All posts by Peter Tsai

Flavors of Austin at Louie’s 106

November 24, 2009 Peter Tsai 1 Comment

Tasting Buds Peter and Kristina were invited to Louie’s 106 yesterday to try out the amazing 4 course Prix Fixe menu that they developed for Flavors of Austin. Our decadently delicious meal was cooked perfectly (all of our meats were spot on) using flavor combinations that you don’t see every day. We shared the night with a few other Austinites connected to the local scene and everyone agree that it was a great meal.

Before getting to the good stuff, we should mention that Louie’s 106 will be serving up the same menu through November 25th for a set price of $35. All in all, an amazing deal at a restaurant that has been doing it right in Austin for more than 20 years. If you are interested in going, by all means check out the full Louie’s 106 Flavors of Austin menu here and stop on by while you can. Also, Flavors of Austin is an ongoing event that highlights a different Austin restaurant every week, so if you miss this particular meal, there will be opportunities for great stuff in the future as well.

Click through to see all of the deliciousness we got to try!

Food, Reviews

Austin New Restaurant Round Up – Zoes and Me So Hungry

November 3, 2009 Peter Tsai 5 Comments

Austin has been experiencing somewhat of a restaurant Renaissance lately, with a new establishment opening seemingly every week. Our take on this? The bar is consistently being raised on the Austin restaurant scene and it’s great to have the option of a wide variety of cuisines in town.

One of the perks of food blogging is getting invited by various new restaurants around town to sample great food that the owners put so much hard work into making. On our radar over the past month or so were 2 new restaurants – one serving up healthy American fare in the Arboretum, and another food truck serving Asian food right downtown.

Click through to read about Zoes, Me So Hungry

Events, Food

Austin City Limits Food Mini Roundup

October 12, 2009 Peter Tsai 1 Comment

Every year, the organizers of the Austin City Limits Music Festival are faced with the huge challenge of feeding tens of thousands of people a day during the 3 day long festival at Zilker Park. Things have not always run so smoothly – I distinctly remember waiting for 2 hours in line at the very first Austin City Limits Festival at one of only 2 food booths for a plain hot dog and a bottle of water in the 95 degree heat.

My what a long way the festival has come! The 2009 ACL food court boasted dozens of food vendors and there were another dozen beverage tents scattered around the park – most all of them with little to no wait. With so many options, it was difficult to choose where to eat every day. No worries though, I’ll give you the lowdown on what I had this year at ACL so you can make an informed decision next year.

Click Here to read more about and see pics of the the food at ACL2009

Interviews

Interview and Photo Shoot with Seth Mazow from “Year of the Pizza”

September 15, 2009 Peter Tsai 3 Comments

I first met Seth Mazow from Year of the Pizza at the Austin Bleetup (Blogger Meetup). He was one of those interesting guys that everyone wanted to talk to. Reason? Seth has cool perspectives on life and is excited about whatever he does. On top of that, he recently won a whole year of free pizza from Austin’s Home Slice Pizza by keeping his hand on an eggplant sub for 7 hours. How cool / funny is that?

Intrigued by his funny story and his even funnier blog, I set up a meeting with Seth to ask him a few questions and snap a few pictures for an interview to be featured on the TastingBuds.

Click here to read more about Seth Mazow of Year of the Pizza

Comparisons

Austin Froyo Update – Addition of YummyYo

September 11, 2009 Peter Tsai 3 Comments

In our comparison of remarkable downtown Frozen Yogurt stores, YummyYo in the 360 building was still pretty new and somehow flew beneath our radar when scouting out Froyo places.

I had the chance to swing by YummyYo a few weeks ago and it’s very solid. Their original tart flavor is probably a bit better than Yogurt Spot and their green tea flavor is excellent as well. I would rank them both as 2nd in taste behind Mamboberry. I also got to try their cookies and cream flavor which was surprisingly excellent (not chemical-y tasting like some of the other yogurt places around town).

Click to continue reading about YummyYo

Events

Sugar Mama’s 1st Birthday Party Photos

September 2, 2009 Peter Tsai 1 Comment

August 29th, 2009 marked the one year anniversary of Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop. Olivia welcomed this landmark date with a huge backyard birthday party reminiscent of childhood celebrations, complete with food courtesy of Casserole Queens, two giant cakes, ice cream, and vodka from Tito’s (well reminiscent except for the booze part). Hundreds of cupcake lovers braved the heat and long lines to attend the party and from what I observed everyone had a great time.

Sugar Mama’s used the birthday party to make the announcement that they would now be selling mini pies. To launch their new product in style, Olivia hosted a ridiculously messy mini pie eating contest… Austin Cupcake Smackdown 1.0 eating champion Chris Floyd defeated all other challengers and took home the first prize valued at $350!

Click Here to see cool photos from the event!

Events, Reviews

Elevation Burger Blogger Event

August 28, 2009 Peter Tsai 5 Comments

Being a huge fan of many bad-for-you foods, I was pumped when I heard about the Elevation Burger Food Blogger event. After all, don’t most all of us get a craving for a big, juicy burger once in a while? (Granted we don’t always want a giant 10 patty burger like the one pictured above – this one was just a prop for photo purposes).

In the increasingly crowded Austin burger scene, new burger joints are popping up all over the place next to established favorites. With all of these choices, how do Elevation’s burgers stack up? (bad pun I know…)

Click here to see what we thought and for more gratuitous burger photos

Uncategorized

FoodingBlog is now TastingBuds

August 11, 2009 Peter Tsai 3 Comments

We thought we were original using the name Foodingblog, but about a week ago we found out about a certain popular French company that also uses the word Fooding in their name.

Because we wish to respect the intellectual property of others, Foodingblog has now changed its name to TastingBuds, because that is what we are – a bunch of friends who love food and tasting all the world has to offer.

While we are sad to see the old name go, we love the new name because it better describes who we are and what we are all about (several of our Twitter followers have already commented that they like the new name too). Speaking of which, our Twitter address has changed too – we are now http://www.twitter.com/tastingbuds

If you liked our old blog, don’t worry – you will still have access to all of the great posts that were here before thanks to our techies Jon and Peter. We also have tons of new content planned for the next few months, so be on the lookout for more.

Thanks, we look forward to sharing more posts and making more friends in the food community!

Happy Tasting,
Peter

Events, Food, Weird

Flavor tripping party in Austin with the Berry Fairy

August 4, 2009 Peter Tsai 5 Comments

Recently, we were invited to a flavor tripping party hosted by the Berry Fairy, Jenny Wang. We’ve already written about flavor tripping tablets here, so this article will cover flavor tripping with the actual Miracle Berry fruit and combine tasting notes from TastingBuds Peter and Kristina.

Click here to read about the Berry Fairy’s Flavor Tripping Party

Events, Food

Pictures from Behind the Scenes of the Austin Cupcake Smackdown and Pre Smackdown TV interview at Walton’s Fancy and Staple

August 2, 2009 Peter Tsai 5 Comments

This weekend was a crazy one in the world of Austin Cupcakes. Jennie Chen organized the Austin Cupcake Smackdown 1.0 which brought together dozens of local bakers in a blind taste testing competition to see who’s cupcakes would reign supreme (similar to Foodingblog’s very own cupcake tasting challenge located here).

Foodingblog played a part in this incredible event as Peter was selected to be a judge in the Amateur baking competition and he was also interviewed during the coverage of the Austin Cupcake Smackdown by FOX 7 Austin here (fast forward to 2:50 it see his interview on Giovanni’s vegan Dulce sin Leche cupcakes).

If you missed either the Pre Party or the Smackdown event itself, don’t worry. Foodingblog has you covered. Peter brought his camera along to both events to get a behind the scenes look at the events of the weekend.

Click here to view selected photos from the weekend and continue down to see the full gallery below

The Tasting Buds | Austin Food Blog