In the six months I've been in Asia, hip, upscale, ultra-modern restaurants and coffee shops have spring up around town, many in rehabed strip centers. Reminds me of Bangkok. For lunch today I went to Tacodeli, on North Lamar across from Central Market, whose name sounds like old-shoe Austin (you saw "Slackers,"right?), but its extensive menu is anything but. I had The Jesse Special, migas in a corn tortilla with Monterrey jack cheese and fresh sliced avocado. It came with spicy salsa dona. Shannon, my daughter, ordered an Otto, refried black bdans, bacon, advocado, and cheese on a whole wheat tortilla.. Everything was super fresh. For drinks, we had Budda's Brew, a local fermented tea that supposedly is good for you. It probably is, because it tasted pretty awful. In spite of that, Austin Chronicle said Tacodeli is the best place in town for a taco lunch, and Texas Monthly listed it as "Best of Austin." Shannon said I should come back for dinner and try the Cowboy Taco, beef tenderloin, carmalized onions, roasted peppers, and queso fresco. This place isn't your mother's Taco Deli, that's for sure.
Next door at the No Name Coffee (it has a name, but I've forgotten it), I had wonderful, regular Americano. This industrial modern room is so hip that the barrister gave me a choice of three kinds of espresso for my Americano, kinds of coffee I never heard of. "Surprise me," I said. For desert, I had the best coconut macaroon puff ball ever. This place was so upscale that the deserts in the fancy case had no prices. I guess they figured if I had to ask the price, I couldn't afford it. Unlike Tacodeli, the noise level here was quite high, with the shrieks of modern moms bouncing around the room's rock solid surfaces.
Then it was time to check out Uchi's new, Northern outpost. (Same strip, next to Floyd's Barber Shop.) Uchi is a nationally known japanese contemporary sushi restaurant run by executive chef Tyson Cole that is so cutting edge its web site contains pages on its philosophy as well as biographies of its principals. Zagat gave its "brillant creations" 28 out of 30 points, and it has been reviewed in Bon Apetit and Saveur. Uchi downtown has an old Austin deco feel, housed in a converted residence, but Uchiko was disigned from the ground up, has a fine art, japanese modern feel, and bills itself as "japanese farmhouse dinning," with a reworked Uchi menu, its outer walls visually closed from the shops and trafic around it. I'll have to give it a try before leaving town again.
--Uchiko
--Tacodeli
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