Foodie Festival Season Edition
This week's notable food and drink events
Austin’s festival season doesn’t mean jack for foodies, unless you consider spending $7 on a Lone Star a gourmet experience. Fortunately, tonight's Tour De Vin is like an ACL for epicureans, with all-star local restaurants sharing the stage—or in this case, rooftop—with some of the biggest international names in wine. Because no annual festival is immune from trend-chasing, this year’s buzziest acts are “upscale Mexican” restaurants like Garrido’s, Maria Maria, and La Condesa, the hip, modernized Asian fusion of Get Some Dim Sum, and the 21st-century spins on rustic Italian and Old World European, respectively, from NoRTH and Fabi And Rosi. However, like the comforting presence of Asleep At The Wheel amid a rash of synth-pop-slinging Brooklynites, familiar faces like French mainstay Aquarelle and inveterate Indian eatery Clay Pit are here too. They’ll come together to complement a massive tasting of around 50 new boutique wines, comprising regions from the Pacific Northwest to Chile to across the Atlantic. Like ACL, tickets are a bit pricy ($75 per person), but are really a bargain when you consider everything you’re experiencing.
If you find Austin’s wine-and-dine society a tad elitist, community-owned grocery store Wheatsville Food Co-Op is probably more your speed—in which case, you’ve likely been eagerly anticipating the end of its massive, ongoing renovations. It finally arrives on Oct. 10 with the Wheatsville Grand Re-Opening Celebration, which is heavy on activities reflecting the store’s commitment to civic responsibility, like a Capital Area Food Bank drive and visits with local farmers. More importantly, you’ll finally be able to see the many sustainable building innovations that have gone into the redesign—like a new rainwater collection system, and carpets made from recycled soda bottles—while checking out the overhauled deli and meat and seafood counters and the brand-new hot food and salad bar. And for those who prefer actual music festivals to analogous ones, you can also catch sets from Pong, Two High String Band, Justin Rayfield, and Laura Freeman And The Hey Lollies.
Fatsometer: 6. Balance your Tour De Vin indulgence with a little organics-only discipline.
