Persian, Birthday, A noble Tragedy, Korean and Hatch!

The weekend started off nicely with a dinner at Shandeez Grill (http://www.shandeez.com/) after Michelle went Climbing for a little while at Main Event's Rock Gym. The foos was excellent (if a bit on the cool side for grilled meats). We got a family platter that was supposed to be for 3 (they did not have one for 2). Will definitely be going back to explore their menu further.


(from their menu: SHANDEEZ FAMILY PLATE #2 [Serves three]
Combination of skewer of chicken kabob, 2 ground beef kabob, and steak kabob charbroiled, served with grill Tomatoes and fluffy basmati rice [white, Baghali Polo])


The next morning we got up early enough to make breakfast at The Noble Pig. We don't do this every weekend but It's a good way to start a Saturday. We had been warned that they got a writeup in the local paper and were extremely busy Friday but we went anyhow. At 10am they weren't busy at all and we got a leisurely breakfast and conversation with the staff. We had sent a message to a friend suggesting she meet us but she was to lazy to be awake at that awful early hour. Here is the blog post mentioned Tragedy. When this friend did finally drag herself out of bed later in the day The Noble Pig was closed... because they ran out of bread. Apparently they got busy after we left. Score one for being out of bed before noon!


Fried Egg potato and cheese sandwich with Sausage and a side of bacon. (I added the bacon as a bday present to myself!)

Saturday evening we have standing plans with friends that range from Pizza (most of the time) to Thai or Korean. This week we went to Korea House (http://www.yelp.com/biz/korea-house-restaurant-and-sushi-bar-austin) and had a great meal including sushi and Korean bbq. An excellent day!

The weekend feeding frenzy was capped off by the oh so usual but not mundane trip to Chuy's (http://www.chuys.com/) for a large dose of Hatch Green Chile with friends. As usual the food was good but we sat on the patio and it was really quite cold. They have heaters and curtains but their patio is designed such that the curtains leave a huge gap for cold air to come in. Did not make for a pleasant meal in some ways but there was Hatch so it can be overlooked.

I couldn't decide what to eat so I got Soup and an appetizer plater.

Review: The Noble Pig

The Noble Pig has been a destination for breakfast and lunch for Michelle and I for the past few months. We go there on average about once a weekand have gotten a chance to chat with the staff quite a bit. Their friendly attitude is outstanding.

As the name would imply, most of the sandwiches have a pork theme. The signature sandwich "The Noble Pig" is so amazingly flavorful my biggest complaint is that it might have to many meats on it. The BLT is not your typical crunch back lettuce and tomato but a gourmet sandwich on homemade bread with fresh tomatoes lettuce and 16 hour slow smoked pork belly. The meat reminds me more of a smoked brisket in cut and texture than bacon, but the flavor... This is probably the best sandwich on the lunch menu that involves pork. The other gem in my mind there is the deviled egg sandwich. They toast their homemade bread and serve you deviled eggs as the main ingredient. As much as I love their lunch menu I generally get breakfast. There is nothing special about putting together a fried egg, cheese potato and sausage sandwich unless you do it the way that they do at the Noble Pig. This is the best breakfast sandwich I have had. Michelle usually gets their oatmeal for breakfast which again sounds mundane until you dig in and taste the spectacular blueberry compote that they serve on top of the mug of oatmeal and the 5-spice twist in the oatmeal itself with a little bit of melting butter is fantastic.

Their soup changes as they run out and have to bring in a new pot so I can't tell you much about what there might be there at any given time but so far I have to say that the soups are amongst the best I have had in Austin. I was particularly in love with the tomato basil that was available on out last visit.

If you find yourself in North Austin and hungry this would be my first stop. They are a bit out of the way and hard to find thanks to a couple of trees in the small parking lot but the hunt is well worth it.

One more thought before I save this... 16 HOUR SMOKED BACON!!!!!!!!!!!

Been awhile...

While making dinner last night I realized that I was making the same recipe (sort of) as my last blog post and couldn't remember when that post had gone up. I put off looking it up because I was busy and as usual a bit lazy. I promptly then forgot about it in after dinner digestion bliss from a very satisfactory version of the Puerco Guisada, tortillas, chips and various salsa dips. On the way to work today I thought about it again and decided to check it out when I got to work. Gah! that was last March! I am not a big fan of people updating their blogs just because it's time to update... but this is pushing the limit and makes my blog stale. Instead of posting a rehash of the last recipe (which wasn't exactly the same but was very good) I thought I would bring the blog up to date with happenings from the past 10 months... New Job (same company).. interesting work yay! New Mexico visit. Lots of work. Cancel trip to NH/Mass due to conflicting work schedules between Michelle and myself. Job still interesting. Michelle's mom visits for Thanksgiving. Did I mention there was a lot going on with work? Xmas in New Mexico. Hmm that pretty much covers all the highlights. I also cooked a few meals in there and went to a few great restaurants. Here is a partial list of the restaurants in no order other than what my foggy brain can dredge them up so I guess maybe a slight bias to how memorable.

Austin Area:

The Noble Pig

The Emerald

The Noble Pig

O'Leander Cafe (they just reopened over the holidays, yay!)

The Noble Pig

Fogo De Chao

The Melting Pot

The Noble Pig

Kerby Lane Cafe

The Noble Pig

Albq. NM area:

The Range

The Standard Diner

La Hacienda

Twister's

Flying Star Cafe

Hmm did I mention The Noble Pig in Austin TX on 620 a little north of Anderson Mill? Perhaps that will be my first review.