“Hell yes. We have hundreds of people coming.”
—Danny Payne of III Forks, a steakhouse in downtown Austin, responding to the Statesman asking if he was going to be open tonight, after someone drove a car into the front entrance last night.
Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Quote of the day.
Monday, February 14th, 2011Notes on Lucky J’s Chicken and Waffles.
Sunday, February 13th, 2011
Lucky J's menu.
I’ve had a couple of people ask me if I was going to do a review of Lucky J’s once I’d had a chance to eat there. Here you go:
- This wasn’t what I was expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.
- The “2×2” is actually a pretty hefty plate of food for $9; two waffles and two large-ish pieces of fried chicken. In retrospect, the “1×1” or one of the tacos would have met my needs.
- Not having coffee is a serious strike against any place I’d consider going for breakfast. The selection of non-coffee drinks didn’t impress me much, either.
- I’m not a big fried chicken person, but I thought Lucky J’s chicken was pretty decent, with a dark, slightly peppery batter.
- On the other hand, the waffles are a little thinner than I was expecting. I think I was looking for something more along the lines of a Belgian waffle, thick and with a slightly crackling crust, rather than the thinner waffles Lucky J’s serves.
- Being “out of turkey” when half the sandwiches on your menu have turkey in them is a bad thing.
- I could have lived without the loud 101x on the boombox in the dining room. Also, you damn kids need to get off my lawn.
- There’s not a lot of seating, maybe four tables total. On the other hand, we were the only people there. (Except for one guy who got a to-go order, and one woman who walked in while we were eating, and walked back out after discovering the lack of turkey.)
Would I go back? I think I would, but they need a month or two or three to settle into a groove. It would help some if they had less of an Austin slacker vibe. I’d like to try some of the waffle tacos, but the lack of coffee and the weird 11 AM – 4 PM schedule are drawbacks for me.
The bitter, bitten.
Friday, February 11th, 2011There’s a guy in Pflugerville who leases out food trucks to independent operators. He had some issues with the way the City of Austin regulated food trucks, and started lobbying for stricter rules “to address health, safety and environmental concerns”. Ultimately, the City Council did make some changes to the law.
Can you guess what’s coming?
More:
Followup roundup for February 9, 2011.
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011Staff Sergeant and Medal of Honor recipient Sal Giunta is leaving the military when his current tour ends in mid-June.
You know, if I ran a public (or private) university somewhere, I’d come up with the money to offer Sgt. Giunta a full free ride for four years. Maybe he’d be willing to work part-time, perhaps as a mentor to younger students who could use some help?
The NYT reports on the controversy over early “Spider-Man” reviews.
Lucky J’s Chicken and Waffles has opened their sit-down restaurant. Until I visited their website, I had no idea how tough these guys have had it. I knew about the trailer theft, of course, but the death of a child, divorce, and reconstructive hand surgery? This guy sounds like Austin’s own version of Job. I’m going to try Lucky J’s this weekend; not because of the suffering, but because I like the idea, and because it’s sort of on my usual weekend path. (Man does not live by Torchy’s Tacos alone. Though I have to admit, the new location on Burnet Road is much nicer than some of the others I’ve been to.) Full report to follow.
The LAT would like for you to know that cockfighting is bad, m’kay? And not just because people sometimes get stabbed to death by roosters with blades.
Random notes: February 8, 2011.
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011There are a couple of interesting things in the NYT this morning.
J. Paul Getty III passed away over the weekend. That’s a name (like Koo Stark, he said, tipping his hat in Lawrence’s direction) I hadn’t thought of in years. Getty was most famous as the victim of a kidnapping “by Italian gangsters” during which his ear was cut off. I knew he was something of a party animal, but I was unaware of his 1981 stroke (apparently the result of an overdose). I was also unaware that Balthazar Getty was his son.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles (and specifically LACMA) are trying to figure out how to maintain the Watts Towers, and how to get more tourists to a part of town that’s most famous for riots.
And the NYT has made their move:
Yes, this is a real review.
The fallout from the NYT decision should be interesting. The pin has been pulled from Mr. Grenade. He is no longer Ben Brantley’s friend. On the other hand, Charles McNulty in the LAT has Brantley’s back:
And it looks like Peter Marks in the WP is standing with Brantley and McNulty:
Charles Willeford
In other news, the WP has discovered (reporter with a database!) that people in “Washington’s safest, most well-to-do neighborhoods” have registered more guns than people in “poorer, crime-plagued areas of the city”. I may have more to say on this later, time permitting.
Edited to add: I was in a hurry to finish that last post and hadn’t got to the Statesman yet, unfortunately. I previously noted the fires at several Austin restaurants, including the Green Muse Cafe. (There was also a recent fire at Habana, which I didn’t note for reasons that escape me at the moment.)
Anyway, APD made an arrest:
“The Leonard Cohen of drinks”?
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011That’s the NYT‘s description of sake: “passionately adored by a small cadre of loyalists, but relegated to the category of ‘mysterious obscurity’ among the masses.”
In spite of this unfortunate metaphor, the actual article, about Japanese restaurants in Las Vegas that serve very high end sake, contains some interesting bits. For example, there’s Frozen Beauty sake, aged for 12 years in cold storage and selling for a mere $2,388 per (720 ml) bottle.
And let us not overlook Divine Droplets, “made by hanging canvas bags of fermenting mash in a handmade ice dome, during the frigid winter in the Hokkaido Prefecture, and patiently letting the sake filter out in a slow, pure drip.” That’s a mere $72 a bottle. (I am assuming that all of these bottles are 720 ml, but I’m not sure; the NYT annoyingly doesn’t specify.)
Important safety tip. (#3 in a series)
Monday, January 31st, 2011This has been said many times, in many places, but I think it bears repeating for reasons that I’ll illustrate shortly:
GPS systems are a guide and a tool. They are not absolutely perfect. They are human designed systems that can fail.
Also, no matter how insistent that voice is, and no matter how often it says “Recalculating”, your GPS system is not the boss of you. You are the person in control of the vehicle; you have the option to ignore it, mute it, or even throw it out the window. (I even know one person who took a perverse enjoyment in tormenting their car’s GPS system by driving in circles.)
Several things bring this to mind. Some folks who were attending Saturday’s SDC found that their GPS systems were showing a location for Korean Grill that was quite a bit off from the actual location. (By the way, Korean Grill is a pretty darn spiffy place; I recommend giving it a shot.) On Sunday, we had a similar experience trying to find the Gruene Door; somehow, we ended up in a residential area several hundred feet behind the Gruene Door, and more or less stumbled on the restaurant through pure luck. (Also: the Gruene Door was fantastic. I’d like to go back sometime soon.)
And then there’s this story from the Sacramento Bee:
And then they get stuck in the middle of nowhere in 120 degree heat where there’s no cell phone service and wind up drinking their own urine to survive. Or just simply vanish until someone stumbles across their remains in the desert.
It does seem like there may be a little more to this than just GPS failures. (Why aren’t closed roads better marked? Perhaps with a big sign: “ROAD CLOSED. IF YOU GO PAST THIS POINT YOU WILL DIE.“) But the main problem still seems to be blind trust in a technology that can fail.
(Unfortunately, I can’t find a YouTube clip of the Hill Street Blues episode where Joyce Davenport lectures one of her clients on desert survival techniques. Too bad, because she’s actually got some pretty sound advice to offer.)
Dinner with Dick.
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011Or “Nixon In China: The Dinner”:
I’d always thought that Nixon had rather crappy taste in food; his cottage cheese with catsup is notorious. However, at least according to this web site (which provides sources) the catsup thing is a base canard, and the Nixon family was quite fond of seafood. That puts the shrimp dishes in a new light.
I tried searching for maotai online, but couldn’t find any sources. However, I did turn up this Washingtonian article that goes into more detail about the banquet.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSMOKIN’!
Thursday, January 6th, 2011It’s been a week for fires.
First, the condo fire.
Next, Katz’s closes a day early. Then they catch fire as well. At this point, I half expect the building to fall over and sink into the swamp.
Then, someplace called the Green Muse Cafe (which I’ve never heard of) caught fire as well.
What next? A raging fire in the cedars off of Loop 360? (Come to think of it, that might make spring a bit more pleasant.)
A handful of randomness.
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011I intended to post this yesterday, but got sidetracked: the SF Weekly and the Bay Guardian have reached a settlement in their legal dispute. I’ve previously blogged about the dispute here, here, and here. (Hattip: Jimbo.)
I’m posting this only because it amuses me: the Statesman has posted the APD’s annual list of “local bars where drunken driving suspects reported having their last drink before hitting the road”. Particularly chuckleworthy to me is the large cluster of places in one block of 6th Street…
Speaking of the Statesman, there’s also a kind of neat profile of Austin writer, former Dell employee, and MonkeyBrain Books publisher Chris Roberson, who is taking over the current “Superman” story line with issue 707.
And speaking of things that amuse me, “Never Said About Restaurant Websites” pretty much hits all of my peeves (and Lawrence’s) save one. And we’ve both submitted that one. (Hattip: Daring Fireball.)
Edited to add: Here’s something else I wanted to blog but forgot: “The Now-You-See-It Restaurant“.
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Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?
Monday, January 3rd, 2011The NYT has a regular feature, “Recipe Redux”, where Times writers revisit a classic recipe from the pages of the NYT, and attempt to update it for contemporary tastes/styles/availability of ingredients.
This week’s recipe was for Chocolate-Rum Mousse; the original actually sounds pretty good, at least to my unsophisticated palate.
So how did the NYT‘s chefs (Alex Talbot and Aki Kamozawa, who run the Ideas In Food website) update this recipe?
Should have gone with that idea; sounds good to me. But, no:
Talbot and Kamozawa substituted beets for chocolate in the original recipe
Beets? Beets?! Were these people not loved enough as children?
Okay, let’s be fair: how did it come out?
So…
To the cloud! Sorry. Here’s what I think they’re referring to when they talk about an ISI dispenser
Yeah. The original recipe sounds simple, straightforward, and relatively easy to prepare with nothing more than a blender and a stove. The new one requires relatively specialized kitchen equipment and sounds like crap.
I have to ask: if you did a side-to-side, A-B comparison, would Mr. Latte
Crimestoppers! (take 2).
Wednesday, December 29th, 2010So we’ve mentioned previously the theft and recovery of one local food trailer.
We were not aware, until we happened to catch a local television newscast last night, that a second food trailer is also missing.
We have been unable to find any photos of the Hook ‘Em Up Tacos trailer. Nor have we been able to find any media coverage elsewhere (not even a Statesman blog entry), which makes us wonder.
In any case, we suggest that you be on the lookout for any unexplained trailers that mysteriously show up in fields or behind garages near you.
Quick update.
Monday, December 27th, 2010We previously noted the Chapter 11 filing of Mangia Pizza.
Word comes to us now that the Guadalupe location has closed. As far as we know, the other locations are still open. (As a matter of fact, we had an…interesting meal at the Mesa location a few days before Christmas.)
Crimestoppers!
Monday, December 27th, 2010What a day! Once again, we get to combine two more pet obsessions: food and the police blotter!
The Grinch, or someone equally mean, has stolen the main trailer of Lucky J’s Chicken & Waffles, an establishment we have not yet had the chance to try.
Luckily for Lucky J’s, they do have a second trailer (and I thought they were opening a sit-down eatery on Burnet as well), but in the meantime, please be on the lookout for a trailer that looks something like this:
The actual trailer, as far as I know, does not have a hand holding a giant plate of chicken and waffles in front of it.
Edited to add 12/28: Put a leash back on the dagron. The trailer has been found. You may resume normal activities.
Edited to add 12/28 part 2: An arrest has been made.
Breaking news!
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010Man, I wish I had one of those Drudge Report siren things to put up here.
Anyway, Katz’s Deli, an Austin institution famous for their slogan “Katz’s Never Kloses”, is closing January 2nd.
I need to get down there before the 2nd. They did a really good breakfast. And this reduces the number of Thanksgiving/Christmas Day dining options by one.
(Hattip: Mom.)
(Edited to add: A.T. actually sent this to me at 1 PM today, beating Mom by 2 hours and 38 minutes. However, Mom sent it to one of the accounts that goes to my phone, while A.T. sent it to an account I don’t read until I get home at night. So Mom gets the hattip, but A.T. gets an acknowledgment.)