The Bonneville - Austin TX

Got the opportunity to dine with some great agriculture leaders in Austin a while back at a joint called the Bonneville.  It's a fancy joint so I was lucky not to get kicked out immediately.  That's our host Mark in front of the joint.  He's a dude.

The menu didn't include fries that night, but after our table started talking about fries we asked if the chef would make us some.  He obliged.

They were superb.  Fresh cut quarters of potatoes fried on canola oil with salt, pepper, rosemary, and perhaps some truffle oil I think.

Awesome, and the chef was super nice for making them for us.

BONNEVILLE = DO IT

Half Wall Port Orange

Sports bars are hit or miss with food which is kinda surprising if you think about it.  People who watch sports in bars generally fall into the "I like to eat unhealthy garbage" category and that style of food is easy to make (fry).  Half Wall (weird name) seems to have it together though.

The joint is one giant open room.  Probably designed that way so you can see all 87 of the TVs showing every sport known to humanity.  Pretty sure there were 3 CRICKET games being shown while I was there.  Wonder why it was so empty.  Maybe cause it was 2pm on a Tuesday....

The lights behind the taps fade between different colors.  I thought it was cool for a while, then it kinda made me a little seasick.

Spicy Fries?  Bring em on!

While we waited, we ordered this tiny pretzel.  I think it was off the kid's menu.  It was okay.

The spicy fries arrived.  Nice.

Cooked very well.  Not fresh cut but it didn't matter on accounta the sauce was so good.  Fair amount for $5.50 as well.

Tasty!

This place is legit.  We watched a foosball game on 6 of the TVs and I ordered two more rounds of these.  Half Wall = stupid name but DO IT!

Daytona Taproom

Daytona Beach is a weird place.  It's a touristy nightmare for sure, but not completely.  If you travel off the beaten path there are places that are just as quirky and cool as anywhere else.  Such is the case with the Daytona Taproom.

The first thing I noticed was that there were two cops having lunch there.  That's a good sign.  Cops know what's up.  The place is basically a beer bar that serves food (as opposed to an actual restaurant) and the decor/music/atmosphere is alt-hipster.  Stuff is cooked behind the bar on a huge flat top with some fryers next to it.  There's a vent hood, but these places never seem to turn it on so you leave reeking of burger and oil.  The tatted up waitress yelled at us from across the room to "sit wherever the hell we wanted".  Lots of beers on tap.

The menu was surprisingly extensive.  As an appetizer I settled on the "Big Richard" burger.  Heh.  Not sure what a penis joke has to do with mac and cheese but whatever.

This was the burger.  Big, but forgettable.

The fries are a different story.  I ordered the Drunken, Bacon Bleu, and Gravy ones.
GIBBY:  I'll have a disgusting amount of fries, please.
WAITRESS:  Yo, like, each order of these fries is enough to feed the fattest of the fat.
GIBBY: If you need to see it, I have a notarized letter from my physician that states that I am to consume no less than 670 grams of carbohydrates per hour due to a systolic regeneration inhibitor dislocation of my aperatic function.
WAITRESS:  Really?
GIBBY: No.  Just bring me the fries please.

The Bacon Bleu Fries.  Very nice.  Sriracha, big crumbles of cheese, and bacon.

They were exquisite.

The Gravy fries were okay, but kind of underwhelming after the greatness of the first ones.

Canadians are weird.

The Drunken fries were awesome too on accounta you can pretty much never go wrong with beer cheese.

The only problem is that the beer cheese always runs to the bottom of the stack and you have to smear the fries along the bottom of the basket to get more cheese on em.  Why aren't the people at NASA working on a solution for this?

Overall, the DT is a must visit in the Daytona area. The only strike is that they had a crappy coin-op pool table in the back.  I hate that.