Food for thought: Austin burritos for breakfast, and don’t forget the BBQ.

Oh man, every blog post has a cheesy title right? Oh man, that was groan worthy as well!

All cities and countries love food, but Austinites really like their food. There’s a food truck, Tex Mex venue, burger joint, BBQ restaurant on every corner. That’s right a BBQ restaurant. NZ you go to a venue where can order a variety of things, but Austin has entire establishments dedicated entirely to cooking meat for eight hours; draped in tasty engine oil colored sauce, and your carnivorous order melting like butter in your mouth. I’ve been informed that telling a Texan they can come have a BBQ at your place could create a false sense that you’ve had half a cow on a spit slowly rotating for them overnight. They refer to it as a Grill. You say “come round to mine and we’ll throw some steak on the grill.” Though if you have a house where the grill is on an attached wooden platform, refrain from saying the word ‘deck’ in your New Zealand accent.

But I digress, because Austinites are most enthusiastic about their ‘breakfast tacos’ or ‘breakfast burritos’ (I like alliteration.) Simply a soft shelled taco/burrito wrapped around scrambled eggs, bacon, onions, mini potatoes; you can customize it to whatever you want. Hot sauce is something I try avoid in the morning but they often don’t. These tasty morsels are really good but I have them like once a fortnight. As for your morning coffee the coffee is here quite nice. Ya know… good quality. Though I’ve read some American travel blogs to NZ and they all said don’t drink the coffee as you’ll never be same. I’ve talked to a Texan local who had previously traveled to Wellington, and after having coffee there they now struggle with local java disappointment syndrome.

Not joking, I do genuinely enjoy their lattes here, just avoid that tar boiling in the big pot all day (most of Austin would agree.) And I’ve had to hunt the countryside like Henry Stanley for Dr Livingston aka the Flat White. Starbucks has a flat white but I’d have my NZ passport revoked if I stepped in Starbucks. The only time in Texas I’ve had one was going to a local coffee place, and as I started ordering I heard an Aussie accent come from the guy at the counter. I said “dude, I’m from New Zealand, can you make me a flat white?” To which he enthusiastically agreed and it was a great local brew. We didn’t argue over who invented it as it wasn’t the time or place.

At Austin Stone on Sunday we had a meeting for those of us wanting to join a community group, a home/cluster/life group or whatever you call it in NZ. So we were asked to introduce ourselves by name, when we started coming to AS, and where do we like to eat out. It’s like these are the most integral things in your life: Your name, your faith, and your food. I’m all good with that. My answer so far is Freebirds Burritos. Freebirds never stops. Each time I was served there they’ve asked whereabouts in England I’m from. The ground beef burrito is the best.

My final food thought list:

– If you were allergic to peanuts you’d be living in quite the minefield. I love peanut everything so I’m enjoying it.

– It’s a paleo dietitians nightmare. Everything is proudly labeled low fat. Even vegetables have low fat stickers on them. The exception is the vast amounts of red meat they sell in Texas.

– If I have any fast food I really enjoy wingless chicken wings at Wingstop. I had some recently which are covered in garlic parmesan cheese. Mmmm. But most Texans are all about the tasty Whataburger. It tastes like something your mates cooked on the grill that summer night. Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s homemade burgers outside of home basically.

– I need to shout in an American accent when I order at a fast food joint. They never understand me, but the noise that surrounds probably doesn’t help.

– Ordering Mexican food for me would be like Americans trying to pronounce our Maori street names and suburbs. Try pronounce Tostada Siberia (which are awesome) to someone who doesn’t speak English quite so well.

Alrighty, I’m done and off to Torchy’s Tacos on South Congress (SoCo is another blog entry waiting to happen.) Laters.