This is not my picture. This is Torchy's picture, from their website. I ate my taco before I could take a picture of it.

love not having to cook. Last year, we [...]]]> I thought I might make another effort with my blog, so I decided to review a restaurant. I love restaurants. Mostly, I

This is not my picture. This is Torchy's picture, from their website. I ate my taco before I could take a picture of it.

love not having to cook. Last year, we decided to stop eating stuff with artificial crap in it. You know, added colors, flavors, preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, and the like. This decision was a bit style cramping where restaurants are concerned, even here in Austin, where a lot of people feel the same way.  What’s worse is that we’d find a place to eat that had the same philosophy we did, only to discover the food was bland or just plain bad. Austin, what’s up with that? Why do you tolerate overpriced restaurants with poor service and mediocre (at best) food? My husband and I often either “cheat” on our vow not to eat what amounts to poison in the name of tastiness, or we just don’t eat out.

In any case, I digress. Today I lunched with my friend Casey at Torchy’s Taco’s. I wanted to go because I haven’t been there yet, and I’ve been in Austin since 2008! How did I let that happen? Torchy’s food is not bland or bad, and they use additive free ingredients. Their sauces are house made, and the food is remarkably inexpensive, considering.  We had to go to the Spicewood Springs location because it’s between our respective workplaces. He had warned me that the place would be packed, and it was. I took it as a good sign, and tried to console myself with that thought as I walked from my car, which I had to park hell and gone from the door of the establishment.

Torchy’s menu is what an acquaintance of mine once termed “lowbrow gourmet.” I have to admit, I wanted a bit of everything on the menu, but I settled on “The Crossroads” taco, which is composed of brisket, grilled onions, avocado, jalapeños, pepper jack cheese, and tomatillo sauce. The brisket had a really smoky flavor that blended well with the onions and avocado. The jalapeños had spent some time on the grill, so they were more smoky than hot, but I admit that I promptly drowned everything in Torchy’s award-winning Diablo sauce after the first few bites. Oh, Diablo sauce, where have you been all my life? Casey had the “Republican,” which was a grilled jalapeño sausage with cheese and pico, and a “Trailer Park,” a fried chicken tender with pico, cheese, lettuce, and green chiles. We also shared some green chile queso. It was all pretty good! I must mention that they are serious about the queso at Torchy’s.

In closing, I loved it. Are there more authentic taco joints in Austin? You bet, but even despite forcing one to tolerate crowds of other so-called humans, Torchy’s is tasty, fast, and fun, and it won’t hurt your wallet much, either. For what it is, it gets a 4 Ferret rating, with the highest being 5 Ferrets.

Rating: 4/5 Ferrets

Pros: Great service, Good food, Inexpensive.

Cons: Parking, Crowds of entitled hipsters and people who should be old enough to know better than to act like hipsters, but don’t.

Austin home to a few good brewpubs

I read the article, and went to reply [...]]]> I got an email on the Austin Zealots‘ Yahoo group today. (The Zealots are a local hombrewing club here in Austin, and a great bunch of people.) A member was expressing his disappointment with the contents of this article:

Austin home to a few good brewpubs

I read the article, and went to reply on the list, but as usual I waxed verbose and was forced to move my opinions to a forum in which I (mostly) reign supreme. I did this to avoid spamming the list with my copious rants and opinions. I’m sure people everywhere are grateful I have my own website.

In short, I share the disappointment of my fellow Zealot. Allow me to elaborate.

The main problem with this article is that the author failed to establish her authority as being someone who has any business reviewing brewpubs. She failed to properly do so in the beginning of the article, and as I read the rest of it, I became more convinced that this person merely received free meals and/or beer from the establishments she reviewed. I addressed this issue once before when I lived in the benighted town of Monroe, LA, actually. How am I supposed to take the contents of a review seriously if I don’t think the reviewer has the necessary experience to offer an informed and comprehensive review?

This kind of thing stems from letting “food” writers also write about beer, wine or other potables. We shouldn’t allow it! HAH! But seriously, why should we listen to this author’s opinion of precious beer when she pretty much makes it clear that she doesn’t really know anything about beer or even what constitutes an establishment’s being called a “brewpub.”

I think this author just a freelancer who also teaches at TSU. Now, I suppose it’s true that if we only allowed established beer writers to write about beer-related issues that maybe someone like, oh, I dunno, ME, would never be able to “break in” and start writing about beer. Or food, for that matter. But this particular article kind of gives Austin a bad name.

I mean, wouldn’t your average Austinite know that one of those venues isn’t even a “brewpub”? A brewery tour and tasting is not, I repeat, not a brewpub. Even I knew that and I know very little about the Austin beer scene, as it were. Seriously, if you go to a tour and tasting expecting a brewpub, of course you will be disappointed!

I was also a little disappointed because I would like to see a brewpub review that gives me comprehensive information on the beer, food, and atmosphere of several brewpubs. Telling me “the food came out suspiciously fast,” or that a Hefeweizen is “strong and banana-y” doesn’t give me any sort of idea what I might be getting into, except that you probably ordered something frozen and/or fried, and you don’t know how to describe your beer when you taste it. Tell me, something guys, what do you think a “strong” beer flavor means? A quick Google led me to a neat list of terms for beer taste. Maybe one of these terms could serve me if I were, oh I dunno, writing an article where I had to describe beer flavor.

In any case, there were only three venues in the article, one of which was a national chain and one which wasn’t even a brewpub. So Austin is really home to one local brewpub, one national chain eatery which serves beer, and one brewery that gives tours on the first Saturday of each month?  This doesn’t really help me figure out where to spend my hard-earned and meager supply of cash, does it? Believe it or not, there are more brewpubs than those in Austin. I promise.

I know, I know, I’m on my blog again, criticzing other people’s writing. But it’s my blog, and I’m a very critical person. Also, I really do believe that it’s important to establish one’s credibility in one’s writing. As usual, the writing venue and audience will dictate to what degree one needs to establish credibility. In reviews of products, restaurants, movies, books, and yes, brewpubs, the author should really take the time to say “I’m an authority on this subject,” or “I’m not an authority on this subject, but I know what I like,” so that the audience can get a handle on where everyone stands before diving in.  And, really, try your best to get your terminology right. Calling a Jazz festival a “concert hall” or a tour and tasting a “brewpub,” doesn’t make it true.

My friend Kevin [...]]]> Saturday night we had a little dinner party. I made gumbo with a butter roux. It was eventually delicious, but I will remember two things about gumbo: 1. start much, much earlier 2. butter roux is harder to brown than oil roux. Also, I’m not making gumbo again until the winter.

My friend Kevin came over, and the four of us had a great time. We’ve been using the pool a lot lately, and we all went swimming.

We’ve decided to rent an apartment in the same complex as Craig does. The apartments are large for the price, and the amenities are good. Also, they are 4 miles from James‘ work.

Monday, we got our bearings and went to the employment office. Tuesday, James left at 8am and came home at 12:30pm from a job search, having interviewed at [...]]]> We arrived in Austin, TX at around 5pm Sunday evening. Our friend Craig was waiting for us and even had supper ready! How cool is that?

Monday, we got our bearings and went to the employment office. Tuesday, James left at 8am and came home at 12:30pm from a job search, having interviewed at his first choice job, AdsLed. By 2:30 we heard from his new boss that he had the job and he would start at 9am Wednesday morning. So the job search is pretty much over. Tuesday evening spent with Kevin, celebrating with drinks at the Spider House.

Now we are beginning our apartment search. So far, we can’t seem to find a place that suits. Of course, we haven’t looked at many places yet, though.

Craig, who has been good enough to put us up for a while, thought I messed up his computer by putting it on a router so I could also hook up wi-fi for us to use. It turned out that his computer thought that when I moved it I had opened the chassis, and he also needed to change the battery in his wireless mouse. Today has actually kind of sucked, but I can’t really get too upset about it.

So much has happened this week that I can’t even put everything into words. I feel like I’ve done and seen many things, but really I haven’t scratched the tip of the iceberg, to mix metaphors. I told James last night that I was feeling anxious, and he replied, “Well, I don’t know why you’d be feeling that way. We’re only in a completely new, larger city, with a totally different lifestyle and we’re living in someone else’s apartment.” I’m lucky to have a man with such a pragmatic outlook on life.

At any rate, I wish I was all high tech and could post cool phone pics here, but I haven’t taken any yet.