This is timely: http://www.scrumptiouschef.com/food/i...

If you like that sort of breakfast taco, try the ones at Counter Cafe. Ridiculously overpriced, but that classic, simple americanized breakfast taco taken to its conclusion.

For me, I want to get away from something that hints of a diner. For me, love in taco form is El Meson Burleson. Migas with potatoes on flour.

The guy crush-dices up some peppers on the griddle and throws on a slab of butter, which starts to melt with a quick sizzle. Cubed, blanched potatoes go on next and they begin to trade water for lipids, infusing the potato with pepper flavor and a surly heat. The potatoes get shuffled around, flipped a bit, and begin to gently crisp when they're pulled out of there and thrust on to a mattress of migas on a fluffy, freshly-made flour tortilla bed.

You can stop there if you want. Or you could have a handful of white, shredded cheese thrown on. Or you could go back in time and have that migas made with chorizo. And this ain't a molina, but even the venerable MPH called their flour tortillas the best in Austin. [Note: they run out and use storeboughts fairly often.]

I like all the other places that give me that greasy meat with fluffy scrambled eggs and cheese on a store-bought. I get what you're saying: diner components on a tortilla. If you love it, awesome, it is definitely the way most places do it. Waterloo Icehouse does it that way. Juan in a Million. Polvo's. Torchy's. Jim's. Austin Java. Whataburger calls them "taquitos". If this is what you prefer, you're in luck, and chasing down the best of this type in Austin is a worthy quest. (Like I said earlier, give Counter Cafe a try, I think for this type of b-fast taco they're near the top.)

But for me, if I'm having an eggy breakfast taco, I do love me some Mexican influence in there. Just my preference, and YMMV. If I'm at Torchy's, I'm going to ask them to do what they do best: give me an upscale, grotesque KFC bowl on a store bought tortilla, smear it with green chiles and queso, and call that fiendish abomination lunch. I wouldn't go there for anything delicate or refined, and I wouldn't go there for diner-style breakfast tacos; then again, maybe I don't understand them! :)

My repeat attempts at Torchy's breakfast tacos have revealed them to be gross. (I'm talking about egg+item tacos.) I wrote about one of those visits on Chowhound years back.

Somebody in that thread advised me to try their non-breakfast tacos, which is a good call. I especially like their more grotesque, creative things, like the one where they put a Whataburger chicken finger on a taco with queso. They had a special a few months back that basically put a Dairy Queen steak finger on a taco, that was crazy. To make it as deliciously blasphemous and vile as I could, I special-ordered a taco with both on them, plus queso, chorizo, and jalapeños. Where else in Austin could you even get this item!? The people behind the counter were into it.

So there you go: I have no problem with Torchy's, I just think in a thread about the best breakfast tacos in Austin, it is a sad thing to see. Perhaps I take the word "best" a bit too seriously.

Next up we'll see Rudy's in a thread about best BBQ.

People! What the hell is happening here? Most of these folk don't even make fresh tortillas. (Not even addressing overcooking eggs, sourcing mediocre chorizo, under and overcooking bacon, etc.)

El Meson on Burleson remains the king of breakfast tacos. They make the tortillas fresh, and you aren't likely to have better migas in your lifetime. If you're opulent and decadent and seeking tricked-out jams, get the chori-migas w/ cheese on flour.

La Flor on South 1st also makes their own tortillas and suburb bfast tacos, although not at El Meson Burleson levels IMHO. Yelp it, everything is great here.

Habanero on Oltorf serves excellent breakfast tacos of all stripes, although I think they are far from perfect.

Mi Ranchito on Wm Cannon & Pleasant Valley is a jam waiting to happen. Their tortillas are often store-bought, but their filling is legit.

Tamale House is gross, w/ leathery, store-bought tacos, but their migas w/ cheese is actually bad-ass. Order it w/ flour tortillas served w/in a 1-2 day window from a molina nearby and you'll get a cheesy, eggy jam.

And there are many more!

Are we really at the terrible place where Maudie's, Torchy's, and Mi Madre's is what we recognize as top-tier breakfast tacos? Holy crap. These are dark times in Austin. I could name five more places, easily, way out in front ahead of these options. [And fwiw I appropriately appreciate Maudie's bfast taco offerings, especially Pete's and Tatiana's, as well as Torchy's luncheon-focused tacos like that whack-ass chicken strip taco w/ queso.]

Dark times on Chowhound Austin.

Yup! Call 'em and order, days in advance, and you just swing by and pick it up before they open. Note that they fill up for TO-GO, so it works best if you have flexibility about what day you want to eat.

Tomo fits the bill. http://www.tomosushiaustin.com/

Yup, I love Spartan. Good call.

Subsin's, and before that, Sawadee. I went when it was Sawadee and it was decent-if-underseasoned.

Justine's advertises: LE SUPER BOWLÉ: football Justine's-style!

BIG-SCREEN BEYONCÉ, ICE-COLD STELLA,
BURGER WITH GRUYERE AND AIOLI, & voila, mes amies....

See you SUNDAY, you little brawlers...... xoxoxoxoxo

Great report! "OP delivered!" Thanks, ljero!

I'm hearing reports from numerous folks that this 'cue is unbeatable, with the star of the show being the sausage.

Anyone been yet?

ESK: I'd do Hole In The Wall, since Paul is most likely to be there (as far as I can tell). If you get good recon on where Paul will be, go there! :)

Uchiko: Yeah, maybe. Uchi was once supreme, but Tyson has been spawning other restaurants, Paul is long gone, and Philip is helping elsewhere, and for whatever reason, Uchi isn't doing it for me quite as much. Uchiko has the edge right now.

Franklin: It rules. Bourdain flipped his lid, for example. Everyone loves it. But even if it sucks, you're coming to Austin for Austin and this is as Austin as Austin Austins.

Contigo: Awesome and underrated even though people love it. Weather won't be a problem, regardless of the temperature, unless it rains.

El Rico: Tacos are great. Lots of other options if that doesn't work out. I only threw it out as the rare place that has gotten legendary hype while totally deserving it. Their tacos are tip top.

FANTASTIC! Many places I've never tried! Thank you, Joe MacBu!

Hello again ljero! I remember your first trip to Austin. A lot has changed since the first time we shared recommendations in 2006!

The best barbecue in town now lives in town. Franklin, on the eastside, is amazing. I'm sad to say you missed JMueller (also great), which is now La Barbecue, and is still yummy. Stiles Switch is also great. I'd take any of them over Black's. If you haven't been to Franklin, get there at 9 AM and do it. If there is one Austiny experience that describes the now of Austin BBQ, it is the line at Franklin. To residents it is obnoxious, but to visitors, a required hazing. It will almost certainly be the best brisket you'll have in your life. In over a dozen visits, it has my personal highest average score. (Snow's still takes the all-time best score in my experience, but they've also served up some mediocre fare.)

Since you haven't been to Uchiko, you should absolutely go. I've really enjoyed every visit. Barley Swine is can't miss as well.

Great cocktails with great ambiance is Contigo, which also happens to have great food. Eastside Showroom scores here too, but if is is even slightly nice outside, don't miss Contigo.

Best brunch at a food truck? Make one of them the drive to Tacos El Rico and enjoy the humble truck that both Anthony Bourdain and Chow.com toured and loved. Probably not the ambiance you're looking for, but the place is legendary.

For Tex-Mex, I always recommend Curra's on Oltorf. Opinions here vary wildly about that. Heck, my experiences there vary wildly too. That being said, it is better than the other places you name (Chuy's, Guero's, Polvo's). La Condesa is not Tex-Mex, but I enjoy the place. Overpriced, but you're paying for that ambiance that you were looking for! ;) I'd skip FSM. More on places to get tacos (even non-Tex-Mex ones): http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/886261

Other than the sustained proliferation of food trucks and trailers, the other trend in town right now is ramen. One of the hottest hotspots for this movement is Ramen Tatsu-Ya. Good stuff.

I try to keep up with the trailers but I can't seem to quite manage it. Hopefully some other hound can chime in on that. I've seen discussions (here on Chowhound and elsewhere) about all sorts of interesting looking new trailers popping up all over the place, so no need to settle on Torchy's. I haven't been to Flip Happy in ages, it might still be OK, and as you mention, ESK is quite good.

Have fun & good luck!

I'm not an expert, but I thought that tacos al pastor were cooked on a trompo with pineapple on top, drizzling sizzling juices, and that when served it wasn't unusual for a bit of pineapple to make its way into the taco.

Wikipedia isn't a really good authority for this sort of thing either, but it agrees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_pastor

Best bets, IMHO: El Taco Rico. El Meson on Burleson. La Moreliana. El Regio. Mi Ranchito. El Primo. Rosita's al Pastor. La Flor.

You want a sit-down meal, not something from a trailer, convenience store, or gas station: La Condesa. Fonda San Miguel. Curra's. Borrego de Oro. El Meson Lamar. Sazon.

Mexican "fast food" joints all over town: Arandas. Arandinas. Anything w/ Tapatia or Jaliscience in the name. The quality at these places is highly variable.

TAF, I've thought of putting together the Chowhound Austin "Dramatis Personae" - a list of all of the participants over the last ten years, along with some narrative of our story. I think you can break Chow Austin into several epochs, and it would be fun to research and write.

I had the barbacoa from El Tacorrido today. I like the convenience of their drive thru, and sometimes quite like their tacos, but I don't enjoy their unreliability of product. Today I thought it wasn't even as good as Ashely's, yet their carnitas was above average. (Often, they don't have it at all.) However, Tacorrido's green sauce today was insipid - c'mon guys, this is a requirement!

Slowcooked, you're exactly right. I still enjoy this forum and look forward to continuing to eat vicariously through our community. Additionally, pound for pound, a Chowhound thread is still better recon on a new restaurant then a Yelp page.

Ieathereforeiam, I wouldn't say "doom and gloom", I'd say nostalgia. Also, I'm not "pimping for other sites". Don't be ridiculous.

I tried the barbacoa at Ashley's Tacos again on Friday morning, and it was just OK. They don't make their own tortillas, but the beef was tender and flavorful. Their green sauce is quite hot, but was also quite thin, and it didn't offer nearly the flavor as some of the other notable green sauces around town (Regio, Ranchito).

My favorite barbacoa is Tacos Rico. Give it a shot. I don't think this is a very controversial opinion.

Additionally, search the Austin board for every post by MPH and scrumptiouschef, who were the undisputed lords of topics like these. Their takes are dated, but still mostly relevant.

We're now in the Chowhound Austin Dark Ages, which began when MPH was "taken up" like Elijah, but were compounded when we fortunate few allowed the Chowocracy to drive off Scrumptious. During that period, other talented young magi also exited (Twill, LixLix et al) while important elder sages receded into the hinterlands of memory (Nab, Kent Wang, etc.) [Note that they still post from time to time, but there was a time that they were *present*, and you knew it.)

Don't get me wrong, a few oldschool powerhouses remain, although they are hardly as prolific as they once were. I'd blame a mix of burnout and reality (most notably, having kids destroys your dining capabilities).

Our current Dark Age is ironic as Austin's chow has never been better. Where Tyson Cole, Ray Tatum, and Parind Vora were once our great hopes, we've seen such creativity and explosive growth since the Chowhound elite forum participants have gone dormant. At the top tier of food: Paul Qui (a Cole acolyte) has overtaken his mentor, helming Uchiko, winning Top Chef, and creating a successful chain of carts, now minting a new restaurant; Bryce Gillmore, heir to the Z Tejas dynasty, creates Odd Duck and then shuts it down to start up Barley Swine. And so much change in the world of barbecue, even if we limit the discussion to Aaron Franklin and J Mueller! (We Austinites used to have to drive 30+ miles to get BBQ this good!) And all of that says nothing of the hundreds of tiny advances in Austin's food scenes. I'm dying to know what MPH, Twill, and many others would think about so many things. (For Scrumptious, I have his blog, thank goodness.)

What will bring Chowhound Austin back to it's former glory? I'm not sure, but I hope for it daily.

Other good barbacoa (IMHO) can be found at La Moreliana and several other places. Let us know what you find, gillsnthrills!

Agreed x 10. I'm really liking Clark's, love the crab cake, and think the fries are totally skippable.

I agree with you, it was a pretty good list, and it is a pretty great time to be a chow hound in Austin.

First off, I want to say that this list is actually pretty good. Above average work for a local newspaper.

Since everyone loves lists, I'll articulate my criticisms in list form.

1. Inexplicable sequence. Congress is not the third-best restaurant in Austin; Lenoir is not the fifth, F&D is not the sixth, Trio is not the seventh, the Carillon is not the eighth, etc. Assuming the ordinality of the list is significant, this is a broken list. Good items with a flawed order.

2. Cuisine panic. Highest-rated Indian is Tarka, highest-rated Thai is SPIN, highest-rated pizza is Eastside Pies, etc. Asserting Tarka is the best Indian food in Greater Austin creates a deep concern in the reader.

3. Notable omissions, especially given the list's breadth. How can Franklin be the only BBQ listed? Where is Din Ho? Ramen Tatsu-Ya? Eastside Kings? Too many Mexican/taco omissions to list? Many places somehow didn't make the list, considering issue number 4, which is...

4. DMW (Dead Man Walking) joints. Several places listed have been mediocre for a while and carry on through sheer inertia. I don't want to be crass, so I won't call them out, but putting THAT place, and THAT OTHER place, and THAT ONE OLD place where they are on the list is jarring, especially since the writer otherwise seems to be receptive to new establishments. Surely, if you're this open to up-and-comers, you'd deprioritize some of these sad, declining elders.

5. After four general issues, here is a specific one: The El Meson on the list is the inferior Lamar variant. Adding to the confusion, Burleson Meson gets mentioned but not listed.

La Reyna falls. http://www.scrumptiouschef.com/food/i...

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/872692

;)

Randomly stumbled on this video of Austin joints; surprisingly thorough and fair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPdYo_g_-Zw

Starts with Rudy's, but quickly improves to JMueller, Franklin, Stiles, Snow's, Southside Market, Lockhart joints, Luling City Market.

Video by this guy that I've never heard of, seems like a decent dude: http://stevedolinsky.com/blog
He calls his adventure an "Austin BBQ Armageddon".

I prefer Opie's variant, "spicy corn", which is a creamed corn with diced jalapeños.

I'm surprised they didn't tell you about the butter trick. Aaron Franklin told me the same as you heard, but he added that you should put tiny pats of butter on the meat before reheating.

Ssouth has got this; for "steakhouses" in Austin, ALC and Eddie V's are your best bet (and I don't love either of them). The best steaks in Austin were at El Arbol (closed) and Backstage Steakhouse (closed). (WTF?)

Re: cpencis' picks: Sullivan's was once quite good but has seriously declined; I recommend avoiding it. Three Forks is decent and overpriced. Perry's, same. I haven't been to VY but I haven't heard anything good.

I agree; the place has a very Tim Cook (Apple) feel to it.

At this point, I generally hit Somunanjib for my Korean cravings, and not just for the fried chicken. I like the gamjatang at Somunanjib, Misung, and Chosun. I'll keep an eye on this thread, as I love Korean food and would really like to try anything new, especially in south or central austin.