Salt Lick: Restaurant Review

The hype for this BBQ place was insane. Everyone I talked to in Austin always raved about the place, not to mention it was freakin on the Travel Channel as one of the must-visit restaurants. I was going in with crazy high expectations.

The drive there was pretty considerable (roughly 30 min from Austin) and this place was in the cornfield boonies out in nowheresville. Seriously for a good 15 minutes we saw nothing but barns and corn. We were starting to doubt our directions when all of a sudden we hit a wall of burning wood smell. All of us were giddy trying to find the restaurant cuz we figured it had to be close by, but nope, we drove for another couple miles until we finally came upon Salt Lick.

When we walked in the door, all the glorious smells of burning meat combined with the great musty smell of burning wood just sweeps over you and you can't help but get excited. That's before you see the source of it all: a giant open pit where giant slabs of all the meat are slowly cooking and roasting right before your eyes. It was one of most beautiful sights I've ever seen in my life (I'm not even joking). The wave of joy and excitement that came over me was almost overwhelming, and I could tell the other guys were feeling the same way.

GIANT DOWNER ALERT: The place only accepts cash, which sucked for me because I only had $10 or so on me, which means I couldn't get the sampler of all the meats. I ended up splitting a full rack of ribs and 1/4 lb of brisket (complete with sides of cole slaw, beans, and potato salad) with Yeoh. After we ordered, the food came out very quickly, which was a giant plus in my book, and the food looked amazing.

Now with ribs, you know it's cooked well when you can take a bite and the meat just slides right off the bone. I took a bite, and the bone was pristine where my mouth went. That tender. The sauce was sweet and tangy and had that awesome smoke flavor infused in it. Something that I love about Salt Lick is the fact that their food comes slathered in sauce. I LOVE wet BBQ. When it's just dry rub seasoning, the meat just starts tasting disgusting, but the sauce here only served to enhance all the great aspects of the meat. Man. Just thinking about it a couple weeks later still makes me drool.

The brisket was just as good as the ribs. They provided an extra bowl of their mango bbq sauce, which was really cool because I loved that sauce. I remembered seeing Andrew Zimmern from his show on Travel Channel making a brisket sandwich with their homemade bread and brisket, so I tried it too. Instant winner. The bread was thick and hearty and soaked up the sauce while the texture of the brisket combined to make a party in my mouth.

Even the sides were great. Cole slaw and beans are pretty low on my list of foods (if I had the choice I won't eat it) but I figured I should at least try it to get the full Salt Lick experience. Dang. I was glad I tried it. The cole slaw was not soggy, but crisp and tart and full of flavor. The beans were pretty good, although I'm not too good at distinguishing good vs bad beans, but they tasted pretty good. Potato salad was great. It was definitely not the normal style with heavy sauces, but it was very subtle and focused more on the potato itself.

As we were eating, the table next to us had ordered desserts and they looked so good we all decided we had to try it as well. (When in Rome...) We ended up trying the peach and berry cobbler with vanilla icecream. Crumbly crust. Good. Sweet pieces of fruit. Good. Warm pie/ cold ice cream. Good.

Only thing to watch out for are the random charges they get you with. The waitress asked us if we wanted jalapenos, we said sure, thinking it was complimentary... it wasn't. +$.50. The ice cream on the pie... +$1.

Final Verdict: Go. Immediately.

Mellow Mushroom: Restaurant Review

You might be thinking to yourself, "Dang, there doesn't seem to be a restaurant that Tim's reviewed that he hasn't liked!" Well, you would be correct in that assessment, but this review will be the first that is not a glowing recommendation. (which says a lot about the quality of eateries in Austin, or my ability to choose good restaurants)

First of all, Mellow Mushroom is another quirky-looking restaurant that focuses primarily on pizzas. It resides on "The Drag", which is a hotspot for all the restaurants on UT campus. Location-wise, this place is clutch. Unfortunately, that's pretty much it.

The menu looked pretty promising, with some unique-looking pizza combinations, and if anything, it seemed like the Austin version of California Pizza Kitchen. I ended up deciding to try The Philosopher (steak, portabello mushroom, artichoke, provolone, feta and mozzarella cheese, with an oil and garlic base).

First strike against this place: it took over 1 hour for us to get our food. Granted, we had roughly 10 people ordering 4-5 pies, but still... that's ridiculous. My stomach was in the process of digesting itself by the time the food had arrived. When our Philosopher was delivered to our table, it looked like it would be good, even though it was a thin crust pizza (and I'm not a fan).

First bite... the dough was tough to bite apart and the meat was overcooked and tough. Blegh. So disappointing. In theory, the ingredients sounded like it would go amazing together, but in reality, the oil just made things kinda messy and the pizza ended up being baked too long cuz the toppings were really dried out.

I got to try someone else's Mighty Meat, which is pretty standard at most pizza places, and it tasted OK, not anything special. Once again, the crust was just too chewy for my taste. Ambience and comfortability were OK, it was pretty trippy decor, but not overwhelmingly so.

Final Verdict: Don't come here.

Torchy's Taco: Restaurant Review

Just from looking at the sign, you know you're in for a quirky experience when eating at Torchy's Taco. It's one of the smaller places; with only 5-6 tables in the entire place, but it still draws a crowd at all hours of the day. I've gone early morning on the weekend and around dinner time on a week day and the lines are out the door. Thankfully, the line moves really quickly since the menu is pretty condensed into two major categories: tacos and miscellaneous.

Of course, the draw is the creative variety of freshly prepared tacos, but I think the experience of waiting with the small crowd of eager eaters is also part of the appeal. It's got a very hippy/edgy feel to it, and the staff all rock tattoos and wear those artsy thick black frames. So very stereotypical but it fits for the place.

But enough about the setup, what about the tacos? Well, they are delicious. I had the Brushfire Taco (pictured below) that had Jamaican jerk chicken, grilled jalapenos, mango, sour cream, and cilantro served on a flour tortilla with Diablo sauce. If you check out their menu, it is simple, yet every taco has some kind of twist that you just wouldn't think of that makes it so special. Even their presentation added to the eating experience, which was a complete shock to me considering the slightly ghetto layout, but the tacos looked gorgeous when they were set out on the counter for pickup.

The only thing that I can think of as a "con", is the price tag on each taco. One taco will run in the neighborhood of $3-$4, which isn't bad considering the quality of the ingredients, but it is definitely something that would cut down on how many times I would eat there.

Whenever first time visitors come to Austin, this is one of the places that they are introduced to, and they always leave satisfied that they got to try it.

Verdict: Highly recommend.

Free Music

Hey all, for all you music lovers who aren't into the illegal pirating, follow this link to to get $3 worth of amazon mp3 downloads. It works and lasts until Nov. 30th so get on it!

link to amazon

Barbarians Level Up the Fastest

So Jorgy and I have been playing Diablo 2 for the past two weeks now. Even Tou Fue has joined in with us every once in a while in some good ol' dungeon crawling. Playing this game brings back my high school days where I used to rush home from school so I could play with my friends over modem-to-modem multiplayer Warcraft II or Red Alert games. What always sucked about the technology back then was that it was inevitable that someone's parent would pick up the line halfway into the game, thereby disrupting our games. It got to the point where we worked out a system that the person who's home was responsible for the disconnection was responsible for calling the other parties to reestablish a new game.

But I digress. I think I noticed that most guys, maybe 90%, no matter how masculine or how sporty or artsy, enjoys games where they can disappear into a new character. I like to think of myself as fairly normal, and I still enjoy firing up my Barbarian and wrecking havoc with my 2-handed Great Maul (complete with matching Carthan's helmet and boots). Maybe for me it's a sense of escape from a job where I feel like I'm always reacting to crises and it seems like there's limited results, but it just feels good to be in total control of how that character will develop and "level up". Not to mention, it's a pretty brainless activity that lets you have fun w/ friends.

That's why I am not ashamed to admit that I have now created one new character for each available type, meaning I now have a pool of 5 characters I can choose from.

I just bought...

The first 4 seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 2 days ago on Amazon for $44.00. Can't freakin WAIT! If you've never seen it, it's so stupid it's hilarious.

This season has also been really good too.

What Consumes Me?

When I was still in undergrad, I always wondered what it would be like to be working. What kind of things would I be focused on? Would I end up working at a place just because I wanted bi-weekly paychecks? Will I be motivated every day to continue learning and getting better?

It's so funny how old questions always resurface and you're able to do some real evaluations on how some of your expectations were totally off; or right on the money. One of my biggest worries when I started the teaching program @ EMU was whether I would be a teacher who just does the bare minimum to get by and get paid or if I would be genuinely invested in the students' well-being.

As of now, I think I am a bit relieved to see that I definitely do care about seeing my kids grow and learn, although I am starting to become a little alarmed at how much my thoughts always drift back to them. Pretty much every week I'll have at least one dream where I'm trying new teaching strategies with my kids, and even more recently, I find that when I start zoning out, I'll randomly start brainstorming ways to motivate a particular kid that I've been having problems with that day.

In moderation, I definitely see how this can be a healthy desire to help my students, but I think I'm walking closer and closer to that fine line between that appropriate self-reflection and obsession. What is my motivation for all this? Are there hidden agendas? I dunno right now.

But all I know is that I am so thankful that I don't have to go through these draining experiences by myself. During the day when I feel helpless, I find that when I lift up a quick prayer I get re-energized. I remember once again why I'm teaching, why I'm here in Austin, and why I'm still alive.

Thoughts on Education

I've been working for about two months now, and in my limited time in the school, I've come to see a lot of aspects of our education system that are incredibly frustrating. Many times on the ride back from work, Tou Fue and I will just be discussing our day and we'll end up critiquing flaws in our education system.

Ask any teacher at any level and they will probably tell you a big reason they decided to go into this field was to impact the lives of the students. That's all well and good if teachers are given the freedom to run their curriculum based on the state standards and benchmarks. Unfortunately, teachers also have to bow to the requirements of the administration who are trying to run the school as effectively as they can.

I totally understand that running a school is a thankless job because there are definitely money shortages that can only be met by having teachers focus on certain areas while cutting down on others. Unfortunately, that overhead decision often comes at the expense of student learning. For example, in the high school, the administration decided that homework should not account for more than 5% of a student's grade. Their reasoning is that a majority of the students in this district have to work after school, and their purpose as a school is to "cater to the community". What it tells me is that the district is worried about dropping their student failure rating by artificially boosting student grades. I also heard that it is common practice for teachers to "preview" tests by going over questions days in advance which leads to higher test grades. This is by no means condemning those actions, in fact, many of them actually have very innocent intentions (helping in reinforcing vocabulary, going over test formats, etc), but one would have to be really naive to believe that all teachers do it for those reasons.

The reason why I've been thinking about this so much the past couple weeks is because the students I work with in my classroom are so behind in their conceptual understanding in all their subjects. Part of my frustration probably stems because the students in my program are typically the lowest in each grade, so my experiences are obviously incredibly skewed versus a "regular" classroom. But dang... I'll be sitting down with these kids and they don't even have a firm grasp of how to multiply numbers, much less understand the concept of adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. Thankfully, many of them are slowly picking up on the foundations of the different concepts I help them with, but it makes me so bitter at the teachers before them who just passed them on to the next grade without really testing their understanding.

Something I was thinking would be really interesting was if teachers stayed with the same group of students throughout their stay in the school. For example, a group of elementary school teachers would work with the same batch of students in first grade all the way through fifth grade and a team of middle school teachers would be in charge of the same group of students from 6th-8th grade. It would be really cool since the students would already know the expectations of each teacher and they would already have that rapport built from the previous years, thus cutting down on wasted time having to reteach and getting to know a new group of students. There would also be more of a sense of investment on the teacher's side guiding the children and seeing their growth throughout the years and when the students end up graduating to the next level, there will be a healthy sense of closure.

I'm pretty sure there's a ton of holes in running a school like that, but the concept itself was novel enough that I wanted to share about it.

Backed Up

Bahhh. I have so many posts I want to write, but honestly I'm so tired every day that I don't feel like doing anything but eat, vege out, and then sleep. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely really enjoying life right now, but work is straight up owning me right now. The past 2 weeks have been one of the most stretching and junk-exposing (in my heart) times of my life. I'm definitely not as loving as I like to think I am, and I can't rely on my own energy to serve and teach the kids effectively.

On the plus side, I'm soaking up a lot of great experience watching and practicing different teaching techniques as well as FINALLY getting to know some of the other teachers/ teacher's aides.

Pray for perseverance and dependence on God for joy. I am so looking forward to going back to MI for Thanksgiving Break. I really miss being home.

Probable Schedule:

Arriving in MI: (11/25 @ 12:30pm)
-stay in Troy until Saturday night or Sunday morning

Visit AA: (11/28 or 11/29)
Leave for Austin @ 5:30pm

I would love to see people, so gimme an email or call.

Tuxedo Mask Fail and Biking Tights

I typically really enjoy coming up with Halloween costumes, but this year I had the hardest time trying to come up with a costume idea. Partly it was because my hair is in an awkward medium-length that I can't really hide and can't work into what I want. It wasn't until literally the night before (Fri night) that I came up with the idea of trying to become Tuxedo Mask. (Those too young to know who he is, check the clip below)

Since I took so long to think of the idea, I couldn't just go out and buy it, so I thought I'd be able to make his mask with the help of some volunteers. Below is the process of trying to make the mask.

Ben laying down the foil foundation

KOk was in charge

As I was immobilized, Ben and Tou Fue kept putting glue all over my face

Glue in my eyes, mouth, and nose and the mask still ended up being a fail

I really wanted to go as something, anything, so as I was eating lunch w/ P Pete and some other people, I remembered that Minti (one of my roomies) was an avid biker and had all the biking gear in the apartment. Thankfully for you guys, the party I went to had kids there, so you won't see me in the biking tights, but I was definitely wearing them.

FYI, biking tights have built in pads in them, supposedly to help keep your butt properly cushioned. It was so bulky I can imagine what wearing pads feels like. Anyways, some highlights below.

We placed 2nd in the pumpkin carving!

Freakin got volunteered to play a game where we had to fish 6 gummy worms out of chocolate pudding. I ended up smashing my head down onto the bowl, broke it, and slurped up 3/4 of the contents and spit it out and got the rest of the stuff and spit that out too. All within 3 seconds. FTW

After a couple hours and it got dark, we went out with the kids and took them trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. It was actually really cool to see how excited they were to go house to house. I remember when I used to go as early as possible with my friends and hit up as many houses as we could. If we got to a house that gave out the best goodies (chips, king size candy, money) we would mark it down and hit them up again when it got dark.

All in all, a very chill Halloween, different from the past couple years of Focus Halloween Parties (which I really missed), but a good time nonetheless.

Rest of Pics on Facebook

It Tastes so Bitter

Losing sucks. There's no other way to put it. When I don't win (whether it's a team game or individual) I immediately do a self analysis of what I could have done differently/ better to change the outcome. If I felt that I played a part in the loss, I'll go through phases of guilt, disappointment, frustration, and eventually settle on sadness. Usually this starts and finishes within a couple hours depending on how important the game was to me. (Losing a pickup ultimate game I'll get over it within a couple minutes vs. losing in the finals of flag football on a technicality will stay with me for a couple days)

The worst thing is when you participate in something on a regular basis and lose every single time. When you lose in one time events, you can always justify it with "Oh the other person just got lucky", or "I'll get them the next time". When you lose consecutive years even when the odds should be in your favor, you can't really use those excuses anymore.

Ever since my freshman year in HMCC, H-Games has always been something I looked forward to because it was so exciting to see all the small groups pumped up and decked out in brand new t-shirts. I am a firm believer that groups always get close after working together on a similar goal, and H-Games provides that spark to get people interacting.

My personal enthusiasm and desire to win were never enough to bring me the ultimate joy of being immortalized in the annals of H-Games Winners. All through undergrad, I would lose and have to watch the FOCUS groups celebrate their domination of H-Games. In my head I would just tell myself, "Just wait until you get to join them, then you'll finally win." HA! Fate was cruel because when I joined FOCUS, the games miraculously changed from being games of athleticism to games that can only be described as random. After trying to figure out why FOCUS lost for the first time in years, I happened to overhear someone talking about it and they mentioned how they specifically changed the games so that the undergrad groups would have a chance. Three years of FOCUS, three more years of defeat and I lost all hope of notching an H-Games victory before I left AA.

That was until I made the decision to come to Austin. The stage could not be any more ready for me to win my FIRST H-Games EVER. Literally, the odds were 50-50 here because we only have two lifegroups! I'm not going to go into details, but long story short, our team got crushed. It literally took until today (over a week and a half later) to be able to blog about it. The loss still leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, but at least we got to see a bunch of friends come out and enjoy themselves.

Team L7Fav pic of the day