Botticelli's

South Congress Street has tons of great restaurants and shops that we have yet to check out. Last night we decided to try Botticelli's.
The interior dining room is beautiful, but we decided to sit outside to watch the live band play.
Botticelli Bread- Homemade bread stuffed with prosciutto, copa, mortadella, salame, mozzarella, parmesan, and roasted bell peppers, $12. Delicious!
Butternut Squash Ravioli, $16. It looks unassuming but it was very flavorful and interesting. It definitely beat the butternut squash dish we had at Asti.

Prosciutto Stuffed Chicken Breast- seared chicken breast stuffed with prosciutto, mozzarella, and sage served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts, $19.

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Dolce Vita

Dolce Vita is a gelato, coffee & drink place in the Hyde Park area of Austin. They have a pretty extensive menu filled with interesting coffee drinks as well as alcoholic beverages.
There's free wifi, and the outdoor patio is nice.
A peek at their gelato selection:
Iced Bailey's and coffee; bottomless cup of coffee. Economics book.

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Swad

Swad is an Indian restaurant in North Austin that although small and in a strip mall, has developed quite a reputation for serving excellent Vegetarian Indian food. After stopping by here for dinner, we can see why.
Paneer Dosa, $7.50. Holy crap, we didn't realize it would be this big!
Thali dinner, $9.19. Tons of different flavorful selections to sample with roti and naan bread.
Samosas, $2.95

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Tom's Tabooley

Tom's Tabooley is a cute & funky little restaurant not far from campus that sells Middle Eastern basics as well as various coffee drinks. The interior kind of looks like your grandma's living room:

Felafel & hummus in pita bread, $5.25. Tasty!

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Thunderbird Coffee

Ok... so I know it seems like we're spending entirely too much time in or near coffee houses lately. But that one last night was connected to a theatre! So it's not the same at all. And as for Thunderbird Coffee today.. well, coffee houses are a great place for me to catch up on reading that book I've been neglecting, and a great place for Ryan to study A.K.A. mull over something way more interesting than what he's assigned to read for school.
Thunderbird is bright, airy, and totally hip. They have a cute patio out front, a lot of seating inside, and of course, free wifi.
Their prices are pretty typical- $3-ish if you buy the fancy coffee drinks with lots of stuff inside like we do. I should also point out that they sometimes have live music, and every Tuesday is movie night- which means they show a free movie and serve $1 Lone Star beers. So if you want to come here to study or quietly read like us dorks, you should check and make sure there won't be a band or a movie going on.

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The Coffee House at Hideout Theatre

Since the coffee house is awesome, and you can relax there with a good cup of coffee without even partaking in anything theatre-ish, I thought it deserved its own post on Chowing in Austin. The menu is quite extensive, and according to Ryan the coffee is really good- and Ryan knows coffee. This place is right in the center of downtown and open late, so walk past Starbucks without stopping and try it out.
Ryan ordering his coffee at the counter:

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NXNW Restaurant & Brewery

North by Northwest is a restaurant & brewery in north Austin.
We had the luck of being here during Octoberfest, which meant we got to see a bunch of people and even someone dressed up as a bear (WTF?) dancing to an Oompa band in front of the restaurant.
The dining room was fairly deserted because of the festivities out front. It's a nice place- high ceilings, a cool fireplace. Yes, that is snowshoes in Texas.
We tried their Okanogan Black Ale and Bavarian Hefeweizen. Both quite good! Click here for the list of beers they brew. $4.25 each.
This appetizer, skillet fried cornbread with goat cheese and a portabello-cremini mushroom sauce, turned out to be the highlight of the whole dinner. I'm not sure what we expected it to look like, but we were surprised when it came to the table, and hesitantly dug in. It was not only inventive, but totally delicious. The flavors were amazing together, and the cornbread (buried beneath the mushrooms and cheese) was really tasty soaked in the sauce. $7.95.
Cedar Plank Salmon served over sautéed spinach, blue cheese, scalloped potatoes in a port wine demi-glas, $18.95.
Grilled Chicken Sandwich with bacon, avocado, lettuce, tomato-basil aioli and garlic fries, $8.95.

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Kim Son

We came to Kim Son today to try their dim sum. Luckily for us, every place in Austin that has cart service seems to be within a 2 mile radius of where we live.
The dining room at Kim Son is massive, and has huge chandeliers. You kind of feel like you're at a wedding reception.
Some of our dim sum. We weren't thrilled with the turnip cake, but everything else was pretty good.

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TC Noodle House

We've passed TC Noodle House several times before while shopping at Chinatown Center, and have also read some good reviews here and there, but this is the first time we've tried the place out. We were not disappointed. The noodle bowls are delicious and the prices are cheap. The menu is very extensive. Any kind of noodle dish you can imagine is on their menu.
We both went for noodles in broth. Rice noodles with fish and chicken, $5.60. Egg noodles with chicken, $5.60. Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, $4.50.

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Taco Cabana

I know, I know. Why am I blogging about fast food? I have a couple of answers: A) This weekend's postings are going to be fairly lame because it's the weekend of Austin City Limits, which means that we will be too exhausted from the festival to go out somewhere nice, B) Taco Cabana is the best Mexican/Tex-Mex fast food there is, and if you are new to Texas you need to be aware of this. Even if you don't like fast food and don't like Tex-Mex or Mexican food, you must do yourself a favor and order a half-dozen fresh tortillas and queso from Taco Cabana. The tortillas here are far better than what you'd find at a fancy Mexican place in some other part of the country. And the queso is just delicious. I would also like to point out that Taco Cabana has Margaritas. Are you sold yet?

Fiesta taco combo, Chimi combo, 2 apple chimis, fresh tortillas and queso: about $13 for everything. (Drinks not pictured.)

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Locations

doc green's

Doc green's is a salad, sandwich and soup place. It's nothing extraordinary, but for what it is, it's quite tasty. The soups rotate, and there's a variety of unique salads to pick from. You can also build your own salad, and watch them make it. The sandwiches & wraps are also varied.

The "Dr. Fruity" salad: $6.19. With Chicken: $8.19.
Cup of tortilla soup, $2.29. Buffalo chicken panini with side of mashed potatoes, $7.19. Don't worry- you can go into a restaurant called "doc green's" and end up with nothing green on your plate.

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Cornucopia

Cornucopia is a new shop near campus that only sells popcorn. That's right, just 48 different flavors of popcorn. There's an "Hours of Poperation" sign on the door.
I don't know if this business will last, since it is very specific and the popcorn is expensive. It's a really cute place though, there are little cafe tables and free wifi-- and the popcorn flavors are tasty and inventive. We came today because they were giving away free samples of any popcorn you want to try. We tried Vanilla, Pizza, Dill Pickle, Salt & Vinegar & Dark Chocolate. A full list of their flavors can be found on their website.

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Asti Trattoria

Asti is a small, romantic Italian restaurant in the Hyde Park area of Austin.
Inside the dining room:
Romaine leaf salad with Italian White Anchovy, $8.50
Cup of Italian wedding soup, $3.50
Semolina Crusted Salmon with Caponata, $16. Ryan loved it. The salmon was prepared very well.
Butternut Squash Risotto, $15. Yummy, but a little on the bland side.
Espresso, $2.25. I was fascinated with that cup of brown sugar cubes. I guess I don't get out much.
Tiramisu, $8. It was just delicious. The crushed almonds sprinkled on top were great added texture.

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Thundercloud Subs

Thundercloud Subs is a popular alternative to Subway in Austin. These tasty subs are available at several locations around town. The south Austin location is a cute little sub stand with an ordering window, rather than an actual restaurant.
Outdoor eating area:
A turkey and cheese sandwich with the fixins, $4.79
Egg salad sandwich and a political message, $3.79.