Eating Our Way Through Austin....

Our purpose for this trip was to attend a wedding, but, airfares being what they are, it was MUCH more affordable to stay a week than a weekend, lodging included. Airfare for a 10 day stay would have been the same, but then lodging would have exceeded the savings, so we decided to make a week of it.

The beauty of having an apartment to stay in is that we can eat breakfast and the occasional lunch here, so going to a supermarket for $100 worth of supplies took care of a significant number of meals that would have been $50 each - not to mention coffees and waters that travel with us.

But Austin is a Foodie city.

There are food trucks.  Dives. High end vegan restaurants. Steak houses. Barbecue joints. Tacos of every description. Coffee bars.  Not to mention every strip-mall chain seen everywhere else in the USA, plus the local fast food: Jack-in-the-Box, Chick-fil-A, El Pollo Rico - but thankfully no Bojangles. There are even specialty supermarkets:  Fiesta Mart, specializing in ethnic (including pre-packaged Indian) food, and Central Market/Whole Earth Provision (Whole Foods meets Wegmans in a warehouse). You can't possibly miss a meal here, and you can buy wine in any corner store or supermarket.

So far we've hit two steakhouses (don't ask - I can't remember!), a taco truck, a fabulous Mexican restaurant (Polvos) and an amazing family-style Italian (Buco di Beppo), where 16 of us were seated in "The Pope Room."  This was a domed circular room, with an 8 - 10 foot circular table with an enormous lazy Susan in the middle.  Huge platters of manicotti, shells, chicken, salad, mussels, spaghetti with 1 pound meatballs and garlic bread spun their way around, with a bust of the current Pope smiling benevolently at us as he spun along.  It's the only restaurant I've ever been in where you walk through the kitchen to get to the seating, and one booth is located IN the kitchen, so if you like, you can be seated where you can watch all the action there.

Babygirl has been bringing home leftovers from most meals. I think she plans to have a burrito for breakfast.  I'm not throwing stones: Yesterday I had leftover red potatoes and spicy fried butterflied jumbo shrimp.

Oh - I even picked and ate one of the prickly pears.  The color is amazing. The flavor?  Kiwi-ish, not as sweet.  Not worth the risk of the prickers IMO LOL.

I think I will not step on a scale for a week or so after I get home.

DeeDee