Our first sip of Austin nightlife

After we spent a bit of time resting from all the adventures of our first morning in Austin, Texas, we decided to head out and check out some of the watering holes the city had to offer. We decided that we were going to hit a couple of places for some drinks and appetizers and then see where things went from there. The truth is, there are so many different areas of Austin to hang out in that you really can't go wrong no matter what you do. While the big draw is the 6th street area downtown, there are also a lot of other hip and cool areas to hang out.

As I have mentioned before, we were staying in the East Austin area around the vicinity of 12th street. We found a cool place called Sour Duck Market that was having a happy hour, so we decided to start there. It's a cool and trendy little place with lots of outdoor seating as you can see from their website. We decided to sit indoors in their small little dining area. We got a few appetizers that I didn't get a shot of, and the drinks you see in the photo above. Mine was the one on the right with tequila in it, and the one on the left is @mrsbozz's. Her sister got the same drink as her, and our brother in law got a beer.

I noticed as we were out and about, Austin seems to really like these dried blood orange slices or whatever you want to call them. They used them in a ton of drinks at a ton of different places we visited. In fact, I even noticed a few spots had huge jars of them that they would pull from when they needed them.

My sister in law got a burger that I didn't get a photo of, but it was part of their happy hour menu and she really enjoyed it. @mrsbozz got the mushroom pastry that you see above, and I have to admit, it was dang good. They hand make all the baked goods in house and the flakiness and butteriness of the dough was absolutely phenomenal. Since my brother in law and I had our smoked sausage sandwich earlier (see yesterday's post), we weren't super hungry.

You can't really see it in the photo, but there was a lady back in the back corner of the restaurant with a full influencer set up going on complete with light, microphone, laptop, and tablet. She must have been doing some kind of podcast or hotspot something or other. I don't really know, it just seemed out of the ordinary, but I guess weird is what Austin is known for!

From there, we went to a place that was just literally a block away from where we stayed called Nixta Taqueria. Nixta is actually a place that someone else on HIVE here has talked about before. Since it was so close, and so well recognized, we decided we needed to check it out. The chef is MICHELIN recognized, so if that sort of thing is a big deal to you, you might want to check this place out. I took the photo above of their rules which I am sure they developed over time through great pains as the establishment began to rise in popularity.

We got the dips to share that came with multicolored tortilla chips, some refried beans, and a deep smokey salsa like no other salsa I have had before. It was almost like a mole that is how rich and earthy it was.

Of course, we also got some margaritas to wash it down with. Notice the dried orange slice in these drinks as well. See, I told you so!

My brother in law opted for a michelada which he said was amazing. I didn't try it myself, but it looked pretty tasty. At this point we decided we should probably start looking for a place with a variety of food beyond just tacos. We went back and looked at the list of restaurants the owner of the campus store had given us, but the waitlist for Matt's El Rancho grill put us at number 206.

Instead, we headed over to the end of 6th street and found a parking garage where we could park the car and hang out for a few hours.

Which eventually led us to a place I can't remember the name of where they were getting ready to play some live music and they had some TV's on the wall so we could watch the college football games. They were also getting ready for some kind of Halloween party as you can see from this photo my wife took of one of the patrons.

I forgot to mention, in the opening photo is a place we walked by on our way here called Hotel Vegas. There was a band playing some heavy punk music, but that isn't really the style our group is into, so we passed it by. I would have been cool listening for a bit, but I understand it isn't everyone's cup of tea, and it seemed to be a hard pass from my wife, sister in law, and brother in law!

After we listened to the band for a hot second, we decided to get some pizza from a place down the street called Via 313 and take it back to our Air BnB. Via 313 billed themselves as a Detroit style pizza joint, hence the reference to the 313 area code in their name. Being from Michigan, we definitely know our Detroit style pizza, so I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype. It honestly did. It was a good pie, and the place was packed when I went in to pick up the food, so that should be a testament to how popular and good they are.

If you are ever in the area and hungry for a hearty pizza, I highly recommend checking them out!

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