Archive for February, 2010

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Greening Austin Daily


2010
02.23

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Posted in Blogs, Home Cookin' | No Comments »

Hey Shoestringers! I just found out about an awesome new blog called Greening Austin Daily, which is offering tips and tricks to Austinites looking for fun and practical ways to go green. They’ve recently posted about everything from “It’s My Park Day” (coming up on March 6), my new fave Torchy’s Tacos, and the actual launch (at long last!) of the CapMetro rail line—which is apparently going to be free to riders during its first week of service next month.

Definitely add this blog to your hit list, as it’s chock full of information on how to get groovy and get your green on right here in Austin, and it’s not at all preachy or warrior-vegan in its approach. Bloggers and BFFs Katherine and Carsi even bust out their tasty recipes every Tuesday, like the Double Broccoli Quinoa that I’ve got to try with the rest of the quinoa I’ve got squirrelled away in my cupboard. Broccoli + avocado = winner in my book.

Got any other awesome Austin blogs you’d like to share with the Shoestring Austin crew? Get in touch and we’ll swap links!

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Torchy’s Tacos


2010
02.19

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Posted in By Cuisine, By Location, Downtown, Food Type, Tex-Mex, tacos | 1 Comment »

Celebrity Intern didn’t want to go check out Torchy’s Tacos, originally, because he claims he can “make a mean taco, like the concentrated essence of 1,000 Mexican chefs.” (I must give him that he does cook up a mighty fine taco, even though he is handicapped by his non-Mexican heritage.) Despite, the truly horrible parking, I was starving to death after a long study session day of hunting down obscure noir films at the Fine Arts library, and insisted we go.

After several attempts at parking, involving much hand-waving and finger-lifting at various psychotic Austin drivers (seriously, the 2801 Guadalupe location is a nightmare at rush hour), we were able to leave the BBT safely behind and head inside.

The atmosphere sucked, but on the plus side, the music was loud enough to drown out the cacophony of several half-retarded UT students in Uggs.

We were delightfully surprised by the tacos themselves. We got them to go, as we couldn’t stomach the crowd and its relentless burnt-orange tides. Upon unwrapping, we found our tacos slathered in fresh cilantro—the mark of deliciousness.

Celebrity Intern and I ordered three tacos amongst us: the Baja Shrimp, the Democrat and the Beef Fajita Taco. After devouring my Democrat (shredded beef barbacoa, onion, queso fresco, avocado, cilantro, lime and green sauce), I demanded half of the shrimp taco. Celebrity Intern was loathe to let go, but I wrenched it from his paw and took a bite. Sublime, the fresh snap of the shrimp! The egg-roll reminiscence of the cooked cabbage! The perfect spiciness of the pickled onions and jalapenos! I think I had a mouthgasm.

Celebrity Intern remarked that his Beef Fajita had “glorious, charred strips of beef,” so much so that although he hates grilled peppers, he didn’t even notice their presence amongst the cheese and the pico.

We both wanted to go back for another round. Or five. Torchy’s, we salute you and your Damn Good Tacos.

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Guest Post: Angry Monkey Butler!


2010
02.17

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Posted in By Cuisine, By Location, Food Type, For Delivery, Italian/pizza, North/Northwest, pizza | No Comments »

This review comes courtesy of my intern/Angry Monkey Butler. Observe his rage!

so, when you order a pizza, do you then have “reasonable expectations” as to when said “order” should arrive? hmmmm well in the deep dark case of red brick pizza (tech ridge location) it’s left to the ether. when, maybe … YES… hmm… grrr, NO! do they offer an alternative? no. do they tell you about billing (online) when you have selected your wares? ummm, NO. do they EVER deliver a pizza? well, if that day ever comes i pity the delivery guy. will he scuttle back to base with tales of my blacklisted ass-hole-io-ness?? most certainly. i order a pizza, i get confirmation of said pizza, i wait for pizza, i call the outlet and ??? 2.5 hours later but NO pizza!? also no explanation. no “customer service.” nada. i mean, i could just go to HEB and get that kind of abuse WITH  my purchase. i wonder, what do you offer to the consumer, “red brick oven”??? i can always get a kick in the @#@$@ from the IRS. you lost your only chance. i hate you.

I concur with his findings: Red Brick Pizza SUCKS. Also, their number is apparently listed incorrectly both on the flyer we received AND in the “confirmation email” that told us our pizza was being processed. Who DOES that?!

UPDATE: 22 FEBRUARY 2010

After forwarding a copy of this guest post to Red Brick Pizza via their online contact form, we received a voicemail message (duh, we screen all our calls) from someone claiming to be in charge of this joint, asking us to please return the call so he could apologize personally. We were a bit flabbergasted by this request, seeing as there was no particular incentive to do so (i.e. there were no mentions of a free pizza, in exchange for the one owed us), and thus have chosen not to respond.

As an aside, here are some helpful hints for those making phone apologies to us in the future: be sincere, leave an actual apology in your voicemail (i.e. don’t ask us to make the effort to follow up when you were the one who screwed up!), and make us a deal!

Perhaps there’s a free pizza out there with our names on it, but Angry Monkey Butler and I don’t particularly care, at this point. As my mama used to say: First impressions are often last impressions, Red Brick Pizza. Why don’t you go carve that on your tombstone, cus you’re dead to me!

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Thai Kitchen


2010
02.11

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Posted in By Cuisine, By Location, Downtown, Food Type, Thai, noodles, soups & salads | No Comments »

Despite my craving for Thai food recently, I have only just managed to sample some of the Austin area’s wares. This afternoon I was jonesing hardcore for the Pad Thai, and my Dining Companion (DC) and I were on our way home from the UT Fine Arts Library after a hard day of studying plundering their CD collection for AC/DC. We were within easy reach of Thai Kitchen‘s 3009 Guadalupe location and had heard good things, so we pulled into the parking lot and took the plunge.

Our first impressions of the place were good. The service was super-friendly, and our waiter even offered us ice-water! (We’ve found it’s strangely rare for people to offer water in restaurants, and sometimes even harder to get them to actually bring you any, much less refill the glass. Happily, this was not the case at Thai Kitchen.) We gratefully accepted, and pondered the lunch menu, which was still in service at 3 PM even though it was clearly stated that lunch service ended at 2:30—score!

We knew we wanted Pad Thai, so we ordered 12A right away, then decided to add another dish so we could share #25, Green Curry with Chicken and Coconut (Hot-Hot). DC and I both enjoy a good green curry, so we were jazzed by the idea of one that was being billed as “hot-hot.” Along with our mains, we were also visiting on the right day for the soup du jour to be Hot & Sour (our fave), so we each got a bowl. DC thought the Hot & Sour soup could’ve been more hot (and sour, presumably), but I thought it was pleasantly understated. Hot & Sour soup is a great dish for warming you up on a cold, rainy day, and since Austin’s been experiencing a lot of these lately (including today), I was pleased with this dish.

Shortly after we’d slurped down the last of our soup, the waiter re-appeared with our mains. Super-fast service! We thanked him and got down to business, munching our egg rolls, and then digging into the Pad Thai and the Green Curry.

Now, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the Green Curry, even though it made my nose run. It wasn’t über-hot, but it definitely had a nice kick to it, and the accompanying veggies (bamboo strips, zucchini and the odd green pepper) were quite tasty. We avoided the rice (evil carbs!), but devoured the rest. DC even sucked the excess green curry sauce straight off the plate. That’s how tasty it was.

Delicious-looking Pad Thai (photo via Closet Cooking)

Sadly, this was not the Pad Thai of our dreams. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the deliciously savory Pad Thai we had been lusting after for weeks. Instead of a mildly spicy dish stuffed with rice noodles, chicken, egg, peanuts, shrimp and bean sprouts, we got a more sweet, peanutty-flavored dish that mainly consisted of rice noodles, a bit of egg and bean sprouts, and some chicken. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t what we were expecting. And since the Green Curry was so delicious, we were kind of disappointed. I mean, you look at the photo of the homemade Pad Thai that we featured on our previous post, Where can you get good Thai food in Austin? (and shown above for emphasis), and you salivate. Thai Kitchen’s Pad Thai, unfortunately, looked nothing quite as sexy as all that.

Still, we ate it all and were reasonably satisfied with the affair. So while I would definitely return to Thai Kitchen for inexpensive Thai food (our total came to about $17, before tip), I am still searching for the elusive Pad Thai that haunts my dreams.

Any suggestions?

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Simple pleasures: Caesar salad


2010
02.07

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Posted in By Cuisine, Cooking The Books, Food Type, Home Cookin', How to Cook Everything: The Basics, Italian/pizza, soups & salads | No Comments »

Y’know, I had never been much of a salad freak, but when my husband started making me delicious—and easy!—Caesar salads with just a rotisserie chicken, some Romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, and store-bought extra-garlicky Caesar dressing, I was hooked. I even wrote about this simple “recipe” in my previous blog. Since we’ve moved to Austin, the Caesar salad is still in regular rotation for dinners at our place, but without the dressing we’d been loving in Montreal, we’ve been sampling various American brands in a quest to re-create the deliciousness of our Canadian favorite, Renée’s Mighty Caesar.

Sad to say, so far we just haven’t found anything that measures up to that pure garlic kick we love. (Heck, I even emailed Renée’s to ask where I could find ‘em here in Austin, but so far their customer service department hasn’t bothered to reply.) We’ve tried Ken’s Creamy Caesar, Marzetti’s Supreme Caesar (they make a mean Ultimate Blue Cheese dressing that we use as a dip), Marie’s Creamy Caesar, and Safeway Select Fresh Garlic Caesar. The closest we’ve to the Holy Grail of the Renée’s Caesar is a mixture of Ken’s and Safeway’s Caesar dressings, and even that’s only okay.

What we really need to do, though, is whip up some homemade Caesar dressing, complete with anchovies!

Here’s the recipe I’ve got from Mark Bittman (the New York Times’ Minimalist) that I want to put to use, one of these days:

This recipe is from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything: The Basics, which is an excellent book (and now an iPhone app!) for anybody on a shoestring budget looking to get away from Kraft Dinner and ramen noodles on a nightly basis. It’ll teach you everything you need to know, and serves as a great Bible in the kitchen, the way some people look to Betty Crocker cookbooks or Julia Child. Since Bittman’s a lifelong minimalist, he’ll teach you how to produce big flavor from just a few good ingredients, and how to get the most of out of even the barest of kitchens (the dude actually cooks brilliant meals in a classically cramped NYC apartment with one of those miniature stoves and refrigerators, so he knows whereof he speaks).

In the meantime, I would suggest spicing up the Caesar with a turkey breast or even pork cutlets, pan-fried to perfection, if you think you’d be into it but don’t have the rotisserie chicken on hand. It’s a surprisingly versatile salad, and impresses people when you present it with real, hand-grated Parmesan cheese. I think that’s probably the key to looking good in the kitchen, in general, as a friend of mine once confided that her husband swore she was a brilliant chef solely based on her ability to buy the “good” Parmesan and grate it herself.

Rock on over London, rock on Chicago. Caesar salad in the hizzouse!