We love taking advantage of three-day weekends and using the extra time to travel to new places.  So since we recently had off for Presidents’ Day weekend, we decided to go somewhere we’d never been before – and that somewhere was Austin, Texas.  Austin is famous for having an interesting vibe – its unofficial slogan is “Keep Austin Weird” – plus it’s the capital of the state so you can explore the beautiful capitol building, the historic University of Texas campus, and the state history museum.  But, of course, we also went there to sample the food, so we’ll show you here everywhere we went and what we ate.  Just be aware, though, that we will feature some images of meat here.

Now there’s two types of foods that Texas is especially well known for:  tacos and barbecue.  We had to get our hands on Austin’s version of these foods, so we first went to Joe’s Bakery, where they have an extensive list of tacos.  Miriam got three that are vegetarian:  one bean and cheese, one guacamole, and one with potatoes.

Cyril, meanwhile, had some breakfast tacos – here’s one bacon and egg, one chorizo and egg, and one potato and egg.

We also stopped at Radio Coffee and Beer, where we each got one migas taco.  Migas is a dish originally from Mexico, made with scrambled eggs and vegetables, so immigrants to Texas decided to wrap all this up in a tortilla and now migas tacos are found on almost every breakfast menu.

For barbecue, we headed over to Terry Black’s, which has several locations around Texas, including a very popular one in Austin.  There we got this giant tray of food:  in the middle is a sausage and a beef rib, which are served with your choice pickled onions and vegetables.  We also got some of the individual-sized sides – coleslaw, potato salad, mac and cheese, creamed corn, and pinto beans.

Another food that’s unique to Texas is kolaches, which came to Texas from Czech immigrant communities in the late 1800s.  A kolache is a pastry made stuffed with a variety of ingredients, and we got ours from Batch Craft Beer and Kolaches – the one on the left is fruit and cheese variety, while the one on the right has sausage and cheese in the middle.

One other thing Austin is known for is food trucks – there are so many roaming the city.  They’re great for getting quick bites, so we decided to hit up Golden Tiger as a late night spot (they’re open until 1:30am every day).  Miriam had their tofu basket, which comes with pieces of fried tofu on top of some matchstick fries.

And Cyril got their original chicken sandwich, served with lettuce, onions, pickles, and a house-made special sauce.

There’s also a couple of other interesting types of food in Austin – things you might not expect from Texas.  For example, Home Slice Pizza, which has three locations around the city, is considered to be one of the best pizzerias in the entire country.  So of course we had to try it, and we went with the eggplant pie.

We were also excited to see that Austin had its own offshoot of Voodoo Donuts.  This donut shop has gained cult status for its creative offerings, but because it has locations primarily on the West Coast we hadn’t gotten the chance to try it, until we found a shop on Austin’s very popular 6th Street.  We shared two varieties:  here’s the Viscous Hibiscus, topped with hibiscus icing and sprinkles …

… and the Chuckles, made with chocolate frosting, hot chocolate powder, chopped peanuts, and a caramel drizzle.

And finally, we couldn’t pass up the chance to get our hands on some cool burgers, so we headed up to JewBoy Burgers.  What drew us there was their creative take on a veggie burger – the Mensch, which has two latkes stuffed into a potato roll, then topped with roasted Hatch chiles and cheddar and pepper jack cheese.

Cyril got a more traditional burger:  the Oy Vey Guey, which also has roasted Hatch chiles on it, plus steamed pepper jack cheese.

All in all, we had a pretty interesting culinary experience in Austin.  We expected to eat some delicious tacos and barbecue (well, just the sides for Miriam), plus sample the food truck scene, and we found some excellent spots serving those up – but we also got out and tried some other things as well, like kolaches and donuts and pizza and burgers.  It was a well-rounded food experience, and a weekend filled with lots of different flavors.  So if you happen to find yourself in Austin, these are some cool places to visit and try just a little of what the city has to offer.