Category Archives: Food

Oct 03 2012
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Austin, Beer, Food

Banger’s Sausage House & Beer Garden

Yes, it has been a while since I have posted. It is for good reason though. This past month has been insanely busy because I recently started a new job. Now that training is completed and I am getting settled into the position, I have some time for the occasional post. No, won’t be blogging as much as I did during my “funemployment” phase, but hopefully won’t go 4 or 5 weeks without posting again. Ok, now onto Bangers…

Banger’s Sausage House and Beer Garden is the newest venue on Rainey Street. Last weekend Banger’s kicked off their Oktoberfest celebration. Back home in Cincinnati, the nations largest Oktoberfest recently took place. Itching to get a taste of Oktoberfest in my new home,  this was as good as time any to finally visit Banger’s. This was an appropriate venue for an Oktoberfest celebration as Banger’s has a mini German beer hall feel to it. On the inside there are long wooden benches and tables, along with bar seating. Outside you have more seating, a stage for bands and a pen area for dogs. Even the wait staff were appropriately dressed in lederhosen.

The first thing you notice when walking into Banger’s is their beer wall. It is one of the most impressive tap selections you will see. There are just over 100 beers on tap, with almost half being local Texas beers. On our visit they tapped the first keg of Rahr & Sons Oktoberfest. The best kind of Oktoberfest beer is free Oktoberfest beer!

As you can tell by their name, Banger’s food specialty is sausage. With it being Oktoberfest, they had a special bratwurst menu. Alison ordered the jalapeño cheddar bratwurst on a pretezel bun and really enjoyed it. I was boring and went with the frankfurter, but I did think it was tasty. Next visit I’ll have to be a little more adventurous and go for one of their specialty sausages.

Overall, I really enjoyed my first visit to Banger’s Sausage House and Beer Garden. It will definitely be a place I visit whenever I’m on Rainey Street. Only complaint I have would be the service became a little slow when it became more crowded. Hopefully it was just due to it being a crazy day and this isn’t a regular occurrence.

Banger's Sausage House & Beer Garden on Urbanspoon

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Aug 20 2012
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Austin, BBQ, Food

Woodpile BBQ

Saturday has become BBQ day for me. For the past month I’ve had BBQ for lunch or dinner every Saturday. Within the past month a new BBQ spot has opened in Austin, Woodpile BBQ. This place works out pretty well for me since they are currently only open on Saturday’s. So far Woodpile has received positive reviews, so this past Saturday I decided to try them out.

Woodpile is owned and operated by a husband and wife team. The husband is the pitmaster and carves the meats while the wife works the register. Didn’t talk to them for long, but they both seemed really friendly. Their trailer is located in Southwest Austin, just off of Highway 290. Their space isn’t huge but they have large picnic tables that also have large umbrellas so you aren’t roasting in the sun. A week before they said they sold out of everything by 1PM, so we made sure to get there at 11AM to make sure to get all the meat we wanted.

Woodpile advertises their meat comes from Ninman Ranch, where cattle and pigs roam free and eat all vegetarian diets. We went with a half pound of fatty brisket and a half pound of pork ribs (St. Louis cut). The meal also came with jalapeño cornbread and samples of pecan pie. I really enjoyed the brisket and the ribs, and I can’t think of anything negative about them. They both had good flavor and texture. The fat on the brisket was well rendered. The ribs came off the bone easily. Both had good smoke flavor and the ribs had a little bit of sweetness that worked well. The sauce is good and definitely unique compared to the other BBQ spots we have visited so far. I haven’t been to Salt Lick yet, but based on what I’ve heard and seen about them, I’d say Woodpile’s sauce was inspired by Salt Lick. I think I prefer white bread with the meal over the cornbread, but that isn’t a huge deal. I didn’t have any, but Woodpile features a special Amy’s molasses ice cream.

Overall I was really impressed by Woodpile and it was worth the trip. I wouldn’t rank them as high as Franklin or JMueller, but their product definitely competes with Stiles Switch for 3rd best in town. Even though their hours work out pretty well with my Saturday BBQ fix, I hope business continues to grow so they can expand their days of business.

Woodpile BBQ on Urbanspoon

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Aug 16 2012
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Austin, Food

Conan’s Pizza

After eating a lot of thin crust pizza recently, I was in the mood for a thicker crust. After doing some googling I found Conan’s Pizza which apparently is an Austin institution since the 70′s. They advertise Chicago style deep pan pizza as their specialty. If you’re gonna go thick crust, might was well go pan, so Conan’s seemed like the right choice.

We went to the Conans in South Austin. The interior of this Conan’s looks like it hasn’t changed much from the 70′s. Wood panelling everywhere. Our table was decorated with a bunch of postcards from Alaska for some reason. There were also some arcade machines, a lot of them from the 80′s. It looked like your classic dive pizza joint.

The pizza is pretty enjoyable, the best part about it was the cheese. You get a lot of cheese on the pizza and it was very tasty. The rest of the pizza was just fine. Nothing extraordinary and nothing bad about it. The sauce was a sweeter sauce and not chunky like I was expecting. But that is ok with me as I don’t love chunky sauces. There is one thing to keep in mind before going to Conan’s, there’s a difference between Chicago Deep Dish Pizza and Chicago Deep Pan Pizza. Most are more familiar with deep dish where the cheese and toppings go on the bottom, below the sauce. In a deep pan pizza, the cheese and toppings go on top like most pizzas, and the crust isn’t quite the same. So don’t go to Conan’s expecting a Lou Malnati’s or Giordano’s style pizza. Just go there expecting a pretty decent thick crust pan pizza.

Conans Pizza on Urbanspoon

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