night life – Tango's Baking

Four days into Austin, and I still need to get over my jet lag problems! 🥱😴 Hence I started my morning with a very Tex-Mex brunch of tacos! 😂🌮🌮 (Weather was as glorious as ever! ☀️☀️ Though I still can’t get over the extra tax charges at the end of bills! 💵)

Spicy chicken taco and Mexican egg taco 😋☀️

After a filling breakfast, I then visited Harry Ransom Center within the UT campus to see the Julia Child exhibition inside (recommended by my friend living here). I started this blog back in 2019 after watching the movie ‘Julie & Julia’, so it did give me a sense of nostalgia and coming back full circle to see snapshots of her journey again. 😁 (And also at last grabbed a copy of her famous cookbook for myself!)

Julia Child Exhibition including some original letters and photos that reminded me scenes from the movie

There is also a exhibit of the Gutenberg Bible – one of the earliest bibles made using printing press

A lunch break back in the Taiwanese eatery near the UT campus – ordered a lychee slushie and a satay beef lo mein

Following some more wanders around the city centre, I headed back to the hotel for a change of clothes before meeting up with my friend again to head to the upscale Japanese restaurant Uchiko. And what a feast that was! 😍😍 Some of our personal favourites were the soft shell crab makimono rolls (absolutely love their unusual use of apple in them! 🍎), foie gras sushi, unagi sushi and the jasmine cream dessert.

Sake toro (Scottish salmon belly) and Masu (Tasmanian ocean trout) sushi

Our favourite dish of the night- soft shell crab makimono with honeycrisp apple! 🤤🤤

Tiger Cry rolls with Wagyu beef, vegetables and rice paper

Foie Gras sushi – my personal favourite! 😍

Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) tempura with a delicious shishito pepper aioli

An incredible dessert! 😍 Jasmine cream with cilantro granita 💚 and pineapples 🍍

After having such a satisfying meal, it was even more of a treat to use the outdoor hot tub in my friend’s apartment to round off a perfect night! 😂 🛁 👌 👌

Crab crepe in a classically French brunch

After a good night of sleep, I woke up for a crepe brunch before visiting 99 Ranch Market, a Chinese supermarket in the northern area of Austin by Crestview Station. I thought it was a perfect day for some home cooking for a change after days of eating out! 😉

I try to go a bit more budget as some of the items (particularly meat) are actually quite expensive, but they sold quite cheap seafood, hence I went with some peeled shrimps and squids (dissected and cleaned the squids all by myself – haven’t done that in years since my last visit back to my home city of Hong Kong! 😂) It was also quite challenging as my friend didn’t have stoves installed in his kitchen (beside one self heating electric pot), so I kept things quite simple for the night.

Salted egg shrimps and squid stir fry with peppers and beans

Austin is a vibrant city with a busy night life, so after dinner, we both went for a walk along Congress Avenue Bridge and explored the beautiful Downtown Austin and its amazing skyline. 🌃🌙💫