don’t mess with (the food in) texas

kimchi tacosSee those tacos? And those spicy fries? B and I ate that at 2 o’clock in the morning this past Sunday night — Monday morning, whatever. So much for our book diet, right? [Update on that at the end of this post.] We were in Austin, Texas for SXSW and we decided to treat ourselves. If you’re gonna do it, ya gotta go all in, right?

So after we danced off some calories at the foursquare party, we strolled over to the Chilantro BBQ truck and dove into two orders of Korean BBQ tofu tacos (for me), one order of beef tacos (for him), and super special spicy fries (to share).

Unfortunately B lost his phone Friday night — that’s a story for another time — so I don’t have photos from our first dinner at Torchy’s Tacos, which is a MUST if you ever get to Austin — but here are some other food highlights from the weekend.

I am going to try and recreate this shrimp salad with avocado cream dressing from Manuel’s for my girlfriends when I’m away with them this weekend. Simple, healthy, delicious. Also need to investigate what kind of salsa they brought to the table when we sat down, cause it was phenomenal.

salad with shrimpWhen I asked our waiter at Iron Cactus about making our guacamole by mashing all the ingredients with two forks — no spoon, no mortar, no pestle — his response was: “Why? Why not?” B says this place is an institution — I say go for the fork-made guac and shrimp tacos.

guac with forkThe best party (and food) of the weekend was at David Carr and his wife Jill’s hotel room. She waited in line for three hours at Franklin, a world famous spot, to create this smorgasbord for us. When I told Jill Abramson that, her response was: “We should all be married to a woman like that.” (I couldn’t agree more.) Anyway I plan on finding out what kind of mustard they put in their potato salad, because it melted in my mouth. I had two, maybe three plates of that and the coleslaw, since I don’t eat meat — but man, did that brisket look delicious.

carr bbq spreadIt even impressed my friends from Immaculate Infatuation, who stopped by for some good eats. And these guys know good food!

immaculate screengrab
And look who else showed up — none other than the hilarious, delightful Jeffrey Tambor! B recently wrote a fascinating Page One story about TV being made for the Internet (as opposed to traditional TV networks) and he talked to him about shooting the Onion News pilot for Amazon. [Fun fact: they shot it at my office, inside NY1!]

Jeffrey Tambor* Promised book diet update: I’m down 4 pounds, with 4 more to go. B’s down 15 pounds, with 20 more to go. And we actually got some news last week: his book is now being published 2 weeks earlier than planned! Mark your calendars: Top of the Morning comes out Tuesday, April 23rd. *

3 thoughts on “don’t mess with (the food in) texas

  1. Great post- as an ATX native let me suggest Taco Deli, If you’re still in Austin and are looking for some more Taco GREATNESS head there! Best taco’s in Austin, in my opinion!

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