Austin - Last day blues

Well, it had to come (the last day of our time with H and D in Austin). Still, it was a very good. We started off at 1PM or so, driving over to the Alamo Draft House on the south end of Lamar. This is a new take on theaters, at least for me (I don't go to see movies very much). The ADH is a theater that serves meals and/or refreshments with the movies. As in, draft beer, nacho chips and queso, or a full-out meal. We hadn't had lunch so we had a meal. It was pretty good. The only changes necessary are an added shelf in front of the row of seats (for the food) and a space behind each row to allow waiters to come through unobtrusively to take orders and serve. Amazingly, it worked quite well. Even payments by credit card seem fairly smooth. Go figure!

Later that night we had dinner at Wink, up on northern Lamar in the middle of town. I was still so stuffed from lunch that I couldn't eat very much. Maybe that was good; the food is quite expensive, and the portions are realistic in a very French way. This is a small restaurant run by people who care about their food. Everything was delicious and the presentations were also lovely. This dinner was a little bittersweet - it was the last night of a very entertaining and busy vacation with H and D.

After dinner we went to see another phenomenon in Austin - Mrs. Johnson's Bakery. This is on Airport Boulevard just to the west of 45th Street (north Austin). At 8 or 9PM they start baking donuts and don't stop until morning. When the red "Donut" light is on (underneath the main sign), the donuts are ready.

There is a drive-through that had several cars in line when we were there. Donuts, you say, so what about donuts? Well, I don't usually like glazed donuts, and I almost never buy donuts. But a taste will change your mind; these are like a taste of a sweet cloud. They are the lightest I have ever tasted! Wow!


















Here is a look at the goods. There is lots of variety from which to choose, more than shows here. We bought a half dozen, but could not eat them. So we were supposed to have some in the morning. We completely forgot until we were almost to Houston, headed east. Oh, no!

Here are some of the cutters that cut them from the dough. The holes are on the other roller (not shown here). This is the first time I have seen the cutters. This is clearly a big production operation. The people are really nice and give out extras for tasting.