August 9, 2018
Eat Your Way Through Texas; Dallas, Austin and Hill Country
Road Trip Overview
With a total of 316 miles to cover on this food filled road trip, the predicted drive time is 5 ½ hours. Beginning 30 minutes outside Dallas, the second largest city in Texas, this road trip will take you through small towns and fields, as well as the city of Austin, before ending at a bowling club café in Blanco, Texas, a town with a population of 1,956. You will travel right through the heart of The Lone Star State.
The Beginning : Dallas and Fort Worth
Landing in the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport will put you 34 minutes from the heart of Dallas, or 12 from the first restaurant on the tour. We recommend you go to Tolbert’s for your first taste of Texas.
- An excellent “bowl of red”, aka chili con carne, is available at Tolbert’s along with a variety of other southwestern dishes.
- A well-seasoned and juicy half pound beef patty can be expected from Kincaid’s, an old grocery store turned restaurant.
Along the Way to Austin
Could there be a faster way to get from Dallas to Austin in a car? Most likely. Is there a way that has better desserts, pastries or breakfast? Definitely not.
- Expect excellent pastries from the self-proclaimed home of the kolache, the Village Bakery.
- With some of the best desserts in all of Texas as well as a killer breakfast including our favorite regional dish, called migas, which consists of Mexican scrambled eggs with melted cheese, chunks of tomato and small ribbons of tortillas, Monument Café can not be missed.
Austin, Hill Country and Bowling
While you may be tempted to make your first stop at the Texas State Capital in Austin, we recommend you eat! Austin is home to a variety of restaurants, our favorites serve great BAR-B-Q and Tex-Mex.
- Since the late 1990s Maria’s Taco Xpress has been selling tacos for $2-$4 a piece, making it hard to not order all of them.
- Once part of the same store, Kreuz Market and Smitty’s were split apart by a family feud in the mid-1990s. However, these restaurants are located only a quarter mile apart and both offer some of the best BAR-B-Q we have ever had. Try them both to determine who won the feud.
- Home to an excellent lunch time menu including hamburgers, tacos and some of Texas’ finest pies, the Blanco Bowling Club Café is the perfect place to end your trip. Home to nightly bowling leagues, open bowling is only offered on Friday and Saturday nights.
Tolbert’s Restaurant
Tolbert's menu is broad, including steaks, seafood and bar food; but true-Texas chili con carne, aka bowl of red, remains true to its origins.
Maria’s Taco Xpress
An only-in-Austin vibe permeates Maria’s Taco Xpress. Come for the migas breakfast tacos on Sunday mornings; stay for “hippie church.”
Blanco Bowling Club Café
If you are a pie fancier, put Blanco Bowling Club Cafe on your must-eat list. Meringues rise high, cream fillings are outlandishly creamy. Some of Texas' best.
Kreuz Market
Kreuz of Lockhart, Texas, offers a limited menu of BBQ meat at its very best. Tote your own from a ferociously hot pit where it is sliced to order.
Monument Café
The Monument Café in Georgetown makes some of the best pies in Texas; meals that precede them (including breakfast) are masterful roadside-restaurant classics.
Village Bakery
The Village Bakery is just about the best place in central Texas to eat the locally-favored, Czech-ancestored pastry known as a kolache.
August 9, 2018
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