That's Amore!

First of all, let me apologize for my delay in posting this.  We went to this trailer on Tuesday and it is now Saturday morning.  I am a teacher and summer vacation has been super lazy until this week.  I had obligations (can you believe they make me do things in the summer! The audacity of some people) that pulled me away from my couch and computer for a couple of days.  I hope I do not leave off any scrumptious details but if I do, my only promise is that it shall not happen again!

Now to the goods.  So Tuesday, Meg and I head out to That's Amore on East Riverside for an early dinner.  The location is about a mile or maybe two from the highway next to a cool condo complex.  (Seriously would love to check out the pricing around there...super cute!)  The trailer "park" has three stands, That's Amore, a sno cone trailer, and another dessert trailer.  (This is where you get mad that it took me four days to write because I forget the names of the other trailers).  I do, however, remember the hours!  That's Amore is open Tuesday through Saturday from eleven til nine.  The dessert trailer, sadly, was closed when we went on Tuesday but is open Wednesday to Saturday.  The "park" has covered picnic tables (critical in this summer heat wave) and wood chip pathways.  We really enjoyed the atmosphere at this location.

So now we order.  That's Amore serves soups, salads, paninis, and desserts.  They also offer Miss Vickie's kettle chips and various drinks.  To begin with, I just want to say being decisive is neither my nor Meaghan's strong suit.  We could not decide on what to order to save our lives BUT, let this be a compliment to the menu.  Each panini is harmoniously prepared with fresh greens, unique ingredients, and local meats.  Then we have the sauces which include truffle oils, homemade pestos, and a famous olive tapenade.  (The tapenade recipe made its way into a book of to-die-for local trailer park recipes).  We called truce and decided to both order different paninis and then split them.  Radical problem solving, I know...  

Click to view the menu and all the FABULOUS ingredients!

Finally, we decided on our paninis.  The paninis are huge, at least half of a full baguette (made at local bakeries!).  The wait time depends on what you order but we waited under fifteen minutes and it was well worth it.  Meg orders "The Palermo"  which includes truffle oil, fontina, proscuitto, arugula, and crushed red pepper. Delicious.  Meaghan has a big crush on truffle oil.  The girl puts it on her eggs and swears by it.  The panini was light and savory.  Perfect for a quick lunch during the work week cuz it satisfying yet not adding a ten pound weight to your belly.  My criticism would be the amount of bread.  This is a lil carb conscious, I know, but I could do with some of the baguette shaved off.  My solution was to eat it like bruschetta by removing the top of the panini.

"The Palermo"

She loved it!  And so did I :)  Next comes the panini I chose, "The Sicilian."  This baby comes with Italian sausage from local meat company, mixed bell peppers, fennel, and mozzarella.  If you've got a hankerin for sausage then order this lovely.  This has got an action packed taste that really fills.  I enjoyed this one and honestly think Meg may have liked it more than me!  She is into the sausages...dont be a perv :)   I truly love mozzarella so the cheese on this was my favorite part but the flavors all mixed well together.  

My only criticism would be the sausage was a bold peppery taste that will stay with you all night.  I literally was still burping the flavor at midnight.  (Meg did not have this complaint so know that its just my sensitive stomach).  Again, with the amount of bread :(

"Sassage and Onions"

After finishing these bad boys, big a$$ cans of sweet tea, and bag of Miss Vickie's salt and vinegar chips we had zero room for dessert but the owner spoke highly of the two cannoli's offered with homemade filling.  One being chocolate and the other cherry pistachio.  I will return for these!  The owner was very friendly and came over to chat with us.  She was more than willing to discuss her sandwiches and the origin of her ingredients.  Fast and friendly service goes a long way in my book.  Of course I am super chatty so I like when people cater to my curiosity!  Thanks to my friend Pam for the recommendation on this place, I shall return! ;)

Emily's Dive & Bahama Freeze...

Today we headed off to have lunch at Emily's Dive on Brodie Lane.  Emily's is only open from 10-6 so get there early!

Emily's serves up a mix of "traditional mexican and american street food." After asking for recommendations, Rosie ordered the Al Pastor big burrito and I went for the Mesquite Chicken big burrito. What intrigued us (and what ended up being the most delicious thing about both burritos!) was the unique ingredients, sweet and savory.  Rosie's Al Pastor was made up of ancho pepper marinated pork, onion, cilantro, lime, rice and beans with the the added sweetness of pineapple.  My Mesquite Chicken had delicious grilled chicken, rice and borracho beans with the added a kick of feta guacamole. That's right- feta right inside the guacamole. I will wait for your minds to become un-blown.

Click to view menu

Rosie decided to talk to some of the patrons to get the local scoop on Emily's. She spoke to a nice gentleman who was having the Philly Cheese Steak.  According to the fine chap, it was "one of the best philly's in town." We can't speak for how extensive his research on the subject is but his confidence sold us. He then informed us of some other trailers to check out on the east side.  For your opinions and recommendations, we thank you sir (and to protect his anonymity, and brag on my awesome picture taking skills, he is hidden by the pole).

After sitting in the shade provided by the nearby picnic tables and enjoying our cold beverages (included in the $5 price tag of the meal!!!), our food came our after only 10 minutes. If you've read the previous entry, you understand why the speedy service was exciting.  The server happily brought our food to our table with utensils, napkins, and salsa.  We dug in.  Rosie thoroughly enjoyed the marinated pork combined with pineapple but would have preferred less rice in her burrito.  I sweetly suggested she just get tacos next time and save herself the whining. The savory chicken with feta guac was tasty yet a bit spicy but I have a SUPER Irish pallet. Here's some more pictures (with drinks for scale):

And we had to get ourselves in, of course.

Of course no meal is complete without dessert...  In the same parking lot as Emily's Dive is my favorite snow cone stand in Austin, Bahama Freeze. I have a punch card and use it often. While I say snow cone what I actually mean is shaved ice, a topic that Rosie and I discussed at length while speeding back home before ours melted. Snow cones are like tiny little ice pellets that turn into a ungainly ice cube in a pool of juice before you're done. Shaved ice, on the other hand, is like beautiful freshly fallen snow... covered in flavored sugar water and if your frisky...cream topping. Mmmmmm....

Bahama Freeze has 155 flavors to pick from! Most of them are delicious. Some of them are dill pickle. (Click the picture to enlarge and check out all the crazy flavors).

Click to see all 155 flavas

Choose wisely audience!  Rosie had peaches with cream topping, I had strawberries n' cream with cream topping and we took back a raspberry lemonade for Sean.

When it's over 100 outside, there is nothing better than a shaved ice! And I love Bahama Freeze for a few reasons: 1) It's delicious. 2) The punchcard system! Buy 9 get one free! 3) They provide umbrellas to stand under while you wait... and there can be a wait some days. 4) The smell! For some reason, shaved ice smells just like ivory soap. This is not exciting for Rosie but awesome to everyone else 5) The staff. The girls that work there are friendly and never hesitate to make a suggestion for your next shaved ice experience.

If you're driving down Brodie and feel a lil hunger cramp, stop in this little strip mall (cross street is Alexandria Drive) and check out the trailers.  They are located right by the Shipley's and some quilting place.  Remember, Emily's is only open 10-6 but Bahama Freeze is open until dark!

Fry Baby & Gourdough's...

Welcome to our food blog! My name is Meaghan and, together with my buddy Rosie, we plan on trying and evaluating the many food trailers that have been popping up all over our fair city of Austin, TX. A dirty job but someone's gotta do it.

We decided not to head out with any one trailer in mind but to rather just "see where the road took us..." and, on a Sunday night, the road took us to a lot of closed trailers. So, good to know, trailers close up early (or don't open up at all) on Sundays. Also, with tomorrow being July 4th, I have a feeling that many of the trailer owners took off for an extended weekend. Good for them, it looks like it gets hot in those things and I'm sure they deserve a break.

Anyway, Rosie, my husband Sean, and myself drove around for a bit and ended up on South Congress where a large trailer food park has sprung up over the past 4 years or so. It started with Hey Cupcake! (Always a favorite!) and now is home to not only quite a few yummy trailers but also lots of people selling cool shit they made.  Rosie and I have been to this park before, she having tried the Mighty Cone and I having tried Coat and Thai (both quite good, we'll have to do a more extended review later) but we wanted to start off with somewhere brand new and so, we ended up at Fry Baby's.

Click to view the menu!

The menu consists of (you guessed it!) all fried stuff but they advertise that it's done in some kind of healthy oil so Rosie, Sean and I feel pretty OK about our choice. Rosie went for the corn dog and a sweet tea while Sean and I chose the fish and chips and soda. The service was great, very friendly and funny and the promised wait time of 10 minutes was right on the nose. The food came out SUPER hot.

We did learn a valuable lesson, though: get the drinks with the food. Sitting out in the sun in Austin waiting for food, even just for 10 minutes can make your ice cubes melt and your soda warm.

Rosie's corn dog was good, I would equate it with one that you would get up at the Dell Diamond should you choose to take in a Round Rock Express game this summer (do it! do it! do it!). She didn't enjoy her sweet tea so much but just because it was "lemon sweet" and she prefers her tea to be "crack sweet". I don't know what that means but I'm pretty sure it's not Fry Baby's fault.

The fish and chips were good by Texas standards but, being from New England, Sean and I tend to judge this category pretty harshly. The portion was kind of skimpy and I found the fish to be slightly undercooked and glassy and fishy... but again, I'm very picky when it comes to fish and chips. There's this place back in Rhode Island called Ye Olde English fish and chips... to die for. But they don't do it out of a trailer so they have an easier go of it.

After Fry Baby's and our food fried in healthy oil we decided to get some desert... trailer style. No other choice but Gourdough's on Lamar, right? It's even been featured on the food network for being one of the top 10 trailer food joints...

Gourdough's has the most amazing choices of doughnut/frosting/topping combos that you can imagine. I further risked looking like a tourist in order to get this picture of the menu in hopes that you could read some of them:

Can't see the menu? Click on it, fool!

If you can't read it, google them. It's crazy. We went for the Razzle Dazzle which is a doughnut with chocolate fudge icing, raspberry jam and chocolate chips. We decided to share one between the 3 of us since they probably contain more sugar than anyone one person needs in a week. I ordered our doughnut with 3 waters and a scoop of ice cream.

Now, Gourdoughs makes their doughnuts to order so I wasn't concerned when I was told it would be about 30 minutes. I was disappointed, however, when they let us know they were 1) out of water and 2) out of ice cream. These doughnuts are MADE for ice cream and require water in order to wash down the intense gooey-ness. Seriously, send someone to the store. Especially when the majority of the people waiting for doughnuts end up crossing Lamar to go to the gas station to get water. It's just a lawsuit waiting to happen, people!

Anyway, Sean, Rosie and I decided to get our Razzle Dazzle to go so that we could pick up some ice cream at CVS and get our own god damn water out of the faucet the way that God intended. Over an hour later, we got our doughnut. Now, I'm sure that the Gourdough's staff was working as hard as they could in their super hot little trailer and I'm not going to be like the jerk that asked "really? don't you just dunk it and serve it? what's so hard?". But if it's going to be an hour, please just say that up front because then I will say "yeah, they're good, but not waiting in the sun for an hour good".

But they sure are waiting in the sun 30 minutes good.