simultaneously hilarious and depressing, and had I not signed eleventeen nondisclosure agreements, I'd be filling your ears with some real doozies.

But I can't. 

So... perhaps I can appease you with some food?

Sunday was Husbear's birthday!  Yay!  29!  And still adorable!

The man wanted catfish for his birthday.  More specifically, he wanted a whole catfish.  Fried.  And served in the Vietnamese style, like the elephant ear fish we had in the Mekong, see here.

We'd heard long ago that Le Soleil will happily put on this kind of spread for you, so we called a couple of friends and drove over.

Sorry about the seafood overload, Adam.

We had to order something besides the catfish, so why not try out their Bo luc lac, also known as shaking or shaken or shaky beef?

This has to be some of the tenderest beef I've ever eaten.  We don't really eat much beef in this household, but I did see Husbear's eyes light up over this dish.  Perhaps we'll be seeing a home version?  Or maybe we'll just be ordering it a lot at Le Soleil?

The expertly stir-fried beef came with a side lime and pepper dipping sauce, which nicely cut through the meat's richness.  I've had that dip at lesser restaurants and not understood what the fuss is, but with this beef it was just perfect.

Next came the grilled pork, which I insisted on.  Theirs is the best version of the Viet staple I've had in town. 

And plates of noodles and herbs and rice paper started to hit the table in preparation for the catfish.

The pork was perfect and savory and grilled and delicious.  It's a given that when we're at this restaurant, we have to order some version of this pork.

When the catfish came, we all just stared for a moment.  I should mention that the catfish is listed on the menu with five different prices, and this is the size smack in the middle.  Our waitress's recommendation.   (By the way, is it just that I'm reading the  essays of grammar-deprived 16 year olds, or does "waitress's" look strange to you, too?  I had to go look it up.)

I was reminded of  the hilarity that would ensue in Italy when we asked vendors for enough blank (beef, mussels, pasta) for two people, which is how we ended up with this four-pound steak.

The catfish was... big.  Large.  A fitting centerpiece for a birthday meal.

Few things are more entertaining to eat than fish served in this way.  Wet a piece of rice-paper, then pile up the center with some combination of fish, unidentifiable herbs of your choice, marinated daikon and carrot, bean sprouts, and rice noodles.  I'm pretty sure that some of that pork and beef found its way into a few rolls, too - though not this fine specimen of Husbear's.

I would think it would be pretty difficult to fry a fish of that size in a home kitchen, unless you're like my husband's family.  They maintain large setups specifically for frying fish outdoors, though usually the fish is redfish and it's in much smaller pieces.

Hey, that's why we have restaurants.

Somehow, in between all the conversation and catching up and mid-day drinking, a lot of eating got done, and most of the catfish disappeared.

Dude, I was just as surprised as you are.

And like that wasn't enough?  Husbear brought cake!  Specifically, a Grand Marnier crepe cake he'd been up until 2:30 in the morning preparing.  That man can make a serious bunch of crepes - he did work brunch prep for several months, after all.  He's also a master egg poacher.

The cake was delicious, but was better the next day with a caramel sauce.  Ahem.

Such a fun birthday lunch!  Great company, overlarge quantities of great food, what's not to love?

Things took a small turn towards the odd on our way back to the house - I think I'll blame the seventeen pounds of catfish we ate for the hallucination we had on the way home.  Really, an alpaca (or llama?)  in a trailer?  On the highway?

We were so full, actually we didn't eat dinner.  Instead of eating dinner that night, we went out to Vino Vino with the lovely Electric Blues and her lady, and then to the Will wrap party.  Yup, we got to go even though Husbear's not on the movie anymore!  Open bar and a photo booths, this one with an array of hilarious headgear.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to show you those photos.

Le Soleil is, as always, at 9616 N. Lamar in Austin.  512.821.0396.

SXSW, Chinese, and another reason to Beware the Ides of March

It's been a while, I know.  I've just started a "job" reading exit level TAKS tests, and after a day of scanning overwhelmingly mediocre essays sprinkled with few moments of sheer brilliance the last thing I've wanted to do is come home and write. 

Interestingly, those aforementioned moments are often failing essays.  Go figure.  I think it's another example of how No Child Left Behind is really a push towards mediocrity - from my reading these sixteen-year-olds' two pages, it feels like the those outliers are being slowly forced towards the middle.

Anyhoo, with me burning my eyes out at a computer screen and Husbear working six-day 80 or 90 hour weeks, yeah, the blog's suffered.  But now we're back, to let YOU know, we can really shake 'em down.

And to tell you about this hilarious experience we had last week at Austin's huge music and blogging extravaganza, South by Southwest aka SXSW aka South by.

Thursday, I got home eyes-ableeding from the essays.  Husbear arrived oh, two and a half hours later or so, and we drove over to a nearby Chinese restaurant we'd been wanting to try - China Palace.  I was all primed to ask for the Chinese menu, but apparently they've been getting that request enough that they've added it as the final page of the Western-style menu.

I honestly don't know if they have a beer or wine menu... we stuck with tea.  And a pallet of food from the Chinese page of the menu.

First?  Scallion pancake.  (You were starting to think there weren't any pics in this post, ja?)

Perfect, at least in my limited knowledge of scallion pancakes.  Nice and chewy, and somehow not greasy - I don't know how they pulled that off.  Sort of huge, though.  We probably should have taken half of this one home, but sometimes it's hard to stop eating the crispy fried bready tastiness.

We did bring home huge amounts of our two entrees, though.  First of those was a last-minute decision, the Shrimp with Soft Tofu.

Seriously Cantonese, here.  The dish was really good, but would have benefited from higher-quality shrimp.  Subtle flavors all melded really well, with a nice soothing salty shrimpyness and the smooth taste and mouthfeel of the tofu.  Really fun to eat.

Not as much fun as the Shredded Pork with Mustard Greens and Tofu Knot.  Holy happymouth. 

Again, the sauce here really remained in the background.  The main flavors were the sharp cruciferousness of the mustard greens and the meaty pork, but the fun here was in the texture.  The tofu knot had such a nice chew to it that really contrasted with the crunch of the mustard greens and the barely resistant bamboo shoot.

There was a huge amount of garlic in this dish, but we were surprised to be pretty much unable to taste it.

Here's a closeup of that tofu knot.  It's apparently made from the skin that forms in a layer on a block of tofu while it's being made.  The skin is rolled and tied into a knot.  Ta-da!

Total, for the two of us, before tip?  $23.75.  Noice.

We loaded our six pounds of leftovers into the car and drove downtown to the Light Bar.  A friend of ours here in town who's better at staying in touch with college friends than we are called me to tell me an old friend was playing there with his band.  (I can no longer recognize runon sentences.  Sorry.)

Downtown was PACKED with people wearing wristbands and credentials and looking like they were from somewhere much more self-conscious than Austin.  Lots of metallic shoes, one-color sack dresses, enormous bags, extra-tight jeans, wide-armed glasses... you know the type.  We eventually paid to park and walked over to the Light Bar, where a hip-hop showcase was going on downstairs and a hand-lettered sign pointed us up to the rooftop patio for the Arclight Records Showcase.

Corona was $5.50, as was Shiner.  Perhaps you're from a large town, and those sound like reasonable bottle-beer prices, but damn were SXSW attendees getting ripped off!  Sheez.

Yeah, we bought drinks.

Our friend's band, the Freshkills, went on as scheduled at 10:00.  We were sitting, enjoying the music and enjoying watching a couple of hardcore fans getting their hipster dance on, when suddenly their sound was cut off.

The crowd started chanting.  "Bull-SHIT.  Bull-SHIT."  You try it, it's quite therapeutic.

Turned out they'd been shut off because the club was violating a noise ordinance.  During a huge music festival.  Yeah.

Rumor was some jackass threw a golf ball at a cop car off the roof the day before, and that there were perhaps some other unspecified annoyances, so the cops weren't wanting shows at that particular bar. 

We went and got our money back, but when we waited around to talk to our friend, the doorkeeper snapped at us.  "You gonna take your money back and STAY HERE?"

Well, yeah, actually.  The cover was for live music, and there isn't any.  We did throw away a good chunk of change at the bar, though.

After Mitch talked with his folks and other friends that had come to see him play, we all split and walked over to Imperia to get the boy some food.  We had a great time catching up.  I hate when I fall out of touch with people I really like, especially when it's so hard to meet new folks.

Rapid topic shift.  BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH.

You know why, right?

No, not because we have to fear being stabbed by a Senator we've treated like a son. 

Actually, it's because these particular Ides are the 20th anniversary of the Bloomin' Onion, that scarily delicious allegedly 2200 calorie treat.

I had a very interesting email earlier this week, with some Bloomin' Onion trivia.  Did you know that the type of onion used in the gutbomb appetizer was specially devised by what the Outback folks choose to call an "onionologist" at Texas A & M?

No?

Well... how about the fact that the chain serves about 40,000 Bloomin' Onions a day? (That's 84 million calories and just under 5.4 million grams of fat, for you party-poopers.)

A piece of personal history, since I'm on the subject of not only Bloomin' Onions, but also long-lost college friends.  I had a good friend my first year of college that used to order a knockoff Bloomin' Onion from WingZone or somewhere once or twice a week.  Then he'd eat the whole thing. 

Great, now I want a ginormous batter-dipped and fried onion with deliciously spicy dipping sauce.  Curse you, Outback!

No, seriously, thanks to their Blogger Outreach program for sending me lots of detailed information and pretty pictures of the process each restaurant goes through to turn out the tasty. 

All from me.  Look for a post about bugs soon.  I hope.

Damn. Yesterday was Weird

So I often feel that my life lists a bit toward the strange.  Yesterday confirmed my suspicions. 

In a 12 hour period I was fined $500 for the misappropriation of state property, I had a private tour of a famous massacre site, and I was picked up by Robert Rodriguez in a shiny red Z4 who proceeded to drive me around the 'burbs for a couple hours. 

WTF?

Maybe I'll elaborate further sometime but for now I think I'll just mull it over and review my previous life choices.

Hope your days are interesting too.

-L.Pants

Behind the Scenes at the Democratic Debate, or Why Girlie Has an Impression of her License on her Right Buttcheek

Yes, I went!

I was one of the lucky 200 who won tickets to last Thursday's debate here in Austin between bigwig hotshot libtard leftists Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. 

Ahem.  You guys know I'd never stoop to the level of a Limbaugh and actually seriously use the word "libtard", right?  Right?  And that on the political continuum, I'm much closer to the socialists than the Republicans?

I got the call on Wednesday at about 5:15.  Turned out I was very, very lucky... the Texas Democratic Party had already sent me an email, which I'd summarily trashed.  I get a LOT of junk mail from the Texas Democratic Party, and I usually don't pay much attention to it.  Had I missed out on this, it would have had to rank in the top ten stupid things I've done in my life, probably just above that time I fell down with my arms stuck in my leotard and had to have ten stitches in my dumbass chin. 

The very nice, and very tired, young man on the phone told me I was to report to the Recreational Sports Center (NOT the LBJ library, as lots of media outlets erroneously reported) between 4:30 and 6 for the 7 o'clock debate.  I was to have on my person a photo ID, no weapons, no recording devices, and of course NO UMBRELLAS.

No umbrellas?  Were they afraid of a repeat of Georgy Markov's 1978 slaying?

After some reflection, I think it was more because each of us peon debate attendees were given about 10 inches of assroom on bleachers so uncomfortable they, too, could have been Soviet.

Let me back up for a second.

Being the worrywart I am, I arrived at 4:25 to an extremely long line.  When I finally made my way up to the front, I was told "you're green" and shunted off to the left, where a scrubbed UT student fitted me with a green wristband.  People around me were given blue and yellow, and I later saw some red in the fancypants politicos section.

After that, there was only the trip through the security magnetometers before we were ushered onto the floor of the gym, totally retrofitted by CNN into some sort of debate mecca.  "Green's over on the far side of the room," said the chirpy volunteer handing out programs.

My ass first hit the bleacher just after 5 PM.  At 5:15, 5:37, and 5:53 we were told to squeeze.  "We're Democrats, we all get along!" harried organizers shouted from the floor.  Meanwhile, the bleachers across from us, which seemed to be populated by yellow armbanders, were half-empty.  Much grumbling was heard as our stairs filled up in defiance of fire code.  (Don't call the fire dept., the flouters did eventually get moved.)

I chatted with the lovely Martha from Lakeway to my right, and spoke a little with the CNN meteorologist and his grandmother sitting behind me.   Martha said "If you work for CNN, why couldn't you get your grandmother better seats?"

Just before the doors closed at 6, a wave of state elected officials took over the center of the floor and provided minutes of entertainment to us lowly bleacher-sitters.  A group of them would sit, but as a new senator or representative made their way over to their seat, everyone would bob up and down shaking hands and embracing.  From above, it looked like a perfectly choreographed dance.  Not a waltz, though.  A line-dance.  We are in Texas, and they were sitting in rows, right?

At 6:15, I lost ten minutes off my life when the UT marching band started in with a BAM and a BOOMPA BOOM and a "Deep in the Heart of Texas (clapclapclapclap).  Those of us who knew the words (not me) then got to sing along to "The Eyes of Texas" and make lots and lots of "Hook'Em" signs in perfect unison set to various UT fight songs.

Look, I went to the University of South Carolina, and made it to one football game my entire college career.  I'm not the best person to offer insights into the mass insanity of collegiate loyalties.

Then, we got speeches from the president of the UT Democrats (must have been a pretty cool day for her!) and the head of the Texas Democratic Party and the president of UT and the dean of the LBJ school. 

And we pledged allegiance and listed to a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem by a group of people in ill-fitting button-down burnt-orange shirts.  Not a flattering color, UT.

When Chelsea entered at 6:55 the whole place broke out in applause and all the reps bum-rushed her.

Then we all got to meet Campbell Brown (the girl with no TV says "who?"), and we enthusiastically followed orders to applaud as she said... something I couldn't hear because we were applauding.  And then, the debaters were introduced.  Hillary came out to applause that I thought was wild until Obama entered and people...

My notes say "freaked the fuck out," which is true, if crude, like me.  The women next to me, who'd been speaking in Portuguese, started stomping their feet so hard I was afraid for the structural integrity of the bleachers.

I'm not going to subject you to (or make myself write about) a detailed discussion of exactly what they debated about.  After all, it went out to everyone over the teevee.  I will say, though, that I agree with the conventional wisdom about Hillary being a much better debater than Obama... he started out distracted, like he was afraid he'd left the gas on back home, and recovered only a little.  Yes, he does have those flourishes and lots of populist lines that the crowd ate up, and he did negate some of Hillary's attacks, but over all, she's just a bulldog who doesn't let go.

Listening to her made me sad.  I really could have seen myself being a fairly enthusiastic supporter of hers, but for the dynastic aspects of her run and the brand of politics she and her husband have been playing. 

I was actually surprised at the times the crowd hissed at her, though.

And, if you were wondering what goes on during the commercial breaks, well... the candidates rushed off the stage, presumably for bathroom breaks and makeup reapplication, while flustered makeup people came out to powder the anchors.  And every single person in the bleachers who was capable of it stood up so as to take some of the weight off of their by now thoroughly misshapen posteriors. 

That's why I'm honestly not sure if that last "standing ovation" received by Hillary (after her line about "we'll all be OK, and I just hope that's true of the American people") was really a standing ovation, or just people taking some of the pressure off of their backsides because they thought the debate was over.  There had been some confusion before the end of the very last commercial break five minutes or so prior, when things just kind of trailed off and some PA or AD yelled "THREE MINUTES OVER" - so most of the crowd was actually surprised when we came back for the last segment, and kind of unsure how long it would be since we'd already run over.

So there's your bit of controversy from someone who was actually there.

I didn't try to get their autographs.  I was far enough back in the bleachers that I'd have had to elbow people and leap over them to get to the candidates before they left.  Instead, I exited the recreational sports center and dodged lots of people with recorders or TV cameras or selling rinky-dink cheap shirts with grammar errors (there's a Obama in each of us, indeed) and ran back to my car to get my poor unused camera.

And here's the shot I was able to get of the debate.

Thanks for sticking with me for all that talk and all that lack of photographic evidence.  It was so wonderful to be able to go to the debate.  Now, on to the primary and the caucusing!  (We get to do both in Texas.  Isn't that bizarre?)

Please tell me NoRTH (yeah, that's how they spell it) is kidding with this mess of an app.

020208, 033/366: Please tell me NoRTH (yeah, that's how they spell it) is kidding with this mess of an app., originally uploaded by Boots in the Oven.

This was my picture of the day for Sunday over at Flickr (yup, I'm still plugging away at Project 366) but honestly, the thing is such a crappy joke that I have to show it off to those of you that don't check the Flickr photostream.

Here's what I had to say over on Flickr:

Normally, I would have let this disgusting joke of an appetizer go unblogged, uncommented, and unremembered.  But.  It really pissed me off.

This restaurant is supposed to be "modern italian cuisine."  This is their "seasonal house antipasti" for $9.  Let's not pick too much on how any Italian restaurant in Italy would spit on this mess of a plating (for actual Italian antipasti plates, look here) - I understand NoRTH may be trying to get away from traditional ideas of italian food.  Which wouldn't be bad in and of itself, but...

It's just... in February, their "seasonal" plate included tomatoes, asparagus... and raspberries!  These were mixed in with absolutely flavorless salumi, some sort of medicinal-tasting caponata, very low-quality parmesan, and then, in what must have been the kitchen's final "fuck you for ordering this crap we found in the back of the walk-in, you stupid customer" surrounded by a surfeit of ridiculous, ubiquitous basil oil.  I was pissed at the pandering of the menu, to those people who don't know or care about seasonality or, barring that, good food. 

We also ordered a pizza.  The less said about that crackery flatbread, the better.

Of course, Dale Rice, our local paper's critic extraordinaire, who's never met a gloppy processed nacho cheese dish he didn't like, just went apeshit for the place.  Great.  He LIKED the pasta bolognese... which was served with giant shell pasta!  WTF?

Another reason the Domain sucks.  Where are the LOCAL seasonal restaurants?  Is Austin really begging for shitty, overpriced Italianateish food out of freaking SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA?

I should tell you we got the food and our round of martinis free, after our waitress apparently quit in the middle of her shift and the managers lost our checks.  Even for free, I wouldn't go back.  That waitress had the right idea, taking a powder while she could.

www.foxrestaurantconcepts.com/north.html

Dining on whole pigs with Dai Due

Remember all that pork?

Well, someone (make that 40 or so someones) had to eat it.  The group of happy eaters began with Husbear's compatriots from his porcine class the day before, their significant others (including me!  :waves:) and various others who weren't in the class but wanted to eat its spoils.

We arrived at Rain Lily Farm on a balmy Austin fall Sunday, me being my usual apprehensive self, to a beautiful setting.

The dinner was BYOB, so buckets of ice for chilling wine and beer were provided.  We were given a light, refreshing aperitif, an apple ratafia made of local white muscat wine mixed with local vodka infused with local apples, to drink while we wandered around the small farm operation.

I think Husbear already mentioned Dai Due's overwhelming commitment to eating as locally as possible.  The back of the menu above listed all of the sources for just about every ingredient for each dish we'd be enjoying, and every source was Texan.

We carted our ratafias over to check out Rain Lily Farm's vegetables. 

November and December are great months to eat locally here in Texas.  While August and September are usually too hot for much of anything to grow, by the end of the year second crops are ripening.  Last weekend, the farmers' market was full of tomatoes, along with more traditionally wintry greens and root vegetables.

And okra, which is one of my favorite vegetables.

Rain Lily Farm also raises a few animals, mostly goats and chickens.  We visited with them for a few minutes.  By this time, more people were arriving, and we all made our introductions while trying to avoid the curious nibbles of the friendliest of the goats.

Part of the reason the goats were so interested in getting to know us better is that we'd all just been provided with a pre-dinner snack to go with our ratafias - a slice of banh mi.  Though it was more French than traditionally Vietnamese, in both presentation and flavor, this banh mi was quite good.  Plus, it incorporated some of the pate the class had prepared.

The banh mi was perfect as a before-dinner snacklet; not only did it start the pork theme off loudly, it was also packed with lovely flavors that readied us for the enormity of the meal ahead.

I mean, you saw that menu.

The goats definitely wanted to find out more about this new food in their pen.  The brown one with the warpaint took advantage of the black one's being distracted to try to jump on its back for a quickie.

This did not make the black goat happy.

While the musicians played light fare,

we wandered through the prep stations.  Husbear, of course, wanted to see what was going on with the varied products he and his class had helped to prepare the day before.

He nodded happily at the rilletes, that brilliant method the French have for making shredded pork moist and deliciously fatty.

I have to say I was a little apprehensive about the headcheese... I can't say I'd had a deep-seated desire to ever buy or try this product.  It's gotta be the name.  Or the texture.  Or the appearance.

These particular treats were all being sliced and put on boards for the first course, which would be a family-style charcuterie. 

Which means there would have to be more of that smooth, creamy pate.

Darn.

Many other pork or pork-related items were also undergoing final cooking for later in the meal, including a non-traditional grilled boudin (normally in Louisiana you see boudin poached),

and a spit-roasted pork loin, turning gracefully over low grilling heat.

By this time, we were all nigh-on ravenous, so we took our places at the aforepictured beautiful long table.

We sat down with our wine, that we'd gotten a great deal on from Central Market.  It turned out to be amazing.

After just a moment, heaping plates of bread arrived on the table, followed closely by boards heaped with the pate, rillettes, and headcheese.  These tasties were supplemented by not only mustards, which are an absolute necessity with charcuterie, but pickled beets from Boggy Creek Farm that were earthy and beety and a good counterpoint to the various fatty pork products on the table in front of us.

All three of these pork products were wonderful, and I have to say Jesse and friends have changed my mind about headcheese.  It can be really good.  I still don't think I'm going to run out to pick some up at the HEB, but I'm hoping Husbear makes some with that half a pig we're bringing to Louisiana for Christmas.

Next, things lightened up a bit with a chorizo and smoked hock soup, with creamer peas, sweet potatoes, and kale.  Need I say that the class made the chorizo?

The soup was nice and light and had a good taste of fall, though the cilantro was a little strong for some.  Cilantro's tough - people have such adamant opinions about it.

Next came an enormous pile of pig - on one plate, the grilled boudin and chile sausages topping a very nice clean potato salad (made with potatoes from Bikkurim Farm, of course).  I loved the potato salad, but was not blown away by the sausages.

Unfortunately, by this time it was getting really dark and we didn't get a decent picture of what may have been the best thing we ate that night - the grilled pork belly, served on apple cider braised chinese cabbage and accompanied by an amazing sweet spicy apple chutney.  So instead, here's a picture of how happy I was to be eating it.

Rain Lily wouldn't have been a real farm without a farm cat, right?  Here he is, sitting on top of the signin book we'd forgotten to sign.  Looks like we missed our chance. (Sitting on? More like guarding with his dynamic cat powers.  He made me answer three questions and a riddle just to get a grassfed beef pamphlet -L.Pants)

For the dessert, which of course had to include pig in some way, Dai Due went all out.  Not only did they fashion pork cracklins into a tart bound with brown sugar and molasses, they also topped it with freshly whipped lard, sort of a sweet version of Dario Cecchini's Burro del Chianti.

No?  Husbear says that was actually a pecan tart made with pecans from the tree we were sitting under, topped with fresh whipped cream.  Oops.   Yes, it was very good.

At least there was lard in the crust, in true Southern style.

Dinner finished with mint tisane and coffee, and Jesse gave a brief speech about the importance of eating locally and knowing the people growing your food and raising your meat.  He's really inspired us - we're buying all of our meat these days at the farmer's market, as well as a good portion of our vegetables, and we've discovered that Central Texas farmers certainly do a wonderful job producing deliciousness.

It's been a bit of a revelation, what we can get at the farmers' markets around here.  Grassfed bison, lamb, beef, and pork.  Geese, roosters, free-range chickens, partridges.  Seriously.  And, of course, some of the most delicious citrus in the country, beautiful greens in copious amounts, and everything as fresh as it can be.

Not only that, but the prices on much of the produce are lower than the pricing at our grocery stores, and you get much better, fresher produce often sold to you by the person who picked it.

Enough.  Dai Due helps to teach us that eating locally is not only good for the environment and the local economy, it's also good for your tummy and tastebuds.  Kudos to them for spreading that message.

The Whole Hog!

Do you know where your pork comes from? I mean like really and truly? And don’t say a pig because that just makes you a smart ass and don’t say the grocery store because that just makes you a- well I’ll try to keep my judgin’ pants off.

As many of you know, I was a long time vegetarian until I moved to Italy to go to culinary school. I decided to eat meat there for the educational and cultural value as well as the fact that I appreciated the relationship and connection to the animals that is possible. (Do I need a ladder for this high horse?)

“Blah, blah, blah,” I’m sure you’re thinking. Another militant PETA crazy. But wait. This story ends with hacksaws and intestines and flesh peeling off boiled faces. I’m not some tree hugging, tofu eating (it is delicious though), condemn your lifestyle vegan. No, I just like to know that whatever I’m eating was happy and healthy and to be able to look it in the eye before I shove it in my mouth kind of guy.

Enter Dai Due, Jesse and Tamara, the awesome Austin couple who’s bringing us all things local and delicious. These guys run a dinner club that hosts parties every week or so at farms or private homes here in town.

They are usually themed by some sort of seasonal ingredient or animal and they work hard to procure all of the fixin's from within a few hundred miles. Jesse (an Italian trained chef) is so serious about it that he says he’s giving up olive oil for pecan oil because he can’t find a reliable local e.v.o.o. supplier. That’s hardcore.

In addition to dinners, Dai Due occasionally hosts instructional classes on a variety of food related topics. Specifically, every late fall/early winter Jesse does a hog butchering class. Remember now kids, slaughtering and butchering are different. Slaughtering is the one with all the blood and squealing. It’s also the one tightly regulated by the FDA so just the butchering for us thanks.

Our lovely half a hog came from a fantastic family farm in Kemp, Texas called Full Quiver. Some of you may recognize the name from the Discovery show Fourteen Children and Pregnant Again. Mike Sams and his family, who run Full Quiver farms are part of the Quiverfull movement; a Christian branch that eschews birth control and aggressively condones procreation.

That being said, the Sams make wonderful cheese. As a bonus, they use the leftover whey from the dairy production to feed/fatten their hogs – just like the Parmesan makers do in Parma. Can you say “intramuscular marbling!”?

The day started off at the Dragonfly House, a lovely and modern home located in a beautiful part of East Austin. Eight exuberant folks showed up for the class. We began with some basic pig talk and then moved on to a much needed anatomy lesson. All those muscley bits and bone parts can get confusing if you’re not used to seeing them in their original unshrink-wrapped locations.

The first thing to go was the head. Jesse and Chris (another helpful chef) sawed it off and put it in a large stockpot with various herbs and spices in preparation for making a delightful headcheese (we have got to come up with a better label for that folks. I think it’s delicious but even little old me feels a bit queasy if I dwell on the name too long.)

Next, we removed the kidney and the tenderloin and set them aside. Then off with the ham or hind leg as it were. Then we moved onto the bacon; carefully removing belly from ribs in one large fatty piece. The bacon immediately got a dry cure of salt, sugar and spices and got slapped into an ice chest.

This is probably an appropriate time to mention that all of the work we were doing on this animal wasn’t purely for show. The next day there was to be a large dinner party where we and about 30 other pig aficionados could gorge ourselves on the meats of our labor.

Ok, after the bacon Jesse skillfully filleted out the loin. This is the part that pork chops are traditionally cut from, but apparently you need a band saw or some such to do it properly. Lacking our shop class tools, the loin made its way into a large icy brine to await further instructions.

At this point, Jesse broke out the meat grinder from the freezer (don’t underestimate the need for cold when you start cranking pieces of pig through fast moving metal.) The first item up for particularization was the leaf fat- the softer fat that lines the abdominal cavity. This went into a large cast iron Dutch oven to be rendered for lard.

Following the fat fun, we went to work breaking down the shoulder and the hind leg. Now normally, you would cure or smoke the ham, but we were in need of an abnormal amount of sausages so the leg got the slightly less traditional treatment.

Some of the mixed leg/shoulder meat and a healthy dose of fat went into a pot for the making rillettes, that delicious French porky spread. Some went towards a delightful pate and the rest was divided up to make several different kinds of sausages.

We started with a spicy and tangy chorizo- this is Texas after all.

Meanwhile we boiled some more meat and a few organs for a Cajun style boudin. Boudin is one of the few sausages that is actually cooked before you pack it into the casings. It also happens to be one of the yummiest. Boudin is po’ folk food and is traditionally made with a lot of rice as a filler. So when the meat was done, we used the leftover liquid to cook the grains and soak up all that additional flavor- genius I tell you.

Next was a poblano sausage that Jesse wanted to make because he had just come into a surplus of fabulous peppers. It seemed like a good idea and damn it if it didn’t actually turn out to be one too.

At this point in the festivities a break was in order. After all that pig choppin’ a man deserves a decent glass of wine or two. And possibly some cheese. And fruit. And maybe some buffalo jerky…with local candied pecans. But nothing else. And honey.

As a quick note, both of the cheeses were wonderful. The cheddar was from Full Quiver and the Blue (which is really, really good) is from Veldhuizen Family Farm in Dublin, TX. Buy them both.

After our well earned down time, we all meandered back inside for the finishing touches. First order of business: boiled pig face.

It was done and all of the meat needed to come off. There is a surprising amount of meat on a hog’s head, including some seriously succulent cheek meat- the same stuff that makes guanciale for you bacon lovers out there.

When all the removable parts had been removed we shifted over to stuffin’ some more snawsages.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t hang around to finish off the headcheese (who the hell came up with that name?!) because the liquid had to reduce to get the right gelatin proportions. I remained undeterred though as the class was awesome and copious samplings of everything would be had the next evening at the Dai Due dinner/feast hosted at the lovely and amazing Rain Lily Farms! Stay tuned for details.

Props to Jesse and Tamara and Big Thanks to Chris for all y’alls hard work spreading the eat-local-and-love-it gospel!

-L. Pants

Knowing us is the quickest path to reality TV stardom.

This is the only conclusion I can possibly draw.

Witness:

May 2004.  Our wedding is catered by the Hearty Boys.  It's, of course, awesome.  We had a great experience with their catering and would recommend it to anyone planning an event in Chicago.  ANYWAY.  One year later, we turn on the TV, and there they are on the first season of the Food Network's Food Network Star.  (Food Network Food Network Food Network.  It's like they're trying to drive up their own search-engine results.)

They went on to win - you can still see their show on the network if you want to get up early on Sunday.

This morning, I check my computer, and my high school Facebook network is all a-flutter - one of ours is on the new season of Project Runway!  Steve was the founding member and president of the "jew crew" in our high school, of which I was treasurer or something (hey, my memory's not that great) - and, perhaps more apropos to what he's doing now, he made my prom dress in 1997.  That dress is still in my closet, even though I haven't tried to put it on in five or six years - a gold asian-inspired top with a hoop skirt. 

It was fun.

The only thing that makes sense, here, is that Steve Rosengard will go on to win Project Runway, or our streak ends at one.  So, good luck, Steve!  If we had basic cable, we'd be pulling for you!

Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun Kitchen... Austin.

This is a tough one.

First, because all the good things there are to know about Lola are already spread all over the internets... how she closes her restaurant down on Sundays to give free meals to the homeless, and that she was the first person in Austin to throw a benefit for the victims of Katrina who were bussed into the Convention Center in September of 2005.

Many Austinites can also recount Lola's hardscrabble backstory - homeless for two years, she got back on her feet and scraped together the money to rent out a small home on Rosewood, in Austin's East Side, where she opened Nubian Queen Lola's after continued donations to buy equipment. 

That's why this is tough - how do you review a small restaurant like Lola's, where the story is almost more important than the food?

Ah, the food...

We went to Lola's for a late lunch last week.  Pushing the door open, we were unsure what we'd entered - we saw no menus, no other people, no particular indication that this was a restaurant beyond a 7-Up cooler sitting in a corner.

We waited at the counter for just a moment or two, and Lola herself came out to greet us warmly.  (I say "herself" like this isn't, at most, a two-person operation.)  She turned around, peered over her shoulder into the kitchen, and said "Well, let's see what I have.  You know, Mondays I don't do a lot of sides."

That was fine - there were still more than enough items on the spoken-word menu to make us happy.  I settled on the fried fish and shrimp platter, with sides of yams and collard greens, while Husbear ordered her shrimp po'boy.  Plus a small side of gumbo, to share.  Lola said if we were willing to wait a while, she'd have a smothered pork chop, but we declined.

We settled in and read the copious notes tacked all over the walls - reviews, letters of thanks from schoolchildren and fellow churchmates, exhortations to prayer for families in trouble.  And hanging above us, mardi gras beads.

After a few minutes, Lola emerged from the back to tell us she'd forgotten to list smothered okra as one of her sides.  I immediately tried to change my order from yams to smothered okra, and she said "Honey, you don't wanna do that.  Those yams are the bomb.  I'll see if I can give you a half-spoon of greens, half of yams, and half of the okra."  I asked if I could just get a seperate side of yams... I wanted whole servings! 

Another few minutes go by, and Lola comes out with the gumbo side.

This gumbo was delicious.  A real, slow-cooked roux, heavily shot through with peppers, and with good spicy sausage and fall-apart tender chicken.  This was one of the spiciest gumbos I've been served in a restaurant, which was more than enough to make me happy.  The cornbread was buttery and sweet and perfect with the stew.

Then, we sat.  A small group of whiteys came in and sat down (hey, like us!) and had some trouble parsing the menu.  Lola took their order, but had to run back to the kitchen several times to make sure her smothered pork chops weren't burning.

We sat some more.  I read the inspirational cards on the table - as seen on Oprah!

More sitting.  Husbear and I decided it was a good thing we weren't in a hurry. 

Then, from the back,

Lola appeared once more with my enormous lunch.  I've gotta say, she was right about the yams, though they were swimming in enough butter to grease the whole table.  Sweet, toasty, yummy.  The fish was also outstanding, perfectly fried with a crispy batter that was perhaps a touch on the salty side.

The okra and greens?  Well, I'm a sucker for Southern-style vegetables, and these were they.  Long-cooked with pork, they were at the point where they tasted more like bacon than anything else, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I love long-cooked okra and greens.

The shrimp, I wasn't so crazy about.  It was a little overcooked, and the batter was sort of soggy - not crunchy.  I think that's supposed to be a sign of oil that's too cold or too new, but then it's odd that the fish was perfect.  I don't pretend to understand this.

When Husbear's po'boy hit the table, we both gaped.  Lola laughed.

Yeah, that's a sandwich.  French bread, split open and layered with mayo, fried shrimp, fried onions, pickles, lettuce, cocktail sauce, and pepper jelly.  Plus a side of red beans and rice, for good measure.

Husbear was a little taken aback by the enormous pile of sandwich sitting before him, but he gamely pushed the halves of the loaf together and took a bite.  He tried to put it back down, but the sandwich threatened to lose all structural integrity and explode all over his plate, so he elected to hold it for a few more bites.

He then pronounced it the craziest po'boy he'd ever seen.  He thought the cocktail sauce was eh, and the fried onions were maybe overkill, but all in all, it made him very happy.  As did the red beans and rice, stewed with more meats and veggies than you normally see.

Delicious.  And $18.  We're pretty sure she added that up wrong, so we overtipped.  We'll be back, though not necessarily on a day when we have pressing afternoon engagements.  An additional note - neither of us were capable of eating dinner that night.  And if you know us, you know that's very, very strange.

Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun Kitchen, 1815 Rosewood, Austin.  512.542.9269.  Open Monday-Saturday, 9-9.

In other news, we tried to take Fatty to a no-sedation groomer today, and they were unable to shave him.  Huh.  Husbear is at a whole-hog butchering class run by Dai Due, where they're making pates and sausages and bacon and all sorts of stuff, and I get to go to the dinner tomorrow!  And that's our news.

Whaa happen?

Sorry. 

There, I got it out of the way.

We're settling into our new apartment, slowly.  Slowly because before we moved to Italy last year we got rid of most of our furniture, and then we donated pretty much all that remained aside from our mattress when we returned to Mandeville.

This means that we've embraced the scintillating world of furniture shopping.  'Tis a high-pressure world, where everyone seems to work on commission.  So far, we've bought a ultracool side table, a beautiful Indian unit we'll be using for media storage, a dining room table that's on the boat from somewhere Nordic, and an awesome couch/loveseat (here it is!  Three pics down) upholstered in a nubbly fabric that the cats love.  To destroy.

I've just gotten back from the pet store, where I added to our arsenal of cat-herding devices.  Scratch mat, scratch cardboard ramp, anti-scratch spray for the couch, and yarn toys.  Wish me luck.

Pictures of the house will be forthcoming, though we'd really like to get the art on the walls and get the table in and buy dining room chairs and another lounging chair.  So, perhaps mot particularly forthcoming.  In the meantime, I'll work on posts about some great restaurants we've discovered here in Austin, plus Husbear has several posts in varying stages of development. 

The reports of our business are not exaggerated.

Sorry to make our three readers stare for more than a week at that hideous picture of the three pounds of meatloaf I ate at Logan's Roadhouse.  Husbear's still in Killeen, plugging away on this commercial 15 hours a day 7 days a week, while I have undertaken the job of finding us a place to live.

I've had an awful lot of conversations in the past week that have gone something like this:

me: "Yes, I saw an ad on Craigslist for a 1/1 apartment in North Central Austin - where exactly is the apartment?"

agent: "Well, how familiar are you with the area just south of Dallas?"

me: ....

And when I've finally gotten in to see a couple of apartment locators, they've been dismissive of our insistence on a 1/1 within 5 miles north of downtown for under $800 a month, so they've been repeatedly taking me to 165-unit Godzilla complexes in bumfuck nowhere that cost... wait for it... $800 a month! 

I actually looked at an apartment in an INDUSTRIAL PARK, between UPS and the USPS processing facility!  Half of our rent would have gone towards maintaining the three "sparkling" pools, the 30-piece fitness center, and the indoor basketball court!

I finally made contact yesterday with a locating company that works with smaller properties (Igloo Hunters, and they've been great), and the agent showed me four places out of six that I could really see working for us.  I've had to give up on the dream of bringing our washer and dryer with us, but that's workable, as long as we have a dishwasher again.

Hopefully, we'll have this worked out by the end of the week, and I can go back to posts about how much we miss the wondrous food of Southeast Asia, especially when we find ourselves in Killeen eating 1. room service or 2. Papa John's.  I kid you not.

Dueling Roadhouses, from the blog that brought you the Fat Duck. No, really.

So, look.  We're in Killeen, Texas, proud home of Fort Hood and the place where Husbear's working on and off for the next couple of weeks.  Hopefully.

Killeen's a strange town, an army town.  The vast majority of the men you see here have crew cuts or are actually in uniform.  Lots of restaurants and bars have happy hours from 9 to midnight, something I've never seen before.

Also, it's a center for chain restaurants.  I've never seen so many chains in such a small town - every one you could ever imagine.

And they've sucked us in.

So, for your reading pleasure: Dueling Roadhouses!  Last week, we visited Logan's Roadhouse and Texas Roadhouse on two successive nights. 

The facades:

Logan's.

Texas.

Here, I have to give the edge to Texas Roadhouse.  A behatted Texas beats out a sign with half the lights burned out.

Logan's 0, Texas 1.

These places are shockingly similar inside.  Peanut shells strewn all over the floor, fake wood, lots of neon beer signs, et cetera.  As soon as you sit down, you get a bucket of peanuts and a basket of bread.

Logan's:

Texas:

Both places make a big deal about their bread - "We bake it every 5 minutes," said the waitress at Texas Roadhouse.  They were basically the same, though Logan's Roadhouse had regular whipped butter and Texas Roadhouse had stickily sweet cinnamon honey butter.  The yeast rolls tasted like they could have been from the same overly-sweet mix, though Logan's were cooked a little longer and had a reasonable facsimile of a crust.  Ish.  Plus, the peanuts at Texas Roadhouse were stale and dry.

So 1 point for the peanuts and 1 for the bread, both to Logan's Roadhouse.

Logan's 2, Texas 1.

On to the salads!  At Logan's Roadhouse, on our first night, we tried two.  And were too naive to ask them to leave off the grated cheddar cheese.

Logan's Caesar:

And Logan's House:

And Texas Roadhouse's House, which we asked for without the cheese - see, we learn eventually:

Honestly, all of these salads were kind of silly.  It's sort of sad that there are probably people who think a salad is a healthy alternative here, only to find out that it's covered in cheese and eggs and fried bacon and topped with dressings including, of course, ranch, bleu cheese, and deep-fried lard. 

Logan's balsamic vinaigrette dressing was less sweet and a good bit more tart than Texas Roadhouse's Italian.  Plus, the croutons at Texas Roadhouse were soggy.  Point - Logan's!

Logan's 3, Texas 1.

And, because I know this is the moment you've all been waiting for....

ENTREES!  No, we didn't order steak.

At Logan's, Husbear ordered the fried shrimp and catfish with a side of macaroni and cheese (hey, it counts as a vegetable, right?)

and I got their hilariously enormous grilled meatloaf, which comes topped with these onions they're apparently particularly proud of.  My side?  Mashed taters.

Husbear thought the shrimp were fairly good and the catfish was sort of sad - not enough seasoning in the breading, perhaps?  My grilled meatloaf was... food.  Not good, not bad, certainly wouldn't have been memorable but for the fact that my leftovers (more than half the plate!) stank up our hotel room every time we opened the fridge.

At Texas Roadhouse, Husbear ordered an appetizer portion of their "award-winning" ribs.  Ha.  Think crunchy outside and almost powdery middle - it was like meat product had been reconstituted around a bone structure (Husbear's description).  The fries were nothing special.

The enormous cricket crawling along the wall was something of a shock.

Trying to be a little healthier than the meatloaf extravaganza the night before, I ordered a grilled shrimp kabob on rice pilaf.

There were lots of factors that kept this from being anywhere approaching healthy.  First, the double portion of shrimp.  Second, bacon in the beans, though that was hardly a surprise.  Third, what the hell is that dipping sauce?  It tasted like the butter substitute that goes on popcorn at the movie theater, which is apparently called "buttery".

And the rice pilaf was inedibly bland and greasy.  Hmmm.

In terms of our arteries, the meals are probably a draw, but I have to give a slight tastiness edge to Logan's.  Slight. 

This brings the final score to....

Logan's 5, Texas 1!

Winner and still CHAMPEEN!

Not that we'll be back to either anytime soon, if we can avoid it... though I might want to run some sort of experiment on which chain has the squishier rolls.

Labor Day Weekend Redux

Though it wasn't nearly as ridiculously bloggable as our festivities last Labor Day weekend, when we ventured into the backend of Tuscany to eat at the table of arguably the most famous butcher in the world, this Labor Day weekend was entirely sweet and all-American.

If you count eating what turned out to be copious amounts of Vietnamese food all-American.

Our Labor Day weekend started a little early.  Friday lunch found us visiting a brand spankin' new Vietnamese restaurant here in Austin.  Thanh Nhi is on the north side of town, part of the two or three mile stretch of North Lamar that's packed with Vietnamese and Mexican and Pakistani joints. 

We overordered - there were several items of interest on the menu that we hadn't seen before, like these $3.00 "grilled pork paste" spring rolls.

Neither of us has ever seen spring rolls like this on a Vietnamese menu.  I asked the young waitress where they were from, and she answered "Vietnam."  Yes, well... where, more specifically?  "Chinatown."

I asked if it was the Chinatown in HCMC, and she said "I really don't know."  So, does this look familiar to anyone?

Inside, we found a small slab of delicious, peppery grilled pork sausage, a leaf of lettuce wrapped around shredded carrot and sliced cucumber, and a long cigar of fried spring roll skin.  The textures were great - cold, hot, crunchy, snappy, meaty.

I ordered a bowl of the Phnom Penh - style noodles, which turned out to be sunk in the bottom of a bowl of rich pork broth, topped with lettuces, thin slices of pork, and a fried bready item with a small shrimp pressed in the center.

As usual, I drank almost all of the broth and left most of the noodles and about half of the meat.  I need to figure out a way to get double the broth so I can bring everything home for another meal.  This particular noodle soup was good, though a little on the bland side.

Husbear ordered what's fast becoming his regular, or at least his yardstick, the pho tai.  That's pho, beef noodle soup, with raw brisket added so it cooks in the soup.  It seems like most places here in the States are afraid to add totally raw meat, and this place was no exception.  They did add a raw egg yolk, though.

I won't talk about the pho, since I think Husbear is planning a rundown of Austin pho restaurants at some point.

In a final act of silliness, we ordered a banh mi.  We've been trying to find a good one since we came back to find, to our deep chagrin, that Ba Le morphed into some kind of extremely brightly painted Mexican seafood restaurant while we were in Italy.

We'll have to keep looking, though I may try some of the other sandwiches on offer at Thanh Nhi.  This is their banh mi with shredded pork skin, which was seriously porky.  We were sad to note that there was no lard or aioli or any kind of sauce on their sandwich, and that their pickles weren't actually pickled.  Huh.

I do think we'll be back to Thanh Nhi, though.  Huge menu of noodle soups and crazy fried rice dishes, along with a glimpse of a downright beautiful bowl of bun going by to a table of middle-aged Vietnamese men, is enough to re-attract us.

Then, well, we went pants-shopping.  I had