Flavors of the Month: November 2018

Austin restaurants and dishes are featured in my monthly Flavors of the Month posts. Check out this post for recommendations!

Bagel Breakfast at Nervous Charlie’s
There’s a new bagel shop in town and it’s called Nervous Charlie’s after the owners’ cute dog Charlie. You can get bagels and cream cheese or you can go for the hearty sandwiches. When I say hearty, I mean you might eat half for breakfast and half for lunch. I had the pastrami hash sandwich and it was massive with pastrami hash, egg, pickled jalapenos, and pepper jack cheese.

Breakfast at Bakery Lorraine
Having visited Bakery Lorraine in San Antonio, I was excited to hear they were opening a location at the Domain. This spot is great for pastries and breakfast. The Quiche Lorraine is my go-to and I was excited to see they have kouign amann on their menu.

Lunch at Darcy’s Donkey
This new-ish Irish pub opened on Barton Springs Road so I went with friends to give it a try. We started with some Reuben fries (swiss cheese, pastrami, caramelized onions, sauerkraut, Thousand Island) and Gnudi (pan-fried dumplings with mushrooms, caramelized onions, parmesan, balsamic reduction). For my entrée, I got a Guinness and Steak pie. All of our dishes were pretty heavy.

Shellfish Galore
Fiancé and I hosted our annual shellfish party this month. We had a slightly ridiculous amount of Dungeness crab, king crab, shrimp, and sides. It’s hard to know how much food to prepare, but everyone seemed to leave happy!

Homemade Desserts
For our shellfish party, I make a few desserts for something sweet. There are always the requested rice krispie treats, and this year I also made a marble cake and strawberry tart to work on that cookbook challenge.

SRSLY chocolate
I was excited to visit the SRSLY chocolate shop in Taylor, TX this month and I shared all about my visit here.

Dinner at Backspace
When fiancé and I went downtown to see the Creek Show, we figured we’d walk somewhere nearby for dinner since we had time left on the parking meter. I finally made it to Backspace! With only valet and being located on 6th Street, I’ve always wondered how Parkside and Backspace stay in business because it would not be my first choice to wrestle with getting to that location. But the restaurants are always packed and we had a wonderful time eating at the bar at Backspace. We enjoyed the cauliflower, a salad, and a pepperoni pizza. The restaurant has a cozy, sweet date night feel, similar to Parkside, which makes it obvious why people go there.

Party with 120 Wines and Sevens Out Barbecue
My friend Kelsey invited me to her wine and barbecue gathering and it was a tasty and cold afternoon. We enjoyed Sevens Out Barbecue and plenty of 120 Wines.

Cocktails at Hide Bar (Dallas)
Miracle is a worldwide pop-up run by a bar in New York. In its fifth year, 80 bars will transform into a Christmas wonderland and serve themed drinks. We visited the location in Dallas at Hide Bar. Austin also has a location at The Eleanor. The drink I got – the Koala-la la la, la la la la – is a gin cocktail with pine, vermouth, lime, eucalyptus syrup, orange bitters, and a cute koala.

Thanksgiving Dinners
We had two Thanksgiving dinners this year! The first was with my family, which features a lot of Chinese dishes. This year we had salmon, lobster, and lamb chops. After Thanksgiving, we HAD to have our traditional Thanksgiving dishes, so we made turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and stuffing.