I eat at Taco Bell perhaps too much. I don’t like overcooked hamburgers (Fuddruckers is one of the few that will cook a medium rare burger) and there aren’t any veggie fast food places.

If you wonder why Americans are so fat nowadays, it because mega-corporations are putting extra calories in their food. Taco bell has recently changed their default style of menu items. What was once a plain taco now has a mayonnaise based sauce added to it. And they have done this to all of their items. I now have to order everything “without sauce” or “Fresco Style”. Look how bad it is. For example, the Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco and the Baja Beef Gordita have a 100 extra calories added to them! Oh my God, Magnum!

And speaking of my favorite restaurants, you cannot forget about Gumbo’s. I first found this restaurant on Merriltown road off of 1325. There have been many incarnations of this restaurant. I believe this happened because the owners created a chain out of it. When they sold it off, they couldn’t open a competing restaurant. So they opened Yoli’s. I think it started out as Mediterranian restaurant. And when their non-compete clause expired, they switched back to Cajun food. They then bought back Gumbo’s and opened it back up on 620 close to IH-35. Where it still stands today.

Their food is still as good as ever. My favorite food is the crawfish etouffee with dirty rice. Today, I ordered the blackened catfish over the shrimp gumbo. The only oddity was that there was no vegtable part of the gumbo in the dish (like the okra, onions, or bell peppers). But the resulting gumbo sauce was divine. It used a very dark roux that was not burned at all and it was not oily at all. There were hints of coffee from the over-carmelization of the four. Truely something that I would love to be able to reproduce at home.

Well, its about time! Dot has finally opened up a new restaurant in Pflugerville at the corner of 1825 and Windermere Drive. I learned about the opening from John and then found this on News 8 Austin’s web site.

Her old restaurant on Howard lane had a lot of character. It was located in a very run down area full of junk yards and abandoned homes. Parking was always tricky. You had to park along the side of the road if you were lucky. The building was an old house that was converted to a restaurant. And the place was always packed full of people. The line started outside the building. When you finally got inside, you then saw a huge line of people that snaked back and forth in front of the buffet line. After you ordered your food you searched for an empty table in one of the many rooms. Tables have little room to themselves and it can be the perfect opportunity to get to know a stranger.

For the new restaurant, not much has changed. There is still a long line of people. I arrived at 11:15 and I barely fit inside the door. However, there is not a big waiting area inside the restaurant like there was in the old one. The food is still as great as ever. But it seems that the serving size for the helpings has been reduced. The meal choices are the same. You can order: fried catfish, liver and onions, beef tips in rice, chicken and dumpling, chicken and rice, meatloaf, roast beef, mexican lasagna, chicken fried steak, and others. There is a big selection of sides to choose from: black-eyed peas, collard greens, okra, green beans, macaroni and cheese, and more. The corn muffin is excellent. And don’t forget about the desserts: pecan pie, sweet potato pie, lemon pie, chocolate pie, cobblers, and I should really stop now.

Suffice it to say that this would be in my top ten list and some place that I would go to eat weekly. The only problem is that it is farther away from work…

On a whim I drove out to Llano for lunch today at the Cooper’s Pit BBQ. Thats a 146 mile trip. For bar-b-que. I’ve been itching to go, and on a whim and a moment’s notice, I went.

Its a good thing that I arrived hungry. Because there is a lot of meats to choose from. I bought the Jalapeno sausage, the beef brisket, and a pork chop. The sausage was so-so and rather tough. The brisket was good and tender. I haven’t tried the pork chop yet.

I was disapointed in the sauce. Very watery. You get free pinto beans which were also okay. The berry cobbler was yucky. My biggest problem with BBQ joints is the lack of veggie options. Your choices are cole slaw, potato salad, or beans. And the cheap white bread is another pet peave. Good bread is out there folks!

On the way back, I passed a huge farm truck convoy. You know you are out in the middle of nowhere when they need these monsters.

What is that about??? Do semi-trucks make lots of noise when they use their engine to slow down? Well, my truck didn’t. (It does make a lot of noise when I floor it though).

Went to the Golden Wok today for Dim Sum. Their Dim Sum is satisfying enough. Nothing spectacular and certinally not as good as Marco Polo. But the problem with Marco Polo is the distance. Golden Wok is 12 miles away from me whereas Marco Polo is 24 miles away. Twice as far, 12 minutes longer, and 1 more gallon of fuel spent. And then you have to spend it again to get back home. The difference between the food is not that much better.

I wanted to try out Dot’s new location for lunch today. Dot’s burned down last year. And they were trying to raise money for a new place in the interim. I read in our Community Impact Newspaper July edition that Dot’s had rebuilt a new restaurant in Pflugerville. I figured that it would be open by now. Sadly, it wasn’t. So I drove over to that African restaurant (Ts?). But it was closed as well. Gah!

On the way out of Pflugerville, I ran across Cafe Mangú. I had read about it but was unable to find it. It is pretty well hidden on the west side of 1825 pretty close to IH-35. The restaurant doesn’t even have its own parking. You have to park in the auto repair shop next door.

I ordered the Cubano and it was pretty good (although they used a runny mayonnaise sauce). The maduras (plantain banannas) were excellent. It has been a long time since I have had a Cubano. I miss South Florida at times.

For my Pilates class tonight, I had a real workout. I was the only one to show up tonight and so my teacher, Joey, took this opportunity to show me flow yoga. You see, I am a big fan of working on “core” in yoga. This is the strengthening of your abdomen and back muscles. Because I constantly request a hard workout, I was shown one tonight.

In flow yoga, you move from position to position while breathing. On your drawn in breath, you perform one pose. And on the exhalation, you move to the next pose. Together, these poses are called a Vinyasa.

Joey felt that a warm environment would help loosen and stretch the muscles. So he turned off the ceiling fans and the air conditioner. Now, I didn’t mind that so much. But I do question how much warmer my muscles were. There is not that much range in muscle temperature. Too cold and you experience hypothermia and die. Too warm and your brain cooks and you die.
Anyways, back to the sweat…

We started out with 5 Sun Salutations called Surya Namaskara A. We then moved on to the next more complicated series called Surya Namaskara B. And, after that we moved to different stretches and poses.

This was the most I have ever sweated. Not like its an accurate measurement, but it felt like I sweated 1/2 liter of water in an hour. I went through the following stages of sweat:

• my arms and legs are getting sweaty now
• ok, they are covered in sweat
• my mat is starting to get wet
• now my chest is starting to sweat
• I am damp now
• my shirt is starting to stick
• gah, every part of the shirt is stuck to me
• I feel like I participated in a wet tee-shirt contest and all I got was this soaking wet t-shirt

I was certianly not ready for that. And if you think that yoga can not be strenuous, then you must try this out!

Besides being draining, my real problem was controlling my breath. I am not used to breathing like this. I started to breath in and out a little more quickly than I should have. Which caused me to hyperventilate. You can catch your breath in the last down dog pose of the series, but it is hard to breath normally in this unnatural position. Also, in the poses, you are stretching out. You are supposed to use your breath to help stretch out. And this extra effort is taxing you and making it more difficult to catch your breath.

The other time I was alone with Joey, we did a more strenuous version of Pilates. And on that day, I had a pretty wicked charley horse. I was limping for a couple of days afterward. Between those two days, I think that this day was the toughest.

Ichiban is currently my favorite place to eat lunch. And it is certinally the best lunch-time sushi restaurant (my favorite for dinner being Musashino). What won me over was its close proximity to work (an hour lunch including drive time is easily doable), their sushi combination lunch, and their friendly sushi chefs. The restaurant has changed management during this year. And because of that, the experience has suffered. But let me describe what you used to get.

You would be greeted with a very excellent smoked eel salad made with cucumbers, daikon, seeweed, and other green vegtables. I have yet to find a close match in grocery stores so I could make my own. I order the Sushi combo “C”. It comes with miso soup and a salad. The salad is basic, but the carrot-based dressing is divine. I should try and replicate that recipe sometime.

The sushi “C” combo has a salmon roll and six pieces of nigiri sushi (salmon, two tuna, snapper?, krab, and shrimp). Also accompanying the combo is some tsukemono which is pickled vegtables. The japanese sure know how to pickle things. I don’t like pickles but I love this.

And after the meal, you would be given something for dessert like a piece of fruit (orange or watermellon) or the tasty mochi ice cream.

Of course the occasional treat from the chefs were good tasty surprises.

Sadly, our Tichu game did not make. Something about a new lunchtime meeting. Lunch times are sacred, I.B.M.! Leave ‘dem alone!!

So I went to Taco Deli for lunch. It is another one of my favorite lunch places. And it is a bonus that it is within walking distance! I like the concept: Order individual tacos from a large selection. Why eat a lot of something when you can eat many different small portions? My only complaint/upgrade would be for them to purchase a tortilla making machine like the one in my super-H.E.B. You would get bonus flavor points for freshly made tortillas!

After lunch, I stopped at the Blue Cupcake for dessert. The employees are all T.C.A. students which gives it some charm for me. However, their dessert selection is slim and they are usually out of some things. I had a cupcake. It was good, if expensive.

Walking back, I took a picture of where someone had been sitting. I guess they were doing traffic analysis or logging or some such… Not a very busy intersection if you ask me.

At lunch today, I photographed the round rock that this city is named after. Whee… To bad, I forgot my phone books. I wanted to find the plastic army figures that made the front page of the Austin Statesman, but was unsuccessful.