Well, I’m in Austin, at South By Southwest Interactive.
Here’s the deal: I plan to eat my words from the previous post and provide you with titillating coverage of both the fascinating sessions I attend and the food (and drink) I consume. I believe the kids call that double-bloggin’ like a maniac.
I’ll be honest: it may not happen. I may forget all about you. I may be too tired to go on. But let’s look on the bright side: right now, I remember you and am not tired! So let’s do it!
I don’t have anywhere to go today (well, registration, eventually) so I’ve been wandering around downtown Austin.
Have you ever been to Manhattan or Chicago? Those are my two points of reference for this explanation of what I think of Austin. When I was in downtown Manhattan, for instance, I felt engulfed by city. The city is solid buildings, street-to-street. At intersections, the building-lines faded into fog. I could have been in Dark City, a (spoiler alert) city-disc floating through space, billboards advertising imaginary coastlines, somewhere past the numbered blocks.
Chicago, on the other hand, feels like any other town in the Midwest scaled to 400%. While downtown Manhattan feels like being engulfed in a tiny town with no borders, downtown Chicago feels like being overwhelmed by a town far too large for you to ever escape.
What I’m getting at is that both of those towns can create an unmistakable feeling of being in them. You know when you’re in Chicago, and you know when you’re in Manhattan — an invisible border is crossed. The air changes slightly.
Austin is none of these things. I’m directly in downtown Austin now, sitting in Cedar Door, sipping a tasty local 512 IPA. I don’t feel immersed in Austin. The buildings here are tall and new, like Houston Lite, but they’re also far away. The closest parallel I can draw is that Austin feels like a proto-Atlanta or proto-Houston, all space and huge intersections and blue glass. There’s nothing wrong with that feeling, but I don’t think that style of city will ever create the specific feelings that a Chicago or Manhattan can.
But this is a blog about food. I had lunch at Frank, a local establishment that very sneakily grabbed the URL hotdogscoldbeer.com.
Frank is in what looks like an old factory or train station, with the name and various old-style type treatments emblazoned on one solid brick side. (Apologies for not having a picture). I saw the building a block away and headed right for it, no Yelp needed. After all, they advertise a Chicago Dog, and I’m morally obligated to try basically any place that does so.
Well, it turns out they also advertise something called a Carolina Porker, which is — stay with me — a hot dog stuffed with cheese and wrapped with bacon. The dog is then placed on a bed of shredded cheese (maybe pimento?) and topped with slaw and horseradish. I KNOW! I got one.
Well, although the above ingredients came dangerously close to exploding my brain on first read, they didn’t prove quite as explodey in practice. The horseradish & cheese overwhelmed the potential wickedness of the bacon wrapping, and (unfortunately) my dog was pretty lukewarm when it arrived at my table. So, :( for that, but as a whole, I appreciate this dog’s existence in the world and think it has serious potential, but is in need of a little refinement.
I also had a Chicago dog, which I would have photographed for you had my phone not decided to take that moment to go all wacky and shut down. Look, man, it was a Chicago dog, albeit slightly misproportioned — to compare it to a true Chicago-born Chicago dog, the bun was a little too large and bready, and the dog itself too large and meaty. But I guess that’s Texas’ motto, right? “Everything’s slightly too big in Texas.”
Verdict: give this place a shot, if you’re in town. I salute them for putting together some pretty dang creative dogs, even if the two I had didn’t quite come together perfectly.
Later today: Dinner! Maybe!