Lunch: We ate the leftover mushroom risotto and seafood with puff pastry from South Congress Cafe for lunch. The risotto was a little bland until we added a pinch of salt which drastically increased its quality.

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What I Ate: March 17, 2010

Dinner: We ate dinner with Jeff Potter who is soon to come out with a book called Cooking For Geeks (which I think has a good chance to be on par with On Food and Cooking - keep an eye out for it when O'Reilly publishes it later this year). Originally, we were planning on going to The Odd Duck, but due to the rainy weather, we decided indoors would be better. We went to South Congress Cafe (1600 South Congress Avenue, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 447-3905‎).

We split a calamari appetizer, which, as usual, are perfectly cooked (just long enough to be soft and tender without moving into the chewy stage).

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What I Ate: March 16, 2010 (South Congress Cafe)

Lunch: Tuna fish salad sandwich.

Dinner: Bowtie (farfalle) pasta with meat sauce.

Lunch: Costco - again. This time I got a Chicken Caesar Salad.

Dinner: After the premier of Elektra Luxx (where the digital projector failed before the last fifteen minutes, so no one got to see the end), I came home and ate the leftover steak and some grilled bell peppers.

Today's SXSW celebrity shot is of Carla Gugino, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Malin Ackerman during a Q&A period while we waited for the projector to be fixed (which never happened).

Lunch: While walking through the Austin Convention Center, I thought I smelled fried chicken. After that, I couldn't shake the desire to eat fried chicken, so I grabbed a three piece meal from KFC on the way home.

Dinner: Tina and I ate at Mighty Fine for dinner. I had a Bacon Jr. Cheeseburger with Grilled Jalapenos.

At SXSW, I attended a panel discussion by some directors who have worked in the horror genre. Quentin Tarantino was supposed to be on the panel but couldn't make it. We still had a pretty decent panel though with Robert Rodriguez, Matt Reeves, Neil Marshall, Ruben Fleischer, and Ti West. Here's a photo I took of Robert Rodriguez (one of my favorite directors) with Ruben Fleischer (the director of last year's excellent Zombieland).

Lunch: I spent the morning at South by Southwest and came home to take delivery of my new desk and help the installers mount my keyboard trays properly. Then I made crab salad sandwiches for our lunch.

Dinner: I gulped down nutrition bars and a burger while standing in line for Kick-Ass (which I got to see and thought it was really well done) and the sneak peek for Predators (which I did not get into). No picture unfortunately.

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What I Ate: March 12, 2010 (Kick-Ass Premier)

Full schedule today from 8am to 10:30pm - so fast meals.

Lunch: Costco Polish Sausage and Coke.

Dinner: Chick-Fil-A deluxe chicken sandwich with fries and sweet tea.

Lunch: Tina made crab salad sandwiches for lunch.

Dinner: We revisited The Driskill Grill (604 Brazos St, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 391-7162) tonight and boy has it changed since our last visit (when they were excellent). The meal started with our waiter, Jonathan, explaining the revamp of Driskill's menu. Apparently, they had evolved past the trendy tasting menu to let their evolved patrons take the evolutionary step of creating their own tasting menu. (Personally, I enjoy tasting menus that the Chef has put together - a good tasting menu will take my taste buds on a journey from light to heavy, acidic to creamy, sweet to savory and back to sweet… all the while getting a sense for what the Chef is culinarily interested in showing me.) Anyway, they believe this style of menu will allow visitors, who may not have the chance come back to taste something different, to order smaller versions of their entrees so more can be ordered (at prices around $20 each instead of $30). In addition, Jonathan explained, The Driskill has usually had customers that visit once or twice a year, but he hopes the menu will inspire customers to once or month or more. (Those two statements - "visitors won't have to repeat to taste the food" and "customers will come back more often" - seem to be almost opposing to me.) In any case, it all sounded like they hired a marketing consultant and then decided to say or do whatever the consultant told them to do. Problem is, the food has to be good enough for people to want to come and create their own tasting menu, and that is no longer the case.

Okay, now onto the food. We started with an amuse bouche of cured duck, microgreens, and apple-berry relish (at least that's what the woman who brought our food told us). It was kind of tacky - served on a plastic Asian spoon on a tea cup saucer. They do make porcelain spoons (that's what the Chinese did before plastic) and they do make appetizer plates… Anyway, it tasted like a chewy piece of meat (like a lightly smoked ham) on sweet apple sauce (or "grainy apricot jam" as Tina called it). I had a single microgreen, so the flavor was kind of lost.

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What I Ate: March 10, 2010 (Driskill Grill)

Lunch: Another busy day - microwaved the last of the tamales from Costco for a very late lunch while our neighbors played with Hairy.

Dinner: For my personal sanity, I decided I needed to cook something tonight. I grilled up a USDA Prime Ribeye Steak along with sweet bell peppers and the bulb of fennel for dinner.

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What I Ate: March 9, 2010

Dinner: I met up with a bunch of friends (Tina couldn't join us because she had to keep watch over Hairy who has a doggie cold) at Ryu of Japan (11101 Burnet Road, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 973-9498‎). I thought much of the food we had was delicious. The monk fish liver, oysters, and hotate (sea scallop) nigiri were my favorite dishes. The okonomiyaki is mediocre (having too much cabbage), but I don't know another place in Austin that serves it.

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What I Ate: March 8, 2010 (Ryu of Japan)