Taco Cabana

Landon's Chicken quesadillas and Chips and Queso are in the first picture, Jennifer's Black Bean Tacos are in the second.

Here is our uncensored panel discussion of our lunch on 11.26.06

Note: Landon, the guy did not offer you $50 for Trump the Game. He said, "I'll give you 50 for that," and you said, "seriously?" and he said, "YEAH! FIFTY CENTS!" and then he laughed at how witty he was for a few minutes.
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11.30.06 11:06am Jennifer: so what did you think of your meal

11.30.06 11:10am Landon: food - 4/5
atmosphere - 3/5
service - 6/5

11.30.06 11:12am Jennifer: music?

why?

11.30.06 11:21am Jennifer: every other panel discussion i've ever participated in has been a little more active

11.30.06 11:21am Landon: sorrryyyy my internet kicked me off after i'd typed a response, and then my mom called. is it sleeting in austin?
music summary:
a nice mix of american classics (such as "wipeout") and music that would probably be on the mexican jack fm.
5/5

11.30.06 11:27am Jennifer: better, it is sleeting in my apartment. my leak is back.

i enjoyed your music review. My main problem is with the food. What kind of taco doesn't have lettuce?

what was wrong with the atmosphere? I enjoyed the atmosphere. The birds. The weather. Good company. The mexican colors splattered across the walls. what other components are there?

11.30.06 11:40am Landon: the birds were an especially nice touch. it was nice of taco cabana to domesticate them and train them to wander around on the patio for the amusement of their customers.

i meant to tell the story of why service got 6/5: though each taco cabana might be different where food is concerned, the one thing that stays constant is the quality of service. comments such as "i'll give you $50 for that copy of trump the game in your backseat", "i hate to break it to you, but your total is...$6.66" (this has happened twice at the same location) "do y'all know what y'all want, or can i go smoke a cigarette?" are part of the taco cabana experience. this time i was asked if i wanted everything on my chicken quesadillas. when i asked what came on them other than chicken and cheese, the man replied "pico de gallo...at the salsa bar" and then pointed to the salsa bar. i replied that yes, i would like everything on it. i've learned from retail, jennifer, that it's little things like that which keep the customers coming back.

i have always felt that it is the responsibility of the person ordering to make sure they know what they are about to eat, so i have no sympathy for you if you were expecting a certain ingredient or topping that wasn't there. that's like asking "why the hell would anyone put pickles on a chicken sandwich" at chick-fila. a real dining con-a-sore makes sure they are preparing themselves for a meal they are comfortable with by, for example, asking for no pickles.

11.30.06 11:44am Jennifer: i'm speechless. i feel like i should just hand over the keys to my food blog to you now.

11.30.06 11:47am Landon: but you have the camera phone

11.30.06 11:48am Landon: what were your thoughts on the meal?

11.30.06 11:49am Jennifer: I also have a culinary dream

11.30.06 11:56am Jennifer: overall i was pretty disappointed because taco cabana is, hands down, the best restaurant ever. According to you it was my own fault though for being disappointed. I really think the lettuce would have added a lot to the tacos. I guess I should have asked for it.

Also I had a weird stomach ache, which I think originated from the green beans we had during Thanksgiving. I definitely can't blame taco cabana for that. But it is hard to really evaluate my experience fairly because of it.

I can't agree with you more on your sentiments on the service there though.

I enjoyed the atmosphere. It really can change to be whatever you want it to be. It is the chameleon of restaurant atmospheres. It can be romantic, it can be loud and busy, it can be a quiet place to have a serious discussion with a friend. In college it starts to feel like home. etc.

Music...you are right, the jack fm of mexican music.

11.30.06 12:01pm Landon: perhaps you should have had some of the black salsa. i'm not sure what any of the salsa's actual names are, other than black, green, and red. well, now that i think of it, the green salsa really is just named green salsa. anyways, the black salsa definitely tied the meal together for me. i have had green and red in the past, or tried to mix different salsas together to find a balance, but the black salsa by itself was far superior. i felt like calling people gringos (as an insult) while i was eating it - that's how you know it's good. maybe that would have helped your lettuceless taco experience.

11.30.06 12:04pm Jennifer: i'm pretty sure a non-gringo would find it insulting to hear you say green salsa. it is definitely VERDE.

11.30.06 12:08pm Landon: well, since i don't know any non-gringos that read EYTO, i went with green.

11.30.06 12:10pm Jennifer: well, i will try the black salsa next time.

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Later we'll find out if the black salsa is as good the second time around.

Happy Birthday Maggie/ Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

I really really wanted to have frog legs for Thankgiving but they didn't have any at Central Market, and I highly doubt any grocery stores in the suburbs have them. So we had fried turkey instead, and honestly I couldn't tell the difference. But it has been a long time since I had turkey. I like turkey okay but I gave most of mine to Maggie because I know she likes it more than I do. We pretty much stuck to the traditional food this year, which is good because I like the traditional food. Except we made a mashed potato casserole, which was not good and next year we will definitely go back to normal mashed potatoes. I've been reading a lot about mashed potatoes in Jeffrey Steingarten's book, and I need a food thermometer to make them correctly, so if anyone is trying to think of Christmas gifts for me... Anyway, I have big plans for leftovers, so make sure to tune in the next few days.


Pumpkin Pie

I don't like pie crust, it is such a waste. But pumpkin pie filling is pretty good. It's definitely more rewarding when you've made it yourself.

FOOD

The Omlettery

I have been waiting to go to this place since I first read about it weeks ago. We got there at 10:30 and there were a ton of people standing around in the sun (it was too cold in the shade) waiting to eat. The place isn't very big, and there were about as many people waiting as there were inside eating. It took us about 45 minutes to be seated. I got a Guacamole Omlette. It had guacamole, lettuce, cheddar, and swiss cheese. delicious! It was shaped unlike an omlette I've ever seen before. You get a ton of choice of sides, including home fries which I am a big fan of, or gingerbread pancakes, which they call prozac on a plate. The foodie in me said to get the pancakes, but my stomach said to get the home fries. They were good, but not really good. Next time, and there will be a next time, I will get the pancakes.


Thundercloud Subs

Thundercloud subs is an Austin legend. After a long day of movie shooting, Magz, boy, and I wanted some sandwiches. Which Wich? Pita Pit? No. Thundercloud. I got the veggie delite. I had not intention of not eating meat today, because I'm growing pretty fond of it again. So on the veggie delite you have a choice of cream cheese or hummus, and since I ate an entire container of hummus last week, so I went for the cream cheese. I kind of regret it now, but it tasted excellent. It also had lettuce, sprouts, pepper, and guac. Yum.

Saturday

Double Dave's Pizza

My parents came down on Saturday in a fruitless attempt to fix the air vent in my bathroom, the leak in my sink, and my front door. As soon as they got here the Ohio vs. Michigan game was about to start, and my mom is an Ohio State fan and my dad is a Michigan fan, so this was a pretty big deal. They requested that we have lunch at a place where we could watch the game. We decided to go to Double Dave's down the street because I thought it would be the least tool-packed. It was, but that's probably because the pizza was sub par and the service was bad (it took more than 30 minutes to get our food, and we were one of maybe five groups of people in there). We had a half vegetarian half pepperoni pizza, and all the vegetarian half consisted of was onions, mushrooms, and dry green pepper. The meat half was better but the crust was too soggy to pick up.


Central Market Truffle

My mom and I decided to go walk around Central Market while my dad finished watching the game. I didn't want to buy groceries since I'm going home in a few days, but we picked up some random things anyway. Our favorite section is the bulk food area. They had a lot of Christmas candy out, and most of them were still overflowing, but there was one bin that only had ten pieces of candy left in it. Impressed, we decided to buy two just to see why people were buying it. It ended up being a delicious chocolate truffle.



Olive Garden

One of the great things about having my parents come visit is that they are perfectly okay with taking me to my guilty pleasure restaurant, the olive garden. Case in point: when my mom came to visit me in the city, we went to the olive garden in Times Square, after having the worst eating out experience of our lives. I would never go to the one near our house because it is always packed with crazy people that I hope I never see again. And as a food critic I know I shouldn't be a fan of chains, I might as well say I love tacos from Jack in the Box. I can't help it. I like their salad okay? I got baked ziti last night because that's my favorite pasta dish to make at home, and I like to see how others compare to my own. Mine is definitely not as good as the OG.

First of many

This is my new food blog. I'm going to try to make it short and sweet, and not ramble aimlessly about every savory detail, because that's not really my style. The pictures are going to be from my phone for a while, or at least until I work up the courage to take my camera with me everywhere I go.



This is an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie. In my experience, these nasty cookies taste good in only three places: middle school cafeterias, where your taste buds are too young to know better, the cancer center at the hospital, where the sickeningly sweet flavor actually manages to get your mind off of cancer for a while, and at work, where you feel so sorry for yourself that taste hardly matters.



Cipolina 11-10-06

Friday night Maggie and I ate at Cipolina, an Italian Bistro over on West Lynn. I had a Mediterranean salad and she had a lamb sandwich. Both were excellent. The lemon-oregano vinaigrette was right on the money. I love kalamata olives, so I wish there had been more. They were thrown on top of the lettuce in a clump like an afterthought. The single slice of tomato was really dry, like it had been sliced and sitting on the counter all day. And to top it off, there was a cute, long crouton with melted parmesan all over it that I saved for dessert, because I love bread. The restaurant atmosphere was nice, with soft lights and friendly looking people with "unseen wind" hairdos (use your imagination). For Friday night, it wasn't very crowded at all. There was a huge dance floor but we got there too early for that. All of the employees are boys who are, in Maggie's words, "bookishly foxy." (At first I had quoted her as saying "brutally foxy," which doesn't make any sense. No Maggie, I don't think you are Cher Horowitz. As if.) She expanded on this by saying, "See that one? He just finished reading Ulysses." I asked, "how do you know?" and she replied, "I can see it in his eyes." The menu had several things I want to go back and try, but the salad was so good that I will probably end up ordering it again.



P.Terry's Hamburger Stand 11-11-06

This afternoon Maggie and I decided to sautée some broccoli. As soon as it was done, her roommate called and asked if we wanted to eat at P.Terry's with them. We ditched the broc. and got to the burgers as fast as we could. The burger was awwweeesome. The fries were a little limp, but still tasty. P.Terry's is a drive-thru/walk up, and we sat at the picnic table outside, which was really nice, but a little cold. I was a vegetarian for five years, and just started eating meat again recently. This has been my second hamburger since coming out of the vegetarian phase, and I have to say, I never realized how wonderful they were before. They are amazingly filling but not in a really disgusting way. I think there are a lot more burgers in my future.