Visit to Austin, Texas

Greetings to everyone! I have been on a bit of a hiatus from the blog this summer. Thanks to those of you who have continued to stay tuned though, I appreciate it. I thought instead of posting yet another pie recipe, just as amazing as the last 10, I would tell you about my recent visit to Austin, Texas, which of course, involved a food quest, specifically for good tacos!

Jack lived in Austin for the first several years of his life, so the town holds a special place in the heart of his family, and I was thrilled to see the apartment complex he first called home.

We stayed downtown at the Hyatt Place, for the first couple nights and absolutely loved the location, and the great view. The town was constantly buzzing with activity and had a very upbeat vibe we really liked. There are lots of young professionals in Austin. 

The awesome part about being downtown in any city is the convenience of walking to good food and a fun night life. The first night, despite my desire for tacos, Jack's desire for Thai food won out, as it's proximity to our hotel was too close to ignore from the view of out our 15th floor window. The Yelp reviews for Mai Thai were great, there was no evidence it was part of a chain, so I agreed. After an afternoon of flights (too bumpy for me), we were ready for a hot meal, and my first ever, Thai tea.

Jack said he felt like we were back in San Diego, where we had gone almost a year ago, stayed in the Hyatt Andaz downtown and walked around until we found Thai food we could take-out. We unintentionally ordered the same 2 dishes. I ordered Pad Thai, and Jack ordered Red Curry. We are super predictable. The food was good, the "mild" Red Curry, was actually more like fire. The Pad Thai was sweet and I prefer the Thai we had in San Diego, but the service, location and price was outstanding and gave a good overall value.

Jack and I are pretty low key, but we definitely wanted to check out the excitement of 6th Street at night, where the street is lined with bars, pubs, bike taxis and street musicians. We stumbled upon so much excitement in the streets alone, we decided to wait until the following night to give one bar more attention. In addition to the bars we found an art gallery opening and an electric bull, which I was much more entertained by than Jack. No I did not ride it.

The next day Jack took me to Barton Springs, which is a natural springs pool, right outside of downtown, and very cold, even with the nearly 100 degree Texas temp. The grass was filled with more people than the pool, probably because of the cold temp of the water, or maybe because people were even more freaked out than I was by the plants which had unearthed themselves to float about, and grabbed at your arms. I thought it was neat to have made a natural springs into a functional public pool, costing us $3/each which is much cheaper than what we have locally in Iowa.

We then drove past Jack's first home, which was an apartment in one of the cutest neighborhoods, I've ever seen, conveniently located near the nicest Whole Foods, I've ever been in. It was nice to see homes in the same style to Midwestern homes, though more variety of paint color, and overall higher pride of ownership than a comparable home here.

We tried some of the locally made Kombucha, and while I fell in love with a melon flavor, the product really couldn't hold it's own next to Jack's brew!

We popped into the Sweetish Hill Bakery Jack's dad had recommended to us, and while it hadn't been planned, we couldn't resist a stop when we realized we had accidentally driven past! We tried a chocolate filled bear claw, which was pretty much a pastry filled with a brownie. Not too shabby for $2.00.

That night Jack and I decided to try Trudy's, which was recommended to us by two different people. It might have been classified as a "chain" restaurant with it's three Austin locations, but we decided to brave it and go to the location closest to campus so we could take a post dinner tour of UT. We both love college towns, and while UT was clearly well maintained, it didn't have the charm of my ISU, or the ocean of Jack's UCSB.

At Trudy's we both ordered the fish tacos, which turns out was not the recommendation given to me, but oh well. It must be a Texas thing to bread the fish in tortilla chip crumbs, which was not mentioned on the menu, nor very desirable. The atmosphere was very "college" and we were glad to be eating yet another meal outdoors, so while the tacos were not amazing, we didn't have too much to complain about.

After running around 6th Street for several hours on Friday night, we had an idea of places to check out Saturday night. We finally landed on the roof top of a bar, sipping a local Austin brew...and a Coors Light, while watching one of the many bands out and about that night. 

The next day, I was on a mission to find better tacos, for a better price, no chains allowed...well, maybe one, but I will get to the exception. Jack spent the morning looking up biking trails (to drive by) and I spent my time researching the best cheap tacos in town. I found about 5 places to check out and we set off, with the initial plan of going to Hamilton Pool, but making our unexpected food detours on the way, as breakfast had by that point, long since digested. 

I found that a Cupcake War's winning bake shop, Sugar Mama's was a mere mile or two from the hotel, so I couldn't resist a stop, and Jack was an easy sell on a sweet treat. We bought a Chocolate Mudslide and a Caramel Apple cupcake. Honestly, this was the culinary highlight of the trip for me! Moist cake, original flavors, and an adorable little hole in the wall style cupcakery.

Then, yet another mere chance, we passed one of the taco joints I had found in my morning's research. Papalotes was another little hole in the wall of a place, where you could grab 4 tacos for about $10.00. I tried a fish taco, and a fried avocado taco, while Jack had migas, one cactus, poblano and the other onions and potatoes. Much more authentic of an atmosphere, simple tastes, and very busy. I wish we had a restaurant like this in Iowa!

We were full for the moment, and headed out to Hamilton Pool, which I found when I searched Pinterest for Austin tips. It was about 30 minutes from downtown and the drive definitely had a more Western feel than in the city...Okay, I finally felt like I was outside of the Midwest. The park was secluded and you had to hike down some rough, but scenic trails to the pool. 

The pool was made from a collapsed underground riverbed, which was very cool. The website, and the ranger warned us the weekend wait for the pool could be a couple of hours. Thankfully our wait was less than a minute, and we were second in line, so I guess we lucked out.

Once we got down to the water I was surprised to see how small the area was, and how packed, towel to towel it was with people. I have to admit, the crowd there was a turn off to me, floating around in tubes, drinking Bud-light and making me feel like I was at a redneck's dream (not that there's anything wrong with that). The hiking trails were nice, and not as many people were on them as at the pool, so we went on a hike to the other side and it was very pretty. I was glad to tour the area, but I was also ready to leave after an hour or so - to feel less claustrophobic. That's one thing I noticed about both pools we went too, very busy, and I prefer to have more space between my towel and the person next to me.

That evening we popped into a local whole foods coop, Wheatsville where Jack sells his Raw Organic Whey. It was a sweet little place, and I bought more of the local kombucha. Coincidentally, right down the street from the coop was one of the taco joints highly recommended from my Yelp search that morning, Changos.  It might not have been dinner time, but it was definitely snack time, so Jack and I walked over to each try a taco. The tortilla was made in front of your eyes, the pulled the dough from a bowl, rolled it out and grilled it to a warm fluffy perfection. These were definitely the freshest tasting tacos yet, and this massive taco was under $3.

After our snack, we checked into our new hotel, and relaxed before dinner, more tacos. As you might remember from my California food post, we ate at Jack's favorite college spot in Santa Barbara, Freebirds. Freebirds became popular enough it branched out into a chain. And as one can imagine, the chains aren't even half as good as the real Freebirds, let alone have any physical similarity to the original space. The chain has a motorcycle crashing through the ceiling of the restaurant, and motorcycle handlebars attached to the condiments table, not sure where they came up with such a decor, as the real deal Freebirds is simple white and chrome. We couldn't leave Austin without trying it though, and while perhaps even more disappointed than we originally anticipated, at least we got to eat at Freebirds and the price matched the experience.

That night we went to a comedy club to hear some stand up for Sunday's open mic night. The amateur comics were better than I expected, but the bar itself was a turnoff, charging both cover and a 2 drink minimum, which I have never heard of before!

On our last day in Austin, we went to Magnolia's for a late brunch. Jack's sister Meghan recommended it to us, a favorite place from her time spent in Austin during a college internship. The restaurant was very cute, busy and serves breakfast 24 hours a day. Jack and I each ordered a side of pancakes to compliment our omelets. The "short stack" of pancakes was so huge I could have made a meal out of them alone. The pancakes were thick, fluffy and delicious. I ordered one gingerbread and one cornmeal pancake.

We took a walk around the lake after brunch, and then off to the airport to head home! The long weekend trip was the perfect amount of time to see everything we wanted to see, not feel rushed, and feel like we'd "gotten away" without getting too comfortable outside of our work routine back home. A fun, easy to navigate city for sure. I think the temperatures would be too hot for me year round, as the three months of 90 degrees we get in Iowa is too much, though Jack might disagree as he could live in the tropics!

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