5 Things to Eat in Austin

Texas - southwest, Tex/Mex cuisine. That's easy. So I won't even go into why this is the food of choice while in Texas, I'll just share a few bites of my food while in Austin for a few days.

I had tacos, chips & salsa, tacos, rice and black beans for two meals, two different restaurants, they were both good.

First, I went to Guero's on South Congress Ave. - a short walk right down the street from Allen's Boots, where I picked up a pair of cowboy boots!  These few blocks on South Congress Ave. are an interesting shopping area, not too far from downtown, a $6-7 cab-ride from the Convention Center.  There are some unique shops - jewelry, antiques, vintage clothing. Nice for window shopping, and if you're in the mood to do actual shopping, it's a good variety.  But, back to the food.

I got chips and salsa - the green pepper-y salsa is not for the lightweights. It is spicy, but delicious.  I also had fish tacos; with bites of tilapia, the tacos were filled with a crunchy mix of cabbage and an option of flour (my choice) or corn tortillas.  The fish was seasoned really well, a nice flavorful taste.

My other meal was at Iron Cactus on Sixth Street.  Originally Pecan Street, named for a native nut as most of the parallel streets were named when the streets were first mapped out, its a quaint stretch of shops and restaurants by day and the "Dirty Six" as one of the shop cashier's said that locals refer to it on weekend nights.  We did walk a few blocks on Saturday night and it is a walking party, which I knew I was too old for!  The salsa I preferred here was a fire-roasted tomato salsa that's served warm - spicy and delicious.  I had shrimp tacos with grilled tortillas; this grilling added a kick of flavor.  But really what set this meal off was the black beans. Usually, you get the beans and rice as the normal side and it's as good as expected. Not sure what exactly they did to these black beans but they were really really good, flavorful, a little spicy, but not real hot.  These beans and rice would be enough of a meal.

With my meals of course I had to have some liquid refreshment.  At the Iron Cactus I had the Blood Red Orange Margarita. It had just enough tartness from the lime, but a balance of sweet.  I would've taken one with me for the flight home if they had to-go cups.

During my street wandering, I came upon a tamale stand at a farmer's market.  First time I've had a tamale and when I opened it, I thought, "okay, what do I do with this corn husk?"  So I figured out that you don't eat it, luckily the woman at the stand had put a fork in my bag.  I had the vegetarian tamale, topped it with this very very hot pepper salsa (see a theme here?) and it was a good, filling lunch.

During my walk on South Congress, I spotted a food truck, something Austin is apparently famous for. They were all over the city with every food option - burgers, Jamaican, Thai, crepes, tacos. And Hey, Cupcake! (That was the name of the truck - cute, right?)  I got Chocolate, Red Velvet, and "Michael Jackson" (chocolate cupcake with vanilla icing - I know, you don't want to laugh!) cupcakes.  They were dense, but moist - kinda hard to do. And I am a critic of red velvet because these often are not moist enough - this one was good. The cream cheese icing, however, had a little tartness to it - I couldn't really figure out what it was, maybe some lemon or something? It wasn't bad, just not as sweet as I make mine.  And the chocolate - it lasted the flight home and until the next day - still good.

I got my southwest, Tex-Mex fill - peppery and tasty, along with a side of sweetness. Pretty good eaten' for my couple of days in Texas.

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When in Texas... Finding the Perfect Cowboy Boots

When in Texas, you've got to get a great pair of boots. I think that's a rule posted at the border of the Republic.  Thus, I made a visit to Allen's Boots on South Congress Ave. while in Austin. I found it online in my pre-visit research, and then was confirmed by the pedi-cab driver who said that yes, it's a great boot shop, but no she wouldn't take me there because it was too far and all uphill for her to pedal over there.

When I walked in I was overwhelmed - although that may be an understatement. First, the smell of leather hit me when I walked in the door. Then I was met with rows and rows and rows of boots. I've made a couple visits to DSW and such shoe stores, but wow! They were arranged by size, so that made things a bit easier.  'Til I realized there were a couple hundred pairs of boots in my size.  So I tried on a whole bunch of boots.  There were three things I considered in my boot try-on, and I can't say which one was the simpler factor: design, fit, and price.

Design

A thing about the style: cowboy boots are pointy so that they can easily get their foot into the horse saddle stirrups.  They are heeled so the cowboy's foot doesn't slip all the way through that saddle stirrup. I don't know how important that is to my suburban, horse-free life, but it was good to know.

I pulled out short boots, high boots, solid color boots, decorative boots. They were made from all kinds of hides or skins - leather, as you would expect, and snakeskin, but also crocodile belly, ostrich body and ostrich leg. Ostrich? Who knew?  And they were in every color - brown, black, red, yellow, purple, green and turquoise! Of course, turquoise, being southwest. And then there were designs - flowers in stitching and other colored leathers, swirly stitching, bling!, lace trellises - absolutely beautiful.

Fit

Some of them fit great, some were way too tight. Some fit, but felt a little tight. I learned that when you try on new leather boots, they will be tight. Across the top of the foot, maybe around the back of the feel. The two salesladies said that the leather stretches as it wears, from the warmth and movement of your foot. It should not however, be tight on your toes - that might not stretch and then you'll have some ill-fitting (expensive) boots. The ostrich, however, wasn't expected to be as stretchy, so they should fit right.

Price

And now - let's talk about the wide range of cost. There were some boots at about $150. That's the lowest ticket price I saw, if there were lesser priced boots, they must've not been in my size.  I tried on one pair - they were turquise and beautiful and the most softest, comfortablest pair of shoes ever, on the inside and outside. I don't know what they fed that cow. They were over $500.  It almost seemed that the price was related to how likely one would be to come across the animal owning the hide and want to pet it.  A cow. A crocodile. A snake. An ostrich. You're up to about $1300.  Yes. $1300. The decimal is in the right place. They went higher too, but I just couldn't bring myself to reach up to that shelf. But they were pretty, no doubt, they were pretty.

There was some careful balancing of these three criteria to finally select the perfect pair of Texas boots.

     

Afterwards, the evening was cool and breezy and I considered walking back to my hotel, since I imagined it would now be all downhill and it really wasn't that far. I didn't have walking shoes on, but hey! These boots...

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