Austin

I and my wife Chelsea’s food mission in Austin started with a visit to Hopdoddy Burger Bar on South Congress Street.

Two of my oldest friends, Brian and Sherard, agreed to meet us, and told me that we need to be prepared to wait in line, because there is always a line around the corner. Well, if you know me, you know I don’t have the patience to wait more than 30-40 minutes to eat anywhere. We got lucky, and arrived early enough that we only had to wait about 15 minutes.

“Hopdoddy was created to express the perfect union of burgers and beer: Handcrafted Beer (Hop) + (Doddy), the nickname given to the native cow in Aberdeen, Scotland. At Hopdoddy, our passion is to bring you the freshest available, all-natural ingredients. Daily in-house we grind hormone/antibiotic free Black Angus beef, bake our own buns from scratch and cut our own Kennebec Fries.”

Now that we all know what the strange name means, let me tell you why I would have waited an hour to eat here. First, it was the vibe. The place was super packed, but you never felt it was too loud or too crowded. It just felt normal, like it was supposed to be so busy.

Hopdoddy only uses the freshest local ingredients from suppliers they know and trust, and the freshness comes out in their burgers.

I ordered the “Buffalo Bill,” which is a Bison burger topped with blue jack cheese, Frank’s hot sauce, apple smoked bacon, and their house “Sassy Sauce.” If you have never had bison, you are missing out.  The leanness and high iron content gives the meat a bright red color that outshines just about everything else you put it up against. So if your looking for a leaner red meat, this is the real deal.

The meat married well with the blue cheddar and the bacon. It had just a little bite from the hot sauce, but it was a perfect combination. The thing I loved the most was that after I ate this big burger, I didn’t fill full and ready for a nap; that was a result of how fresh and free of hormones the meat was.

Chelsea had the “Primetime” — Texas akaushi beef, brie cheese, truffle aioli, arugula, caramelized onions, and  steak sauce. I loved the cleanness of the beef, but the brie and caramelized onion made this burger pop in your mouth. Chelsea is not a huge onion fan, but even she said the onions were perfectly cooked for this burger.

I preach the support of local business, and Hopdoddy has truly taken that to a new level. They use ingredients from their amazing local vendors, and they keep their money local to stimulate their economy. And, as an added bonus, they know exactly where their products originated from. I would be eating here every week if we had one here, and if we did ever get lucky enough to have one, I would tell everyone else in town that does burgers its time to bring your A game.

The first food truck we hit up when we got to Austin was a place called Torchy’s Tacos. Since I don’t live in Austin, I had never even heard of this place, and we just ended up finding it in our food truck search. They are not recreating the wheel here, it’s just great tacos, so I’m going to just tell you what we had and let your mouth start watering.

I told the guy in the truck that I wanted his three best tacos. He starts to tell me which ones those were, and I simply said, “Just make them, and I’ll trust your choice.”

The Trailer Park taco had fried chicken, green chilies, lettuce, pico and cheese. That sounds so simple, but when you take a bite, it seems a lot busier, but in a great way.

The next taco was the Baja shrimp, which had hand-battered shrimp, cabbage slaw, jalapenos, onions, queso fresco, lime, cilantro and a chipotle sauce. This taco had so many different flavors that it was hard to pinpoint which flavor I enjoyed the most, so I’ll just say they were all great.

The third taco was the Democrat, and it had shredded beef barbacoa with fresh avocado, queso fresco, cilantro, lime wedge and tomatillo sauce. The beef was so tender and full of flavor and, mixed with queso and tomatillo sauce, it was a home run of a taco. Torchy’s is non-stop busy, but if there’s a line, just get into it, because the wait is worth the reward.

In our quest for all the food trucks we could find, we came upon this little treasure that we ended up eating at twice in one day. The place was called the Shawarma Point, and the menu was pretty much just different types of Shawarma. There was lamb, beef and chicken.

We chose to go with the lamb and beef, and it was a decision we would not regret. The truck was in one of the many little food truck trailer parks that Austin has to offer, and, surprisingly, the trucks weren’t just centralized in the main parts of town, but were placed all around the city. The park had a barbecue trailer, a donut trailer that had a line around the corner in the middle of the day, and a trailer that specialized in different types of tuna rolls. We got our shawarma in a fresh pita bread and added hummus to it. It was amazing. Chelsea and I had decided to share one, because we were trying to just do a lot of sampling, but when we were done, it just wasn’t enough. So later that evening, before we went back to our house, we stopped and grabbed one each. If you are in Austin, do yourself a favor and stop in.