Tina made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to start of the day.

Later, I ate a big bowl of salad made of spring greens.

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What I Ate: April 30, 2009

While the cable guys were over trying to figure out how to get a tuning adapter to work so my TiVo would get all the channels (took them 2.5 hours!), I whipped up a quick lunch of omelets filled with wilted baby greens, sauteed mushrooms, and chopped steak.

At dinnertime, Tina and I headed up to Southpark Meadows to catch a movie (which we ended up not doing). We dropping in on Bill Miller BBQ (136 Slaughter Ln W, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 280-8364‎) and shared a pork spare ribs plate with chicken and sausage.

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What I Ate: April 29, 2009 (Bill Miller BBQ)

Woke up early today with a full day scheduled so I started with a bowl of Corn Puffs and whole milk.

For lunch, we ran over to Which Wich and I got myself a meatloaf sandwich.

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What I Ate: April 28, 2009 (Which Wich, Pho Thaison)

For lunch, I whipped up a quick steak and mushroom sandwich using thinly sliced round, sauteed mushrooms, and mixed cheeses (mozzarella, romano, and asiago cheeses I think - too lazy to walk over to the fridge to check right now). I paired it with a salad of Central Market Organics' Mixed Baby Greens.

After another long day, we found ourselves at Costco where I picked up a Polish sausage for dinner. I also forgot my camera so here's a blurry shot from the subpar camera on my phone.

Spend the whole day looking at houses and driving across Austin and back in search of a particular floor plan by KB Home. We grabbed a quick lunch at Which Wich (Ste 205, 5000 W Slaughter Ln, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 282-430) which serves petite, but delicious, toasted sandwiches. I had a muffaletta.

We didn't get to eat dinner until late, and, by then, many of the restaurants in our area were closed. So we grabbed some produce that I thought I could fix a quick meal with when we passed a 24-hour Whataburger - a popular privately-held hamburger chain in Texas. I tried their Double Meat Whataburger in hopes that they would be the closest thing to In-N-Out. It wasn't close, but it wasn't bad. It comes with a lot of yellow mustard which I'll pass on next time and ask to see if they have mayo and ketchup.

Dinner: We spent the afternoon house hunting - ending in the area near Bee Cave, Texas. Knowing that we were going to be in that area, I had made reservations at a restaurant I wanted to try called Zoot (11715 Bee Caves Rd., Austin, TX‎ - (512) 477-6535‎). Zoot has been around for years (since 1991) but just recently closed their Austin location and moved out to Bee Caves (opening at the beginning of last month, March 2009). They're focused on the taste of their food (as opposed to trying fancy things, gimmicks, or exotic tricks) and to that end they select the best season ingredients for their dishes (many from local producers and growers). To say their food is flavorful is like saying a box of Crayola crayons is colorful. The quality of cuisine that we experienced exceeds practically every restaurant at this price range ($60-65 per person without wine) that we've tried in recent years (Ad Hoc in Yountville may be the only exception).

Zoot is located in La Hacienda shopping center in Bee Cave. We expected a stand alone building for this restaurant, but were surprised that it wasn't. There seemed to be a shortage of parking, but it just might have been that I didn't know where to look. There is a small rustic outdoor seating area that we passed on the way into the restaurant.

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What I Ate: April 25, 2009 (Zoot)

Lunch was quick and easy. I whipped up a few crepes, reheated the leftover turnip greens with chopped up ribeye steak, and rolled them up.

We needed something in San Marcos this evening, so we headed down there and ended up dining at Centerpoint Station (3946 Ih 35 S, San Marcos, TX‎ - (512) 392-5253‎) which has no relation to the Star Wars superweapon of the same name. We ordered an Avocado Jack which is a half pound burger with avocado, Monterey Jack cheese, sauteed mushrooms, lettuce and tomatoes which they split in half for us. The burger was alright - nothing special, but not too bad. I was surprised that the patty was supposed to be 1/2 pound. Seemed a little thin for a 1/2 pound of beef…

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What I Ate: April 24, 2009 (Centerpoint Station)

Tina and I had lunch at a Japanese Restaurant called Haiku (9300-9900 IH-35 South, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 291-5600‎) in the Southpark Meadows shopping complex in South Austin. Since they've been pushing their sushi rather hard online (going so far as two have a couple dozen suspicious CitySearch reviews), I decided to focus the meal on their sushi.

I ordered maguro (tuna) nigiri, hamachi (yellowtail) nigiri, and sake (salmon) nigiri to taste the freshness of the fish as well as the rice (sushi). The fish was a little softer than I like it, but fresh enough to not be mushy. The visual appearance was some what startling - the tuna was almost glistening while the yellowtail just looked odd (almost brownish). The color of the yellowtail looked much worse in the dim yellow lighting where we were sitting and the color corrected photo shown below makes it look alright (even though it still looks a bit off to me). The yellowtail, like the other fish, tasted just fine - mild and fresh with no textural deficiencies such as stringiness or sliminess. The sushi itself was good enough that I don't have the palate to determine if anything was missing or imbalanced. The rice held together easily without being sticky while maintaining their individual grains. It was seasoned with just the right amount of vinegar, and I couldn't detect any variation in seasoning levels (a good sign that the vinegar was evenly distributed). My only issue with the sushi was that there was too much of it for the nigiri. Tina had trouble chewing after sticking the nigiri into her mouth. Maybe in Texas you're supposed to take more than one bite or Texans have larger mouths.

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What I Ate: April 23, 2009 (Haiku)

We had to run out to get some supplies so we could start cooking at home, so, on the way, we stopped at a local restaurant in Kyle - Luvianos Mexican Restaurant (804 W Center St, Kyle, TX‎ - (512) 268-4380‎). I ordered the Luvianos Combination which is one chalupa, one tamale, and one enchilada. They were okay, but I wouldn't recommend this place or go out of my way to eat here. I look forward to trying some other Mexican/TexMex restaurants in Kyle.


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What I Ate: April 22, 2009 (Luvianos)

After finally managing to get our Driver Licenses (they didn't want to give one to Tina even though she had her California Driver License, Social Security Card, United States Passport, and Naturalization Paperwork - the biggest hang up was her Australian citizenship; they didn't know what to do since her prior citizenship listed on her Naturalization Papers didn't match her birth country… took thirty minutes for them to decide to let her have the license), we drove back to Kyle and ate lunch at the Texas Pie Company (202 W Center St, Kyle, TX - (512) 268-5885). I ordered a chicken salad sandwich on multi-grain wheat bread. As chicken salad sandwiches go, this one was nothing special, but it tasted the way I expected it to and was what I was looking for.

For dinner, we went over to Tina's parent's where they had several dishes prepared.

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What I Ate: April 21, 2009 (Texas Pie Company)