Burgers, Tex-Mex, and Anything Fried

(Austin, Texas.) The title basically sums up the food culture here.

Food trucks (pretty popular in Austin) congregate in a parking lot in South Congress neighborhood, selling everything from Thai food to huge platefuls of crawfish.

The ever-present sweet potato fries...

...and jalapeno poppers. Don't worry, the seeds have been removed beforehand, so they're not particularly spicy. I have only seen fresh jalapeno once in a Japanese supermarket, and one little pepper cost around 200 yen ($2.50).

A sampler of Austin and Mexican beer from a downtown bar.

Breakfast burritos and migas at a Mexican family restaurant.

One of my favorite meals was at Magnolia Cafe. Apparently there are two in town, and we found the bigger one.

The decor was fun and kitschy...

...and the food was excellent. Chicken with lemon sour cream, Spanish rice, and zucchini. We don't have lemon sour cream in Japan, but I can see it going over very well here. I also very much appreciated being able to eat a vegetable in its plain form -- no excessive grease, dressing, or salt.

Austin burger chain Hopdoddy, my pick for the best burgers in town. (This is completely biased, though. I've never even been inside a Whataburger, the other big chain.) I see the best of Austin here, in terms of food, attitude, and style.

I had the Buffalo Bill burger, with bison, Maytag blue cheese, Frank’s hot sauce, apple-smoked bacon, and "sassy sauce". Bison itself doesn't seem to have a strong taste, so the pairing of blue cheese was genius.