Zoe's Kitchen

Zoe's Kitchen is up in the Arboretum.  It's a chain with a bunch of locations, but only this one in Austin.  The theme seems to be healthy, Mediterranean-ish dishes. The interior is bright and colorful...

Hummus & Pita ($4.45)

Spinach roll-ups with a side of pasta salad ($7.25)

Chicken roll-ups with a side of rice pilaf ($7.45)

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Zocalo Cafe

Yum, frozen margaritas & sangrias only $2 all day Wednesday and $3 from 3-6 PM other days.

What a beautiful, light filled space! They also have a lovely outdoor patio.

The queso was massive.  We had to take half of it home.  The salsas were just right, and I am always a sucker for homemade tortilla chips. ($5.29)

They have three different types of empanadas: pork, chicken and veggie.  They allowed me to mix two chicken with one veggie to make my empanada plate.  It came with yummy sides of beans & rice, of course. ($7.99)

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Jeffrey's

Yes, we had a restaurant.com certificate for this place.. you can guess this is the case anytime we're at an expensive restaurant!

The Thumbalina salad had about a million different ingredients to create a great little salad. ($12)

 The arugula and goat cheese salad doesn't seem to be on the menu anymore- you dug through a pile of greens to find an awesome disc of cheese on a small crispy cracker.

 Unfortunately, the fish dish I had been dying to try after seeing it on the online menu was no longer available.  Possibly because we showed up at 9 PM on a Saturday night.  Anyway, we both ended up ordering the crabcakes and shrimp, which was not disappointing.

The desserts are absolutely the reason to come here, in my opinion.  We tried two and both were just perfect in every way.

The Valrhona Chocolate Intemperance is a chocolate lover's dream, as you can probably tell from this photo. ($11)

 The dessert below, a caramel and sea salt tart with caramelized bananas, was even better if that's possible.  I see that it isn't currently listed on their online menu and feel horrified.  Hopefully it's just an error.

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