rat rods and some eats, lonestar roundup on soco.
this weekend was the annual lonestar roundup. we spent two afternoons walking around soco (south congress) watching the cars, watching the people, and we managed to sneak in a few bites of food and maybe a margarita or two as well.
many cool rat rods
some cool resto-rods
and regular hot rods
the seat was tagged "hughes aircraft company"
I loved this orange fury, had this wild chrome trim package, even has one piece that runs down the center of the trunk. its gauge cluster floated above the dash like a pod. very cool. I'm a sucker for orange.
met up with an early econoline guy in town for the event. from the vintagevans.com
guero's has pretty good chips and salsa and the margaritas are no joke.
he ate the chip crumbs like a kitty. look mom, no hands!
SOCO STREET PERFORMER:
we experienced a bit of performance art on the crowded south congress sidewalk
one knee expressed his joy of being free, the other was an illustration of the frustration brought on by the redundancies of life. this street artist captured the human experience on his knee caps with great style and enthusiasm.
he concluded the performance with a simulated retreat back into the womb. note the girl with a big giant iphone (ipad2) recording the finale.
FOOD:
we had an amazing meal at zandunga. the salsa is spicy, it must be real spicy because we have developed a bit of asbestos palate. the sangria, I'd say it is clearly the best in town, possibly anywhere. margarita also scored high marks. veronica (one of the owners) was also nice enough to stop by to say hello.
kat loves a good nopales salad. the lobster tacos were also very good, but slightly salty.
cooked a meal at home, inspired by thu tran's recipe she posted to her blog. I have a thing for thu, kat says she has a potty mouth. I'm Ok with thu's mouth the way it is. ok, I used dried shiitake mushrooms and haricot vert (small fancy green beans) instead of radishes and sugar snap peas, but it turned out well. in fact I made it twice this past week.
#2 son added a bit of fermented bean curd to the dish.
while cruising soco, we had some super fresh seafood from perla's
those oak grilled oysters were so good she had to post a pic.
this bay scallop posole verde was DELICIOUS!
and the #2 son had a birthday:
has favorite foods, rice, general Tso's chicken (ordered spicy) with some hot and sour soup.
he got books for his birthday, he got scared by the pop-up book bug and jumped back
met some friends at doc's back yard for happy hour. they have added this giant playground to the back yard. a few places in town have figured this out, have a huge beer garden area along side a huge play-scape and the families will come. everybody gets happy.
you would think this back yard play-scape was out in the country. but this shopping center replaced a real working farm. they left the barn and one corner of farmland. this pocket of green farm space is surrounded by typical strip mall big box stores, home depot, petco, dsw etc etc. I think I like the idea of this oasis, beers were cheap too. I just wish the food wasn't centered on fried things.
also had a nice meal at hudson's on the bend. their proteins are fantastic, the smoked elk back-strap was fork tender and the pecan crusted trout delicious. if you've ever eaten at "the mighty cone" or their food at acl festival, the trout is just like that. they have it down to a science. but they dropped the ball on the wine pairings. no real effort was made, the wines were ok. our server poured a california pinot noir, I asked with region and her answer was "I don't know". shouldn't you know what you serve/pour? she later gave us "grah-notcha" wine with our dessert, oh well.
the swim spa is all fixed! the new liner fits well and I fought the flow speed adjustment valve to R&R it. everything works like new again!