Here's where I write stuff about lunch
Taverna February 8, 2010
When passing Taverna most everyday on my way to work, I always think that I'd like to try it. But by the time I get to work, work a while and hook up with Brian for lunch, I forget about Taverna. Until this day.
Taverna is in downtown Austin, catty corner from city hall. Kitty corner? kat-a-korner? Whatever.
We were the first to arrive and the host said we could sit anywhere we liked. Brian picked a table by the window where we could watch a workman welding the new "W" hotel together.
They have a lunch menu (PDF) with fairly reasonable prices (for an upscale italian neighborhood restaurant). There are several dishes centering around risotto and another several with various pastas. I ordered the Paglia e Fieno, which is thin pasta with chicken, wild mushrooms and a truffle oil and cream sauce. I mentioned to Brian that I was a little worried that it would be rubbery chicken, but he'd been there before and assured me it would be good chicken.
Brian got the Fettucine Frutti di Mare. I think because he wanted to say "Frutti." It had fettucine with shrimp, mussels, clams and scallops in a brandy crustacean cream sauce.
While we waited for our food, Brian took off-kilter pictures of the restaurant. Here's one of the bar area where we could watch food porn on the TV. God bless Paula Dean.
Here's another of the kitchen.
They serve focaccia bread with a small bowl of olive oil and vinegar. The vinegar is already poured into the olive oil, and it's great fun trying to get the vinegar to stick to the bread with the oil. The bread is wonderful like a light pizza crust covered with parmesan cheese.
The food arrived, and much to my relief, the chicken in my pasta wasn't rubbery. We both enjoyed our entrees. Brian asked about dessert, and they had the standard italian fare: panna cotta, chocolate cake, tiramisu, creme brulee. We didn't get any, but I'm sure it would be as fabulous as everything else.
After lunch, we went next door to "Jo's Hot Coffee" where neither of us got hot coffee. Brian got iced coffee, and I got an iced mocha. My only complaint about the mocha is that the whipped cream was really whipped topping from a can. I scraped it off in an immature fit.
We enjoyed our lunch at Taverna. Here's an off-kilter picture of Brian at Taverna.
Amaya's Taco Village December 12, 2009
Amayas Taco Village isn't really a village. It's a Mexican food joint in the Capital Plaza strip mall in Austin, Texas. They warn that their food is habit forming.
There's a store called the Fallas store in the same shopping center, and Brian says that no store in Texas should ever be called the Fallas store.
Brian and I usually go to lunch at 10:50 to beat the crowds, and we arrived at Amaya's at about 11:10. It was already crowded, though, because the breakfast crowd was still there. It's good to go early anyway because if you arrive much later, you have to wait for a table.
We got right in and started studying the menu. The Mexican plate looked good to me with a taco, enchilada, tamale, rice and beans. Brian ordered the Deluxe dinner which is the same except with an added chalupa.
When we ordered, the waitress asked us many questions. Things like "Do you want onions on that?" and "Beef, chicken or cheese enchilada?" and "Beef or chicken taco?" and "Red or green sauce?" The choices were plenty.
While we waited for our food, we talked about college mascots. I told him how goofy the Nebraska mascot is... a big, dorky, inflated, cornhusker kid with a sideways cap. Brian said the Ohio State mascot is pretty goofy, too, but at least the buckeye candies are good.
The food arrived, and it was yummy and filling. The corn tortillas are fantastic, and I don't usually like corn tortillas. They're homemade and thick.
The bill arrived and there was a problem. Brian had asked for fajita meat on his chalupa, and the waitress told him it would be an extra charge, and he was okay with that. But the bill had two extra charges: Add picadillo 1.79 and add fajita $4.99. It seemed it cost $7 to upgrade a chalupa to fajita meat. We were about to call the Guinness Book of World Records people for the costliest chalupa upgrade, but the waitress reviewed the bill and with a cute grin told us she must have pressed the wrong button. She offered us separate checks when she went to fix the bill, and we always appreciate that.
While we were waiting for her to press the right button, Brian pondered a business opportunity for an upscale chalupa restaurant where the chalupas range from $7 - $30. We could serve a variety of things on chalupas like escargot (snails!) or foie gras (fatty goose or duck liver). We're not sure the world is ready for that yet.
Cantina Laredo November 12, 2009
Lunch with Brian Bullet-o-Rama:
- We went to Cantina Laredo and did NOT get guacamole made right at our table.
- A piece of chicken from Brian's chimichanga tried to escape from his mouth, but only made it as far as his lip before his reptilian tongue reeled it back in.
- I poked a hole in my chin with my thumb nail gesticulating. (That means I injured myself talking with my hands.)
- Brian was rubbing his foot on the bottom of the table leg until he found out it was really my foot. I thought he was playing footsie.
- As we were leaving, Brian couldn't take his eyes off a man with a salt and pepper wannabe fauxhawk and walked smack into a guy entering the restaurant.
- I was deep in conversation with Brian when the waiter asked, "How was your lunch?" I started to answer, but then I realized we hadn't been served yet, so my reply was, "Uhhh... wait... what?" He asked again, "How was your lunch?" I said, "We haven't gotten it yet." The waiter said with a smirk, "I know. It'll be right out." Huh?
- Derrick, another waiter, has a cowlick.
- Feliz Navidad was playing over the sound system. Christmas comes so early now, I'm going to write a song. It'll start, "On the 45th day of Christmas, Brian gave to me, footsie under the table."
Coco's Cafe October 20, 2009
Coco's Cafe serves Taiwanese food and bubble tea on a strip of the University of Texas drag that has a high concentration of bubble tea vendors.
We delighted in our first opportunity to park using what Brian calls a "P" box, which sounds like a relief station for the homeless, but is really a solar powered parking sticker dispenser.
There were guys out front painting the awning purple and gold. Throw in a darker green, and it would have looked like Taiwanese Mardi Gras.
We made our way inside without walking under a ladder to find what Brian called Taiwanese hip hop playing over the sound system.
I ordered pepper steak with rice, egg in blanket and a watermelon bubble drink. The tapioca pearls (bubbles) were still cooking, so they offered to put pudding or gelatin in my drink. I told them I'd wait for the bubbles. Brian ordered fried chicken and rice and was going to order a bubble drink, but didn't want to wait or have pudding or gelatin in his drink.
They have free soup! You have to serve yourself, so I didn't realize it was there at first. Brian is a seasoned Coco's patron and let me in on the secret.
The egg in blanket came out first, and it was wonderful. It was served with soy sauce. I accused Brian of putting my soup spoon in the soy sauce, but then I found my spoon hiding under the edge of my plate. I apologized to Brian. I have a bad habit of accusing people of taking my things. When my scissors go missing at work, I accuse everyone around me of stealing them, but then I find them in one of my drawers later.
They have good chopsticks at Coco's. They are smooth, wooden ones. Not the splintery kind they have at Panda Express, and not the plastic, slippery kind they have at P.F. Chang's.
When our food came, we found ourselves listening to a Taiwanese version of the Pet Shop Boys. I didn't like my pepper steak. It was gelatinous in a way that pleased Brian, but not me. Brian's fried chicken was quite good.
My watermelon bubble drink came later. I always think bubble drinks are going to be delicious and fun, but then I get tired of dealing with the tapioca balls before they're even half gone.
The cup had a very wise suggestion that I abide by to this day: Don't eat children under 5.
Children under 5 not suggest to eat
Perry's Steakhouse - Fancy Friday with Hunt and Sarah September 30, 2009
Brian made reservations for Friday lunch at Perry's Steakhouse in downtown Austin. They have a pork chop lunch special for $10.95 on Fridays that makes it affordable for us plebs.
We met our friend Sarah and Brian's brother Hunt. Being Fancy Friday at an upscale restaurant, Sarah and I dressed up. I wore my black jacket and some fancy naturalizer shoes. Sarah wore a skirt she got for $15 at a bridesmaid sale.
Hunt was worried he didn't follow the new solar-powered, ticket dispensing parking meter procedure correctly. Parking downtown is hard.
Perry's front door has a handle shaped like the letter P. Or a nose, depending on how you look at it.
While we were waiting for Hunt to figure the parking out, I told Brian that I wondered if I could get fries instead of whipped potatoes. The fries looked better than the whipped on the sign out front. Brian said if I did, I should call them pommes frites since that's the fancy name for fries.
They seated us next to the wine which was walled off by glass. It was quite an impressive display.
Big band standards were playing overhead. The kind of songs you might hear on a fine day at the retirement home.
The pre-meal bread was wonderful. White bread and salty butter. Yum. The butter was chilled and a little hard to spread. Brian said they should invent a butter laser to make spreading chilled butter easier.
The waitress was quite aggressive with the table clearing. I had my Lunch with Brian tools (camera and electronic note taking device) on the table, but they were in her way when she drew out the bread crumb razor to shave the crumbs from the table cloth. I said, "Oh, let me get that crap out of the way." And then red-faced, "Whoops... I just said 'crap' in a fancy restaurant."
When Hunt saw her nimble wrists pushing the crumbs about with the bread crumb razor, he thought we might be getting ready to do lines of bread crumbs.
Then there was the meal. Oh yum.
The pork chop was huge and had a dollop of blue cheese butter and a lime on top. The waitress explained the anatomy of the pork chop. It's made up of the eyelash, the loin and the baby back ribs. I think Aesop wrote a fable about that.
My pommes frites weren't anything special, but the ketchup (or is it catsup at a fancy restaurant) came in a gravy boat. The whipped potatoes that the others got weren't anything special, either, but the pork chop was super-extra special, so no complaints.
Sarah said she felt like she was living in a commercial for the other white meat. Hunt said, "What these people call a pork chop, my folks would call a roast."
While we were eating, the waitress asked if we'd like to start thinking about dessert. It seemed early, but she had good reason. They make a chocolate cake with a molten fudge center and a scoop of Amy's vanilla ice cream that takes 20 minutes to prepare. It takes so long because they bake it while you eat your entree. We ordered it!
While we ate and waited for our chocolate cake, the conversation was entertaining. Brian talked about people at work who always burn their popcorn. He wonders how they ever learned not to mess their pants.
Brian and Hunt also talked about a trip they took to Corpus Christi.
Brian: Hunt and I were in a hotel room in Corpus Christi and our TV remote was broken.
Hunt: Because you broke it.
Brian: Be that as it may ...
The freshly baked cake arrived, and Brian was reminded of Pillsbury's Tunnel of Fudge Cake. Except gourmet style.
After sharing luscious chocolate cake and receiving a small shopping bag with his leftover chop, Hunt said, "I'm so full, my back hurts," at which point Brian belched audibly. I think they knew to seat us in the corner behind a wall.
In a rare swapping of roles, Brian, the writer, used math to figure up the bill while I, the accountant, took notes to prepare for this write-up. You can see evidence of his long division and borrowing the one for subtraction:
Perry's is definitely on track to becoming a Fancy Friday favorite.
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