Monday, September 01, 2008

At long last.

The return of artichoke enchiladas
and hibiscus mint tea!

It's no secret that I ADORE Austin. I love it for lots of reasons: I still have college friends there, the laid-back vibe is mighty fine, and then there are all those nifty football games that are worth a look-see about six or seven times a year.

When we plan our Austin itinerary, we schedule our activities around the sporting event du jour. Brett will tell you, though, that besides sports, we plan our trips around FOOD! Our tailgating has cut into my Austin restaurant visits (which is fine—LOVE the tailgating!). When we do get the chance to eat out in Austin, we try to rotate among our favorites. Chuy's, Salt Lick, Trudy's, Kerbey Lane... Oh, so good! But one restaurant, Mother's, was out of the rotation for way too long.

Mother's Cafe & Garden is so very Austin. For one, it's a vegetarian restaurant, and there aren't too many of those on good ol' Denton Highway. For another, it serves up some unusual dishes that I have yet to find outside of its walls. Because it's vegetarian, our visits there have depended on who was accompanying us (some folks just don't care for soysage), but I've always been quick to put it near the top of the "must eat" list every time we were in town.

But in March 2007, a homeless guy caught the restaurant on fire while cooking just outside the building. Mother's garden room burned down, and the cafe suffered massive damage. The crazy part: The guy was cooking steaks. STEAKS! One, how weird for a guy to be homeless and yet eating steak, and two, he was grilling meat at the vegetarian restaurant!!!

It took longer than expected, but the cafe part of the restaurant reopened last October. Later, the ever-popular garden room reopened, and it was there this Sunday that Dede and I found ourselves sipping our hibiscus mint tea and savoring every bite of our long-lost Mother's faves.

Welcome back, Mother's!


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