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Monday, May 18, 2009
Free beer to help open Black Sheep Lodge, El Chile
Nothing like free booze to draw folks in to a new restaurant.
Two new restaurants — if you count El Chile’s third location downtown as new — are serving up complimentary drinks as they await full licensing from the state:
After a few coats of paint and some renovations, El Chile took over the location of its taco-focused little brother El Chilito on North Congress earlier this month, and it is offering complimentary beer or wine until the liquor license is established in a few weeks. (Open Monday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and closed Sunday.)
Also serving complimentary drinks as it waits for a liquor license is Black Sheep Lodge, which opened over the weekend at 2108 S. Lamar Blvd. Serving smart pub food such as Gorgonzola sliders, wings, sandwiches, sweet potato fries, Black Sheep has a full bar, several big screen TVs, darts, pool and a dog-friendly patio. (Open 11 a.m. to midnight, 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Saturdays.)
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Eating out
Food blogger potluck, the sequel
For the second time in as many months, Austin food bloggers gathered to share food and foodraderie on Sunday at Soup Peddler David Ansel’s house. This meant, as you would presume, great food and lots of people taking pictures of it.
Boned chicken stuffed with crawfish, shrimp and boudin straight from Louisiana was the star of the first act (a ham leg stole the show after round one), along with tarts, enchiladas, fried pork ribs, potato salad, mini sandwiches made with strawberries and pea shoots and a one killer Caesar salad. Desserts filled an entire table: strawberry tart and strawberry cream cake, fruit “cupcakes,” blondies, brownies, pecan tarts and cupcakes, including Jennie Chen of Miso Hungry’s Irish Car Bomb cupcakes.
Like the food, there were too many good people to mention them all, but I want to give a special shout-out to Michael Chu of the Cooking for Engineers, who after establishing his nationally known blog in San Francisco, moved Austin three weeks ago. Glad to see him and April Woods of The Hungry Engineer, bottom left, getting along so well.
So what did I bring? Last time it was lamb and blue cheese on endive; for this potluck, the rainy Saturday put me in the mood to bake, so I made some pizza dough and created a chard (from my backyard!) and queso fresco pizza inspired by this post by Lisa Lawless of Lisa is Cooking.
The good food is just a perk. Knowing and befriending these bloggers is the real fun.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: Playing with your food
Austin one of few stops on USDA animal identification tour
The Department of Agriculture is hosting seven so-called “listening sessions” across the country on the proposed National Animals Identification System (NAIS). One of those stops is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday at the Embassy Suites Hotel (5901 N. Interstate 35, registration is at 8 a.m.).
From the amount of attention this issue has been getting, don’t be surprised to see more than a handful of farmers and activists taking a stand against this plan that would require every livestock animal, from pasture raised lamb to backyard chickens to be tagged. I wrote about some of the aspects of the proposed system in a Relish Austin column last month.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Food in the news
