BACON BACON BACON BACON

What is the greatest meat in the world?

Sadly no it is not the rainbow flavored joy that comes in these cans, but rather the delicious concoction known as bacon.  The delicious cut of pork belly that has been flavored in some method goes great on just about everything and seems to find a place at every meal.  It is so good there is even an entire restaurant dedicated to it on the west side of Austin's downtown at 10th and Lamar.  Behold the beauty that is Bacon...

Even the door handles here are a homage to the magical meat...

Once you get past the overwhelming bacon theme (note I only provided a small sampling of the cult like decor ), you are forced to stare down an amazing breakfast menu featuring you guessed it, so let us dig in my friends.

First off, this place makes their own bacon, and yes that means it is amazing.  As you can see this day they had two choices of hickory or citrus BBQ so naturally we had to get a plate of both.

The hickory was rich and flavorful, but the star was the citrus BBQ, quite possibly some of the best bacon I have ever tasted in my life.  So good it even has me considering trying to make my own bacon some day just to replicate this flavor.

The favorite dish at the table was the Broken Yolk BLT, your standard BLT set up with a fried egg, between the amazing hickory bacon and the rich flavors of the egg this sandwich was awesome to say the least.

This was the special for the day, the Croque Madame, which was basically an open faced BLT topped with a fried egg, and smothered in a bechamel sauce.  This was not the best dish, basically should have stuck with something different but once again with this awesome of bacon it is hard to make a bad dish.

Behold, the chicken & bacon waffles, yes those are thick waffles with pieces of bacon inside of the rich batter.  Of course it only makes sense to top it off with a piece of battered chicken breast.  Sure it sounds completely crazy, but it is awesome, and once again I am sure it is healthy.

The icing on this awesome cake made of bacon is the soda fountain, housed with old fashioned sodas like Big Red, Dublin Dr Pepper, and Maine Root sodas that are quite frankly amazing.

Basically, if you love bacon you need to get to Bacon, it really could not be much simpler than that.

Keeping Austin Weird

Austin is a weird place, I do not really think there is any denying it.  There are few places in the world where you see old men wandering the streets in a bikini or such a wide variety of tattoos and piercings on just about every inch of skin imaginable.  Nonetheless, Austin does create some of the finest live music, beers, and food around so I will let them stay for the time being.

We stopped in at Casino El Camino one night, a place visited by none other than Diners, Drive Ins and Dives highlighting their unique menu and kinky decor.

Of course when in the Hill Country you have to drink the local water, so I was quenching my thirst that evening with one of my favorites, Fireman's 4 by Real Ale Brewing out of Blanco, Texas.  Fireman's is a crisp blonde ale that seems to go great with just about any food and even better on a hot Texas day.

We came here for the food though and the massive burger patties were calling out name from the moment we walked through the door.  The one weird aspect of Casino is the fact that all of the food orders are done at a tiny back kitchen window and you have to listen closely for your name to be called after a long wait.  Trust me it is worth every minute of waiting.

One of the burgers we went with was the Buffalo Burger, a massive patty topped with bleu cheese and buffalo sauce.  Full of all sorts of flavor from the spicy wing sauce to the creamy richness of the bleu cheese, but the real winner here was the patty, full of amazing beef flavor you just do not find patties like this too often.

Burger #2 was the Pitts Burger, piled high with sauteed mushrooms and onions, A-1 sauce, and provolone cheese.  Yet another masterpiece, and the toppings do a great job of accenting the meat rather than covering it up and hiding it.

Note:  I have been back here since this visit (sorry did not take any pics) but I got the Amarillo Burger, a burger piled up with roasted serrano peppers, pepper jack cheese, and a cilantro mayo.  This burger kicked my butt, serrano peppers are about 3-4 times hotter than a jalapeno, and no amount of beer could help me recover from the tears and inability to breathe, but it was still a damn good burger.

The greatness did not stop at the burgers though, we ordered up some of the Verde Chili Fries, their kick butt fries smothered in queso and a garlicky tomatillo salsa.  Basically these are some of the greatest fries I have had in my life because the toppings alone, plus it keeps you safe from any vampires you might bump into on 6th Street, and I am sure that they are there.