As the holiday’s approach, we turn to food to remind us what it means to be an American. And nothing is more American than burgers. Take for instance this burger from Burger Tex.
It’s called the "bulgoki burger." Instead of boring old hamburger, it uses Korean barbecue meat.
Here’s another patriotic food, the Dallas wings from Hillbert’s.
Tastes just like Dallas, greasy and bony.
You’ve probably seen Jeremiah before. Here we see him voluntarily consuming a bottle of Jone’s Soda Company pumpkin pie soda.
He let me taste some. It goes in the category of things that aren’t quite as disgusting as you think they ought to be.
Barbecued oysters from a seafood place down by Caesar Chavez.
This was actually not disgusting at all. It’s on the threshold of not belonging on this blog at all.
Now, if I were to use the phrase "Waco gas station," what would be the first thing to go through your head? If you’re like me, the first thing you would think is, "I sure hope there’s an entire wall of locally produced pickles of various types."
The Oma’s Choice squash might actually taste better than the cucumbers.
Speaking of pickles, at a gas station on the East Side of Austin I found this pickled sausage.
If pickles and hotdogs had an affair, their mutant love child would be exactly like this.
During a recent dinner with Julia, we fried up some carniceria fajitas.
One of the signs that I’m moving up in the world, I recently bought some of the frozen udon ramen noodles.
They’re pre-hydrated! They cost a little more than a buck per serving, but as a hedonist, I figure that I deserve to pamper myself with some high-class ramen. I even put some dumplings in there.
Also pretty classy is this bowl of jjajang noodles (noodles covered with a slightly sweet black bean paste).
The instructions for preparing this were five steps long, virtually eliminating the convenience advantage of ramen.
My pal Peter Gabriel and I took a pilgrimage down to La Mexicana on South First this week. I love that place. It’s a bakery with table seating and a torta menu. They also have filled up their extra lobby space with little entrepreneur booths, people selling fruit cups, car insurance, and phone cards. Because I am the person I am, I ordered the item on the menu that I didn’t recognize.
It’s called "pambazo" (although I could have sworn they spelled it "panbrazos" which means "bread arms"). It’s filled with picadillo de res (ground beef), crema, and ruffle-cut french fries (!!!). The bun was prepared with a slathering of a red chili paste (on the outside!) and then fried. If you had to invent sandwiches from scratch, and you were ten years old, this is the sandwich you would make. Which is to say it’s amazing.
Of course I couldn’t visit La Mexican without buying some bakery products. The triangular one is an empanada filled with an apple paste.
The one on the right with the hole in the middle might very well have been the lightest and crispest baked good I have ever tasted. At least a third of it’s mass turned to crumbs as I ate.
