torchy's tacos

austin, tx

website

forgot to mention, before we picked up y+a+n from the airport, jinny and i got a snack of guacamole and freshly fried chips from torchy's. (perhaps freshly fried is the theme of my austin trip?) the next day, we decided to get takeout from torchy's for the whole gang. torchy's is austin hipster mexican. colorful chalkboard menu? check. ironic hipster decorations? check (a red devil wearing a diaper is their logo). ironic hipster names for their menu items? check.

i ordered a "mr. pink" taco - guajillo seared ahi tuna, cabbage fresca, cilantro, and queso freco - and a "trailer park" taco - fried chicken, green chilies, lettuce, pico de gallo, and cheese on a flour tortilla. there's an option to make the "trailer park" taco "trashy" by replacing the lettuce with queso, but i passed. we also ordered, for the gang, a small bowl of queso and more freshly fried chips. tacos were pretty good - fresh, quality ingredients, but the queso was amazing. definitely my favorite part of the meal.

cypress grill

austin, tx

website

y+a+n finally arrived in austin, so we all went out for dinner. after all of the doughnuts, we decided to move onto something with a little more substance. still deep-fried, though, it is texas after all. jinny and kurt are excellent tour guides - we simply select a cuisine and they find us a restaurant with great food and atmosphere. at cypress grill i ordered the fried oysters, served with fries. pretty solid food.

kc donuts

austin, tx

link to yelp

you might think that getting a freshly fried doughnut topped with bacon and maple syrup icing would satisfy our doughnut cravings for at least 24 hours. you would be wrong. the next morning, jinny and i headed to the very popular kc donuts for doughnuts and kolaches. completely unassuming, tucked away in a strip mall, no fancy chalkboard menu, and no hipster decorations (ironic owls, anyone?). it's just a mom-and-pop (sometimes mom-and-son) shop. i ordered two doughnuts to go with my coffee - one sugar and one with chocolate icing - both delicious. nothing fancy about these doughnuts - they are simple, but perfect. fresh, soft, and with just the right amount of sweetness. yum.

gourdough's

austin, tx

website

believe it or not, we went to get doughnuts after eating at the hula hut. and not just any doughnuts. we went to gourdough's - a famous austin gourmet doughnut truck. it's located in one of the food truck parking lots which dot the austin landscape. (can we start doing that here in palo alto, please?) i ordered the flying pig - a freshly fried doughnut topped with several strips of bacon and maple syrup icing. the doughnut itself is the highlight for me, it's fried perfectly - crispy shell on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. the toppings were a bit too intense for me, but still delicious.

hula hut

austin, tx

website

this place will always hold a special place in my heart because it is where jinny and kurt introduced me to QUESO. sure, i've had chile con queso at chevy's, but that doesn't count at all. in austin, queso is a magical molten concoction - creamy, cheesy, spicy. and its always served with freshly fried crispy tortilla chips. so good. jinny and kurt are queso experts - they know where to find the best queso in austin and hula hut is one of them. so good. did i say that already?

there was other food on the table as well. pictured is the texas-sized roasted chicken pipeline enchilada. no, that's not a typo. they really call it an enchilada. it's coated in "queso blanco" sauce which tasted like gravy. it was pretty good, but very heavy. frankly, at this point i was so full of queso it's a wonder i managed to take a single bite out of this behemoth. thankfully, jinny and kurt took me on a short tour of beautiful lake austin after dinner to walk off the meal. although perhaps it was so i could be ready to consume even more food. just wait till you see the rest of my austin eating tour ...