goodheart

Hello Fodor's Forum -- I haven't been on the forum in many years since i haven't had the opportunity to travel to a totally new city in a long, long time! But here I am again, seeking your brilliance and insight...

Husband and I are heading to Austin for a few days in late February to celebrate our 5th anniversary. We have our plane tickets, but not much else yet -- looking for ideas for eating, drinking, live music, hotels, etc. We enjoy BBQ, Mexican food, really any type of ethnic food we can't get in Northwest OH where we live now. I love country music (and he's going to have to suffer through it with me...). I love wine and he loves craft beer. We're not huge museum or shopping people.

Mostly though, I'm looking for a suggestion for our anniversary dinner, which I'd like to be really special - and am willing to spend!

Ideas most welcome! Thanks in advance!

goodheart

bump!

Austin

Hi there. First, there are tons of posts about things to do and places to go in and around Austin. You can check local sites like austin360.com and austinchronicle.com for ideas too.

Many suggest the Salt Lick. It's great food but these days over crowded and loud. I've been many times. They catered my wedding. But I will never go back, unless they seat us in the original building on the right.

Country music - the Broken Spoke, any night of the week.
Anniversary dinner - I'd say The Driskill Grill. Excellent and romantic. Also the Carrillon for excellent food too.

Austin has a ton of excellent restaurants. Barley Swine, Olivia, Foreign and Domestic, Congress, Uchi and Uchiko.

longhorn55

The Driskill Grill in the historic Driskill Hotel would be my choice for a fancy anniversary dinner if money were no object.

Austin

And depending on where you are from the Driskill really isn't that expensive. If you are major foodies, yeah, you have to try their apps and they have the best pastry chef! Oh, and their wine list is great. Splurge could be upwards of $150, including tip.

TDudette

I'll agree with longhorn55 about Driskill. For a special Thanksgiving dinner, I ate at the Four Seasons and it was super. This was in 2010 so do check for more recent info:

http://www.fourseasons.com/austin/di...taurants/trio/

Please let everyone know how it goes!

goodheart

Thank you! I just came back to this and I'm thrilled we made reservations at the Driskill. We'll definitely be sure to try the apps and dessert!

Thanks for all the other recommendations and I'll report back!

amer_can

If you want to shop Nieman Marcus has a discount store there..Last Chance or something like that. Outstanding!!!

volcanogirl

Hudson's on the Bend is also a fun spot - lots of wild game on the menu. It's out by the lake. We also really enjoy the Salt Lick for BBQ. The Oasis is fun for live music and great views of the lake.

http://hudsonsonthebend.com/

http://www.saltlickbbq.com/

http://oasis-austin.com/

Austin also has a lot of great food trucks for when you want something casual.

If you're up for it, you should check out the little town of Gruene with Texas' oldest dance hall and live music. The Grist Mill is a fun place to eat there right along the river.

http://gristmillrestaurant.com/

topeater

If you want the ultimate BBQ, go to Franklin's on East 11th St. They open at 11am & close when they sell out. The line usually forms around 9am, earlier on the week-ends. That seems like a lot of time standing around, but there's a guy that will rent you a lawn chair & the people watching can't be beat. Brisket will melt in your mouth!

For Mexican, check out Curra's on Oltorf for breakfast, lunch or dinner. There are loads of places everywhere. Try breakfast tacos! For an upscale interior Mexican restaurant, there is Fonda San Miguel (beautiful interior) and also interior is El Naranjo located in the Rainey St. area close to downtown. Rainey can get a little crazy, lots of bars.

Third the Broken Spoke. Also, check the listing for the Saxon Pub on South Lamar not too far from the Spoke.

I just saw the date, so I may be too late. If so, please let us know what you did.

Austin

Curious where you went - or maybe you are here now?

goodheart

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the great suggestions! We just got back from a great trip to Texas and I wanted to report back on the Austin portion of our trip. I'll try to give a lot of logistical details since those are things I'm often interested in from trip reports

We arrived mid-day on a Thursday and took a cab from the airport to the Omni downtown, on 7th and San Jacinto. The cab ride was about $30 dollars and took about 20 minutes or so, one nice surprise was that you could pay with a credit card.

When we arrived at the Omni, they offered us a complimentary upgrade to a king suite which we were of course super excited about - we had booked and prepaid on Hotels.com, so we were pretty surprised! Be sure you join the Omni's loyalty club if you ever stay at one, we think that's what did it. Since our palatial suite (seriously, it even had its own exercise room!) wasn't ready yet, we headed out for lunch at Moonshine (http://moonshinegrill.com/) at Red River and 3rd Street. The Green Chile Macaroni was outstanding; the chicken and waffles not that amazing. The place is totally adorable though and the service was fabulous. The desserts looking amazing too, but we were too full, and we had places to be!

We then walked up to 11th and Lavaca to take our pre-booked Segway tour through http://nationtours.com/austin/. I was pretty scared to try it but it turned out to be a great way to see a lot of the city - the first part of the tour is around the State Capitol grounds so you don't have to worry about cars/traffic, and then the sidewalks are pretty wide and easy to get around. Our guide was very informative and was able to balance the Segway fun and city fun facts. I'd definitely recommend this tour -- the 1.5 hour tour was plenty of time to get comfortable and enjoy the town; i think the 2.5 hour one might be a tad on the long side (my feet definitely ached at the end).

We finally checked into the palatial suite and admired out very own exercise room, and after a short rest, we headed down to my absolutely favorite part of Austin, Rainey Street. I just loved all the restaurants and bars in the historic district, all the lights - it was just awesome. We had a great night hanging out at Bangers (http://bangersaustin.com/), drinking beers and eating sausages. It was a tap takeover night by O'Dells, a Colorado microbrewery which is apparently new to Texas, so we scored a bunch of swag and got to meet lots of the brewery staff. What a friendly and delicious place! It was too cold for us, but they have a huge garden too, with picnic tables, and apparently on certain days of the month you can bring your dog! Totally thumbs up. I also really wanted to check out El Naranjo (http://www.elnaranjo-restaurant.com/site/) next door but it had been a long day so we wrapped it up and walked back to the Omni.

The next morning we headed out for a meeting at UT and discovered that the public transportation system is super easy to navigate and very high tech. If you're visiting town, you can download the Capitol Metro app that has schedules , maps, etc, and at each station you can text the station code and get a text back with the next bus times! Loved that convenience.

After our UT visit we took a Capitol tour - our tour guide was not the best we'd ever had and was rather hard to understand/follow, but the building itself was gorgeous and well worth the visit. We walked back to our hotel and relaxed on the rooftop deck and enjoyed the warmth. After a nice nap, it was time for our anniversary dinner! We made our way over to the Driskill Grill and had some pre-dinner cocktails at the bar - a lovely space with live music and delicious bacon-wrapped dates! I only wish we had taken longer to hang out there.

Finally, our much awaited dinner -- the service at the Driskill was impeccable. I had listed on the reservation that it was our anniversary, and each server greeted us with a Happy Anniversary. We were seated a lovely corner table and overall felt very well taken care of. The food was great, if somewhat smaller portions than the Texas portions we'd come to expect. We even got a complimentary glass of champagne and a Happy Anniversary greeting on our dessert plate! It was a perfect place for a lovely and festive dinner - thanks all for the recommendation!

After dinner we wandered down to Sixth Street and visited Pete's Dueling Pianos. In hindsight, this was probably not the wisest choice - we could do that in any big city, and should have probably chosen a more uniquely Austin music venue. Oh well - now we know what we need to do when we come back, which we most certainly will! But it was still fun and entertaining and a great way to end a fun day. Sixth Street was definitely happening on a Friday night - we were looking for something a bit more mellow and our server at the Driskill had suggested the Elephant Room - we didn't get to try it but I am keeping i on the list for a future trip!

Our last day in Austin we decided to walk down to the South Congress area and get some brunch. We'd planned to try the South Congress Cafe and the carrot cake french toast, but the line was way too long around 11 am, so we went back over to Guero's Taco Bar (http://www.guerostacobar.com/) and ate on the patio and had some delicious breakfast tacos and migas. We then stopped at Jo's (http://joscoffee.com/) for some coffee and a gingerbread (sooooo strong) before taking the bus back to the Omni and checking out.

We spent three days in Dallas with a friend and then on our way out of town had a chance to enjoy a few last Austin aspects at the airport - ate some Salt Lick BBQ (which my husband declared the best BBQ of the trip), Amy's ice cream, and some live music at the airport's outpost of the Saxon Bar!

And that's our trip! My three favorite things about Austin:
- Friendliest people ever
- Rainey Street
- Live Oak Big Bark beer - absolutely delicious and I am so bummed they don't have it out here

I absolutely loved Austin and totally cannot wait to go back, I feel like there are still so many things to see and do that we did not get to in our short time there - many detailed in the suggestions in this post. As Arnold says, we'll be back....

=)

volcanogirl

Glad you had such a great trip. We love Salt Lick BBQ too, and Amy's - mmmm. We'll have to try the Driskell - that sounds awesome.

musicfan

Thanks for reporting back! So glad you had such a good time. On my last trip to Austin I too stayed at the Omni (GREAT deal on Priceline) and loved it. I also recommend joining the loyalty club even though all I got was the delivery to my room of two morning beverages and a paper FOR FREE at the time of my choosing; it was pretty awesome. And on a trip last spring my sister and I did the segway tour--so fun!

And finally, yes, I have never met more truly NICE and friendly people than I have on my trips to Austin and environs--I get back every chance I get.

Austin

Glad you had a great time. Rainey street is the in place these days. East Sixth street not so much. Next time for sure try the Elephant room. So many options,

TDudette

Great to read your happy TR!