After getting suited up and caffeinated via a K-cup, it was just a couple of miles drive away to get to the shoreline of Lady Bird Lake just south of downtown Austin. Was able to hang for 1.5 miles before calling it a run. One mile out, half mile back and then walk cooldown. Lots off runners, walkers, ppl with dogs, ppl on bikes, along the main bike path/trail. It was a nice day albeit somewhat overcast. With temperatures hitting the high 60s in the afternoon, was to be the warmest day of the Austin stay (with highs dipping back to 50s on New Year's Day).
After run got in the Forester and drove to place found on Yelp for Tex-Mex for lunch afterward, a few miles away and back in East Austin. Juan in a Million, with 4 stars off of 1600 reviews. I got the Con Queso Breakfast with eggs over easy, friend got their Taco Grande signature breakfast taco and a nopalitos taco.
The greeting from owner upon arrival and short wait for a table despite there being maybe ten other people outside and a packed inside were a good start. Unfortunately it went downhill from there.
Have been curious for having good Tex-Mex food for what is now my 2nd visit to Lone Star State (visit #1 year and a half ago to Dallas did not yield good results), and this was another miss. Not sure if maybe as a Californian I am going to be forever unimpressed with Tex-Mex food. At any rate, my meal was underwhelming, as well as friend's restaurant-signature (gigantic) breakfast taco.
My plate came out warm at best, with the queso sauce already having formed a bit of a skin on it. Friend's Taco Grande came out pretty much cold. His nopalitos taco was warm enough temperature though.
Flavors were unimpressive -- even with their Carne Guisado on my plate the strongest flavor was the queso sauce which is not too different from what you can get at your local 7-11 convenience store. Combined with slow and pretty much rude waitress service (literally slamming coffee pot down on table to serve coffee refill), do not at all understand why this place has a 4 star rating.
Going to look to give Tex-Mex one more full try during Houston days.
After disappointing lunch headed back to house to shower and hit up a *real* (full size) Target, and check out South Congress Avenue area, which is south and across the lake/river from downtown Austin and said to be trendy area of Austin.
Got the Target (which was semi- en route to South Congress Avenue area) and did needed provisions shopping. Then headed to South Congress Avenue area and it was definitely good area for eating, drinking and shopping -- including souvenir shopping. Parking rate was wild for the few convenient parking structures though.
Ended up paying it cuz, it was getting late, area was way busy and street parking was not to be immediately found.
Got maybe a good 45-60 minutes in walking around immediate "SoCo" area but places were closing early due to it being New Year's Eve. Had heard from a friend that BATS were something to see in Austin, and had found that the largest urban bat colony resides under the South Congress Avenue bridge. And that the bats launch into flight right at sunset from underneath the bridge, and that the the best place to watch is from the bridge (which connects south Austin to downtown).
Ended up getting out on the bridge just after the sun officially set, but got some good sightlines in and sunset hues. And -- no bats. Some further real-time Googling yielded that bats take flight in the months of March through October. Oh well.
After leaving bridge stopped at the random Yeti store set right into the front of the hotel that was there -- bought my first stainless steel Yeti travel mug with Austin design lasered into steel. Also, Yeti was great pit stop opportunity.
Ultimately back to Forester and then to search out brewery for beer and dinner. Turned out a lot of breweries were closed/closing early due to it being NYE.
Ended up at Pinthouse Pizza, which ended up being just two stoplights away from the Target had stopped at earlier in the day. The place was packed. Ended up getting the a large pizza (half all meat, half all veg), and two pints each. Pizza was pretty good, beer was on point, and why was the ranch so damn good?
At Pinthouse Pizza had discussed multiple NYE options to ring in the New Year. After deciding overall wanted to keep it low key had headed back to AirBnB with undefined plans.
And undefined plans became plans to just hang at the house. Ha. Had picked up more craft beer and drank recreationally while watching random TV stuffs and listening to all the fireworks action going on in the immediate neighborhood (in Texas they have been selling fireworks everywhere, clearly many ppl in neighborhood had stocked up). As well as what were clearly just ppl shooting their guns into the air.
Watched the messy New Year's Eve show with Steve Harvey and Maria Menounos -- was actually pretty entertaining to see how drunk Maria was and overall how cringy the show was. Ha. Things quieted down in the neighborhood within the hour after midnight and before too long after was time to call it a night on the final night of 2018 (technically 2019 already -- whatev).
No comments:
Post a Comment