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	• Where To Eat Late • 24 Hours at Denny's. Seriously. • Tips, Techniques for Eating Late • How To Survive Late Night Eats • Dining After Dark with XLent

Dining After Dark with XLent

By Jeff Salamon
Austin American-Statesman

Maybe you didn't get what you wanted out of a Friday night's worth of flirting, so satisfying your stomach seems like acceptable compensation. Maybe you're a bit too tipsy to drive home, so an hour's worth of coffee and hot pastrami sounds like a good way to get yourself road-worthy. Maybe you're just hungry, period, and your stomach doesn't care what time it is.

Whatever the motivation, late-night dining is one of the eternal preoccupations of the urban denizen. It isn't, medically speaking, good for you, but that's part of the allure. A plate of broccoli in garlic sauce over white rice, which might seem quite abstemious at dinner time, takes on a nefarious sheen at 3 a.m. Each pungent floret signals to us that no one can tell us what to do; if we wish to sentence ourselves to a restless, gassy night of half-sleep and a logy, halitosis-ridden morning, that's our right as Americans, Texans and Austinites.

Eating late at night, when we know we should be asleep already, is a thrilling reminder of sneaking out of bed to raid the fridge after the folks have turned out the lights. It is, like so many things that city folk do on the weekends, an attempt to hold on to a youth that is ever receding from our grasp.

Unless, of course, you're actually one of those young people we've been hearing so much about, in which case all that early-morning eating comes without any baggage attached.

But how much fun is that?

• Where To Eat Late
• 24 Hours at Denny's. Seriously.
• Tips and Techniques for Eating Late
• How To Survive Late Night Eats

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