The three are Garrido’s, Olivia, and Uchi (”Austin Raises the Bar on Good Food,” WSJ 10/17/09, byline Katy McLaughlin).

The comments in the article regarding the individual establishments have their interest, of course (for instance, there’s one to the effect that there are those who’ll never taste the chips and accompanying salsas at Garrido’s because we’re not accustomed to being charged for them. That’s why I haven’t tried them, even though I love the carnitas at Garrido’s.)

It’s some of the declarations about Austin dining in general, though, that I find especially interesting, and quite perceptive. Tyson Cole seems to have been very generous with his time and to have spoken with the reporter at some length. I hope that this reporter does explore Tex-Mex food ingreater depth, as she seems to have some appreciation for it. The Fearless Critic Austin is presented as a milestone in the Austin food world. She describes Austin as a town that has long offered food for the budget-minded and also unimaginative high-dollar menus for lobbyists and legislators. “With so much good, cheap food . . . it’s been a long path towards convincing the public that $28 entrees have a place on the scene.” I’m happy with the countless $15-and-under outstanding ones out there, but the occasional splurge does have its place.

This is a wonderful addition and an especially welcome one to those south of the river. The tag-line is fresh…fast…flavorful and all three are true. Tarka India Kitchen was doing a busy takeout business in the rain today. This is a great place for those who are hungry and need food as soon as possible.

Here’s what we tried. The pair of vegetable samosas came to the table with a mint chutney. The chutney was a bit sweet. The samosas were generous in size and contained a beautifully spicy potato filling garnished with English peas. The wrapper was a bit on the tough side, but that was inconsequential when the contents were so delicious. The vegetable pakora was fine, but in the future I’d save my appetite to sample other items.

The person who ordered coconut curry asked for it to contain chicken and to be hot, not mild or medium. He was not disappointed and was pleased especially with the chidken. This dish contained potatoes and was very rich.

I want to try other dishes, especially the daal makhni and the channa masala, in the future, but it may be tough, since I always want to order the sheesh kebob. The menu said chicken and lamb, which I thought was chicken or lamb, but it’s a mixture. These were tender and fresh, beautifully seasoned and extremely tasty. The flavor was of lamb, predominantly.

I prefer the naan at India Kitchen on Riverside or at Taj Palace. For me, Tarka’s is too uniform and almost cakelike in texture. The long-grain rice accompanying our dishes was fluffy and wonderful. We could see cloves, bay leaves, and cardamom pods. I assume that this rice is a foundation for the biryanis, which I look forward to trying.

There’s even a children’s menu at very low prices and complete with a beverage choice of apple juice, mango lemonade, or a fountain drink. This is a very child-friendly place, since the recorded music covers a great deal. There’s a diaper-changing station in the restroom.

A diner orders at the counter and pays at that time. There’s a self-serve beverage station with straws and ice. Utensils are picked up there, also. I noticed Kingfisher and Shiner beers on ice. A runner brings the food to the table, recognizing it by the number card displayed. Even though Tarka was quite busy, the food seemed to be there almost instantaneously.

Tarka is related to the Clay Pit. Find it at 5207 Brodie Lane, suite 120, away in a corner next to Zen. If you get lost while trying to locate it, call 892-2008. Do look for it.

Another one bites the dust

I’m just back from my first ever long road trip in the US. I’d previously done New York to Florida, but it was over a number of days with stops in many places. This trip was a drive as far as you could, rest and drive again type.

While I was totally impressed and in awe of the size, variety and sheer beauty of the land in places, I was surprised, disappointed and concerned about other aspects of the journey and what I saw. I suspect like many people, I still carried the romantic notion that out there in the Texas flatlands were thousand upon thousand of cattle, roaming free, feeding on the planes grass, being rounded up by cowboys and herded based on the season. I was prepared to make some concessions, like most of the cowboys riding 4×4’s but nothing prepared me for what I saw.

What I saw in numerous locations along I-10W, there were thousand upon thousand of cows penned up in pens close to the road. Mostly standing around in what looked and smelt like their own waste, in temperatures that were exceeding 95f. There wasn’t just one place where the cattle and pens were present, but dozens along the ride between east of El Paso TX and Yuma, AZ. I guess like everything, even cattle in Texas has become a factory process in recent years. According to a Feb. 2009 USDA report, there are some 418,000 cattle in Texas, 338,000 in New Mexico, and 186,000 in Arizona. Who knew? Just sayin…

The Progressive Dairy web site has an interesting insight into the cattle “industry”.

In the interests of transparency, I’m NOT a vegetarian, I enjoy a nice steak and eat ‘burgers from time to time.

Mary's Cubana Coffee

Three years ago when I move into the Bouldin Neighborhood, there was just the veritable Bouldin Creek Coffee shop on S 1st, and Cafe Caffeine tucked away on W Mary. One winter morning I went to Bouldin Creek Coffee shop after a 50-mile ride and 4-mile run, cold and tired, I made the mistake of ordering a Grande Americano, and the staff made fun of me. I’d waited long enough already and just left, never to return.

Well now on South 1st alone there is Fair Bean, Fair Bean in RunTex, Once Over Coffee, and of course Bouldin Coffee shop is still there keeping “Austin weird”, but this week there is a new addition, Mary’s Cubana Coffee.[Update: I was emailed and reminded that Summer Moon is also on South 1st, south of Oltorf]

I walked there early this morning, they have a very straight forward menu, I went for the Cubana cafe au lait Café con leche with codensed milk. They also offer espresso and an iced coffee. I really had no idea what to expect, and what I got took me back to the coffee of the early 1970’s in London.

That strange combination of strong, but sweet, and slightly sour. It was in a cup just slightly bigger than a tall cup for a double espresso, had a small foamed head and was resonably hot. At $2.79, if you are a quantity person this wasn’t great value, but as we sat in the front yard of Jovitas and talked, I could indeed imagine being at a street vendor in Havanna or Miami.

Mary’s Cubana was on South Lamar, I don’t know if this is the same cabin moved, or a second location. If steamed condensed coffee is your favorite then this is an interesting stop-off. Marys is on the east side of South 1st St, in Jovitas parking lot and is ONLY open from 7am-11am, stop off on your drive downtown!

Boggy Creek Farm is featured in today’s WSJ and described more as a prime historic property of substantial size than as a working organic farm: “Where Whole Foods Shops: A historic house on Boggy Creek Farm grows organically in Austin” (byline Katy McLaughlin).

[Before going on to say more about Boggy Creek, since Whole Foods is mentioned in the Boggy Creek subtitle, I'd like to be clear that IMHO it's no accident that most Austinites have not bothered to comment or blog generally about the recent John Mackey opinion piece on health care, also in the WSJ. Enough of us know people associated with WhoFoo or even Mr. Mackey himself to have formed opinions about this piece. It is of some interest that there are those around the U.S. generally who have not taken kindly to what Mr. M wrote and who state that, as a consequence, they intend to take their business elsewhere (see Facebook page, e.g.).]

Included in the article on Boggy Creek Farm are detailed physical descriptions of the old farmhouse, plus the price originally paid for the farm, what it might have brought at the height of the boom, and speculation about what might be a probable sale price at this time. There’s some discussion of agricultural productivity, coupled with a passing mention of what the per-hour return on the owners’ labor has in the past been calculated to be.

The article in print form is accompanied by three black-and-white photographs; the on-line version shares with us a nifty little color slideshow. Let us hope that the appearance of this article is not a consequence of our drought.

At Moonlight Bakery on South Lamar I found the only plain croissant in Austin other than the one made by Sweetish Hill that I would ever consider consuming. Another winner is the Italian bread, shaped like a giant bolillo (pointed on both ends, slashed down its “spine,” and coated in poppy seeds, apparently made from unbleached flour and with my favorite kind of crust, not brittle and not soft, just chewy). I loved the homestyle cookies, especially the snickerdoodles and the so-called “refrigerator” cookies, striated with chocolate. These are almost miniatures and are cookies for grown-ups, with true flavors and no over-dependence on just plain sugar. The same is true of the diminutive but flavorful chocolate-chip or Tollhouse cookies. Since I’m a bread and cookie person, I’m unable to report on anything other than the appearance of fancier items. Accomplices in baked-goods debauchery report wondrous things of the fruit pastries, cream horns, small eclairs, coconut macaroons, gingerbread people, kolaches, and many more. Moonlight Bakery is open from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm every day but Sunday, when the hours are from 8 am to 2 pm. Currently on the wall is photographic art by David Jewell, and it is art, not “art.” These small works are available at a very reasonable price. See for yourself. This was my first visit to Moonlight Bakery, but it won’t be my last. The menu promises an entire universe of baked-goods, including cakes, cupcakes. To think that I happened upon it only because someone needed an item from Batteries Plus, next door.

Garrido’s is open and serving food continuously from opening to closing. In July, brunch will be added on Saturdays and Sundays, but otherwise the same menu is available all day long, with a soup special and a taco special each day.

We were burning some vacation time but it was mid-afternoon before we could consider where to dine. Garrido’s was humming and buzzing with activity even after the conventional lunch-hour. Today’s soup was a delightful shrimp concoction in a lobster broth. The oyster-lover at the table was more than pleased.

This was our first visit. We did not try the chips and salsa (these are not free) because we were interested in the lamb “pops,” which are delicious chops, frenched to make a handle of the bone, seared on the outside and just pink enough on the inside. The lamb was of the best. The ancho sauce was delicious and so were the tiny leaves of green dressed with a tasty vinaigrette that took a portion of the same plate.

The carnitas were the very best that I have ever tasted, better even than my former favorite version, served by Tula of fond memory just off the drag. That’s all I’m going to say about them, other than to recommend them highly. The tortillas are tender and made in house; the black beans and the lime rice are delicious. The espresso equals the best in town. The little dessert offering of cookies, chocolate mousse, and chocolate-coffee truffles makes great sharing.

The musica was tropical. The acoustics are busy but do permit conversation. Garrido’s deserves to stay just as busy as we found it today.

Tucked away unobtrusively in a small strip-mall center on Research, Hwa Yuan still attracts customers to its buffet, even on a Monday, as we discovered yesterday. Everyone was going through the buffet line and it was only later that we found that it’s possible to order from the menu.

Food comes to the buffet in small portions, straight from the kitchen. I thought it was unusual to find elegant little steamed dumplings at a buffet, and presented in a bamboo steamer. Many people were going through the buffet line and filling takeout containers to carry away. The posted rules for doing this were elaborate and arcane. I can remember only that at least three different items must go into the container and that there is a weight limit (although I saw no scale).

There are items for children especially, and everyone was enjoying the ribs, which seemed to have been coated in five-spice powder somewhere along the way. I thought that the hot and sour soup was particularly fine. There’s a darker adjoining room with a bar and a television. Some were dining there, and it appears that it would make a good place to adjourn after work. The Web site seems to list most of what I saw on the menu. We were happy with our lunch (buffet price $6.95, I think, but at any rate a good value). Find Hwa Yuan at 11150 Research Boulevard, Suite 201, Balcones Woods Shopping Center; telephone 345-9781, not all that far from the Regal Arbor Cinema.

This is food for the famished; they won’t go away hungry. We hit the downtown Thai Passion, ground floor of the historic Capitol Hotel, in the middle of rush-hour. We walked over from Nueces, having found that Garrido’s wasn’t open, although it will be for dinner this evening.

Thai Passion was busy, but nothing felt rushed. Salad came to the table right away. We enjoyed spring rolls, a standard soup (tom-yum) that was not ho-hum, the curry of the day, and, my favorite, a ginger-chicken stir-fry. It was studded with countless delicate morsels of appetizing white-meat chicken, crisp celery and carrots, and much else from the vegetable realm. We polished everything off, but the portions are so generous that many resorted to takeaway containers. Nobody was leaving anything on the plate.

During the daytime, one room is brightly lit by the sun from above and the other is more dimly lit by a well designed electric lighting scheme (bright enough for reading the menu, but without glare of any kind). Restrooms are spotless. The staff is friendly and professional. The music is easy-listening instrumental and bright, not boring, allowing for conversation and permitting privacy for the diners. The napkins are cloth.

We paid lunch express prices for appetizing and restorative food in generous portions, a real bargain to be enjoyed in this serene location.

Reinforcement is necessary after a visit to the dentist, or a person might never go again. I learned all this from B. F. Skinner (ask me, sometime, about my trained pigeon).

At Frugal Media I treated myself to a duplicate copy of a favorite guide to the birds, plus a book of maps and a Madhur Jaffrey book of Indian recipes printed in the U.K. In stock right now is a very good selection of guidebooks to Austin, a valuable resource when inspiration fails and there are visitors in the house. There’s plenty of comfortable seating for those inclined to browse before buying, and a sign on the door reported that there’s free WiFi.

Then it was on to lunch at the Frisco Shop. I lucked out, since there were still a few choice items of baked goods from the breakfast menu (biscuits and cornbread, those non-pareils). The Frisco, the slaw, the Top Chop’t, and the superlative pie were as pleasing as ever. New to the Frisco are mixed drinks, and the margarita is an excellent value that in no detail disappoints: fresh lime juice and honest ingredients in the proper proportion.

Favorites at booths and tables within sight were the special-of-the-day meatloaf, CFS, catfish, jalapeno spinach, and slices of pie. We saw familiar faces, and could overhear much juicy gossip: personal, political, and business. I love the Frisco!