In trying to make sense of the mess of pictures that are now clogging the (20 gig!) hard drive on my borrowed laptop, I found these shots of Lulu B's. Though Austin has like hundreds of taco trucks, until the last couple of years we didn't really have outdoor food that wasn't Mexican.
That's been changing, with higher real estate prices apparently driving at least some of the rush to the outdoors. We've got Torchy's (yeah, it's a taco truck, but much more hipster-y), Flip Happy Crepes, Davine Foods, and several cupcake trucks that have all opened in the last couple of years.
I really wanted to like Lulu B's. For one, they're in an area of town that's completely devoid of good Asian food of any kind. Yeah, you heard me South Austin! For another, well.. take a look! Don't you just want to go "Awww"?
According to this article, the place is run by a California transplant and her sister, aiming to show off their mother's recipes. We tried a pretty good cross-section of the menu on the day we were there.
First - avocado summer rolls.
Nice, light, soft, well-rolled. Unfortunately, very heavy on the noodles... and their peanut sauce left a LOT to be desired. That container is compostable, BTW, if you're the composting type.
By themselves, I could see these being a great light lunch for the 100 degree days I'm sure we'll be seeing more of soon.
We also ordered a couple of sandwiches, or banh mi. We've been on a search for truly great ones since Ba Le closed down during the time we were living in Italy.
Unfortunately, these were not them. Not even close.
First up - the banh mi thit with grilled pork.
The fillings were good and very fresh, though the pork lacked any flavor of the grill. Their veggies were nice and crunchy, though.
My main problem here, though, is the bread - look at it!
I'm pretty sure it's a bolillo from HEB's grocery bakery. Soft inside and out, with none of that toothy crunch a nice baguette should have. The fillings can be amazing, but if the bread's this meh, I can't really get excited about them.
And here is one of their vegetarian selections, with lemongrass tofu.
I tasted very little lemongrass, and the tofu was oddly spongy. I admire them for putting a couple vegetarian sandwiches on the menu, but this just wasn't that good.
Along with the sandwiches and summer rolls, we ordered a couple cafe sua da (iced coffees with condensed milk - sweet with a great caffeine punch) and, of course, Topochico. I love topochico - it's the best sparkling mineral water you can get around here, so definite kudos for that!
These pictures were taken in late February, and we haven't been back. They're definitely great for South Austin, and if I lived there, I'd be visiting them all the time. However, up near where we live, we've got at least four banh mi joints that have these guys beat hands down.
The newest of these is Baguette House, where I've had three different types of AMAZING banh mi in the last three days. Look for a post about them as soon as I feel comfortable bringing and using my camera there!
Lulu B's parks their truck at 2113 S. Lamar, near the Office Depot. 512.921.4828.
