How to Put This? Justine’s

I have an unwritten rule about not writing negative things on this site. (I have broken it). The main reason I try to keep it positive is that negative reviews are a bore. We’ve all seen the seven-paragraph rants on Yelp that begin “We arrived at 7:43 pm…” Spare us, people. More importantly, we understand that the restaurant business is tough. And we love restaurants, so why make it harder for them? Seriously though, negative reviews are really boring.

Having said that, here are some photographs from a recent visit to Justines.

 

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The Real Deal: El Naranjo

We finally made it to one of Austin’s most celebrated food trucks: El Naranjo. This is a truck with some serious bona fides. Chef Iliana de la Vega first made a name for herself in Oaxaca with a restaurant of the same name. These days, she lives in Austin and teaches Latin American cuisine at the San Antonio campus of the Culinary Institute of America. Here she is showing epicurious how to make corn tortillas.

The truck is in East Austin on Rainey Street, in front of a house that will soon house de la Vega’s restaurant, which will also be called El Naranjo.

Shrimp tacos were the highlight. Here, de la Vega shows Texas Monthly’s Patricia Sharpe how they’re made. We thought we’d be able to get her mole, which is only served on Wednesdays, but they had temporarily stopped serving it due to light crowds. This only makes us more eager for the full-on restaurant to open.

Taquitos.

More tacos.

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Pork in the Parking Lot: Three Little Pigs

Here at Chicken Fried Everything, we’re drawn to pig-themed restaurants like moths to a flame. So when we heard about a new food truck called Three Little Pigs, we dropped everything and followed our noses to the parking lot they share with East End Wines.

Behold the pork belly slider. This one features a maple soy glaze, sliced green apple, and fried onion with a side of sesame cole slaw. Pork belly sliders seem to be all the rage these days, but this one is special. It’s sweet and salty punch to the gut (which I mean in the best possible way), served on a perfectly toasted bun. It also happens to be a diet friendly food, provided you are on the I’ve-worked-my-ass-off-all-week-and-I’ll-eat-whatever-the-hell-I-please diet, which I am.

As you can see, it’s also pretty generously sized for a slider.

Next up was Asian Fried Chicken with sweet chile sauce, wasabi mayo, and sesame cole slaw. We consider ourselves to be connoisseurs of Asian fried chicken around here, and while this stuff didn’t have the characteristically crisp skin of Korean fried chicken, it was one of the better pieces of fried chicken I’ve had in a while. In fact, the fried chicken was so well executed, I kind of wished it didn’t have any sauce on it.

Cracklin’ meatloaf wrapped in bacon with cheese grits and collard greens. The collard greens not only won Eliza’s seal of approval, they were her favorite part of the meal.

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