A day of mostly good eats!

On Monday, I had lunch with a friend at the new Mighty Fine Burgers on Brodie Lane in Sunset Valley. Owned by the people who own Rudy's BBQ, they are more or less a local chain. They pride themselves on using all-natural beef and other all-natural ingredients. The burger was good, but I really thought the cut on-site crinkle cut fries were fantastic. Good and crispy, and not greasy. The chocolate shake was thick and rich. When we arrived about 11:15am, there were 20 people working behind the counter, and rows of red tables waiting for people to sit and eat, as there were only a handful when we walked in. By the time we left, it was almost full in there. Oh, and I have to add, the women's restroom seems totally high-brow for a burger joint! Cut-crystal chandelier, nice cabinet around the sinks....just seems a touch out of place. Wonder what the men's room is like?

For happy hour, I met another friend at the recently opened House Wine, just behind the original P. Terry's Burger on S. Lamar. It's an old bungalow house that's been smartly converted to a wine bar. There's a nice front porch and big patio area, 3 or 4 rooms inside, and a small parking lot out back. The furniture is comfortable (at least where I was sitting), and there's funky local artwork all throughout. We split a bottle of wine and got the cheese plate. You get your pick of 2 cheeses (5 total to pick from, pretty much your standards), and it comes with assorted crackers, Tuscan olive cheese spread, and pistachios. It was a nice assortment for snacking, and a great atmosphere for catching up with a good friend. I'd certainly go back!


So after staring at the drive through for P. Terry's while sitting in the front room at House Wine, I knew that my cheese and crackers were not going to suffice as dinner. If I hadn't had a burger already for lunch, P. Terry's would have been the obvious choice. However....so I wandered down S. Lamar to Pie Slice, where before I had only had pie, and how heavenly was that! This time I ordered a pizza pie to go - the blue cheese with chicken. I didn't peek at it until I got home, and it looked gorgeous! The crust was great -- very thin and crisp, and there was a TON of cheese. I mean a lot! But see how in the picture there's a greenish cast to it? Not quite what I expected from Maytag blue. Their menu says they blend blue, shallots, and jalapenos. Unfortunately, I couldn't really taste the blue at all. It was creamy, but something almost like a very mild BBQ sauce. I can't quite place the flavor, but it wasn't blue cheese, and it wasn't really jalapeno-y either. I would try one of their other pizzas, but I don't know that I would order this one again. It was a great deal, I think, for a handmade pizza, probably 12", with lots of cheese and diced chicken for $9.95. I did also get a croissant that I ate for breakfast the next morning. Once heated in the toaster oven -- yum! Wonderfully flaky and buttery.

The Mighty Cone

Street fair and festival foods are certainly a favorite category. You don't need utensils, food items are generally pretty easy to eat, and deep fried items are certainly in abundance. Mmmmm.....how can you go wrong?! One of the newest trailers to hit Austin was born at the Austin Music Festival by the wild game enthusiasts at Hudson's on the Bend. What apparently was a huge hit for Hudson's at the hot and dusty ACL is now a "permanent" fixture, and not just for one weekend in September. The Mighty Cone has now reared its pointy little head.

Situated on our hip South Congress Ave (SoCo), The Mighty Cone is in the same lot (someday to become high end apartments or will the economy kill that plan?) with Hey Cupcake, one of the early entries into Austin's trendy trailer/airstream eateries. They've barely been open a week, but this is the time to get your doors open, as multitudes of hungover SXSW party-goers could use a little fried food to cure what ails them. A report from over the weekend said the line was around the block at lunchtime. My friend and I decided to brave it anyway, heading over on St. Patty's Day. Fortunately, at 11:45 am, we beat any lunch crowd, though we were hardly the only ones there.

As you can see from the menu board, it's not an extensive list of offerings....but from this first taste of it, I'd say what they do, they do well. (But I would expect that from the folks at Hudson's.) I got the Crunchy Chicken Cone, my friend the Deluxe Chicken & Avocado Cone, and we split an order of fries. Their crunchy eats are coated in a cornflake crust with sesame seeds, and fried beautifully, as there was no grease whatsoever. Did I mention tasty? Really tasty. The tortilla-wrapped chicken was very crisp, and served with a cole slaw with a creamy, spicy dressing on it, a nice amount of heat. You can make out the shape of the corn flakes, since they're not totally pulverized. The thin cut fries were also fried to perfection and a bit of chili powder sprinkled over them. The red picnic tables are outfitted with cone holders, a definite necessity. My only complaint is that the slaw slid down to the bottom of the cone, making it a bit hard to eat without a fork....such is life, I suppose. I was totally happy with the chicken, and the chicken-avocado got high marks too.

Saw some sliders being eaten; they too are served in a cone and looked pretty yummy. Didn't see any desserts coming out, but they sound so good, I'll have to return for them -- funnel cake and a wild turtle cone! And as the side of their trailer says: eat at Hudson's for under $10!

No Knead Bread!

A no-kneading multigrain bread! And it's good! A friend had told me of a book that features no-knead bread recipes, and in the February issue of Eating Well magazine, they ran five different recipes from the book, including this multigrain.

I started it late Tuesday evening, and let it rise overnight, for about 15 hours total. (Shoulda taken a picture of the first rise, but I didn't think of it!) You then stir it, put it in a Dutch oven, sprinkle it with additional seeds, slash it, and let it rise for about another 2 hours before baking.


It is a large, very heavy loaf, with a large crumb, and a very chewy crust (did I mist it with too much water when it went into the oven?). When I slice it real thin and toast it, it reminds me of those very dense Scandinavian breads. It's been great with butter, and also with pb & j. I think it would be lovely sandwich bread if I had deli meat or the like at home to put on it! It will take me awhile to go through this loaf....if you want a piece, let me know!

All things pork

The one and only Bacon Explosion. Weighing it at 4 pounds, it's pure pork pleasure with sausage rolled up inside! Not made by me, but it was well-received at my recent pork-inspired pot luck. Mmmmmm.

Karibu Ethiopian

Karibu means "welcome" in Swahili (according to the menu), and this is a welcome addition to the multi-ethnic restaurant scene here. Located about a 1/2 mile east of IH-35 on East 7th and Attayac, Karibu seems to deliver on authentic Ethiopian tastes.

Weekdays, they have a lunch buffet, which is always a fun way to try lots of different things, and this didn't disappoint! From the photo of my plate of food, going more or less clockwise from the top: injera (the burrito-looking bread), fosolia (green beans), tikil gomen (cabbage, in the middle to the left of the rice, alicha wot (beef in a light curry herb sauce), kay wot (beef with onion, garlic, ginger & berbere spices), kik alicha (yellow split peas), kay misir wot (red lentils in a spicy sauce), and something that was just labeled as "Ethiopian bread." Not pictured, are the abesha gomen (collard greens w/ spices), but I did have a bite off someone else's plate. Everything was good, but what I really thought was outstanding (and I went back for more) were both the kay misir wot lentils and the kay wot beef dish. Both really had a nice layer of flavors -- mildly sweet, then flavorful and a touch spicy, those berbere spices at work! The beef particularly has a certain richness to it; the menu says it's cooked with purified butter (ghee?) which may account for that, as well as it's shine, without a greasy feel. Their injera is made of both teff and barley, but apparently one can order ahead of time an all-teff, and hence gluten free, injera. It was a very tender injera, and didn't taste quite as fermented (the dough takes about 3 days to make) as those I have had before.

Now I certainly don't claim to be an expert on Ethiopian food, and I have enjoyed the food of Aster's, both from the farmer's market and their restaurant; it's been a while since I have eaten their food, so I will have to revisit Aster's to compare. I would love to come back to Karibu and try the lamb dish that's on their menu. They had friendly service, and according to their website, live music on Fri and Sat nights. Worth a trip from South Austin to East Austin, for sure!