Lunch: We drove up to The Noble Pig (11815 620 N. Suite 4, Austin, TX (512) 382-6248) to try their excellent sandwiches. Brandon Martinez, who previously worked in San Francisco at Acquerello, La Folie, and Fleur de Lis, made a couple recommendations and then headed to the back to make our sandwiches. I had the BLT (house smoked bacon, lettuce, and roasted tomato, $7) which is really more of a finely smoked pork belly (as opposed to crispy or chewy breakfast bacon) served with warm tomatoes (really brought out the tomato flavor) and crispy lettuce. I loved this sandwich.

Tina had the Smoked duck pastrami (with Russian dressing and rye pickles, $8) which was also excellent. Tina liked this one more than the BLT for the tender and complex pastrami as well as the perfect combination of sauce and mildly acidic pickles.

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What I Ate: December 18, 2010 (The Noble Pig)

Dinner: We ordered a pizza from Austin's Pizza (half MoPac and half Farmer's Market) which came on a nice thin crust that was crunchy, but, unfortunately, also really chewy (almost rubbery). I didn't particularly like it, but I think it's better than the other delivery options we've had so far.

Dinner #2: More tamales

Dinner: For my birthday, we dined at Uchi (801 South Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX (512) 916-4808). Overall, our dinner was great, but we were definitely bored at some points during the meal (not because the food wasn't excellent, but because much of the menu stays the same and we had become quite familiar with many of the dishes). The best part of the meal was the sushi with fresh wasabi (it's amazing how much better a bit of fresh wasabi makes already excellent sushi) and the hamachi nabe.

shun no kaki shibumi oyster, spiced vermouth, jalapeno, coriander, $4 each.

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What I Ate: December 16, 2010 (Uchi)

Dinner: Went to Soleil's grand opening party for dinner. The food wasn't as good as the previous visit two weeks ago when they served the food bloggers a specially prepared dinner. We started off at the bar where we had a variety of appetizers.

Once we got to our table, we had a few more appetizers (three different kinds of bruschetta and mussels). The bruschetta were okay, but the bread had gotten soggy while the waiters carried the trays around and the first mussel that I had was chewy and the breadcrumb/bacon topping was too heavy on the breadcrumbs giving it a salty but otherwise flavorless crunch. The ones I had later were better and had a good amount of bacon which provided a nice contract to the mussel flavor (which was tender and not chewy this time around).

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What I Ate: December 15, 2010 (Soleil Restaurant)

Dinner: We went to try Sazon (1816 South Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX (512) 326-4395) where I started with Empanadas de Huitlacoche which had an excellent light and flaky corn pastry (almost thought it was wheat flour) surrounding the most flavorless huitlacoche filling I've ever had. I love the subtle flavors of huitlacoche, especially when paired with meats, but, in this empanada, I really couldn't taste them at all.

Tina had the Crema de Elote (a creamed corn soup) which she enjoyed quite a bit and I felt was just a pedestrian example of a creamed corn soup.

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What I Ate: December 14, 2010 (Sazon)

Dinner: I had a late meeting and wasn't ready to eat dinner until around 10pm, so we had to find a late night place to eat. I had been meaning to try Justine's Brasserie (4710 East 5th Street, Austin, TX (512) 385-2900) and when we realized they closed at 2am, that's where we went. I ordered the Escargots à la Bourguignonne to start which were tender and sauced with flavorful butter and chives.

The bread was a simple baguette sliced into thin cross-sections served with a very flavorful and fruity olive oil seasoned with black pepper and salt. I asked what brand the olive oil was and it's apparently imported from Bellagio in Italy… I haven't found this oil for sale online yet.

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What I Ate: December 13, 2010 (Justine's Brasserie)

Brunch: We met our friends Tony and Christine who were visiting Austin at South Congress Cafe (1600 South Congress Avenue, Austin, TX (512) 447-3905). We started by splitting an order of their Carrot Cake French Toast which was rich and decadent as usual.

Tina and I split the Roasted Beet Salad which was a tad underdressed but still a great combination of beets and mild creamy goat cheese.

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What I Ate: December 12, 2010 (South Congress Cafe)

Dinner: We returned to Fire Bowl Cafe where I ordered a stir fry with combination chicken, beef, and shrimp (need to remember not to get the shrimp next time as it is Gulf shrimp) with vegetables of my choosing (you just take the bowl given to you and load it up with the vegetables you like - great since I got to get more snow peas than they would have given me and I could mix up the order the way I like it) with Hunan black bean sauce and chow fun. I asked for the sauce to be lighter than usual and it was, but was still a bit heavy (I suppose they needed to make sure all the noodles were properly coated). Tina ordered something similar but opted for white rice and ended up with just the right amount of sauce when she asked for reduced sauce. On the whole, we like the food at Fire Bowl Cafe because it meets expectations and compared to other places serving Asian-ish food, the vegetables are fresh and freshly stir-fried (so not soggy or limp) which makes everything takes a whole lot better.

Dinner: After attending an interesting and funny lecture by Michael Pollan, we headed down to G'Raj Mahal (91 Red River, Austin, TX (512) 480-2255) for some Indian cuisine served out of a trailer. We haven't had Indian food in a while, so this really hit the spot. The food overall isn't close to the best Indian food we've had, but it is good stuff.

Samosas - wonderfully fried, flavorful potato and pea filling, and delicious (sometimes samosas that are poorly prepared and frozen can have a mushy, watery interior and the outside won't be crispy but harder - these exhibited none of those problems)

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What I Ate: December 10, 2010 (G'raj Mahal)

Dinner: I made large crepes to wrap shredded fried chicken, sauteed spinach, and Cholula hot sauce in.