If my first garbl of overeating didn’t encourage you to go to Austin, allow this garbl to convince you.  One of the best meals I’ve had in Austin, ever, was at Justine’s Brasserie recently.  Though it is located in a sketchier part of Austin on East 5th, you wouldn’t know it by the hipster clientele or the very welcoming lightbulb strung courtyard.

We had to wait about 15 minutes for a table even though we waited patiently across from empty tables the entire time.  I think they were just trying to position us in the corner because Jason was wearing his Hugasaurus Rex shirt.  See the guy in the pink shirt in the picture below?  We ended up sitting at the table next to him and his date.  His white iphone went off the ENTIRE (#$)@# MEAL.  That is, until we had enough and my brother said, “excuse me are you going to answer that?  Because my friend Jason here in the Hugasaurus Rex shirt is on call and we keep thinking that a critical network circuit is down.”  Then he went into some tirade about how he was a lobbyist and these $(#*)@$# Republicans keep calling him and they’re not gonna get what they want if he has anything to say about it.  He certainly wasn’t saying anything about it.  Also, he was on a date.  Granted, she looked like his mom but still.

A fliptard lobbyist wasn’t going to ruin our meal.  Huggy Rex ordered the French onion soup.  When in Rome…or wait…when in Austin…wear a thong.  What?  I’m hungry.  This soup was retarded.  Retarded good, that is.  Best ever.

Tonnish ordered the asparagus soup which was ridiculous.  Ridiculously awesome that is.

I’ve never had mussels before.  I KNOW!  So drunk!  Sarree.  But I saw them on the menu and I went all out.  HOLY CHOPSTICK MOTHER OF PEARL WAFFLE IRON WHAT HAVE I BEEN ORDERING ALL OF MY LIFE?!?!  The broth had more flavor than a VH1 rapper dating show.  It was seriously one of the top 5 meals I’ve ever had in my life.  Maybe I should get out more but seriously this was so good.

Huggy Rex was still licking the French Onion soup bowl when they brought out his heart shaped steak frites.  It’s that extra touch of forming the steak into a heart that makes Justine’s so special.  H-Rex raved about his steak and said it’s probably the best he’s ever had.  Coming from an Oklahoma boy who grew up chasing cattle cattle cattle and skinning buffalo to stay warm in the winter, what are we talking about?

Our travel guide T-Hum opted for the pork chop.  It’s a good thing that pork chop was so good.  My brother has been known to regurgitate on command and the iphone lobbyist could have had his night ruined but the pork chop was too good to waste.  Justine’s is a hidden French gem and is the perfect place to go off the beaten path in Austin.  The wait staff was friendly, the glasses remained full, the food was amazing and the ambience was caj.  As if that wasn’t enough, they post the negative reviews on their website as a threat  - just try not to come here and enjoy it.

The next day we went to Kerby Lane Cafe and the food was not eventful but the two UT football players sharing a bench were adorable.

After Kerby Lane Cafe, we drove around town looking for Krap Kars.  FOUND ‘EM!  $5?  That’s pretty high for a krap kar.  No wonder Huggy Rex was all “WHY?!”

Never to go more than 15 minutes w/o something to eat, we hightailed it over to Holy Cacao for a frozen hot chocolate.  SO FLIPPIN GOOD.

Holy CacAEO is located in the South Austin Trailer Park & Eatery alongside Torchy’s Tacos.  It’s pretty much a one stop shop for all of your high caloric needs.

Even trailer parks are trendy in Austin.  You won’t even find white trash there.  Well, maybe a little but they mostly recycle.

Oh South Austin Trailer Park, you so fancy.

Austin, TX is Woof Friendly just about everywhere, including the trailer park.  Paws up dawg!  This concludes our trip to the coolest city in Texas (sorry Marfa).  We’ll see you soon!  Next weekend?  Seriously, we’re free.  Pleez?  Kthksbye.

Our Austin adventures continued.  Rather than waste electricity, we took the almighty powerful road pwning gas guzzling Chevy Avalanche to brunch in downtown Austin at La Condesa.  Are electric vehicles the wave of the future?  Or is this going to be like that Segway fad that was so awesome that the inventor rolled off a cliff?

When the sign says walk, do so over to La Condesa for a Mexican brunchiesta.

Start with the guacamole.  Ask for it crazy and you’ll get watermelon, pomegranate seeds and feta on top.  Served with four salsa samplers.

You thought jalapenos were the only way to kick guacamole up a notch?  Think again.

Do yourself a huge favor and order one of their many varieties of aguas frescas made in house with seasonal flavors.  This stuff will make you want to punch Diet Coke chemicals in the face it’s so good.

What looks like a potential fire hazard is actually a crafty lighting design.

Huevos Rancheros.  Ranch Balls en ingles.  Will make you feel like you swallowed a bowling ball but it was delicious.

Huevos Condesa.  Condescending Balls en ingles.  You will feel like you swallowed a 3 pack of tennis balls but it was also delicious.

Molletes de Atun.  Tuna mullet en ingles.  Listed under the ensalades portion of the menu so I was expecting a salad for $14 with seared ahi tuna, arugula and salsa veracruz.  Instead I got a seared tuna aioli open faced torta with a side of six minute egg salsa.  Misleading on the menu but very yummy nonetheless.  Had a saffron aioli but would have enjoyed a wasabi aioli instead.  Aioli snob alert!  LOL!

Oh hey look it’s those trendy Segway things.  If these are still in use, maybe electric cars will last after all.  I mean if cliff diving doesn’t scare you then plugging a car into the wall shouldn’t either right?

I love leg tattoos, cracked out hippies in thongs, vegetarian chili, hipster bikes, Hello Kitty jorts, Town Lake trail and everything else about Austin.  The city is amazing.  If you haven’t been there, go there.  And be sure to drink a lot of water Kobayashi style because you’re going to need a stretched out stomach.

Jayschun and I recently made the southbound 35 trek to go visit my brudder, Tonnish.  He has the coolest life ever.  We are mad jelly so sometimes we tag along so we can play toos.  Tonnish hadn’t seen us in a long time so he had a ton of places lined up on his Crackberry agenda.  First up, Odd Duck Trailer.  This adorable little food trailer is a slice of outdoor picnic style gourmet heaven.

It was hotter than a Mazda 626 transmission after a trip to the grocery store so we cooled off with some Texas Tea.  All natural, no preservatives – like my squid sauce.

It took awhile to get our food but you don’t want to rush greatness.  Check out the pulled pork sandwich on a baguette with onions and peppers oh my!  Ballin out of ferkin control.

Odd Duck serves small plates so we ordered a couple to share since this was dinner 1 of 3 (primero if you will).  To accompany our pulled pork baguette we tried the tomato spiced melon feta salad.  Put down your fork!  Bring out the shovel!  I don’t even like tomatoes and I ate this salad like it was candy crack.

ONE WORD: PORK BELLY SLIDER.  It was the shiz.  My name is Sara Montoya.  You killed my pig.  Prepare to die.  Oh my pig is now this delicious sammy?  K nevermind thksbye.

Dinero segundo (2nd dinner for those that don’t speak Fatty) was a hop skip and a jump over to another trailer called El Naranjo.  They are actually in the midst of renovating an old house for a retail location but I don’t know why when they can dish out badass food from this lil cart on wheels.

One look at the Specials Board and I was drooling.  Okay let’s be honest, I have a drooling problem anyways but I had to have this soup.

The patio was darling and oh so cozy.

Look at this soup!  It tasted even bamfer than it looks.  It honestly tasted like spiced cantaloupe soup.  I just had to spellcheck cantaloupe.  I want to recreate this in my high powered blender.  It is so wonderfully fresh and flavorful that I could have had 3 bowls.  Too bad I had to save room for a taco and 3rd dinner.

I’ve been to enough taco trucks now to know quality meat and seasonings.  El Naranjo ranks right up there at the top.  Fresh corn tortillas, perfectly seasoned pork, fresh cilantro and onion and a squeeze of lime.  Oh and their sauce ain’t half bad either.  At this point my tummy was like what are you doing to me?  And I was all hey stomach why don’t you quit whining like a little baby?

How come William Sonoma doesn’t have meat spits available for wedding registries?  I guess Jason and I will have to register at Doner Kebap Restaurant Supply.

3rd dinner was luckily right around the corner from El Naranjo.  G’raj Mahal is an outdoor Indian trailer eatery with Moroccan style tents to eat under.

We started with the spiced potato and pea samosas served with mint and tamarind chutneys.  These were pretty good but were a bit heavy to start off with after already consuming what most people would consume in 2 meals.

There is something about fried food that just sits in your stomach and won’t go anywhere.  It’s like the Dirk Nowitzki of food.  You get up by a couple bowls of soup and then bam you’re tied up again.

We really should have stopped eating at this point but that’s not what champions do.  So we ordered some Baingan Bartha (pureed eggplant simmered in spices served with peas) and some Madrasi (curry).  I didn’t tell my brother at the time but I’ve had better Baingan Bartha.  It was good but I was not blown away.

The rice was plain jane.  I didn’t even write home about it. Didn’t have a stamp anyhow.

Same with the madrasi.  Maybe Indian food shouldn’t come from a trailer?   Or maybe after 2 dinners in a row the 3rd dinner no matter how great won’t taste as awesome?

Wait, you ordered dessert?  Um, yes.  Duh.  Two in fact. Indian beignets (fluffy donuts with spiced sugar) and some kulfi (homemade cardamom ice cream).  You can’t call a beignet Indian.  This was a fried donut with powdered sugar on top.  Good?  Yes.  You try and screw up a fried donut with powdered sugar.  Amazing?  No.  I’d take a Gourdough’s Donut over these any day.

The kulfi ice cream tasted way too much like whipped cream.  The chopped pistachios on top were a delicious addition but the consistency of the ice cream was whack and not dope.  I’d go back to G’raj Mahal for another shot but I probably won’t eat twice before going.

Have I reminded you that all of these meals were within the span of a few hours?  My stummy hurted.  But you can’t kick off an Austin trip w/o a trip to Amy’s Ice Cream.  WORTH EVERY CALORIE!!!!  DERP!

What?  You don’t get excited about toilet paper?

It’s official; FOODGARBL Austin is now up and running!!  There is so much good food here, where do we start?  How about a trip to West Austin (aka Northern Italy’s mirror image)?

FOODGARBL busted onto the Austin scene at Cipollina West Austin Bistro.  I knew I had come to the right place when I saw a red Vespa scooter with over 80k miles on it parked outside.  This was actually my second trip to Cipollina, but instead of the full-blown retarded lunch clique, I had a super hot date.

Not to be confused with Ciprollina, the antibiotic Italian food.

The dinner hours at Cip’s were, um … let’s say … a learning experience.  The lesson, I guess, is that even Helen Keller had a sense of taste and it’s probably one of the most important while eating.  Cipollina offers a variety of traditional Italian pasta dishes, but we didn’t get any of those because I had a sneaking suspicion that the pizza was made of poster board and pillow top.  I was right; the pizza had the exact same taste as a twin Serta smothered in Alan Greenspan brand tomato sauce.  MMmm, like Quizno’s helped ‘em!

Lamb Snausage and other ingredients pre-soaked in water.

Prosciutto and goat cheese glop of tasteless shit on crust.

Oh, and of course we ordered hummus, which was even better than the “pizza.”  The hummus (and baba ghanoush) plate was a smurf scrotum-sized serving of Mediterranean Frito-Lay bean dip paste, with some amazingly bland, astonishingly tasteless pitaboard.  I have to say, it was handy to have some pita bread that doubled as fire retardant, in case our table candle flared up, but I would rather have eaten a good appetizer that did not remind me of the time I drew a piece of pita bread on a piece of white construction paper, colored it beige and ate it.

Elmer's Glue hummus and stale pita quilt triangles.

Thirty five was not only our table number, but close to the total cost of the food.  Yes, at a place without table service and no alcohol, we paid nearly $40 for a fresh pigeon-shit appetizer, two Wonderbread pizzas and two glasses of City of Austin ’09 tap water.  It was like if Wal-Mart spun out a Whole Foods-style concept restaurant inside their tire & lube department, and that had a food bar where you could order Italian dishes with a shredded wheat taste twist.

How many crotch kicks I deserve for eating here.

The trendiness factor was a predictable falcon hair, aviator shade, red wine, summer sweater, my-shoes-and-my-girlfriend’s-purse-cost-the-same douche crowd.  The staff (person you meet at the counter, with whom you place an order) was friendly and helpful, but seemed a little debbie downer about making the most tasteless pizza in all of Clarksville.  And you know what’s scary?  The Fearless Critic gave this place an 8+ score, meaning they must like upscale Domino’s pizza, baked with a dryer sheet, at an Austin-chic price.

Trying to be polite.

Is it too late to go eat at the airport?

I can sum up the disappiontment of Cipollina in one word: Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery!!  Holy shit am I glad we decided to make a dozen donut run on the way home!  This Austin landmark is in the North Airport Blvd. neighborhood, which IS as quaint as it sounds.  In fact, had we gone when it was safer (daylight, with police escort), we might have been able to stop in on Vogue College for a hair weave or I Love Video for some semi-erotic samurai VHS tapes.

The sign says it all. Sort of.

I have tried to enroll several times, but keep getting tickets from campus parking enforcement.

Mrs. Johnson’s has the BEST donuts and BEST tricks on first time customers (Mrs. Johnson is actually a man from India).  The first thing they do when you walk through the door is hand you a very hot, very fresh plain glazed right from the oven.  The second thing they do is allow you to violate every imagineable City of Austin health code and take behind-the-counter, up-close pictures of the assembly line.  I accidently sneezed on a donut, but kept an eye on it and snagged it coming off the end of the line.

Reminds me of Saw IV.

Willy Wonka! Er, Tajilly Wunka!

It took me a while to figure out he was screaming because he WANTED me to come behind the counter.

We really only planned on getting a donut or two, but this master salesman ended up clipping me for $8.50!  That would have bought me a round margherita ceiling tile at Cipollina.  I don’t know how Mrs. Johnson felt about the sale, but I think the joke was on him, as I would have paid up to $10 for that dozen assorted and the sweatiest hug I have ever received from another man.

I don't even bother buckling up my shotgun. But these ...

Mrs. Johnson's Bakery courtyard.

???

Our only option. You do NOT take the bus here.

The first FOODGARBLing of Austin was indeed a mixed bag.  Of donuts and pizza exhumed from the Egyptian pryamids.  In conclusion, Cipollina is a great place to eat if you have Irritable Bowel Syndrome or are recovering from oral surgery.  Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery is THE SHIT and offers 24 hour crackhead entertainment from LeRoy’s crew out back.  He was right, “Austhin’s Awesthome!”