My "I"s (Iron Cactus & In-n-Out)

It was too much to narrow down my list so I settled for 2 "I"s on the restaurant list.



While I'd heard good things about Iron Cactus happy hour and since was on work travel in Dallas when I went (can you say reimbursement!) I figured it would be a great time to check this off my list. In my defense there are Iron Cactus restaurants in Austin so I didn't think I was cheating too badly being out of town technically for this one...

Ugh, what to say? The best only good part about this was the $2 house margaritas on Sundays.

The queso topping the veggie enchiladas, whose description was cleverly crafted to sound delicious, was incredibly thick and fatty with stale-tasting tortillas and not saute'd, but rather completely soggy veggies inside. The canned charro beans were better...

Austin has seen a recent invasion (no PC strikethrough) of Californians in the last few years. They've demanded their Trader Joe's and In-N-Out Burger restaurants, so of course I had to find out what the hype is all about :)

  

The double cheeseburger was good: small patties but no gristle and the veggies were crisp and fresh. I was a little confused with the thousand island-esque spread, though... Fries were cold within a few minutes (I saved calories not finishing them) but wow wow wow on the strawberry shake. They may be fooling me, but this actually tasted like real strawberries not just flavoring. Very yummy. 

McDonalds < In-n-Out < Dan's Hamburgers

Austin has local hamburger joints for all budgets to need another chain that was just so-so. 

Sorry Californians. Well, not really.

My "D" (Dan's Hamburgers)

At some point I had to add a burger joint to the list.

While it may be a topic for another time I decided to not go down the road of which divorcee serves the best food - Dan's/Fran's , Tino's/Zorba's , etc. - and opted for the North Lamar Dan's Hamburgers.

The epic people-watching that occurred during this visit was almost as good as the food itself. Everyone from (what I think were) college students in a state that induced the munchies to gentler souls that probably ate at Dan's back in 1973 to first-timers like me, the range of clientele at least made this a promising find. I took some jalapeno cheeseburgers to-go and opted for the curly fries (a no-brainer).

I can't be sure, but the flavor and slight crunch of the jalapenos led me to believe they were fresh until the point they wound up on the skillet when my order came in. Fifteen minutes later I was wishing I'd sat right then and there and not taken to-go...

Not disappointed. Will be coming back - and maybe even checking out their breakfast - another day.