Best of 2020 - Food

Last year I ate out about 280 times. With the pandemic, I didn't eat out as often this year, but I started doing a lot more takeout, and so I still visited restaurants about the same amount of times.

These are my top 13 favorites, the ones that are accessible, affordable *and* delicious enough that I went there numerous times during the year. My list of favorites is mostly down to how many times I went there, with a little fudging. New Fortune Chinese and Kura Revolving Sushi fell off the list because they're not exactly pandemic friendly.

Favorites:

1. Ziggy's Kielbasa House
2. Tumble 22
3. Texas Roadhouse
4. Chi'Lantro
5. Hopdoddy's
6. Vera Cruz
7. Chuy's
8. DipDipDip Tetsu-Ya (Sandwich Pop-Up)
9. Deckhand Oyster Bar 
10. Pinthouse Pizza
11. Smokin' Beauty
12. Lucy's Fried Chicken
13. Michi Ramen

I also kept track of where I ate lunch this year, and these are my favorites, based on how often I ate there. It's not just quality of food, here, but also closeness to work, where I'm usually eating lunch. I'm going to do my best to avoid fast food next year, or at least the major chains.

Lunch Favorites:

1. Popeye's
2. Raising Cane's
3. Mod Pizza
4. Culver's
5. P. Terry's
6. Freebird's
7. Cotton Patch Cafe
8. Ike's Love and Sandwiches
9. Slapbox Pizzacheria

Then there were the places that I ate at once or twice, due to either it's location (downtown especially) or price, or because it's too new to have tried many times. This list is purely down to my favorites, where I'd eat if location and price were no object. This list is especially small this year because of the pandemic, but I did make a couple food pilgrimages and found a couple new places this year. This is the first year in maybe all the time I've been living in Austin that I didn't get Franklin BBQ, and I was sad not to be able to do my annual visit to Kemuri Tatsu-Ya, Texas Chili Parlor, or Estancia.

Rare Treats:

1. Charm Korean BBQ
2. Cosa Costa
3. French Quarter Grille
4. Gus's Fried Chicken
5. Hopfield's
6. Lechuza Birria Tacos
7. Luna's Tacos
8. Peached Tortilla
9. Valentina's Tex-Mex
10. Waffle Love