Blanche Davidian

I've never bothered to specify what cheese to use on my Subway sub because it's all processed cheez food and tastes the same anyway. Their cheddar=american with orange dye.

I have an uncle from KS who lives in Fort Worth and stocks up on Leinenkugel's when he's back in the midwest and an uncle from TX who lives in Omaha who used to stock up on Shiner when he was back in HIS home state. The loyalty! I am always befuddled by our well-meaning midwestern pals who buy Shiner for us when we go visit. They are so proud to present us Texans with our Texas beer, but secretly I'm thinking, "uhhh, dude, I drink gallons of this at home. What else have you got?" Lone Star and PBR have interesting parallels as well...

I am extremely partial to Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea. They invented the blend for a tea room called Betty's in (where else?) York.

Ugh, I think I've had all the Subway I can stand in one lifetime. I used sling meat for them in high school, and my law school had one in the student commons, filling the school with the smell of baking bread. It was a lot less appetizing than it sounds! I can forgive the law students because they were hostages (the bad parking situation made it untenable to leave over the lunch hour), but the Subway I worked at was PACKED for lunch AND dinner. The grossest sandwich I ever made: pepperoni and fake crab meat salad. 2nd place: Footlong double-meat double-cheese meatball subs (12 per sandwich) with no vegetables and quadruple mayonnaise. Subway also used to sell a "pizza sub" which was pepperoni and salami with cheese and marinara sauce scraped out of the meatball bin. I think it wins "worst menu item" over even the seafood salad.

I'm sorry, I thought this thread was about good places to eat in Austin. Oh no, I'M sorry. I thought that most people agree with me that dining in this particular restaurant or that is about more than just the food -- things that one should keep in mind when one has been asked for recommendations for something so subjective as "good places to eat." There's also service, ambiance, mood, menu, a sense of place, time, history, etc. Especially with people "on this board, obviously" since they dissect and discuss and argue about such intangible and peripheral and (apparently) superfluous and unimportant things endlessly. And that traveling and visiting places is about more than just the restaurants. And making an effort to learn about and understand and appreciate a destination, and the people that lived there, and the history and traditions and culture that shaped it, helps one to more fully understand and appreciate the restaurants and foods and individual dishes and preparations that that particular destination offers. I should not have made those assumptions. I guess it's not easy for me to so casually separate the great "town IN GENERAL" from the people that live there (and in fact even to be dismissive of them; i.e., "Personally, I am not fond of the 'Austin Institution' restaurants... I know it's so Very Austin to go to these places... I find the city sort of pretentious when it comes to evaluating its own merits...."), the reasons why they find it special, the places they're proud of, the things they do, the common history they share, the restaurants they frequent, and what they order and enjoy when they get there. And why on earth they'd go to someplace so awful again and again and again. ← Yo, that's a lot of words to defend someplace as dreadful as Threadgill's or Chuy's.

I love my KA attachment. I feel like I have plenty of control over the pasta and can tell by the way it rolls out that it might need something. I do think the KA makes a one-man operation easier.

I'm sorry, I thought this thread was about good places to eat in Austin. I really feel like the dining/food culture here pales in comparison to Houston, which is why I asked if you'd been there. Being on this board, obviously, this is something that matters a lot to me. As for enjoying the town IN GENERAL, I would say I've found plenty to appreciate here, including some of the things on your list. I've tried very hard to acculturate to Austin and appreciate it on its own merits. Personally, I've been blown away by the film events put on by the Alamo Drafthouse and roasted my skin to a crispy pink while toobing. Oh, and the burgers at Casino ARE pretty good. I prefer the bars on Red River to most of 6th street, though.

Loose meat sandwiches, AKA Maid Rites, are like sloppy joes without the sauce. Basically it's just seasoned ground beef scooped onto a squishy white hamburger bun...MMMMM. Iowans know to eat corn only during its peak in the summer, simply steamed or grilled and slathered with butter, salt and pepper. I'd like to nominate Vietnamese food for Houston, especially sandwiches that come on baguettes and noodle soups. The Austin people are right on the money with BBQ and migas, but I'd add breakfast tacos and gingerbread pancakes.

I recently ran across an ancient Gourmet magazine (mid-nineties) about a writer who set out to bribe his way into the busiest restaurants in NYC. Not only do you get a hilarious personal account, but tips for how to bribe should you want to attempt the feat yourself. I wonder if I can still find it... Edited to add: Duh, I should have read the article first. It's the same one Walsh is talking about, and I think the year was 1997.

I'm sorry to disagree with you, but that's my honest opinion. I think Austin is a great town, but I've been very disappointed in a lot of the Must-Do stuff. I started my previous post with places I do like to eat because I think those places are representative of what's good about Austin, if not so well-known. Have you ever been to Houston? I didn't realize until I left what a great place it is for someone who is interested in food.

I am wild about Fung's Kitchen in Houston. Please don't tell me they closed!

I like Hoover's best out of all the chicken-fried restaurants, but Tony's is good too. Also, for breakfast/lunch you cannot do better than Joe's Bakery on E 7th. I order a couple a la carte breakfast tacos and a side of beans. I am in a hot dispute with my UT friends about Ruby's BBQ (they LOVE it, I don't.) My father-in-law liked Quality Seafood so much we had to eat there twice his last visit. My husband is a big fan of Tien Hong and Dog Almighty, mostly because he rarely visits the Burnet area so these places are a rare treat. I was not impressed by Polvo's or Juan in a Million. I have been casting around for a good tex-mex place to go in the PM when Joe's is closed, but haven't found anything that hits the spot. Personally, I am not fond of the "Austin Institution" restaurants: Threadgill's, Chuy's, Magnolia Cafe, Stubb's, Kerbey Lane, etc. I know it's so Very Austin to go to these places, but the waits are long and the food is mediocre. I would totally skip the Eiffel Tower if the view, once fabulous, now sucked. Just my opinion. I know I am going to get pilloried for saying this, but I was very disappointed in the food scene in Austin when I moved from Houston. I like Austin fine, but I find the city sort of pretentious when it comes to evaluating its own merits. [Edited to add husband's 2 cents.]

Bah, y'all are right. You can still record a dish in recipe form in a similar fashion to the way music is written down, though.

Nobody, those dishes exist in the public domain. Uhhh, I'd say creating a dish is exactly like a piece of music. The music only exists as long as your ears can hear it, then it's gone. You fix it on sheet music (or in a recipe) to preserve it so it can be reproduced. But the copyright is on that first performance, of music OR food.

I have the opposite problem with a friend I occasionally dine with--regardless of who treats when we go out, he is tyrannically rude if anything about the meal is "off." For example: We went to a very crowded restaurant, and we were all very hungry. The waiter came over to take our drink orders, which we gave along with some appetizers. On his way back to the kitchen, the waiter stopped at a table near ours who were similarly waiting to be waited on, and my friend jumped up, ran to the waiter and demanded he go straight to the kitchen because we were so hungry we couldn't wait another second for our drinks/food. Another time, a third diner had ordered something wacky she ended up not liking. My friend called the waiter over and demanded that the offending dish be taken away and that it be taken off the bill. There was nothing wrong with the dish, it was just not what our third diner was expecting. The friend got quite shrill when the waiter explained the manager would not comp the dish because it didn't suit us--he let loose with a torrent of insults about the waiter, the manager, the food, the restaurant in general. "Never in all my life have I been treated with such rudeness!!!" I have never wanted to crawl under the table so badly in my life--I ended up offering to trade dishes to make the peace, although I warned diner #3 that she wouldn't like it and didn't like it too much myself. I could go on and on about my poor friend's terrible restaurant manners, but those are the stories that fit the thread the best. I assure you he's quite lovely as a person, as long as he's not in a restaurant.

Damn the lawyer haters, I think chefs who perform at that "haute" level of cooking deserve intellectual property rights. Under U.S. law, you cannot copyright an idea. I think that concept, coupled with the fair use doctrine, leaves plenty of room for chefs to "borrow" concepts for their inspiration. If you're a chef who cooks in that rarified arena, you've spent a considerable amount of time and effort honing your cuisine into a unique and singular vision. You deserve to be protected from people who want to borrow on your success without doing any of the hard work themselves.

The latest issue of Cook's Illustrated has a recipe for Moroccan Chicken with a little side article that addresses tagines. Their conclusion was that a dutch oven was fine/better than a tagine for producing a long-simmered stew.

I think "classic" cockatails have a great deal less sweetness than what the average American is used to in their beverage. I blame the soda-fication of our culture for the intolerance to bitterness on the palate. I introduced a friend to gimlets made with Rose's Lime and she was disappointed and repulsed when she ordered the drink from a classy bar that made it with fresh lime juice. (I thought it was different, but fine.) She couldn't stand the drink without that jolt of sweetness to balance the sour and the bitter.

I got two volumes of the French Chef on DVD for Christmas. To me, Julia Child's show isn't so much about the recipes, but more about encouragement to get in the kitchen and try new things. I think her improvisational approach to subsitution is something sorely lacking in food TV today. Although "exotic" ingredients are increasingly becoming more commonplace, there are plenty of places in the US where it's not feasible to rustle up a pound of shallots or a star anise pod without some sort of mail order. Even in a big city with plenty of gourmet groceries, sometimes I want to cook without the hassle of stopping at several stores to collect all the little flourishes that will make my dish authentic. Julia makes cooking look fun, and I find her attitude infectious. Yay!

I've definitely noticed some of the Chinese restaurants i frequent are a little rude about hustling off diners. I *hate* it when the waiter materializes to snatch my empty dish off the table as soon as I've lifted the last bite of whatever I'm eating to my lips or delivers the check 5 minutes after the entree. I'm a regular at several of these places and I notice that it's usually a problem with one or two specific waiters. They are usually happy to see me, so I must conclude that the hovering waiter is just performing his idea of efficient service and is totally oblivious to how annoying I find it.

If ONLY. You know, with a little development, I think we might have a successful business plan here.

Looking at a 3-week old mountain of dirty laundry is totally intimidating. And it would go a lot smoother if I dropped it off at a laundry service!

Dream Dinners et al seems like a swell idea for lazy people, no sarcasm intended. The thing I dislike about the NYT article and about the marketing that surrounds meal shortcuts in general is all the collective whining about how hard it is to cook. Yeah, it's easier for me because I like to do it, but I don't swoon on the sofa about how exhausting my life is because I have to do the laundry or pay bills or do some housework (all things I hate, BTW.) And really, cooking isn't hard, or at least, any harder than any other domestic activity. I have an undeserved (I think) reputation amongst my friends for being this fabulous gourmet cook because I cook. The thing is, the big deal birthday cake they all swoon over is a doctored cake mix, the celebrated pasta dish involves little more than peeling some garlic and opening a can, and the coconut curry that's so interesting and exotic took 20 minutes to make. It's all stuff anyone can do, I'm just the one that gets in the kitchen and does it. So why do people get all frazzled at the prospect of cooking? (Conversely, why don't more people complain in a national public forum about how yard work or car maintenance is time-consuming and boring?)

I hate the smell of canned tuna. Spaghetti-Os are similarly disgusting.

In my experience, type of baking sheet/oven control/timing is as least as important as the recipe, if not more. My mom, my sister and I all bake chocolate chip cookies from the same family recipe, but they come out very differently based on our manipulations of the dough. Baking cookies is a lot like cooking a steak--a true master need only eyeball his specimen to determine whether it has achieved its peak of doneness. Unfortunately, the only way to acquire this rarified talent is to bake (and ruin) hundreds of batches of cookies. I like doubling the salt in cookie recipes. I'm a total sucker for the sweet/salty combination. Chocolate covered pretzels--yes, please!