Not a breakfast taco, but two delicious tacos from Torchy's in Austin

Recently took a trip to Austin, TX and came away wanting to go back for a number of reasons.  One of them has to be the breakfast tacos, not necessarily the actual items which can be duplicated fairly easily at home, but the idea of them.  There is something about the cross cutting nature of the breakfast taco in Austin that is interesting to see – Mexican places have them (so called interior Mexican), Tex-Mex places most definitely have them, and so do Burger King, coffee shops and taco chains and all serve real breakfast tacos because the ‘true’ breakfast taco is an American creation riffing off the Mexican taco of course and sometimes using Mexican ingredients.  Anyway, back to the taco, you can do anything with it, I think eggs make sense as the only given, flour tortillas are the norm in Austin and point to its anglo roots.  Other than that you could go in any direction – American cheese and jimmy dean sausage, sure why not, but you could of course go towards more interesting ingredients, delicious fresh salsas, mexican cheeses, avocado, fresh chilies, beans, chorizo?  All sound good and all have a place.
This morning looking at a freshly picked banana pepper (spicy) from our garden – the first pepper of the year – I decided a breakfast taco was in order.  And here is where they are great, they are so scalable.  I wanted a lighter meal so one taco for me, one for the gf using one egg split made for a perfect meal w/ some fresh blueberries, but hungover craving a large meal three tacos w/ chorizo would fit that bill too.

Today’s breakfast taco featured:
2 flour tacos griddled them to be hot, but not crispy
1 egg, beaten w/ a dash of milk, pepper and salt
finely chopped onion (red today) sauteed
chopped banana pepper (hot) sauteed w/ the onion
chopped tomato (added to the egg mid cooking)
dash of Tapatio
green onion tops for garnish
shredded cheese (was TJ’s Mexican blend)

After cooking the onion and pepper quickly, took 1/3 of it out to garnish on top, then added the egg and scrambled adding tomato part way through just to warm.  topped w/ cheese to slightly melt.  put half of the egg, pepper and onion filling into each taco, top w/ the remaining onions/peppers and green onions and a few dashes of hot sauce (some Tapatio today)

It was delicious, featuring the fresh flavor of the banana pepper whose heat was slightly cut by sauteing it.  Served w/ some blueberries it was a quick meal start to finish and we were off to work.

See NY Times United Tastes- Tacos in the Morning? That’s the Routine in Austin
for more on breakfast tacos in Austin  (oh and for Torchy’s that does have breakfast tacos as well as the delicious ones above, I think one was brisket and one was fried avocado see their website here)

I’ll leave you with a picture of Ohios domeless statehouse, not the only State with no dome, but the only rotunda without a dome ( apparently the civil war led to the dome craze as troops returned home having seen the capitol building.

Observers agree that fuel prices were perhaps the single biggest factor in Skybus’ demise, but they disagree on some other points. Some say the company wasn’t managed properly.”  Columbus Dispatch “How could it happen”

Skybus burst onto the scene as the newest low cost US airline last year formed in the model of Ryan Air and other European budget no frills airlines.  Just as suddenly as it appeared it burst into flames ceasing operations last Friday and leaving passengers stranded and without any infrastructure to help them.  With so much promise and so much positive attention why did Skybus implode?  Well it looks like some strategic errors and poor management are to blame but so are the skyrocketing fuel costs where oil almost doubled in price since they opened up shop.

Plenty of other mistakes were there and I think the $10 tickets were never that great an idea – sure they created some buzz, but they could have created buzz for west coast flights with higher prices, and the lack of a phone number and no contingencies to help in the wake of mechanical errors placed the airline as an airline that really could only be relied on by those who had a few days off or a very flexible work schedule.

Its too bad that it happened this way because Skybus created a great buzz here in Columbus and got some people who might have never thought of coming here, do just that.  Hopefully JetBlue who left Columbus since Skybus opened up shop might return, but with the market the way it is, I am not getting my hopes up.

See Dispatch story “How could it happen?“

Another interesting issue is the greenback, with the US dollar continuing to seek lows I saw a pretty amazing sight, Airbus, the consummate reflection of Europeans and their nationalistic interests, looking to build a plant in the US South, in order to capitalize on the low dollar and offset the pain that dollar denominated airplane sales are causing them.  So while my trip to England was severely penalized by the $2 to the pound conversion, hopefully we can start getting those Euros to come spend their money over here and to up our exports as we gain competitive ground.

One thing I didn’t know, nor did my friend who purchased the tickets via Craigslist was that fans could claim a lost ticket and get an exact reprint. Well that’s all and dandy, except when it basically gives you a real ticket, hologram and all to sell and then to show up at the match w/ your new ticket to show up and watch the match. Thats exactly what happened, the group of us who went got scammed, we got in the stadium alright (squeezing through the famously narrow gates, having our tickets scanned into the system alright – you wouldn’t think they would work after being reissued would you?)

At this point my day and weekend couldn’t have been looking any better, just having walked along the Thames to Craven Cottage the picturesque old style English stadium, about to see a great 3pm game with perfect weather. Twenty minutes into the match things were looking good, until a group showed up wanting to sit in our seats and that’s when, slowly we learned about the duplicate tickets, the fact that the folks sitting down instead were probably in on the whole act only made it worse and no amount of debate with the stewards would lead to us getting to stay. Thankfully it wasn’t the match of the century, Arsenal scored their first of three goals while we were standing around arguing with the steward.

While it didn’t ruin my trip, it sure left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the day. So be careful of the ticket touts in the UK and next time I am gonna make sure to get my tickets through my supporters club or not bother at all (I tried to snag tickets through the Arsenal America club, but had missed the deadline).

 While Ruhlman railed against the strange dish (most commonly served as a 3 way (on spaghetti with cheese) although I get a five way with beans and onions, Bourdain was quite happy with himself and would use future meals at the place as a threat to Ruhlman.  The Skyline that they went to is out in Lyndhurt on Mayfield road and Rulhman correctly points out that Tony had brought him to one of the more soulless places in Cleveland (actually Mayfield road reminds me of the current development style as seen in much of Las Vegas, Orlando, generic suburbs around the country.  The difference is that Mayfield reflects ‘bands’ of ethnic arrival and age, as Mayfield in Cleveland Heights is quite different then Mayfield and S.O.M. )

 Anyway, putting Skyline behind them, Tony gets to meet Harvey Pekar, Tobby (who you know if you’ve seen American Splendor) who take him on a brief tour of Cleveland, ending for lunch at Sokolowski’s for some Eastern European fare.  As I mentioned before Tony gets an indepth taste of the creations of the Sausage Shop, and then a tour of the Rock Hall with Marky Ramone (Bourdain is correct that there is something strange about a museum to Rock and Roll, especially one with no bar and no smoking). 

 Ramone and Bourdain then dine at Lola, downtown, and is treated to an abundance of heavy food that Ramone has no problem polishing off.  One of the more interesting dishes I hadn’t known of (all were referencing Cleveland) was a foie gras bratwurst that came with a Great Lakes beer cheese soup and some stadium mustard.  A famous dish of Lola that they also enjoyed was a beef cheek pierogi.   Later, with chef Michael Symon (of Lola) Tony visits Hot Sauce Williams, where they order up all kinds of stuff and experience what happens when Southern Soul Food, mixes with a city full of Eastern Europeans.

The final meal on the show is one made by Bourdain and Ruhlman, who get to show off their respective skills (Ruhlman from his Charcuterie publishing fame, and Tony making cassoulet) both featuring a high pork that they butchered. 

Overall verdict of all this?  Well, I love to see anything on Cleveland and applaud Ruhlman for getting some attention on the city that he loves.  As the show points out Cleveland is authentic and has a treasure trove of things that even big cities would be jealous of (as Tony points out on their trip to the West Side Market).  Still the episode has some flaws (its not a film and I don’t mean to dissect it so much) but the faux feud between Ruhlman and Bourdain isn’t that entertaining and the fake drag racing scene (yeah you heard me right) also is pretty stupid and didn’t add much, could have snuck in something more interesting in that time.  Minor complaints, recommend you check it out on one of its inevitable replays.