Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Austin Day Trip: Breakfast - Czech Stop, Round Rock Doughnuts, Juan in a Million

On New Year's eve eve, we gallivanted down to Austin for a quick day trip because we had watched that Austin Man vs. Food episode just one too many times.  And.  We discovered:

Austin has food trucks.
Say what?

There have been hundreds of food trucks in our own state running underneath our noses the entire time !  I have no idea if that sentence is worded properly, but I'll sum it up in one word: Madness!

The trip from Dallas to Austin takes ~ 3.5 hours.  Along the way, you will see the Czech Stop in West, TX, which is a must stop if you love kolaches (which Diana and I most definitely do!):


Czech Stop offers dozens of kolache varieties from sweet fruit flavors to savory sausage options.  We grabbed a couple of sausage kolaches for the road.


The sausage to bread ratio was too much!  Even for a carnivore like me!  The sausage was also harder than the traditional mini-links from Korean doughnut shops. Next time  I gotta try the sweet ones.
Three hours into the trip, we reached our key destination: Round Rock Doughnuts, one of the coveted top ten doughnut places in America according to Bon Appetit magazine, and Diana and my life list.



While Bon Appetit noted Round Rock for their cake doughnuts (which I ordered one but forgot to eat...I can't even explain myself on that one properly), Adam Richman clued us in on their secret weapon:

The Texas sized doughnut!  Sure it looks like a normal glazed doughnut here but...
Here it is next to a normal sized fella for comparison.    Like way bigger than the dude's already giant-sized head!  Unbelievable, I know (about the size of the guy's head).
The Texas sized doughnut comes in regular glazed or regular glazed plus chocolate icing.  You got that?  The chocolate is already glazed and then it is topped with chocolate.  That is how all chocolate doughnuts should be !  Naturally we got both.
What is the most unbelievable about this doughnut shop is that all doughnuts are made fresh to order.  Like.  The two giant elephant-head sized doughnuts are made FRESH TO ORDER.  

  We were handed two boxes of piping hot doughnuts that we immediately tore apart with our hands.  We had no idea what was going on with the orange-tinged dough, but it didn't stop us from noting how fantastically airy and light and hot and crispy and soft the whole thing was.  How did they cook this giant monstrosity of my dreams so fast and so perfectly?!
Just look at it.  So airy and delicate and melt in your mouth delicious!
If I had a pint of milk, I think I can definitely polish off at least one sucker myself (like this guy).  We ate half of each and then headed into Austin to begin the rest of our long day of gorging.

We had more breakfast at Juan in a Million, super popular spot in Austin for their hefty breakfast tacos.

This Don Juan breakfast taco has bacon, potatos, cheese and egg.  It weighs like two pounds.  The waitress asks you how many tortillas you would like with the order.  I guess you can order an infinite amount, which I suspect a lot of college kids do since the meal will clearly have leftovers.  We also ordered a guacamole taco for the helluvit.



The Don Juan?  Solid.  I was most surprised at the nice, thick pieces of salty bacon in the mix, pretty high quality stuff.  The guacamole was pretty underwhelming - it looks like just mashed up avocados - no tomato, jalapenos or onions to be found.   Every young kid in the shop was ordering the DJ, and it was amazing seeing how tall every plate of breakfast glopped goodness was being served around.  For $3.50, this is definitely a bargain breakfast you can eat on all day.  Way to go, Austin, lovely way to start the day.

105 N College Ave, West, Texas
Czech Stop on Urbanspoon

106 West liberty, Round Rock
Round Rock Donuts on Urbanspoon

2300 E Cesar Chavez St., Austin, TX 78702
Juan in a Million on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

  1. I remember those behemoth doughnuts! Wow! I think I'd be afraid just looking at the thing, but it sure does look delicious in all its glazed glory.

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  2. those texas sized donuts!!! pretty sure i might just drive down to austin RIGHT NOW to get them. :)

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