Burger King Exposé

Burger King

Driving back to Austin, we decided to stop in the middle of nowhere for brunch. There was a sign that said “Country Cookin” so we followed it…all the way to a gas station with a small counter inside serving corn dogs, fried okra, fried chicken, and French fries. We left and went to IHOP across the street. There we waited fifteen minutes to sit down, and two cups of coffee and twenty minutes later, we were informed that our food would not arrive for at least another 45 minutes. We left and began our search for food. By this time it was 12:30 in the afternoon, and we had been on the road since 8 a.m. We were hungry, and desperate. So we did what any red blooded Americans would do, we went to a gas station. Lucky for me, they had a Burger King attached. Lucky for my parents, the gas station had Dr. Pepper and Famous Amos cookies.

I had to stand in line to order my Burger King meal for fifteen minutes. My parents refused to eat it, but they cheered me on from the sidelines and would wave and smile from the gas station section. By the time it was my turn to order, I had read the menu ten times and couldn’t decide. My mom came over and asked me what I was going to have, and all I could say was, “everything.” I sacrifice myself for you dear readers, and as I sit typing this in the back of the car, my stomach filled with grease, I know that my suffering is for the greater good.



Surprisingly, this wasn’t awful. I was impressed by how many condiments and other “food accessories” came on this one dollar hamburger. The sesame seed bun was a pleasant surprise, as was the general taste of the starchy white bun. The sandwich also had lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayonnaise, and ketchup. I easily could have stopped after eating this.


Burger King Onion Rings

These little things are fried, not salty…and everything you would expect from a fast food onion ring. I think making onion rings is a labor of love, and there is no love being put into making these. I could tell these onion rings had been sitting in a freezer for at least a year before making their way into my mouth, because the onion inside was dried up and tasteless. It was pretty disappointing. After a while I kept trying to imagine there was onion flavor there, but not even my wild imagination could do anything to help these pathetic onion rings.


Burger King Chicken Tenders

I hope you all can see in the picture that the chicken tenders are not tenders at all, but nuggets shaped like crowns. It is truly the most unnatural sight you can imagine for food. I was also upset because they were COLD. Maybe I’m exaggerating, and they were lukewarm. But if I order chicken “tenders” at 12:45 I expect them to be piping hot, because after all, that is prime chicken tender time. They were gross. I will say that the batter they are fried in has pepper mixed in with it and you can definitely taste it, and it gives these nugget/tenders the upper hand on other fast food restaurants’ chicken.


Burger King French Fries

Once again, I tried to save the best for last. And I did. It’s hard to mess up French fries. Even in a shaking car with the air conditioner on, they were still warm when I got to them. They could have been a little crispier and a little saltier, but by the time I got to them my expectations were rather low, and the fast food addictive chemicals had begun to kick in, and therefore they tasted like heaven.

Little Diner, Big Dinner

Little Diner

After doing my research on West Texas restaurants, I discovered that Little Diner in Canutillo, TX is THE place to eat, and review. Gourmet reviewed the place back in the 90s, and Texas Monthly did it more recently. Of course, Eat Your Tart Out was next. The place has gotten rave reviews from everyone, but locals like to keep it to themselves. Finding it was a pain in the ass. We drove all over the place, and in doing so we found an amazing fruit stand in the middle of nowhere with delicious oranges and avocados for less than half the price of the not delicious versions at HEB.

When we finally found it, my mom was hesitant. It was literally in the middle of a neighborhood with trailers all over the place and dirt roads kicking up sand and making the car unbelievably dirty. Also, underneath the sign for the restaurant was a sign for the coin Laundromat that is behind the restaurant. We went inside.

You order at the counter and they bring you out your food. It took my dad and I a while to decide what we wanted, but we ordered some nachos to start and then we both settled on the Gordita Plate. My mom finally came around and ordered cheese enchiladas with red sauce.


Nachos

This actually looked really pretty, even though it was just a bunch of chips piled up on a plate (weird!). The cheese sauce is definitely tasted like it came from a can, but it was steaming hot and spicy so it didn’t even matter. I would even eat it again if it were served like that. Also there were a ton of jalapenos on top, making it even more delicious. I guess now is a good time to mention that all the corn for the tortillas (and therefore the chips) is milled AT the restaurant. Everything is 100% percent homemade, even the cheese sauce and all the tortillas.



Gordita Platter

I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but this is a mountain of food. For six dollars, you have enough food to last two days. The gorditas are what Little Diner is famous for. The gordita shells are out of this world. They are really crunchy on the outside, and soft like cornbread on the inside, and then stuffed with lettuce, tomato, and beef. I added the jalapenos from the nachos for more taste. Also, the shells are deep fried but not greasy at all. And when they first came out they were too hot to hold. This was way too much food though… my dad couldn’t even eat 2/3 of it.


Churros

Even though we were stuffed, we ordered Churros for dessert. I am convinced that they are the best churros in the world. It’s a twisted pastry stick that is fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar. It took a few minutes for them to come out and I’m pretty sure it’s because they made the batter for it right after we ordered it. Somehow, despite being fried, it tasted so fresh and homemade. I can’t really describe it. Every bite was as warm as the last, and the cool sugar was a perfect balance. I wish Chipotle had the person from Little Diner making these at their restaurants. Later at the hockey game a bunch of kids were eating churros from the concession stand and my mom just looked at me and said, “I know the ones we had earlier were so much better.”

Road Trip P.1

Sunshine Café

This was a really funny experience. This is the first place we stopped on road trip 2K7, and it took us forever to find it. I don’t know why these small towns don’t want travelers to find their restaurants, but we traveled a few miles off the highway before finding a place to eat. This was the first place we saw. We went in and sat ourselves. At the table next to us was a true country man dressed in camo. A few minutes later a camoflauge truck pulled up and two more men dressed in camoflauge from head to toe joined the man sitting by us. They talked about hunting and toilets for an hour. There weren’t many other people there, but you could tell they were all regulars. Another guy near us didn’t even have to order, the waitress just brought him his breakfast a few minutes after he sat down.



Scrambled Eggs and Bacon

This was a real country breakfast for four dollars. It came with scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and a biscuit. It was all good because it all tasted like butter. The biscuit was really hot which is always a good thing. Restaurants always say “one egg” or “two eggs” but really I think they’re giving you about five. The bacon was really good, I don’t think you can really mess up bacon. And the hashbrowns were a little funny. They were limp, but that was okay because they were less greasy than usual, and everything tastes good with hot sauce.

Hotel Breakfast

At our hotel you can go to the buffet where they will make omelettes and Belgian waffles right before your eyes. It was fun to watch, I must say, and hopefully I picked up a trick or two from it.


Everything Omelet with Everything Else

I asked for my omelet to have everything but onions. I hate onions with eggs, it just doesn’t taste right. It was really good! The best omelet I’ve had in a while. Although I think there was a piece of sausage in there, and I don’t really care for that either. They also had a ton of fresh fruit, which means I had a lot of pineapple and grapes. The biscuit was pretty bad. It was super crunchy on the outside which is not how biscuits are supposed to be, so I didn’t touch it again. The potatoes were pretty good, I think they had paprika on them along with the regular salt and pepper.

Petit Fours

Petit Fours

Petit Fours is a cake shop in the West Village. My mom was really excited about going here to get some tiny cakes over spring break so I was happy to take part in it. They are gorgeous, and the selection is good. I was pretty bummed that they didn't have the strawberry shortcake in a petit four. The smallest they had it was a 10 inch 50 dollar cake. The petit fours are five dollars each, so we shared four. We ate them in the order that we were looking forward to them, from least to most.


Peanut Butter & Ganache

We weren't very excited about this one because my mom and I both don't like peanut butter very much. The lady who owns the shop said it is her favorite though, so we decided to try it. But we ate it first because we had low expectations. It turned out to be really good. The filling was the best part. It was sweet and light, and not to peanut buttery. The cake was fine. I thought the ganache was a kind of pain in the ass because once I cut off a bite it would fall off and then I had to eat it with my fingers.


Vanilla Bean Blanc

We were very excited about this, because my mom had been trying to find something to satiate her craving for white cake since Chrismas. Finally, a plain white cake that will be delicious. It wasn't. The cake part was good but the frosting blew. I just wanted some thick, sweet buttercream icing or something. But this was just whipped cream with barely any sugar in it. And the texture was sandy and gritty. We couldn't figure out why... I still have no idea. And there was no extra icing hidden on the inside like there was on all the others. This was bad.


Pure Chocolate

My mom and I love chocolate so we had to have this. The ganache on this one stuck to the cake better. There were several layers of chocolate cake and chocolate icing. I really don't like chocolate cake, but this had enough chocolate otherwise to mask the taste of the cake. It wasn't as spectacular as it could have been, there isn't much else to say.


Chocolate Toffee Obsession

This name is horrible! But the cake was good! It was much more bitter than I thought it would have been, and the toffee just wasn't that good. Also, it had the same gritty texture that the vanilla bean blanc had. But if we were judging on appearance alone, this one takes the cake. And the taste was really pretty good too. The piece of candy on top was interesting, it had little bits of toffee on the inside that tasted like peanuts.

These cakes just weren't that good. I would probably eat the peanut butter and ganache one again... Actually I'd probably eat all of the again, but I wouldn't spend five dollars on a bite size piece of cake from this place again.

2 Dine 4

I'm in El Paso, hoping to get some good food to write about. I'm also working on Petit-Fours, a cake shop in the West Village in Dallas. A general spring break post is coming soon too.

no one wants me to update

I just got online to update and blogger won't let me upload pictures. i'm sorry, i haven't forgotten about you EYTO.

love,
the mona pizza

Turn and Face the Strange Ch-Ch-Changes

Spring break is marking the first major change in Eat Your Tart Out. I've barely had time to write this last month, and the blog is suffering because of it. So to lighten the load and keep the blog interesting, I'm only going to write about particularly interesting meals from now on. That will include most meals I eat out (don't worry burrito fans, Chipotle will always be interesting, no matter how often I go there), and really good meals I make for myself (but those are few and far between these days), etc.

Eat on.

Waffle Things

I had an english muffin for breakfast. I took a picture of it. I almost uploaded it to my computer. But I don't think my blog needs another picture of an english muffin right now. I wish I had lunch. I wish I had time to eat lunch. But I don't, I barely have time to sleep.



Waffle Thing

I do, however, have time to make waffles. And scrambled eggs, and layer them with ham and cheese. This was my first time having this creation with cheese and it wasn't bad. It was good. Next time I'll add some tabasco and it will be perfect. You can never have too much of a good thing. At least not when the good thing is waffle things.

Sushi!

English Muffinnn

My fav!!!










McDonald's Fries

Shout out to Becky for taking the picture. These were salty and good, which is what I expect from McDonald's. They should have been hotter though. I guess that's what you get for going at 4 in the afternoon? Not prime McD time?




Kyoto Longorn Roll

Yum! This is my second favorite sushi roll at Kyoto! It's so sushi, but not... that is a horrible description. I just like that it's fried on the outside, and the orange spicy sauce is so good. I would eat it with a spoon. But all I had was chopsticks.




Kyoto Unagi Roll

Eel is my favorite kind of fish. The sauce on this is amazing too, like a sweet soy sauce. Truly delicious. I really want my mom to try this but I know she probably never will. It's so good though. And I love the way the fresh warm rice feels and tastes in my mouth. yeah!!



Kyoto Spider Roll

Spider rolls are my favorite. I love soft shell crab I guess. We had to wait twenty minutes after we finished our first to rolls to get this, which really sucked. But it was so good it was worth..half the wait. It did taste really fresh, which is something you aren't gaurunteed at happy hour. I wish I could eat this every day. Twice a day.

Fun Friday

Feast for the Eyes: Lipstickers

Gooze told us she got us "lipstickers" for being in her movie. We assumed she was being clever, and that she had got us a special lipstick she wanted us to wear in the movie. But no, she really got us lipstickers. And then we ended up using them to cover the parts of the SUPER 8 camera! Yeah gooze!


Hut's Hamburgers

After shooting we went to Hut's. It was good. I don't remember what I got, I think it was called the Van Halen burger but I know that's not right. I'll do my research and get back. It had tomatoes, onions, lettuce, GUACAMOLE, shredded cheese. It was delicious, I ate almost every bite. Near the end the bun was gone but there was burger left and I didn't want to touch it, it was too messy.

Salvation

Feast for the Eyes: Salvation Pizza Table

This graphic was on my side of the table. Becky's side had a star. The tables were awesome. Astronauts are awesome. Especially the ones that wear adult diapers on car rides from Houston to Florida to kill their lovers' new lady.




Salvation Pizza: Sundried Tomatoes and Canadian Bacon

I have incredibly mixed feelings about this place. For one thing, it is such a cute place. It's in an old house with a weird layout. You can pick which room you want to eat in. Outside there are gorgeous yellow picnic tables on a huge front porch. The fireplace is really modern looking. The walls are yellow, the chairs are red, the tables are black with spray painted graphics. It was a really great environment. However, the waitresses were horrible! One of their families was seated next to us and she kept going over there and talking with them and being loud, plus her son was there and he was five and a brat and screaming crying most of the time. And they were really rude about filling up our water glasses. And our pizza took forever to bake.

Anyway, wanna hear about the pizza? I was impressed with our sundried tomato and canadian bacon combo. The sundried tomatoes though...it was more like spicy sundried tomato paste. And it was in a tiny globs all over the pizza. It wasn't bad, but part of what I like about sundried tomatoes is the texture. There was no texture to this paste. It still tasted really good though. The crust was a little burned on the bottom, but that's how I like it! So that was fine with me. And I would definitely rather it be like that than have it be too greasy and therefore flimsy. This is definitely the best pizza I've had in a while but I have big expectations for a few other pizza places I have yet to eat at in Austin (namely, Home Slice).