Tia Kelly's Navajo Tacos (Fork it over, Austin! - Part 21)

On the sixth day of the trip, I started off with a breakfast of hamentashen (my mom sent two dozen to the hotel as a Purim surprise) and hot chocolate from the Patika Coffee truck.

Then I attended what I found to be the most memorable panel of SXSWi, Jeffrey Tambor's acting workshop. (For inquiring minds, he did confirm that the Arrested Development movie is happening, along with ten new Netflix-exclusive episodes.)

I grabbed lunch outside of the Convention Center at a truck called Tia Kelly's Navajo Tacos, and it was the most disappointing taco of the trip. I was intrigued by the fact that it was wrapped in Navajo fry bread, a delicious fried dough I first encountered in New Mexico, but it was more than twice as expensive as almost every other taco I ate ($6.75), and it was bland and boring. Taco fail.

Normally I'd hate to rip a small truck apart so angrily, but as it turns out, it's not really a small business at all. It's actually an "Aramark concept," which I guess explains why it was parked right outside the Convention Center and why it was obnoxiously overpriced and not good. Wasted meal.

I headed back inside for a panel featuring a bunch of the Funny or Die guys, and it wasn't nearly as funny as I'd expected.

...and then dinner was somewhat disappointing as well (more on that in the next post). Maybe it's just that everything felt like a letdown after the awesome Tambor session.

Other posts in the Fork it over, Austin! series:
Part 1: Whip In
Part 2: Foreign & Domestic
Part 3: Caffe Medici
Part 4: Walking Along SoCo and Lunching at Chi'Lantro
Part 5: The Capitol, UT Austin, and Lunching (Again) at Torchy's Tacos
Part 6: Museum of the Weird
Part 7: Uchi
Part 8: East Side King at The Grackle
Part 9: Franklin Barbecue
Part 10: Flagship Whole Foods and My First Green Smoothie
Part 11: Late Night Pizza at Via 313
Part 12: Kebabalicious
Part 13: My Robotic Kitchen Planned This Dinner Party
Part 14: Papi Tino's
Part 15: Annie's Cafe & Bar
Part 16: The Peached Tortilla
Part 17: Cupcake Quest: Hey Cupcake!
Part 18: Arancini
Part 19: The DeLorean, Boxing Robots, and Roller Derby Pillow Fights
Part 20: Second Bar + Kitchen
Part 22: Hopdoddy Burger Bar
Part 23: Gourdough's
Part 24: The Ice Cream Social
Part 25: Walking to Barton Springs
Part 26: Izzos Tacos

I'm also posting daily recaps on the Tasted Menu blog, FOOD=LOVE:
Day 1: A First Taste of Austin
Day 2: Tons of Tacos, Sushi at Uchi, and a Late Night Trip to East Side King
Day 3: Early Morning Barbecue and Late Night Pizza
Day 4: Globetrotting: Kebabs, Enchiladas, Pommes Frites
Day 5-6: Meeting and Eating

The DeLorean, Boxing Robots, and Roller Derby Pillow Fights (Fork it over, Austin! - Part 19)

No food in this one. Sorry.

As the sun set on the fifth day and we enjoyed our dinner of arancini, we checked out the DeLorean mysteriously parked at the SXSW Foodspotting Street Food Fest, and we began to plan our evening.

 

Our main stop was the SXSW Interactive opening night party, sponsored by Microsoft and Frog. Because we arrived early, we all got light sabers. Later arrivals were jealous. We should have sold them. (On the way home that night, an epic light saber battle ensued with a stranger in a crosswalk. My week was made.) We nerded out over all sorts of games and demonstrations (Butterfly trikes! Human Connect Four! Boxing Robots!) and partook of the free drinks. I got stared down by the bartender and carded, allowing me to further cling to the fact that I will always look 16.

 

All of these things were around the outer perimeter of a giant event center. What was going on inside? We went in to find a giant video game area, complete with a tricked out school bus for a game about a cheerleader with a chainsaw saving the world from zombies, or something like that. An interestingly costumed fan insisted that it was awesome. We were convinced that there was more to the opening party inside the building - it was pretty cold out! - so we kept wandering around until we found ourselves in an arena just in time for the third quarter of the first roller derby I had ever seen.

It. Was. Awesome. As a former rugby player and a five-foot-tall person with perhaps a slight Napoleon complex, I totally want to play. Too bad I'm terrible at skating...

Whenever there was a penalty, it was settled by the announcer spinning a wheel to choose an appropriate challenge, such as a pillow fight or an arm wrestling match. Is that standard to roller derbies or was this a special event? We were so confused. But we loved every minute of it.

Eventually we set out to return downtown and find some real dinner since our truck binge was hours earlier.

Other posts in the Fork it over, Austin! series:
Part 1: Whip In
Part 2: Foreign & Domestic
Part 3: Caffe Medici
Part 4: Walking Along SoCo and Lunching at Chi'Lantro
Part 5: The Capitol, UT Austin, and Lunching (Again) at Torchy's Tacos
Part 6: Museum of the Weird
Part 7: Uchi
Part 8: East Side King at The Grackle
Part 9: Franklin Barbecue
Part 10: Flagship Whole Foods and My First Green Smoothie
Part 11: Late Night Pizza at Via 313
Part 12: Kebabalicious
Part 13: My Robotic Kitchen Planned This Dinner Party
Part 14: Papi Tino's
Part 15: Annie's Cafe & Bar
Part 16: The Peached Tortilla
Part 17: Cupcake Quest: Hey Cupcake!
Part 18: Arancini
Part 20: Second Bar + Kitchen
Part 21: Tia Kelly's Navajo Tacos
Part 22: Hopdoddy Burger Bar
Part 23: Gourdough's
Part 24: The Ice Cream Social
Part 25: Walking to Barton Springs
Part 26: Izzos Tacos

I'm also posting daily recaps on the Tasted Menu blog, FOOD=LOVE:
Day 1: A First Taste of Austin
Day 2: Tons of Tacos, Sushi at Uchi, and a Late Night Trip to East Side King
Day 3: Early Morning Barbecue and Late Night Pizza
Day 4: Globetrotting: Kebabs, Enchiladas, Pommes Frites
Day 5-6: Meeting and Eating

Arancini (Fork it over, Austin! - Part 18)

Austin has so many food trucks. Boston's growing food truck population barely even matches the number of Austin trucks present in one parking lot. One day, maybe. In any case, I was determined to hit up as many trucks as possible while in Austin, especially once the weather cleared up. There's just something so enjoyable about paying a few bucks for a hot, delicious meal that's ready quickly and perfect for an on-the-spot picnic.

As previously mentioned, on the fifth day, we ate lunch at the SXSW Foodspotting Street Food Fest (The Peached Tortilla and Hey Cupcake! for me). And then we also ate dinner there, this time at Arancini, a truck selling...you guessed it.

For the purposes of the fest, they were offering three types of arancini, and our group split two orders: duck ragu and sun-dried tomato with mozzarella. The wait felt incredibly long once we had ordered (I think they warned us that it would be about 10 minutes), so I can only assume they're cooking each one to order.

Both flavors were excellent, from the gooey rice on the inside to the fried breading on the outside. The size was substantial as well. Worth the wait? Perhaps. They were definitely tasty, but we did get very antsy while waiting. And beware: don't lose your receipt. A couple girls in front of us lost theirs, so their order was put at the end of the queue - and it seemed to keep getting pushed back even farther. Eventually, they had to leave, sadly without their arancini.

Other posts in the Fork it over, Austin! series:
Part 1: Whip In
Part 2: Foreign & Domestic
Part 3: Caffe Medici
Part 4: Walking Along SoCo and Lunching at Chi'Lantro
Part 5: The Capitol, UT Austin, and Lunching (Again) at Torchy's Tacos
Part 6: Museum of the Weird
Part 7: Uchi
Part 8: East Side King at The Grackle
Part 9: Franklin Barbecue
Part 10: Flagship Whole Foods and My First Green Smoothie
Part 11: Late Night Pizza at Via 313
Part 12: Kebabalicious
Part 13: My Robotic Kitchen Planned This Dinner Party
Part 14: Papi Tino's
Part 15: Annie's Cafe & Bar
Part 16: The Peached Tortilla
Part 17: Cupcake Quest: Hey Cupcake!
Part 19: The DeLorean, Boxing Robots, and Roller Derby Pillow Fights
Part 20: Second Bar + Kitchen
Part 21: Tia Kelly's Navajo Tacos
Part 22: Hopdoddy Burger Bar
Part 23: Gourdough's
Part 24: The Ice Cream Social
Part 25: Walking to Barton Springs
Part 26: Izzos Tacos

I'm also posting daily recaps on the Tasted Menu blog, FOOD=LOVE:
Day 1: A First Taste of Austin
Day 2: Tons of Tacos, Sushi at Uchi, and a Late Night Trip to East Side King
Day 3: Early Morning Barbecue and Late Night Pizza
Day 4: Globetrotting: Kebabs, Enchiladas, Pommes Frites
Day 5-6: Meeting and Eating

My Robotic Kitchen Planned This Dinner Party (Fork it over, Austin! - Part 13)

This is my thirteenth post on Austin, which reminds that I'm staying on the thirteenth floor of the hotel. I thought hotels never numbered a floor the thirteenth. Anyways.

I love throwing dinner parties. Planning, cooking, decorating, sharing - it's always stressful, and there are always glitches, but it's one of the most enjoyable experiences possible amongst groups of friends, especially at an age where we're less inclined to go out "clubbing" or "bar-hopping" or other things that I was never much into even when I was a little younger.

Some people would probably love to host a dinner party but don't know where to start. Maybe they're intimidated about cooking for other people or are worried about correctly timing all the dishes. Maybe they just wish there was a robot that could do all the work for them. Enter Mike Lee and Will Turnage, presenters of the SXSW talk "My Robotic Kitchen Planned This Dinner Party." I was already a little familiar with some of Mike's work; as a hobby, he plans dinners in unexpected places, and I remember reading about one of his adventures last year, a multi-course fancy dinner party along an NYC subway line. Pretty awesome.

Mike and Will spoke about an app that they're in the very early stages of developing, Food.You.Me., which helps people plan dinner parties, and they demonstrated and described how the app could basically walk you through the steps of the dishes you're preparing, including helping with the timing - what can be done three days ahead of time? When can you spend a few minutes tidying up and setting the table? While it might be most helpful for fairly novice dinner party hosts, I'd certainly find it helpful even though I've already hosted my share of parties and feel pretty comfortable with the process. I'm most intrigued by the way it would help me time things better, as that is, for me, the most stressful part of hosting a dinner party.

A few takeaways that stuck with me:

• The brain is more important than the gadgets. Focus on learning basic techniques and culinary patterns so that you can build variations upon them. Don't focus on learning individual recipes and using ultra-specific gadgets.
• "Are you just eating to have a great Facebook wall?" The 'sportification of food' hits close to home for me; although I've been blogging fairly frequently about food for almost four years, and it's opened a lot of interesting doors for me, I constantly have doubts about the depth and usefulness of what I'm doing. When I'm eating for the sole purpose of posting an awesome photo on Facebook or writing a killer blog post, something's wrong. The social sharing should be much less important than the actual act of eating and enjoying food.
• Simplify, simplify, simplify. And "structure breeds freedom."

Overall, the talk was full of energy and laughter (and awesome kitchen robot photos), and it rejuvenated me a bit after I didn't particularly enjoy the first panel that I attended.

Other posts in the Fork it over, Austin! series:
Part 1: Whip In
Part 2: Foreign & Domestic
Part 3: Caffe Medici
Part 4: Walking Along SoCo and Lunching at Chi'Lantro
Part 5: The Capitol, UT Austin, and Lunching (Again) at Torchy's Tacos
Part 6: Museum of the Weird
Part 7: Uchi
Part 8: East Side King at The Grackle
Part 9: Franklin Barbecue
Part 10: Flagship Whole Foods and My First Green Smoothie
Part 11: Late Night Pizza at Via 313
Part 12: Kebabalicious
Part 14: Papi Tino's
Part 15: Annie's Cafe & Bar
Part 16: The Peached Tortilla
Part 17: Cupcake Quest: Hey Cupcake!
Part 18: Arancini
Part 19: The DeLorean, Boxing Robots, and Roller Derby Pillow Fights
Part 20: Second Bar + Kitchen
Part 21: Tia Kelly's Navajo Tacos
Part 22: Hopdoddy Burger Bar
Part 23: Gourdough's
Part 24: The Ice Cream Social
Part 25: Walking to Barton Springs
Part 26: Izzos Tacos

I'm also posting daily recaps on the Tasted Menu blog, FOOD=LOVE:
Day 1: A First Taste of Austin
Day 2: Tons of Tacos, Sushi at Uchi, and a Late Night Trip to East Side King
Day 3: Early Morning Barbecue and Late Night Pizza
Day 4: Globetrotting: Kebabs, Enchiladas, Pommes Frites
Day 5-6: Meeting and Eating