Chowing in Dallas

How can you not get excited when you see this sign? Lumi: Empanada & Dumpling Kitchen.  A restaurant that specializes in food that comes in tiny pockets!

The interior and exterior were both interesting, with a kind of Japanese feel to the place. 

Chips to start off with...

This is one of those places where you must get a bunch of plates and share them with the table. The ahi tuna nachos topped with jalapenos ($8) were spicy and inventive.

I wanted to eat about 10 of these.  The empanadas come with a variety of fillings, and are served with amazing dipping sauces.

The crab wontons ($7.50) were so pretty I didn't want to eat them.  That only held me back for about 0.3 seconds.

The curry dumplings were possibly my favorite.. we ordered more chips just so we could soak up every drop of that curry dipping sauce.

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Toy Joy

Toy Joy serves vegan soft serve and bubble teas that can be made with soy milk, almond milk or dairy milk.  Unfortunately we ate our bubble teas so fast we didn't have a chance to take a picture!  The inside of the store is awesome though, it's a toy store that has hoarded tons of the weirdest toys and candy you've ever seen.

Zen

Zen is the place for healthy, Japanese "fast food."  Tons of options for stir fry bowls as well as some sushi.  They're very vegetarian friendly, as you can pick your protein for any bowl.

Seaweed salad, $1.49

The stir fry bowls come in "regular" and "big" and range in price from $4.35 to $8.50, depending on your ingredient and protein choices.  Just a warning: some of the sauces are quite spicy! Ask if you are sensitive to spice.

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Chilito

Chilito is a quick, casual, outdoor dining only Mexican place in East Austin.  Walk up to the window and place your order.

Vegetal tacos- $2.29 each.

Delicious mole salsa that they're famous for, $2.39.  Mmmmmm!

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Koriente

Koriente was started by a woman who didn't like to cook but wanted to feed her family healthy food.  So, she created Koriete for others like her.  The story is written on the wall outside of the restaurant. They've got lots of great, flavorful and inventive dishes that are indeed very healthy.

Japchei: clear sweet potato noodles mixed with veggies & topped with tofu. ($7 without protein added, $9 with)

Koriente Curry: vegetarian curry with rice medallions. ($6.50 without protein, $8.50 with)

Mixmix Bibimbap: rice with veggies. ($6.50, $8.50 with protein, $8 with avocado or egg)

Green tea ice cream.. so good we barely got a photo!

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Counter Culture

Counter Culture is a vegan food trailer not far from where we live in North Central Austin.. we grabbed some food here and brought it home to eat.  They had pretty interesting and tasty meat substitutes.

Kale salad with a side of Quinoa.

Garbanzo "tuna" with lettuce and tomato. ($6)

Jackfruit BBQ topped with onions and pickles. ($6)

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Snack Bar

Snack Bar on South Congress has an awesome patio.  They had live music there after dark on the Thursday we went.  My sister, who is a vegan, was in town, so prepare to be bombarded with vegan-friendly food spots for the coming blog entries.

Below is an Asian salad with seitan added. ($12)

Veggie burger, bean patty stuffed with avocado. ($7.50)

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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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el naranjo

Food trailers are the best invention ever.  Thank you Austin for constantly surrounding us with food trucks, trailers and carts.  El naranjo is a fairly new food trailer in a neighborhood downtown.

 The gazpacho had an extremely strong flavor, in a good way.

 Cochinita pibil tacos- great mix of flavors. (two for $4.50)

 Molotes Veracruzanos.. i can't hold back from ordering whatever is crispy on the menu.  These were stuffed with black beans and cheese.

 For a few wonderful seconds we thought we'd found $2 sangria.  Unfortunately, this is non-alcoholic sangria.  Sorry! Still interesting though.

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Buenos Aires Cafe

After reading several rave reviews about this place, we had to try it for ourselves.  Warning:  The south Austin location is really, really tiny, the wait is long, and they don't take reservations.  However they will call you when your table is ready if you arrive and leave your name and number.

The empanadas are a must try.. the fillings are flavorful and the crust is so fresh and flaky. ($2.49 each)

The Canelones Caseros (handmade herb crepes) were covered in a delicious sauce. ($12.99)

The Gnocchi Quartet included gnocchis in pumpkin-cinnamon, sweet potato-chipotle, cilantro-jalapeno, and potato herb flavors.  The decision to mix various veggies in with the gnocchi was great- usually gnocchi starts feeling very heavy very fast, and the veggies counterbalanced it well.  ($12.99)

So sad that we had no room left for dessert.. the dessert menu looked amazing!

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Mirabelle

Mirabelle is a French restaurant in north Austin with a very nice but laid back atmosphere.  

This gumbo had a really nice, dark roux -- definitely Ryan's favorite of the night.  (cup- $4.95)

Ryan also had this linguini with clams dish, which doesn't seem to be on the menu anymore (a shame, because it was also quite good).  

The Chilean sea bass was excellent, and the pearl couscous had a wonderful texture.  ($24.95)

Is it actually possible to see a dessert menu with a dark chocolate torte and then inexplicably order something else? Unfortunately, this one didn't impress us much.  The torte was ok, but something was odd about the berries & sauce.   ($5.95)

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