Mission: Possible?

Sara and I have been living in Austin since 2002/3 (late ’02 for her, early ’03 for me).  We’d lived in Austin for 3 years during law school, but it graduate school years don’t really count since no matter where you are for grad school, you’re really living in a different city.

Despite living here for so many years, we really haven’t experienced a lot of what makes Austin Austin.  We’ve dabbled a bit, every once in a while we’ve been introduced to an Austin favorite spot through some friends.  But for the most part, we aren’t very adventurous.  For the past 3.5 years we’ve had a great excuse since we’ve had a baby to take care of, but now he’s a growing toddler and we have reliable babysitters and a mostly regular date night.  A date night which has, far too often, turned into us running errands because there were no movies we wanted to see and nothing we wanted to do but we didn’t want to just come home an hour after having the babysitter take over.

This past weekend, Sara was looking at The Austin Chronicle’s Best of 2008 survey results (Readers results and Critics results).  The Chronicle has always been a source of fun local news and locations, so seeing the list triggered something.  I said, “Let’s hit every restaurant on this last.  Every single one.  Within the next year.”  And like that, a mission was born.

So here’s where we can record our efforts. 

Wish us luck.

P. Terry’s Burger Stand

So with our mission cemented for all of ten minutes or so, we decided to jump in and hit our first restaurant.  We were already downtown with Besh, doing a Sunday afternoon run to The Yogurt Spot (which, had there been a Best Frozen Yogurt award in the Chronicle’s list, surely would have gone to this gem) and we decided to hit P. Terry’s for two big reasons.

1. They tied with Hut’s for Best Hamburger.  That’s news by itself since Hut’s has owned this category ever since the awards started (or at least that’s the perception).  Hut’s is an amazing place with tons of options and great burgers.  So for this place to tie it, that’s amazing.

2. They also won for Best Veggie Burger, which is a plus since Sara’s a vegetarian.

So we took the drive down Lamar to hit P. Terry’s.  Pulling into the parking lot we were immediately confronted with a small piece we had overlooked, that they also won the award for Best Fast Food.  Important because the place is just a drive through and a walk-up window.  No indoor seating, and just a scattering of outdoor tables that were full.  Fortunately, the line wasn’t too bad and we were already about 3 cars from ordering, so we pulled in.

We had to console Besh, who wanted to go inside and not take food home, by promising to have an indoor picnic when we got back.  He liked that idea, so we ordered.  Hamburger for Besh, Cheeseburger on wheat bun for me, Veggie Burger on wheat bun with special sauce on the side for Sara (wheat bun request was made at the window, as Sara was on the phone with annoying Citibank while I was ordering, but the window guy was very accommodating).  And two orders of fries, because you need fries with burgers.  It’s a law.  I looked it up.

Drove home after a few tester fries (nice) and put out a big picnic blanket in the living room.  Besh ate about half his hamburger, which is huge given it was a full-sized burger and he’d already had a nice serving of frozen yogurt with mini M&Ms.  Sara liked her veggie burger because they made it like a regular burger, not treating it too differently.  I thought my cheeseburger was fine, but nothing to really rave about.  The fries were good–shoestring size/shape but not as crisp.  Lots of potato skin on the fries.

Overall consensus was that the place was decent, a nice alternative to other fast food, but still a bit far from us to make it worth going back much.

But we managed to cross off one name and three awards on our first outing.  Not bad.