The 'New' State of Chilaquiles in Austin, TX (or, what a long, strange trip it's been).

120 chilaquiles. © Ryan Schierling

As a lot of you know, we've been on a epic, epicurean quest – a grand gustatory gamble with breaking the fast deep in the heart of Texas.

We've been scouring Austin for the very best chilaquiles it has to offer. We've torn apart the town, top to bottom, for five years sampling both highbrow and humble versions of this traditional Mexican dish. 

There are no shortage of restaurants offering up their take on what shouldn't really be more than crisp fresh-fried tortilla chips (totopos) simmered with a red or green sauce until just slightly softened, crowned with a pair of properly-cooked eggs. With such a simple preparation, you'd think it would be difficult to screw up this classic.

We weren't looking for haute cuisine a la Mexicana, we just wanted an honest, reliable, simple Sunday morning comfort-food breakfast at a joint where everyone might eventually know us (and our broken Spanish).

There were standouts, certainly, but just as often there were store-bought chips, soggy and swimming in sub-par sauces, eggs that were under-cooked, over-cooked or not even offered as an option. There were some surprises, and there were some disappointments. 

There were also some stunningly brilliant breakfasts. 

If a restaurant presented only one sauce option for chilaquiles, Julie and I would typically order the same dish. If a restaurant had both verdes (green) and rojos (red), we'd order one of each. The majority of the time, we'd order eggs over-easy. If we knew the eggs were going to be happy eggs (see $10 chilaquiles), I'd go for sunny-side-up. Beans, potatoes and accoutrements (if available) were taken into consideration, as was the coffee or aguas frescas. The overall experience was key, but really, it all came down to the chilaquiles. 

After eating 120 different plates of chilaquiles, we've done our due diligence, and now, we humbly present to you establishments that Julie and I both agreed have the finest chilaquiles in Austin. These are our favorites, the places we return to time and time again. 

These chilaquiles are the best of the best. 

TGICFS.

CFS. OMG. HTS. STFU. SMDH.  © Ryan Schierling

Editor's note: As of February 2019, Hit The Spot Cafe has closed. One of the best, last, proper breakfast CFS and eggs plates is gone. 

"...so that's how I woke up with shin splints and found out I'd been banned from the community pool..."

"...I don't know what happened. I opened the front door and the light was blinding. It felt like I'd been in the house for two days instead of two hours and now the upper atmosphere was burning. It was incapacitating overexposure, hot white light that turned the insides of my cleaved eyelids bright blood red, even through the futile shade of my outstretched hand..."

"...I'd fight you right now, 'cept I don't wanna crush my cig'rettes..."

I'm not sure what to relay here. It's been a while. I really don't even want to tell you where this place is. Really. I guess if you run in the right, tight AUSTIN TEXAS CFS circles, you'll figure it out.

Your Haiku:

A breakfast stunner
Location curated, so
locals only please

SaveSave

In praise of the reasonable.

Reasonable Cookies on 1950's pink milk glass party set by Jeannette Glass Co. © Ryan Schierling

There are two days until the Great United States Election of 2016 and suddenly this post – which has too-long languished in the “draft” folder – seems eminently relevant and meaningful.

On one of our adventure days last Fall, we went on a road trip to Smilthville, TX. It was a beautiful day and Ryan and I wandered happily around town holding hands and meandering in and out of vintage stores and antique shops.

In one of these little stores, we rather immediately became distracted in different directions, subjects to the gravitational pull of random curiosities. My detour took me around a corner to a cubby with a small shelf of cookbooks situated at eye level. Old cookbooks are a tricky thing. While the novelty is generally captivating, by today’s standards they are more often in the fashion of a historical record than a serviceable guide book. A hardback that immediately stood out was called “The Uncommon Cookbook” and it was published in 1968 (what I like to consider the height of Campbell’s soup-based cookery). I pulled it off the shelf and broke it open.

The first recipe to catch my eye was for “Reasonable Cookies,” which was just strange enough a recipe name that I snapped a quick photo of the page in a moment of confused disbelief as to how anyone could have thoughtfully named them that without any indication as to why. The complete absence of hyperbole was remarkable. These weren’t called “Mrs. Fitz’s Fabulous Corn Flake Cookies” or “Devourable Cookies” or “Amazing Chewy Coconut Cookies” – nope, these were “Reasonable Cookies”. In my mind they may as well have been called “Average Cookies” or “Don’t-mind-me-I’m-just-a-cookie Cookies.”

Of course, I had to make them. I mean, what does “reasonable” really taste like? Will I understand it when I eat it? Perhaps. Reasonable is not bitter or acerbic, saccharine or self-aggrandizing. Reasonable is recognizable and palatable, humble and reassuring. I know this because I've made these cookies many times. You will like them and want them again – and that is wisely as it should be. Maybe reasonable is the middle ground that we all should all stop ignoring. Maybe reasonable has been marginalized in favor of extremes.

I made the mistake of not purchasing that cookbook the very day I found it. It was an act of restraint I regretted a couple of weeks later and ended up purchasing a used copy online. It’s a hot pink out-of-print number that seems to have the relatively uncommon for 1968 attribute of respecting ingredients. Plus, these folks were brave enough to publish a recipe proclaimed reasonable. It's a median worth revisiting.
 
There are two days until the Great United States Election of 2016, and I’m profoundly awakened to how precious, powerful and purposeful is the word and concept of “reasonable." That only we might dare seek out the common in the most uncommon of places, we may find it amazing.

Tijuana Mama corn dogs.

Tijuana Mama corn dogs with honey mustard dipping sauce. © Ryan Schierling

We're no strangers to putting things inside of other things and deep-frying them. It doesn't happen all the time, but when we do break out the Wagner #8 fryer, what goes into it is pretty well-thought through. We've also been to a State Fair or two and have sampled the finest (and freakiest) fried fare, so we have a handle on what's been done and what hasn't.

This recipe is much more simple than the Thin James and pasteurized cheese-product loaded jalapenos, but it does utilize a gas station staple – the homely pickled sausage.

To be more specific, a spicy pickled sausage called the Tijuana Mama that is a sinus-clearing, tastebud-tingling, tongue-puckering treat. Why use plain old hot dogs when you can push the corny dog envelope? Paired with a dip in honey mustard sauce, these are a dangerous dog like you've never seen. They look innocent on the outside, and one bite seems like enough of a novelty, but when you get down to the stick your forehead is sweating and you've got to have another. The pickled sausage innards are fiery, the cornmeal coating is fluffy on the inside with a delicate sweet tooth, and the complementary honey mustard sauce momentarily cools the fires just enough. These ain't no State Fair corn dogs, well... not yet, at least. Big Tex, give me a call.

The 'New' State of Chilaquiles in Austin, Texas.

100 plates of chilaquiles. © Ryan Schierling

(FGHD editor's note: Originally updated March 2016 for the AFBA City Guide with 100 plates of chilaquiles.)

As a lot of you know, we've been on a epic, epicurean quest – a grand gustatory gamble with breaking the fast deep in the heart of Texas.

We've been scouring Austin for the very best chilaquiles it has to offer. We've torn apart the town, top to bottom, for more than two years sampling both highbrow and humble versions of this traditional Mexican dish. 

There are no shortage of restaurants offering up their take on what shouldn't really be more than crisp fresh-fried tortilla chips (totopos) simmered with a red or green sauce until just slightly softened, crowned with a pair of properly-cooked eggs. With such a simple preparation, you'd think it would be difficult to screw up this classic.

We weren't looking for haute cuisine a la Mexicana, we just wanted an honest, reliable, simple Sunday morning comfort-food breakfast at a joint where everyone might eventually know us (and our broken Spanish).

There were standouts, certainly, but just as often there were store-bought chips, soggy and swimming in sub-par sauces, eggs that were under-cooked, over-cooked or not even offered as an option. There were some surprises, and there were some disappointments. 

There were also some stunningly brilliant breakfasts. 

If a restaurant presented only one sauce option for chilaquiles, Julie and I would typically order the same dish. If a restaurant had both verdes (green) and rojos (red), we'd order one of each. The majority of the time, we'd order eggs over-easy. If we knew the eggs were going to be happy eggs (see $9 chilaquiles), I'd go for sunny-side-up. Beans, potatoes and accoutrements (if available) were taken into consideration, as was the coffee or aguas frescas. The overall experience was key, but really, it all came down to the chilaquiles. 

After eating 100 different plates of chilaquiles, we've done our due diligence, and now, we humbly present to you ten establishments that Julie and I both agreed have the finest chilaquiles in Austin. These are our favorites, the places we return to time and time again. 

These chilaquiles are the best of the best. 

Lemon-lentil soup with mustard greens

Lemon-lentil soup with mustard greens. © Ryan Schierling

Ryan asked me an interesting question this week, "What are your three favorite soups that we make?" That's a tough question because Ryan has a knack for making soup out of virtually anything, and there are plenty of delicious one-offs that never make it to the blog or get repeated. To him, just about every soup created on the first go-round is a "throw-together" recipe. Knowing this, I have learned that if I really like something and want to see it in regular rotation, I cannot rely on him to write it down or remember what he did – I must take it upon myself to transcribe it immediately.

This was the case for me last Fall when I kinda totally went nuts for this lentil soup. I like lentils – in spite of the terrible "lentil loaf" I was fed as a kid (sorry Mom!) – but generally don't get effusive for them in this way. I was putting this recipe to paper before the dishes were cleared, and then made it again myself a week later. After that I went a bit off the rails and started sending the recipe in unsolicited emails to friends and family members because... "OMG these plain old cheap brown lentils are amazing and this soup is so fiber-rich and good for you...!"

Alright, on some level Ryan was right about this being a "throw-together" recipe. It begins with a classic mirepoix and builds simply from there with lentils, mustard greens and fresh lemon juice. It is filling and bright, and leafy greens bathing in a warm broth is one of my favorite ways to eat them. So, while in no way shocking or revolutionary, this has already been made repeatedly in our home and deserves its moment on this blog. Plus, it gives me great joy when food this satisfying is also excellently nutritious and ridiculously economical.

All hail klobasniky!

Pan sausage, American cheese and jalapeño klobasnek. © Ryan Schierling

There are a few hearty breakfast handfuls that I've come to rely on that just don't exist outside of Texas. Living in Seattle, I never saw a breakfast taco. There were such curiosities as breakfast burritos, but they occupied a space that was an afterthought to most carriers of A.M. comestibles. The closest you could come to a klobasnek is a piroshky, and while delicious any time of day, none were dedicated to breaking the fast. The latter – klobasnek, klobasnik, kolache if you don't know any better – are a Czech savory morsel with the same slightly-sweet dough used for kolaches. Klobasnek filling is usually a little oblong sausage like a pig in a blanket, but Texans have taken to putting all sorts of things inside that luxurious, pillowy dough. My favorite is a piece of pan sausage (breakfast sausage), pickled jalapeño and a nice melty American cheese, which is a klobasnek that's not too hard to find at kolache shops in Austin.

But a beef summer sausage, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut klobasnek? I had to make this combination myself, and recipe testing was not a problem. I think I ate three dozen over the course of a week before I was satisfied with the end result. Hell, I was satisfied with the first round, I just had to keep making them because they're irresistible.