From The Austin Post, a venue of which I was previously unaware, comes ridiculously awesome bacon sculptures. Come for the full mech suit and the AK-47, stay for Patrick Bateman’s business card.
Posts Tagged ‘Food’
Ridiculously Awesome Bacon Sculptures
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012Austin Dining Review: Chagos
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012(Note: This is a restaurant review that will eventually end up on The Logbook of the Saturday Dining Conspiracy, but since: A.) We’ve pretty much sucked at keep that up to date, and B.) We both have blogs, and, hey, content!, I thought I’d start putting my reviews up in transit to the main SDC pages.)
Chagos Caribbean Cuisine
7301 N Lamar Blvd.
Austin, Texas 78752
(512) 275-6013
http://www.chagos.biz/
Dining Date: March 24, 2012
This is a nice, cheap, hole-in-the-wall restaurant on a stretch (north Lamar between Airport and 183) that has traditionally been hostile to any restaurant not named “Kim Phung.” Although the plantano and yucca chips didn’t grab me, the chicken appetizer was sort of interesting, the salad wasn’t bad, and my Bistec Encebollado was reasonably tasty.
My Tres Leches cake was quite deliciously sweet but undersized. Service was attentive and personal, but they weren’t particularly busy.
If you live nearby, and are in the mood for something both cheap and not bland TexMex, Chagos is worth a try.
New Frontiers in Garlic Peeling
Friday, March 16th, 2012So I saw this video on Fark on how to peel garlic in ten seconds by shaking the cloves between two steel bowls a while back:
I make fresh salsa from time to (and have won some honorable mentions at a local hot sauce competition for same), and one of the biggest pains in the ass is peeling 4-5 whole bulbs of fresh garlic (the jar stuff just doesn’t work as well). So I thought I would give it a try.
What do you know? It works. Not 10 seconds, or quite as well peeled as in the video, but my two steel bowls are smaller than this guy’s. Even so, this easily cut about 80% of my garlic peeling time, which adds up to over an hour in the course of a year.
This may be an old tip for many of you, but I thought I would share it for those who regularly have to peel garlic…
A Frozen Pizza Home Run
Monday, November 7th, 2011I don’t tend to buy frozen pizza (for a lot of reasons), but I did recently pick up a Home Run Inn Meat Lovers Pizza at Central Market when I went there for salsa fixing. Though it does cost more than average (about $7.50), it turned out to be significantly better than your average DiGiorno’s/Red Baron/Tombstone “premium” meat pizza, with both better meat and a better crust. Anyway, if you’re near a Central Market and have a hankering for pizza, you could do worse…
Best Potato Chips Ever
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011By serendipitous chance, I have stumbled across the most delicious potato chips I’ve ever tasted.
You’re probably thinking “Oh, they’re probably truffle-flavored French potato chips you found at Central Market, and they’re $20 a bag.”
No. I found them at a convenience store in a combination Chevron/ McDonald’s in Cedar Creek on Highway 71 between Bastrop and Austin, they’re roasted garlic flavor, and they’re 79¢ a bag. And they’re made, of all places, in Detroit.
Behold Uncle Ray’s Roasted Garlic Potato Chips:
They taste like a really good slice of garlic bread, except saltier and crisper.
I don’t often eat potato chips (for all the obvious reasons), but if Central Market did have these, I’d definitely stock up for my next party…
Dear Renaissance Austin Hotel: Please Make Up Your Freaking Mind
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011A while back there was an announcement that “Blue Ribbon Restaurant opened in the Renaissance Austin Hotel, 9721 Arboretum Blvd.” Indeed, the corporate mothership mentioned the Austin version yesterday while crowing that the same menu will be trotted out to different Renaissance hotels around the country.
Fine. Dandy. Except for the fact that Renaissance Austin Hotel doesn’t seem to have ever heard of it, and it isn’t found on their list of restaurants. Calling the Renaissance and asking for the restaurant gets you Banderas-A Texas Bistrot, which I’ve eaten at before, and which I found most notable for its glacial serving pace. And when I called the Renaissance to ask if they had a Blue Ribbon Restaurant, the girl answering the phone said no.
Anyway, Blue Ribbon Restaurant sounds like the sort of place I would like to try, especially since Armadillocon will be in the Renaissance again this year. But only if it, you know, actually exists.
New World’s Hottest Pepper: The Naga Viper
Friday, December 3rd, 2010Or so they claim. It comes in at a hefty 1,359,000 Scoville units, or about 7 times hotter than the average Habanero.
I am something of a chilihead, and am renowned near and fa-, well, actually, only near, for making a very hot salsa. (It earned Honorable Mention in the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Contest a couple of years.) However, having tasted Melinda’s Naga Jolokia Hot Sauce, made from the previous hottest pepper (also known as the “ghost pepper”), I’m not sure I’m up to the task. It’s not that my taste buds aren’t up to it; rather the problem lies at, ah, the other end. My body has let me know in no uncertain terms that if I want to eat something that hot, it’s going to pass it through my gastrointestinal tract as fast as it possibly can. This, needless to say, has its downside.
Still, I’d be willing to try this. Once.
(Hat tip: Fark.)
Funny Looking Food
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010Or rather, a website devoted to same.
Dear Austin Restaurateurs: What the hell is wrong with you?
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010So Dwight and I were discussing possible venues for the next Saturday Dining Conspiracy. Having been burned in the past by places that closed before we got there, we always try to call ahead to make sure they’re open. Today showed at least one obstacle standing between several Austin Restaurateurs and profit: their inability to competently answer a phone call.
- First a call to a place called Flamin’ Grill & Kebob House (which I had a coupon for) in Round Rock: “Hello?” answers the voice at the other in a dead monotone. No “Flamin’ Grill and Kebob House, how can I help you?” Not even “Flaimin Grill.” So I ask if this is, in fact, “Flamin’ Grill & Kebob House.” “Yes,” he answered in a voice that clearly implied I was imposing on his time, and that he would prefer to be anywhere else at that moment rather than answering a restaurant’s phone. With that kind of attitude toward the business, we crossed them off the list.
- Next up: Ilse’s Kitchen, a German Restaurant out in Spicewood. The phone rings ten times (despite it being within the specified business hours), then something like a fax machine pics up, evidently waiting for you to start a fax; no message, no beep, nothing.
- Third try: Your Mom’s Burger Bar. Calling the number listed on their website (474-MOMS) brings up a message saying that “this NXP semiconductor number is no longer in service.”.
Look, I know that telephones are musty old 20th century technology, but is it too much to ask that: A.) The phone number on your own website is correct, and that B.) You answer it when it rings in a (at the minimum) polite manner? Is that just too much to ask of you?
Get Double Down
Friday, April 23rd, 2010To celebrate Earth Day, probably the second-fakest of all fake holidays (behind Kwanzaa), I reached out for the infamous KFC Double Down, the only food brave enough to ask the question “How can I possibly make a fried chicken sandwich less healthy?” and boldly answer “By replacing the buns with fried chicken!”
Behold the KFC Double-Down, ye healthy, and despair!
The verdict? It’s OK, but laudable political incorrectness aside, it didn’t knock me out. The chicken-breasts-as-bun concept works pretty well, but I thought the chicken itself was a little dry (which is why I tend to prefer dark meat over white), and I prefer my cheese fully (rather than partially) melted. And if I’m going to eat something bad for me, I’m probably going to get a big juicy burger or pick up some Popeye’s extra spicy.
Also, I would like to make one tiny correction to Jay Lake’s otherwise fine review (“The Double Down lurking in its lair, like a rabid weasel after a night huffing duct sealant with disbarred sorority sisters”): Because the chicken breasts are breaded, they aren’t technically carb-free.
(By the way, the “I reached out” bit in the opening sentence is a homage to the Houston Chronicle‘s “Drive-Thru Gourmet” Ken Hoffman. Not only does Hoffman do a swell job in the gig, the very idea of having a Drive-thru Gourmet is inspired, and a great public service. After all, for every Chronicle reader that has a chance to eat at, say Artista, there are probably 2,000 who eat at KFC.
Oh, and Hoffman has reviewed the Double Down as well. )