Austin Trip

Jeff and I took a trip to Austin last week.  I would say it was to see the sights, but it was really hot... so the actual reason was to eat the food.  We took the red eye and arrived around 5:30am Friday morning.  By 6:30am we made it to Round Rock Donuts.  We had a regular glazed donuts, an apple fritter, and some donut holes.  All were every bit as delicious as they looked on tv.

Post donuts, we walked around Walmart to kill some time before heading to get in line at Franklin Barbecue.  I feel like it's important to note the way Austinites wait for their barbecue - since barbecue is a cook ahead food, there is only so much available per day.  People line up hours before lunchtime to be sure they'll be able to get some food.  To my surprise, it was almost like tailgating since people bring chairs and coolers full of beverages.  We got there a little before 8am and the line was already stretching into the parking lot.  Thankfully, we made friends with the people in line in front of us, so the wait wasn't atrocious.  We finally made it to the counter to order around 12:30pm.  Let me tell you, it was every bit worth the wait.

We had a pound of brisket, two pork ribs, and a sausage link in addition to personal sized bourbon banana and lemon chess pies.  Everything, especially the brisket, was every bit as tasty as it looks on tv.  I think the pies surprised me the most.  My banana bourbon pie was to die for and Jeff had nothing but good things to say about his lemon chess pie.  I wish I could order one to be shipped to our house.  There is no doubt that we will be making a return trip to Austin since this meal alone made the trip worth it for me.

Banana Bread

Last week I mentioned we were taking time off from keto.  This actually translates to me eating all the carbs in sight.  I discovered some delicious chocolate chip banana bread at Tully's and decided I wanted to try to make it at home.  Since Jeff is the chef in this relationship, he found this recipe from Serious Eats and we threw chocolate chips in it.  It was amazing.  We made two more iterations of it:  one with fewer chocolate chips and one with no chocolate chips.  These were equally as amazing.

I decided I wanted a piece as dessert one night, so I warmed it in the microwave and added a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Who knew banana bread a la mode could be so delicious?!  I highly recommend trying the recipe as well as having it a la mode.  It was so delicious.

Food Truck Binging

We've taken having family in town as an excuse to go off keto for a month.  I've been enjoying lunches from all the food trucks at the Bellevue food truck pod and Skyline Towers.  A few favorites include the shrimp po' boy from Where Ya at Matt, chicken tikka bowl from Roll OK Please, and garlic chicken from Poke to the Max.  The most exciting thing I've found recently is this special from Bread and Circuses:

It's toasted ravioli!  This was one of my favorite things growing up, but I've learned it's fairly localized to the greater St. Louis area and is almost non-existent elsewhere.  I was beyond excited to see this on the menu the other day and was even more excited that it was absolutely delicious.  This definitely made my work day better.