Lunch: I ate the rest of the kale soup and another piece of cornbread.

Dinner: I smoked some pork cushion meat with a citrus rub and ate it with fresh corn, sauteed spinach, and grilled shiitake mushrooms.

Lunch: Kale Soup and Cornbread

Dinner: Ate at Chuy's (4301 West William Cannon Drive, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 899-2489‎). Had the Tacos Al Carbon (beef), which came with thick fluffy flour tortillas and quite a decent amount of flavorful steak.

Dinner: We had the opportunity to have dinner at Uchiko (4200 North Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX) tonight. Uchiko is the second restaurant by Uchi chef Tyson Cole and he's brought Paul Qui and Philip Speer in to be Uchiko's executive chef and executive pastry chef. Their combined talents have made Uchi into the best fine dining in Austin, so a lot of people are wondering how Uchiko will turn out. After tonight's dinner, I am happy to report that Uchiko is every bit as good as Uchi. The dining space is larger (about twice as big as Uchi), the place seems less loud, and the kitchen is definitely a lot bigger. We sat at the sushi bar for this meal (and had Yoshi as our sushi chef and Erica as our server).

tempura nasu japanese eggplant crisps, mitsuba, sweet chili sauce, $4. Our friend Willet was on the fry/tempura station tonight (I think he said it was his second day on the station), and he was hitting it right on the mark. The eggplant was perfectly fried with just the right amount of seasoned tempura batter to give it both delicate flavor as well as delicate crispiness. For tempura frying, we still prefer the Brussels sprouts from Uchi, but eggplant is pretty good (just a tad more greasy due to the shape of the cut vegetable which results in much more surface area).

Click here to read the rest of
What I Ate: June 27, 2010 (Uchiko)

Lunch: I went to the Natural Epicurean Culinary School's open house event in the late morning and tasted a few of their creations and learned a little more about the school. It's a culinary school for what I would call "alternative culinary arts" which includes raw and living foods, macrobiotics, allergen specific diets (gluten free or sugar free), and the mixing of spirituality and food preparation. In short, not a topic that interests me, but a lot of people are into this type of cooking, so check out Natural Epicurean if you're in Austin and are interested in any of those topics.

Quinoa Salad with Cranberries & Toasted Pecans

Click here to read the rest of
What I Ate: June 26, 2010 (Natural Epicurean, Alamo Drafthouse)

Lunch: Tina made me a sandwich of sauteed zucchini with Aidell's meatballs on a demi-baguette.

Dinner: I had some slices of Domino's Crunchy Thin Deluxe Feast pizza, which turned out to be thin but not at all crunchy (or crispy). The texture was a little like eating a pizza with a bunch of edible papers for a crust.