links for 2007-06-09

• City lends a hand to Las Manitas - Austin Business Journal
  This is kind of wacky to me, but Las Manitas will move down the street to make way for a new development, with the help of a forgivable loan from the City of Austin.
  (tags: 2007 LasManitas Austin)

There's more from Austin, TX

I couldn't begin to encapsulate everything we did in the past four days, so please:

See my Flickr photos from Austin, TX, SXSW and every restaurant we ate in
Then be sure to view Summer's, Cole's and Rex's photos.

Summer has also blogged some of the restaurants where we ate, and Rex has blogged several sessions I didn't attend, and some I did.

Finally, NYC sister's fiance's coworker saw all these restaurant reports here on Fixin' Supper, and he passed along these recommendations for the next time I'm in town:

Z Tejas is highly recommended, especially the apple cobbler, and you'll probably need reservations. East Side Cafe apparently has a greenhouse attached to the restaurant, so at least some of the food is grown right there. And he concurs with your conclusions about The Salt Lick and Guero's.

It's a plate of fried goodness

Fr top left: Fried okra, corn nuggets,
fried catfish

That's the first thing that came to mind when the waitress brought my plate last night at Hill's Cafe in Austin, TX. It was all good but I liked the catfish best; it was almost but not quite as good as the Catfish Hotel in Hagy, TN.

The corn nuggets were fascinating...basically fried nuggets of cream-style corn. My only beef: they had sweetened the corn. I am a documented fan of field corn and see no need to add extra sugar to already sweet corn.

At any rate, great meal!

The Salt Lick, Austin TX

  Texas-style barbecue

We went to the Salt Lick Sunday night. If you aren't a vegetarian, you must make this fabulous restaurant in Driftwood, Texas, a definite stop on your tour of Austin.

The brisket is great, the dill pickles crunchy and pucker-inducing and the ribs are very flavorful.

My complaint remains from my first visit to the Salt Lick: With all the other great home cooking here, why are they serving us store-bought bread? There's some on my plate here but I ate little of it. It offends the palate compared with the other authentic Texas barbecue fare.

More photos in my Flickr account.

Guero's Taco Bar: Two thumbs up

  I'm stuffed.

We had a great meal tonight at Guero's Taco Bar on South Congress in Austin, TX. The building is a former feed store, and it's more than 100 years old. Sadly, they had to laminate and post a sign to that effect at our table, to admonish diners not to write on the walls.

What would inspire you to write on the walls anywhere, I'm not sure. [Yes, I was that square when I was a kid, too.]

They had so many different margaritas that I didn't know how to choose. I had "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and I'm sorry to report I don't remember what made it unique. It was good but not the best margarita I've ever had.

But my word, the food here is phenomenal. I ordered enchiladas verdes -- one chicken and one cheese. I could barely get through 2/3 of my meal....lots of food. But, just absolutely fresh and homemade. There is nothing better than a homemade tortilla. Wow. I was delighted with the whole meal. Fresh, melt-in-your-mouth tender chicken, one of the most unusual cheese enchiladas I've had, and really flavorful rice.

Good stuff.

The best thing ever: Trip to Austin

I couldn't be more excited: Tomorrow midday, I fly out to Austin, Texas, for SXSW!! I first attended SXSW Interactive two years ago, and it proved to be not only one of the best conferences I've ever been to, but also a great culinary experience.

Some of my restaurant reviews from two years ago, in the early days of Fixin' Supper:
Las Manitas
The Salt Lick
The County Line
Katz's Deli
The Hula Hut
[Several of these used to have photos, but I lost them when I moved my blog to Typepad a number of months ago. I'll see if I can track him down.]

I'm definitely eating every free meal again at Las Manitas, and we're also planning a group trip down to the Salt Lick again. I'm not sure what else is on tap, but watch this space for updates and pics.

Developers set to kill another local institution

One of my favorite restaurants in the world is in Austin, Texas. And I learned from my boss Rex this morning, and from an LA Times article, that they're likely going to tear it down to build a 3-hotel megacomplex. I discovered Las Manitas by happenstance a couple of years ago. I was at SXSW-Interactive and the food in the convention center was pitiful. I had about an hour before my first session started, so I asked the lady at the information desk where I could get a decent breakfast. She said, "Well if it were me, I'd just walk the four blocks to Las Manitas." So I did and it was fantastic. I went back later for lunch. The restaurant's food is incredible...simple, homecooked Mexican cuisine...but the atmosphere of the place really adds to the experience. It's got a lunch counter, a front room crowded with booths and tables [Nashville, think Vandyland --another great restaurant gone -- with great Mexican food], but the coolest part is the open-air courtyard in the back. You walk through the kitchen to sit there.

Hopefully this isn't the end for Las Manitas, but it doesn't look good.

Lots of interest in BBQ

I know I said the last time I wrote on this topic that I wouldn't be doing so again. In fact, I called it "The Last Post on Barbecue." But I've been reading David Plotz's barbecue pilgrimmage diary all week in Slate and so I can't just leave it out there without saying something.

A. The guy disses on Memphis big-time. I'm not sure why he expected to find real West Tennessee barbecue at two of the most touristy restaurants in the city. Sigh. Go with a native next time, will ya?

B. The best part of the whole series is the exchange between the author and some security agents at the Austin airport at the end of his trip. They've caught Plotz with a jar of Kansas City BBQ sauce in his bag and let him have it:

At the Austin airport, I was singled out for a special security screening. The TSA agent fingering through my bag pulled out a jar of barbecue sauce I had bought at Gates in Kansas City. "What's this?" she asked.

"It's barbecue sauce," I said.

"I know it's barbecue sauce. I mean, what kind of sauce is it? I've never seen this kind before."

"It's from Kansas City."

She grimaced at this. Holding the jar like it contained C-4 explosive, she showed it to another screener. "Look, this guy has some kind of barbecue sauce from New York City or something," she told the other screener derisively.

"Kansas City," I weakly interrupted.

She waved me off, then said in an ominous voice. "Now, why would you have that?"

"I was on a barbecue tour," I answered. "I started in Kansas City, and finished here."

"Did you go to Rudy's?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"You came to Texas for barbecue, and you didn't go to Rudy's?" She turned to her partner. "He came to Texas, and he didn't go to Rudy's!" The partner shook his head.

"What about the Salt Lick?" she asked. I shook my head no again. She made a face.

The partner continued the interrogation. "How about the County Line?"

I shook my head.

"Well, where did you go?" the screener asked in an exasperated voice.

Heh. We all have our own ideas on this one, don't we? You're really only happy with your own barbecue. I still don't know how to explain South Carolina mustard sauce, but hey, it's not my barbecue.

The County Line

My last night in Austin I went out with a friend of mine from college. He has lived there for several years and gave me a great tour of town, all around UT [enormous!], up Mount Bonnell, through West Lake Hills, neat neighborhoods in downtown and to several great views of the river that runs through town.

We wrapped up at the County Line, another barbecue restaurant that is inexplicably not near the county line. Again, an amazing variety of meat called "barbecue." But it was very good. I had the chicken and turkey. I actually think my favorite part of the whole meal was the appetizer: jalepeno jack poppers. Monterey Jack cheese, laced with jalepenos, breaded and fried. A little ranch dressing for dipping....mmmm.

The Salt Lick

I've written about barbecue before, but you can't come to Texas without the subject coming up. Summer has been telling us how great The Salt Lick is for the longest time, and having put down Texas barbecue my whole life, I was eager to confirm my assertions.

The Salt Lick is near Driftwood, Texas, relatively near Austin. An easy drive for dinner for sure. I don't think it's near much else, but that isn't a negative. I think they had to put it out there to accommodate the hundreds of cars that show up every night. Even when Cole [playing photographer here], Summer, Rex and I arrived last night around 7:30, we waited around an hour or so for a table. This at a restaurant with two enormous banquet halls to seat all the patrons.

S.L. is in a dry county, so it's a bring-your-own place. The hanging-out atmosphere in the waiting area of the gravel parking lot really reminds you of a family reunion or a church picnic. For one, there are a million people there. Everyone's drinking a beer, sitting on picnic tables or standing around talking, and dozens of little kids are running around, throwing rocks and jumping off the stone walls. Good times.

We were lucky because we got to eat on the side with the pit. It just sits right behind the cash register when you walk in the door. I guess there are lots of other barbecue restaurants with indoor pits, but it seems so odd to walk right in and see it there. It sure smells good, though. Yikes on the fire insurance. On the other hand, maybe they don't have any. They're in the middle of nowhere, so probably volunteer fire department. It's a wooden building with a big stone pit in the middle? Hmmm.

The best part of the experience was dinner. Now, I'm not being untrue to my roots in saying this. While Texas "barbecue" is definitely meat cooked in a barbecue style, it's just not barbecue. Barbecue is pulled pork. Period. You can also make barbecued ribs. To me, it's even two different things to "go eat barbecue" and "go eat ribs." But here in Texas, barbecue is all meat.

We ate family style. The spread included cole slaw, potato salad, bread, sausage, brisket, ribs and onions. There was more than one comment along the lines of "the best sausage I've ever eaten." It was all good. But as we also observed, you keep us waiting and hour and a half, we'd eat an old tire.