Throwback Thursday: AUSTIN 48-hour FOOD TRIP

PCasa GT Austin, Odd Duck-001

We spend most of our summers with my sisters in the U.S. and we try and get away for a girl’s weekend nearby (meaning a short flight away). In 2016, we spent a few nights in Austin, a city none of us had been to and one that we had hear was hip and happening with an interesting food scene. We took an early flight and arrived in Austin just in time of lunch which we had booked at Odd Duck. The menu at Odd Duck changes monthly with up to half a dozen starters, mains and desserts plus, on the day we went, a cheeky $1 charge of beer for the kitchen. They’re mostly little plates which can either be shared by the table or eaten alone and gobbled up in a few mouthfuls. We decided to do family-style (because that’s what sisters’ weekends are for). The standout dishes from those we ordered were the super sweet corn soup garnished with popcorn and the parker house pig face roll which was a slider filled with crispy pork and garnished with spicy mustard. The puffy taco salad was unique and not the usual overloaded taco salads in chain restaurants. Odd Duck’s version was simple an healthy with the addition of summer peaches, feta, avocado, pumpkin seeds and greens. The beef cracklin tater tots was a modern take on meat and mash – deep fried crispy beef and mushrooms on top of mash and foamy egg. It was a hot day so we ended with the light cucumber sorbet which was sandwiched between sesame crusted tuiles. We decided to walk back to the hotel thinking it was only several blocks away and forgetting that it was the height of summer. It turned out to be at least 5 kilometers with hardly any shade so we stopped and had a coffee break at Caffe Medici then dropped but Voodoo Doughnut to ogle their spinning display of doughnuts before collapsing at the hotel for a afternoon rest with the AC blasting.