Lunch: Cissi's Market (1400 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 225-0521‎). On Sunday's they serve brunch, so we tried a couple items on their brunch menu.

Batting Club Sandwich The BAT (house-cured bacon, arugula, and tomato on grilled sourdough) with roasted turkey and avocado with gaufrettes (their thin, super-fine weave waffle cut potato fries) ($14). The bacon was overpoweringly salty compared to everything else in the sandwich. (Also, the tips of the bacon pieces Tina ate were a bit burnt.) Once past the bacon taste though, the sandwich was pretty good.

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What I Ate: June 21, 2009 (Cissi's Market)

Lunch: We took Tina's parents to Asia Cafe for lunch and met up with Braden and Kelly who drove up from San Antonio to spend the day with us. We ordered seven dishes:

Squid Roll with Green Chive $9.25 - good texture but mild flavors

Garlic Sprout with Twice Cooked Pork $8.95 - great

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What I Ate: June 20, 2009 (Asia Cafe, Domino's Pizza)

Dinner: We were in the south part of Austin, so we went to Buffalo Wings and Rings (9600 S I H 35 # D300, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 291-9464‎). They make 12 different sauces on three different "wings" - boneless, tenders, and traditional. Naturally, I ordered regular Buffalo wings (on the bones - so real wings). I also ordered another set of wings of a different flavor and a side salad. Tina ordered a Gyro pita and added $2 to make it a platter (which comes with cole slaw and a side (which we chose Potato Wedges). Note the menu below: "Gyros & Pitas - Old Chicago style Gyros, served with Saratoga Chips." Tina was looking forward to the chips as well as the potato wedges ("Make it a Platter! Add Slaw and your choice of side to any gyro, pita, sandwich, wrap or burger for only $2.00"). This is important, I'll come back to it.

But first, I'm going to complain about the wait. We entered the restaurant at 8:46pm. We waited about ten minutes before a waitress came by to take our order after we had been seated. The kitchen staff looked like they were taking there time - no urgency to any of the food preparation - people wandering around in there with seemingly nothing to do. At 9:23 (25 minutes after ordering it) my salad ($3.99) came out. The buttermilk dressing was overwhelmingly smelly (of buttermilk) - you know the smell, it's the smell of the restaurant size canister of bottled buttermilk ranch that you get from the restaurant supply store.

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What I Ate: June 19, 2009 (Buffalo Wings and Rings)

Lunch: I made hamburgers out of ground chuck mixed with ground dried porcini and hand formed into patties. These were pan seared, topped with a thick slice of Texas 1015 Sweet Onion (grilled on the same pan with the beef fat). I served on a pain au lait bun with bacon, mayonnaise, ketchup, cherry tomatoes, and a half pickle.

Dinner: We went down to San Marcos to try the Root Cellar Cafe for dinner. We ended up sitting at a table that used to be a sewing machine. We thought that was pretty cool.

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What I Ate: June 18, 2009 (The Root Cellar Cafe)

Dinner: I made pork chops. I still don't have grill (don't plan on buying my grills until after we move again in October) so I used a grill pan and cooked on the stove. I also had some bread from Sunday that I sliced and made into seasoned crostini. Then I put sliced zucchini on the grill pan and seasoned with salt and pepper. I then served all of it with peeled and pitted apricots.

Grilled Pork Chops
2 tsp. dried rosemary
2 tsp. dried thyme
2 tsp. applewood smoked salt
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
I brined two Berkshire pork rib chops for forty minutes in a brining solution of approx. 2 quarts water and 1/4 cup salt.
I dried the rib chops. I then toasted the rosemary and thyme and crushed it with a mortar and pestle.
I sprinkled one side of the chop with applewood smoked salt and the other side with the rosemary and thyme.
I placed the chops herbed side down on a hot grill pan with extra virgin olive oil and kept it there for 3 minutes to form a crust.
Then I flipped it over and cooked the other side until the inside hit 140°F - about 2 minutes.

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What I Ate: June 17, 2009

Dinner: Maestri Pastai orrichiette with fresh basil, cherry tomatoes, and prosciutto. Sometimes you can get prosciutto at a discount price from the deli counter - just ask them if they have any ends (the remaining inch or two that's two small for them to use on their rotary slicer) available. There's a lot of flavor in the ends and you can just chop it up and use as a soup base or slice thinly and use as you would normally use prosciutto (it just won't look as good). We also blanched some broccoli in the salty pasta water.

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What I Ate: June 16, 2009

Lunch: Made a couple small sandwiches of smoked salmon, cucumbers, capers, and cream cheese.

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What I Ate: June 15, 2009

I've decided to change the order a bit - from now on I'll post the more interesting looking meal of the day first.
Dinner: I cooked a fillet of Sockeye Salmon and served it with squid ink spaghetti, cherry tomatoes, basil, and a side salad of herbs.

Lunch: Austin Club sandwich (smoked chicken, avocado, and bacon) from Thundercloud Subs (3601 W William Cannon Dr # 450, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 891-6782‎)

Lunch: I heated up half the chicken fried steak I had left over from Twin Peaks and ate it with a side salad of fresh herbs.

Dinner: El Chile (918 Congress Ave, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 291-3120‎) which is in the spot that El Chilito belonged to before (last year?). We were hoping for a quick dinner before going to an improv comedy show, so we ordered only a couple dishes.

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What I Ate: June 13, 2009 (El Chile)

Lunch: Leftovers

Dinner: Twin Peaks (701 E Stassney Ln # D, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 383-9699‎). We ordered WAY too much food and took two boxes of leftovers home. We had no idea about the quantities we were going to receive.

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What I Ate: June 12, 2009 (Twin Peaks)