Vietnamese Cuisine in Austin

After a shopping spree at the Arboretum on the weekend, I ended up going to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Austin to grab takeout. Sagiang (on Jollyville Road close to the Oak Knoll light) is my favorite for various reasons - primarily the Tofu that is grilled to perfection and moist on the inside. Top that with lemon grass sauce and spicy toppings, and it's the perfect little dish to be paired with either Vermicelli or Rice. Of course, the same dish comes with their sweeter house special sauce and curry sauce as well. (Always ask of the sauces have fish in them, if you are a pure-er vegetarian :)). They have the usual Phos and other things, but I almost always get the Grilled Tofu with Lemon Grass Sauce on Rice Vermicelli (sorry I can't remember the Vietnamese name and Sagiang unfortunately does not have a website). The other reason I like this place are the two brothers (? or is it father and son) who run the place and are actually quite nice, sometimes even funny. The younger one is usually very amused that every single time I go there, my total comes up to 8.88. "8.88 lucky number..." he keeps saying happily. In case you're wondering, that includes the price of my favorite dish plus coconut water... yes it's that cheap!

The Sagiang folks' attitude is unlike the folks at Sunflower Cafe (by Peyton Gin and 183 South in the little complex by Target), the other really good Vietnamese restaurant in Austin. The people who run that place always strike me as being too busy, too efficient to be warm. They aren't mean or rude or anything, but still... for a hole-in-the-wall, they don't really have a hole-in-the-wall attitude. Of course this hole-in-the-wall does way more business than you would've expected. And you only need to eat there to know why. I've tried many different things at Sunflower, but my top picks are the Claypot (with Tofu) and the Vietnamese crepes... yumm!

Live in South Austin? Try Hao Hao. Nice owners. And probably the best Phos I've had in Austin (can't say the same about their other dishes).... and their quality of food is always very good. Note - always ask about the broth used to make Phos. Hao Hao's broth is vegetarian too, if you order a veggie or tofu Pho, but not all Vietnamese places do that.

And as for the classic vietnamese sandwiches on baguettes, Rahul, Arun and the others have been talking about Bahn Mis for so long now, that I really need to try one for myself. More of that later...

Bringing Asia to College Station

Craving Thai/Chinese food in CLL (College Station)?

My two most favorite restaurants were the Thai place - Nipa Hot and the authentic Chinese restaurant - Jin's.

I reviewed Nipa Hot as a restaurant for Rediff once and as soon as I can find the review, will scan and post it here. Nipa Hot's spice levels were way too exaggerated even for our Indian palettes back then (when we were still new to the US, and had a higher spice tolerance). I remember some knuckle-headed desis decided to try the highest spice level as part of a bet, and they cried through it, but finished it - and ended up with diarrhea the next day! Quite honestly, I am not sure if Nipa Hot still exists, although here is a link to their location with phone number and other details: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&resnum=0&safe=on&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=Nipa+Hot,+College+Station&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&view=text&latlng=7537041406668450751

As for Jin's - all you need to do is try one of their Tofu dishes and you will know why I said, "authentic". Of course, Jin's back then was a small-ish restaurant by Northgate... but I've heard they've expanded quite a bit now.

In 2006 my parents were in the US, so I took Vikram and them to College Station and we sat on the Northgate benches - eating sandwiches from New York Sub and Chinese Food from Jin's. Vikram loved Jin's of course and thought even the chicken tasted more like the one we had in Paris - non American, and more "authentic".

http://www.jinscafe.com/ (I just looked at the menu and they have Indian food on it? I can't vouch for that part of their menu, though).

I think there is one more Thai restaurant around the main campus area, this one is called Thai Taste... not too sure though. Might be worth a google search. Of course, it wasn't anything great.

I believe a Pei-Wei has now opened there as well, but when you have an option like Jin's, why bother with a chain that serves average food at best?

Happy Asian-food eating in CLL!

It's Texas Ya'll

I landed in College Station in Texas in 2001. Fresh off the boat from Mumbai. Sniffing the US air for the first time. Jet-lagged. Excited.

And I had the (reverse) culture shock of a lifetime. Places shutdown early, there were no tall buildings, if you said the F-word (even in talking to your friends in public), wide-eyed Texan girls would turn to stare at you like you had committed a crime... was this place for real? I went from big bustling megalopolis to rural USA! Welcome to College Station, Texas - home of Texas A&M University. (Ranked as politically the most conservative in recent studies.)

So my next worry was about food. While I was more than prepared to fend for myself by cooking on my own (a typical graduate student thing if you are from an International country), I still loved eating out and exploring food options, so the thought of not being able to do that in College Station worried me in those initial days.

Needless to say, two years and a Master's degree later, I had explored food and more food in this rural college town and had no bad experiences. Well maybe the one time when I ate at Chilli's for the first time and told them to get me a bean burger, but after I bit into it, I realized it was a beef (aargggh) patty!

College Station isn't half as bad as I made it out to me in the beginning of this post, especially because a lot of immigrants from Asia choose to live there after retirement due to real estate prices and the easy lifestyle, many of them opening up restaurants with quite authentic tasting food.

Some of my best memories include eating at Dr. Grewal's parties when Dr. Grewal and some other grad students who were excellent cooks, made some really good Indian food. Dr. Grewal was a professor at A&M and his wife Amerika (Latina) was the Graduate Student Advisor for our MIS program in the B-school. So some of us lucky grad desi students who worked with either of them got invited to the parties and what parties they were! Great Indian food, Indian movies on their big-screen (wait - make that "big-ass" screen) TV, etc.

Over the course of the next few posts, I'll try to talk about how I ate my veggie way through College Station, Texas and enjoyed every bit of it too from the hot, hot, Thai-Phillipino food, to some very authentic Chinese food and not to mention, home-style cooked piping hot Indian food.

And thus began a blog

Welcome to my eating adventures! I am a vegetarian and love eating! I hate when a Maitre D' says with wide round eyes "Oh but vegetarians eat fish" or when I ask a restaurant what's vegetarian on their menu and they say, "The salads...". Errm... vegetarians are not cows, grazing on grass, yunnoh?

We can pretty much eat any cuisine, and at any restaurant except when it says "BBQ"... but only if the rest of the world realized that, especially here in Texas! This blog is the culinary point of view of a vegetarian in Texas.

If you like what you read here and wish to contribute or help, please do get in touch with me at this ID: forlackofagoodnick at hotmail dot com.