Anniversary
Nov 15, 2021 | Austin, TX
We started our day off with some tamago kake gohan. A dish of white rice, raw egg whites whipped into it, and furikake (seaweed and sesame seed mixture). The eggs came from the chickens at our Airbnb. For dinner, we made reservations at an Indian restaurant called Clay Pit. We both got cocktails while we were there. We also had a decent amount of food left over, and we packed it all up, but then forgot it at the table when we left. It was a travesty.
After dinner, we went to the Violet Crown Cinema to see The French Dispatch. Before the movie, we sat at their bar and ordered drinks. Brian ordered the “Constant Ava Gardner” (see picture below) but the bartender was all out of lavender bitters. Brian suggested she use the celery bitters that we were previously eyeing and questioning. She didn’t seem eager to make the replacement, but did anyway. And the drink was phenomenal! We both loved it and have tried to recreate it at home a few times since.
After the movie, we walked down to grab a couple drinks at a speakeasy before our next reservation. We saw some cool neon signs along the way. The speakeasy was called Firehouse Lounge and was located behind a secret door disguised as a bookshelf in the lobby of a hostel. The hostel lobby was eerily quiet and felt like we were in the wrong place. However, once opening the heavy secret door (or at least trying to, in Erika's case), the ambience was immediately replaced with loud voices chatting away and the sound of the mixologists shaking cocktails.
Our other reservation was at a semi-secret speakeasy called Here Nor There. Once there, we had to enter a code into a gate leading to a quiet and dark alleyway. Once through the alley, we noticed the entrance to the speakeasy was covered in black and white art. No photos were allowed inside the speakeasy, but we at least got photos of the entry. The menu could only be read with a little black-light keychain and the drinks were super unique. They tasted great. The ambience was dark and classy and we had a lot of fun.
After our allotted time of 1.5 hours at the speakeasy, we walked back towards the cinema to the parking garage we were parked in. On the way, we passed a music venue and were looking at its poster of upcoming performances (Buck Meek of Big Thief was playing soon). A guy came out and was super friendly. He said he manages some of the shows there and loves to treat out-of-towners like us. He gave us his card and said he could get us into one of the shows he manages for free. We ended up never taking him up on his offer, but it was a very nice gesture from a total stranger.
