Dinner: We had Christmas Eve dinner at Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant (10901 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX (512) 490-1426) where we've had dim sum a number of times but never ordered from the dinner menu before. We ordered a few items which turned out to be pretty decent.

We started with the Assorted Seafood Claypot which both Tina and I liked a lot. It had good fish flavor, nice sauce (flavorful but not overly salty), and soft and tasty tofu.

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What I Ate: December 24, 2010 (Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant)

Lunch: We ate lunch at Nordstrom's Cafe Bistro starting with the crab bisque.

Warm goat cheese salad

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What I Ate: December 23, 2010 (Nordstrom's Cafe Bistro)

Dinner: We headed downtown to eat some thin crust pizza at Backspace (507 San Jacinto, Austin, TX 78701). When we arrived, we found out they hadn't opened the previous week as planned and we were, in fact, dining on opening night. We started with a great salad of romaine, giardiniera, red onion, herbs, pecarino romano ($7). It was dressed with the pickling juice from the giardiniera which added an amazing sweet and vinegary flavor to the simple blend of ingredients.

We also ordered speck which surprisingly came with olives (with pickled sunchokes), butternut squash chutney, and bread (all for $4!).

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What I Ate: December 22, 2010 (Backspace)

Lunch: We drove back up to The Noble Pig (11815 620 N. Suite 4, Austin, TX (512) 382-6248) to try a couple more sandwiches. I had the Creole Catfish tomato tartar sauce, romaine & red onion ($8) which was cooked perfectly (nicely seasoned and super tender) and well balanced (great sauce, sturdy bread, crispy vegetables, and, of course, the wonderful fish).

Tina had the Thai Chicken with jalapeno-cabbage slaw and cilantro ($7) which was strongly flavored and also well balanced.

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What I Ate: December 21, 2010 (The Noble Pig)

Dinner: Our friend Victor came over and cooked us dinner (I don't think anyone has ever come over to our house and then cooked for us before!) before hanging out, playing board games, and failing to witness the total lunar eclipse (due to cloud cover).

He started off by pan frying some delicious marinated shrimp.

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What I Ate: December 20, 2010

Dinner: Tina's parents took us out to dinner at Asia Cafe (Ste D, 8644 Spicewood Springs Road, Austin, TX (512) 331-5780). I forgot my memory card, so I had to take pictures using my cell phone.

We had drunken chicken, sauteed water spinach, fuqi fei pian, Dongpo pork leg, and whole fish with spicy tofu.

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What I Ate: December 19, 2010 (Asia Cafe)

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)