FOODIE TOUR: PART II

Japanese Noodles

Once we had completed our tasting at Con' Olio, we were supposed to have wound up our tour by lunching at a new-to-Austin bakery cafe called Blue Baker. Unfortunately, they ran into some permitting delays, and weren't quite open yet. Instead, our tour leader described some of the other options in the Arboretum area, and even handed out some coupons. We decided to try a new one called Noodles & Company, which has menu boards for Asian dishes, such as my Japanese Pan Noodles, Pad Thai, John's Bangkok Curry, and Indonesian Peanut Saute'; Mediterranean pasta dishes; and American noodle dishes, such as Mac & Cheese, and Steak Stroganoff. Plus there is a sandwich menu, and soups and salads to go with each category. I thought it was a pretty good meal, though of course, not quite as good as if we had gone to an authentic Japanese or Thai restaurant.

Bangkok Curry

They did, however, have the coolest soda machine of any restaurant I've ever been to!

It had something like a computer touch screen, and just look at all the choices!

But wait, there's more! Wanna know the very bestest part of the whole day? Guess who came strolling into the restaurant, just as we were about to leave? Our very own precious pitootie Alexis! I ask you, what are the odds? In a town the size of Austin, which we don't even live in, and in a restaurant that wasn't even near her apartment? We were tickled to death to see her, and she was pretty tickled to get the spare $8-off coupon we hadn't used!

After visiting with her for a while, we wandered off to spend an hour or two browsing a huge, two-story Barnes & Noble store -- something I haven't done since our last trip to Houston. I got a new Artful Blogging magazine, the latest Bon Appetit (all about Paris!) and another novel by Susan Vreeland, who wrote the one about the Impressionists that I loved, called Luncheon of the Boating Party. This new one is Clara and Mr. Tiffany, about the woman who conceived and designed nearly all of the iconic leaded-glass lamps for which L.C.Tiffany has long been remembered.

It was a very good day.