Yup, I’m back enjoying some quality time in the “motherland” and dutifully eating burgers and barbecue. AND DRINKING SO MUCH HIGH LIFE!! Tough gig, right?

Highlights of the week included heading out two-steppin’ at a honky tonk while this awesome local Austin band played:

and then discovering that one of my new favourite drinks now has a name and comes pre-mixed:

 

Sundown at Doc's bar and grill

That right there is called a Sundown and it’s comprised of a frozen margarita and a pony (small bottle) of Mexican beer. Saucesome.

And tomorrow, Chevrolet are kindly loaning me a Silverado 2500 4×4 diesel crew cab truck to play around with. Chances of me parking the thing are slim, but I don’t mind driving loops when the ride is that badass.

God bless Texas.

Hidden way Uptown in New Orleans, far from the tourist buzz of the French Quarter and one block up from Tchoupitoulas (chop-a-TOO-las) street, Domilises is a NOLA Po Boy institution. The store is family owned and run, and is actually attached to the Domilise’s abode  - there’s a door right from the dining room into their living area. It’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” nondescript weatherboard house with a sign that may make a first timer wonder if they have the right address.

Don’t be fooled – this joint is a hot local favourite and it’s packed with character. And old wooden bar runs the length of the restaurant, resplendent with sports memorabilia and vintage beer trays. As in, actual paraphernalia that has been here since way back in the day, as opposed to a post-ironic TGI Friday’s collection of new “old” antiques.

Like any serious Po Boy shop, Domilise’s use Leidenheimer’s bread for their sandwiches. Leidenheimer’s are arguably THE most famous bakery in NOLA (not counting Haydel’s for their King Cake), supplying to esteemed establishments like Central Grocery, Uglesich’s, Parasol’s, Galatoire’s and Commander’s Palace (dang, that was a lot of apostrophes).

At Domilise’s, a small is two segments of bread while the large has three, and don’t ever expect to see tomato on your Po Boy. I’ve heard great things about their catfish and had previously tried their sensational shrimp Po Boys, but in the interest of the “burger” part of this blog, I foolishly ordered the “hamburger”.

Listen, it was tasty, but just as underwhelming as the photo suggests. A stupid amount of hotsauce on top was a big help. But seriously, what fool goes to a Po Boy shop and doesn’t order it with fried seafood? This fool, apparently.

At any rate, SC was my dining companion, and I bullied him in to ordering The Special – an off-the-menu offering for those in the know. Kinda like a secret handshake, albeit one that most of the city knows about. So what makes it so Special? Deep fried gulf shrimp, fully dressed with lettuce, mayo, pickles and swiss cheese… then ladled with a huge helping of hot, secret recipe gravy.

Let me tell you, SC has spent DECADES eating Po Boys in that city and he proclaimed that was the best he’d ever had. Ironically, it took a foreigner to make him try it out. Men can be so stubborn.

I had a taste of his and can confirm that there’s surely some magical alchemy that happens between the crisp shrimp and the rich gravy.

 Here’s two handy tips -

1) I hear excellent things about their Roast Beef Po Boy

2) Do everything in your power to avoid using the bathroom in this place. No further details required.

BurgerMary in partnership with the folks at St Ali are thrilled to present:

An epic evening of eating. Vegetarians need not apply.

I hear you all crying: “but BurgerMary, you always complain that there is no decent Texas style BBQ in Australia, how are you pulling off this little venture?”. Fear not, for I have stumbled upon a magical outfit known as Red River BBQ, run by an Aussie and a fella from Austin. I have tasted their brisket and can happily report that these boys are legit, yo. So, I met up with them in a bar and told them that I needed to share their ‘cue with Melbourne. They agreed, and here we are!

BurgerMary and the Red River BBQ boys

So, what can you expect? Well, I’m hoping give y’all a super fun evening that embraces the spirit of Texas – the music, the atmosphere, the food… but maybe not the armadillos.

If that ain’t enough, we have also developed a kickass drinks package. Available only by pre-ordering at the time of ticket purchase, you get a housemade Michelada, a bottle of smoked porter craft beer, and a tall, frosty glass of Sweet Tea Vodka (which I had y’all drooling over here).

There will be a select range of local craft beers from Two Birds and Cavalier Brewing available for purchase on the evening, expertly selected by Tiffany from BeerGirlBites. She’ll also be on hand to help you choose the right beer to match your food. She has also made me promise not to drink any Miller Genuine Draft on the night, so you know you’re in the hands of a proper beer aficionado.

So let’s take stock of this. Slow smoked meat. Craft beer with expert advice. Bacon appearing in minimum two courses. And my loudmouth self keeping y’all company for the evening. What’s not to love?!  And if I get into too many of those sweet tea vodkas, I may even teach some of y’all to Texas two-step.

The first dinner sold out in just over a day – YAY! So, we’ve added on two more nights for y’all to come enjoy the experience. Thursday March 29th and Thursday April 19th. Attendance is limited and tickets must be bought in advance. You can purchase your tickets here. Hope to see y’all there!

*may be an exaggeration, but it’s still damn fine cobbler. 

But, I think this may be the most elegant way to continue to  show support for the team, which has a fleur de lis as its logo – coincidentally (not really) the same logo as the city of New Orleans itself.

The best damn looking glass of Rye whiskey....ever.

Best ice cube ever? I think so. It’s fleur inception – a fleur within a glass  decorated with fleurs. I would probably go ahead and then serve it on a napkin embossed with fleur de lis. Which would be held in place with my fleur de lis paperweights. Are you seeing a theme here? Yeah, I have a lot of fleur. Sometimes a Texas longhorn silhouette just isn’t classy enough.

Other things I did this week?

jalapeno poppers and buffalo wings

Had an impromptu buffalo wing night. We actually convinced ourselves it was healthy eatin’ since we didn’t deep fry them. Perhaps undoing the good was the sauce we created by mixing ranch dressing with actual chunks of gorgonzola – that’ll solve the problem of not being able to get Blue Cheese dressing in Australia. Oh and, we made cream cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped jalapeños, which are an experiment for an upcoming event that I’ve been plotting….

And for a meal like that, well I simply had to give my guests the appropriate napkins:

Wipes like freedom.

Anyway, my girl Tif and I have a “thing” with the song, which involved hashtagging each other back and forth with silly comments like #proceedtoparty and things of that nature. So when her birthday cropped up this week there was only really one option for her bday surprise- 

Red Solo CupCakes.

As a beer expert and bacon fan, I wanted to customise them even further for her. So I ended up making chocolate stout cupcakes with home infused vanilla bourbon frosting and then finished them off  with strips of praline bacon. Naturally.

Nigella has a pretty good recipe for stout and chocolate cake, but I’m afraid I have to take the frosting recipe to the grave with me. I reckon this cake would also benefit from some crushed pretzels on top. Perhaps something to recreate as Super Bowl dessert?

Proceed to party.

Five Guys

 President Obama famously gave Five Guys the seal of approval when he stopped in for an ‘impromptu’ visit to pick up a couple of cheeseburgers. And I gotta tell ya, the man has great taste.

The distinct red and white coloured Five Guys locations are now strewn all over the country, having grown to over 900 stores in just 10 years since they began franchising. Now you can also order your burgers online, plus… there’s an app for that.

The theme at Five Guys is ‘value for money’. The “regular” burgers are in fact double patties, any additional toppings are at no extra charge, you’re offered free peanuts as you wait for your food and the fry cook will throw in an extra generous handful of fries into your takeout bag.

The free peanuts are quite the source of contention, actually. They’ve given rise to obligatory “allergy warning” stickers on the doors, and then there are the OCD people who think that there is nothing grosser than a huge open crate of self serve peanuts that random strangers have been sticking their hands into. I for one am a huge fan of the peanuts – they come with the shell still on, and that’s more than hygienic enough for me.

Five Guys offer both regular and “Cajun” fries, the later of which you can smell as soon as you push open the door to the restaurant (it’s a little intense).  I always order the plain kind – I actually hate seasoned fries. The dry spice mix just ends up being too intense, coating your tongue with an in-your-face combination of bold spices. Blah. I want to be able to taste my burger. Truthfully, one order of fries is usually enough for two people, unless you’re hungover or greedy.

The burgers are where the magic truly happens. They are just another example of why a simple takeout burger is far superior to a tall stack burger in a fine dining restaurant. The meat isn’t too thick and perfectly in balance with the sandwich. The bun is soft, compressing neatly underneath your fingers, the perfect vehicle for getting the filling to your to mouth without taking up valuable  stomach space. And the cheese…. oh the cheese…

A word of caution based on experience – for some reason the Five Guys on Post Oak in Houston carries a bacon curse. I’ve eaten there twice, a year apart each time, and on both occasions my bacon cheeseburger has been served without the bacon. Are they trying to tell me something?

I really, really like the burgers at Five Guys. I would go so far as to name them my favourite national chain burgery. Just make sure they don’t leave out your bacon.

A slow Southern brunch is one of the most decadent ways to start a Sunday. Iconic “hybrid music venue slash Bar-B-Q restaurant” Stubbs offers a gospel brunch over the weekends, starting at $16.95 per head for an all you can eat buffet. Needless to say, I was on the phone making a booking as soon as I discovered they had a DIY bloody mary station on offer.

Stubbs is a gorgeous venue appearing like something from a Western movie, so very Texan in look and feel. The facade is built from stone accented by wooden pillars. They also have a huge outdoor amphitheatre for larger gigs which was the venue of choice when Metallica played their not-so-secret-surprise show at South By Southwest in 2009. Stubbs have also managed to take their brand worldwide via their range of sauces and BBQ marinades, which you can now even buy in Australia.

three cheers for taxidermy!

A gospel band sets up on the smaller stage downstairs, and keeps the venue rockin’ throughout the brunch. You can pay a lil’ extra to grab a table with a view of the band, but I was happier just overhearing them and still being able to chat with my brunch buddies.

The build-your-own bloody mary ingredients are all laid out on the edge of the long bar. Your server brings you a tall glass with vodka and ice, then you head over to work your magic and tailor the drink to your requirement. Unlike Zax’s DIY bloody mary bar, Stubbs only offer the one variety of tomato juice, but have a larger range of hot sauces and various spices.

BurgerMary's bloody mary.

The food buffet is set up on the rear porch – bring sunglasses if you have a hangover, it’s bright out there. The selection is somewhat limited and displayed in a fairly underwhelming manner. Yes, it’s only a buffet, but there are ways you can make the food seem more like a smorgasbord and less like a dining hall at school camp.

Stubbs’ brunch is set apart by the inclusion of their BBQ in the buffet selection, with the brisket and sausage hand cut to order. Once again proving the point that anytime of day is appropriate for eating Texas BBQ brisket.

I loaded my plate up with biscuits, grits, brisket with BBQ sauce and a serve of fabulous Serrano cheese spinach enchiladas. The enchiladas were such an unexpected win, and reminded me of the greek spinach dish Spanikopita. I was pleasantly surprised with how perfectly it worked as a brunch dish, full of flavour without being too heavy for an 11am sitting.

Oh and, you may have noticed that a full quarter of my plate is taken up by bacon. Crispy, salty bacon. Are you kidding me? It’s an all you can eat bacon fest, the likes of which I hadn’t experienced since the gloriously gluttonous buffet at Caesars Palace. It would have been remiss of me to take any less.

bacon atop pecan pie

Plus, I reserved a piece at the end to be eaten with the pecan pie. It goes with my mantra of “add bacon to ALL the things…”

Sadly, there is a bit of a “herd ‘em in and get ‘em out before the next seating” vibe which is particularly unfortunate for a meal that is supposed to be long and lazy. It’s a scramble to make it there for your booking time, line up to get, line up for the buffet and then hurry to finish as they clear for the next session. Final verdict? Great food but a little devoid of the atmosphere and pace that makes it a proper brunch.

Aside from hitting the bars and loading up on burgers, my real mission will be to find this:

on. a. stick.

But then, I know it’s not in Texas. If it were, there’d be a Texas flag flyin’ instead of Old Glory.

If y’all have any places you want me to hit up and blog about, lemme know. For now, I leave you with the magic words of Pat Green: “if I don’t get to Austin, I swear I’m gunna fade away…”

Wanna see me link a blog post to a current sports event in 5 degrees?

- I’m from Melbourne, Australia

- Brad Wing is the kicker for LSU, who are about to play in the Championship game of their as yet undefeated season. He is also from Melbourne, Australia.

- Brad plays alongside cornerback Tyrann Matthieu, whom has been nicknamed “the honey badger” because he takes what he wants.

- Walk On’s are a sports bar with locations in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and New Orleans, and are a big LSU hangout. They are currently serving a drink named after Matthieu called The Honey Badger – a shot of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey Whiskey dropped into a glass of Tin Roof Brewing beer – the officially licensed beer of LSU.

and….

I’ve eaten burgers at Walk On’s… and they were GREAT!

The impressive part of the burgers at Walk On’s is that they arrive at the table looking spectacular, and actually live up to their appearance. So often the super tall tower burgers leave much to be desired, but these babies squash down to a nice manageable size. Behold:

Hickory Bacon Cheddar Burger - $9.49

This sensational burger features a half pound fresh beef pattie topped with BBQ sauce, applewood smoked bacon, fried onion strings & shredded Cheddar cheese. Yes. Please. More. Please. Thank. You. The burger was charred to perfection, still medium rare in the middle. Crisp, salty bacon complimented the tangy sweet BBQ sauce and the onion strings were an epic triumph of deep fried ingenuity. Honestly, this truly did squash down to a reasonable size to handle.

Let’s not forget the fries. Waffle fries, if you don’t mind! Walk On’s do get bonus points for actually leaving these relatively thick cut fries in the fryer long enough to crisp up properly. The extra surface area created by the cut again leads to more opportunity for the hot oil to do it’s thang.

Against my advice, my homeboy SC decided to order the stuffed burger - Applewood smoked bacon, Provolone cheese, mushrooms & onion, sautéed down & STUFFED inside a  3/4 lb. pattie. Now, I know a thing or two about hamburgers and in my experience (like for example my meal at Your Mom’s Burger Bar) stuffed patties just don’t work. It’s almost impossible to cook the burger the whole way through without having the filling explode everywhere and so you usually end up with a pattie that is completely raw in the middle.

Yes, I told SC about this before he ordered, but of course he didnt listen. This is what he got:

Stuffed burger - $10.99

Naturally, I was of course right and thus he ended up eating the rest of my burger and leaving his own. Pfft, burger freshman.

Don’t let this one faux pas deter you – the burgers here are legit. I for one intend to go back and try their “Black & Bleu” burger – blackened pattie with bleu cheese crumbles.

 If you are super hungry and have the room, I also recommend the boudin balls.

Crown & Anchor Pub

Austin can be a bit of a pain in the ass when school (the University of Texas) is in. The regular city demographic of 25-35yo hipsters becomes heavily diluted with young college kids, 6th St district turns into a giant messy frat party (fondly known as ‘dirty 6th’) and overall traffic is greatly exacerbated.

There are silver linings to being in a college town, however. For example, the slew of local business that cater for these college kids and price their wares accordingly. Like the Crown & Anchor, which is literally opposite the University of Texas campus. A bacon cheeseburger with fries at this establishment costs a mere $5.25, and is probably in my top 5 burgers in Austin.

Australians – let’s consider this for a moment. In Oz, you can expect a restaurant burger to average about $18, and a gourmet take away burger to level out around $12, with fries. Hell, a McDonald’s burger with fries costs more than that!!

And here’s what you get:

bacon cheeseburger with fries

The bacon is crispy and plentiful, the iceberg lettuce is fresh and shredded for good coverage and the bun is perfect. The pattie isn’t the greatest quality wagyu-marbled masterpiece (nor do you expect it to be), but it’s flavoured nicely from the grill. I think the thinner pattie really suits this type of burger – the flavours tend to balance better, and it’s a smarter choice for lunch and avoiding a full meat coma.

May I also take a moment to give a special shout out: fries, you guys are delicious! I’m not sure exactly what the secret is, it may be something as simple as double frying or even just leaving them in the fryer long enough. They were crisp, salty and packed with flavour.

If you can ignore the fact that nothing about this place ‘cept for the name above the door is actually a pub, you’ll enjoy it just fine.

You know you're in Texas when...