Lunch: I made a couple of shrimp rolls for our lunch.

Dinner: After attending a "Flavor Tripping Party" where we tasted various foods after eating a miracle fruit, we went out to dinner at La Condesa (400-A W 2nd Street, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 499-0300‎). Our table of six shared a whole bunch of dishes including fried crickets.
Chapulines Taquitos toasted oaxacan crickets, avocado salad, salsa de chipotle ($12). The crickets were crispy and salty, but didn't contribute much flavor. With not much else except avocado and salsa to go in the corn tortilla, I thought the dish was a bit too simple in both texture and flavor.

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What I Ate: July 31, 2009 (La Condesa)

Tina and I were invited to a "Flavor Tripping" Party by Jennie Wang. At this party, the participants are granted one miracle berry which, after chewing and sloshing around the tongue for a minute or two, alters the way your taste buds react to sour/acidic foods for a little while (about 15-30 minutes). Instead of registering as sour, they register as sweet.

We popped the fruit into our mouths.

Then we chewed it into a pulp and swirled it around for about two minutes. It tasted slightly tart, like a really mild cranberry.

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Flavor Tripping - The taste altering Miracle Fruit

Apparently, one weekend per year, Texas has a tax holiday - three days where you don't pay sales tax on most clothing! This year (2009) it's going to be on August 21 through 23.

http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/taxpubs/tx98_490/tx98_490.html

Dinner: We were in Austin photographing the post-tension cables and the positions they are laid in our foundation, so we went somewhere close by for dinner. We tried Brick Oven (9911 Brodie Ln # 600, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 292-3939‎) and despite some mixed reviews online, we really liked it.

We started off by splitting their Greek salad. They split the salad for us, so the photo is of my portion. The salad was average - nothing special - except they were very generous with the marinated artichoke hearts.

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What I Ate: July 30, 2009 (Brick Oven)

Dinner: Tina cooked traditional-style sweet and sour pork ribs and served it with mixed vegetable stir-fry of carrots, onions, celery, bamboo shoots, and woodear.

Lunch: Tina whipped up a quick angel hair, prosciutto, cherry tomato, garlic, and olive oil dish that we both wolfed down for lunch.

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What I Ate: July 29, 2009

Dinner: Tina made a green Thai curry from scratch and served it over rice. It was really good - I thought it was as good as any decent Thai restaurant.

Lunch: Some leftover homemade Indian food (paratha and aloo gobi) and Chinese braised pork and collard greens.

Dinner: Tina and I joined a few friends at Olivia's (2043 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 804-2700‎) for dinner.

We started with fried local chicken livers guacamole, flatbread, bbq sauce. The livers were mild in flavor and excellently fried. The guacamole paired very well with it. I wasn't so sure about the BBQ sauce which tasted like a sweet cocktail sauce.

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What I Ate: July 27, 2009 (Olivia's)

Dinner: I pan-fried a Kona Kampachi fillet and served it with capellini tossed in extra virgin olive oil and topped with buttered grilled mushrooms and fresh gulf white shrimp. The greens are collard greens which I blanched for two minutes and then sauteed in olive oil with garlic and kosher salt.

Lunch: I had a craving for fried chicken, so I decided to try Church's (a fast food chain that I had not yet tried). I ordered the three piece spicy chicken combo while Tina got the two piece original. The regular or original flavor was a bit bland, but the spicy was okay. Overall, I prefer Popeye's spicy crispy fried chicken over Church's and doubt I'll go back. For fast food fried chicken, I currently prefer KFC (unless I'm looking for spiciness and crunch).

Lunch: We tried a new place that just opened last week in Kyle - Mr. Spuds (where they serve baked potatoes, sandwiches, and salads). I had a club sandwich on 6-in. white bread. It was somewhat similar to Subway - nothing really special.

Dinner: We were in the area near Azul Tequila (4211 S Lamar Blvd # A2, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 416-9667‎) where we had dinner last year around Christmas time. We started by sharing an order of the ceviche costeño. The fish was precooked (which was a bit weird to me) as was the shrimp, but it tasted

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What I Ate: July 25, 2009 (Mr. Spud's, Azul Tequila)

Lunch: Tina cooked up some parantha and kheer and served it with the leftover Indian food we had (aloo gobi, dal, and a chicken with tomato dish)

Dinner: We haven't had Chick-Fil-A since we moved to Texas, so we grabbed deluxe (with tomatoes and lettuce) chicken sandwiches (and waffle fries) from the closest one to us. The brest patty was juicy, tender, and flavorful as usual. I am a big fan of this sandwich and it seems that Chick-Fil-A really does make the best chicken sandwich that I've had in the various fast food restaurants. The waffle fries were a bit bland, but they really grew on me. I kind of wish we got a larger order of them.