Austin, Texas – Foodheads (Cafe/Catering)

Restaurant: Foodheads
Cuisine: American/Sandwiches/Soups/Cafe
Last visited: July 22, 2010
Location: Austin, Texas (University of Texas)
Address: 616 W 34th St
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4.5 for sandwich, 2.5 for salads (only tried few items though)
Service: 3
Ambiance: 4
Overall: 4
Additional comments:

• Voted “Best Sandwich”
• Freshly baked breads from local bakeries
• Excellent lunch spot
• Popular for sandwiches
• Lots of variety/large menu
• Homemade gourmet sandwiches/soups/salads
• Light and healthy gourmet style lunches
• Homemade mustard, house packed pickles
• Fresh custom made deli sandwiches
• Made upon order
• Busy/line ups at peak hours
• Local favourite
• Casual cafe
• Reasonably priced, good portions
• Popular for catering
• Breakfast available
• Patio seating
• Eat in/Take-out
  

**Recommendations: Grilled and Specialty Sandwiches. Lamb Sandwich (Voted 2008 Critics Best Lamb Sandwich in Austin Chronicle), Spicy Apple Pork Tenderloin Sandwich, Pork Special and Fish Tacos are supposed to be excellent too.

Foodheads is a casual cafe and restaurant that is also very popular for catering. Located north of campus in the University of Texas area of Austin, it attracts locals, people working in the area and students. It’s kind of hard to find if you don’t know the area and if it wasn’t recommended by locals to me I would have never found it on my own. It’s a bit tucked away on a side street in a tiny and quaint neighbourhood. It operates out of this cottage like bungalow country home that looks like grandma’s house with indoor seating and a large outdoor patio. It’s a local favourite so it’s always busy for lunch and you expect line-up although they’re pretty quick. I loved the location and ambiance and it’s very Austin and very “hippie-stlye”. I would highly recommend it if you’re in the area, but if I was only visiting Texas for a short time it wouldn’t be at the top of my list of “the best food in Texas”. If you want a break from BBQ than sure – go try a Foodhead sandwich, you won’t regret it.

Foodheads offers homemade gourmet style sandwiches at a reasonable price. It’s not cheap so it’s also not packed with students even given it’s location. The sandwiches are healthy and made fresh with bread that is delivered daily from local bakeries. They make their own sauces, marinade their own meats, use fresh gourmet deli meats and cheeses and even jar their own pickles, so it’s undeniable that the quality of ingredients is there. It’s definitely worth ordering the sandwiches as it’s famous for being “the best sandwich in Austin”. The Austin Chronicle voted it “Top 10 Best Sandwiches in 2009” and many locals would agree.

All sandwiches can be made into salads if you want something healthier and lighter – but the sandwiches are significantly better for me.

On the table:

**Pork Special – 4.5/6

• Roasted Jerk pork loin served on telera with lime slaw, bacon and pineapple relish. All served with slaw, pickles, or potato salad $8.25
• The pork special actually changes so it will always appears as a “New” sandwich. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s always good too and I had a tough time ordering because everything sounded delicious. The ingredients and recipes were a lot more gourmet and creative than expected.
• It’s a pretty pricey sandwich considering the side is very small, but the quality of ingredients is there, the portion is decent and it’s good.
• I loved the housemade pickles! They give you a small side of them and they’re quite lightly pickled so their semi sweet and sour. It’s quite mild so even for people who don’t like eating pickles, this was more like a tangy cucumber salad. I like pickles, but these thin slices went better with the sandwich.

• This sandwich is definitely inspired by the famous Mexican Torta, which is a 6-8 inch Mexican sandwich. If you’re from Vancouver, BC you can try an excellent on at Las Tortas.
• The sandwich is nicely packed with lots of fresh ingredients. The pork was juicy and tender and unlike a traditional Torta, this one was not greasy. It’s still a hearty sandwich, but all the ingredients are relatively light and the telera bun was nice and thin so I tasted more ingredients than I did bread.

• The pork was actually quite a thick piece and it was very nicely roasted and lean, yet moist and easy to chew. It was nicely seasoned, although it wasn’t that spicy and it should have been considering it was Jerk seasoning. It was served nice and warm on a lightly toasted telera, which is a Mexican style baguette that has a very soft middle and crusty exterior.
• I did love the pineapple relish which were large chunks of pineapple marinated in lime juice and red onions with some roasted Poblano peppers that were more sweet and smoky than spicy. It was a Jamaican meets Mexican sandwich and the flavours married well. I do wish the pineapples were diced up more because it looked a little lazy and I couldn’t get a piece in every bite and it’s part of what made the sandwich so delicious.
• It was a savoury sandwich with a salty bite of bacon (2 strips), very lightly dressed tangy lime slaw and then a juicy bite of sweet and tangy pineapples with a little bit of smoky heat from the juicy peppers, but it’s not spicy at all. It was a very juicy sandwich with juice coming from fresh ingredients and not greasy oil. The bread absorbed the juices very well and it wasn’t a dry sandwich at all. Some thin slices of avocado would have been a nice added bonus to give it a little creaminess.
• It was almost like eating roasted Christmas ham with pineapples so the execution was very well throughout and still very creative.
• It would definitely go on my list of great sandwiches, not sure if it’s the best but it made me want to try all of their sandwiches.

Tuna Nicoise Salad – 2.5/6

• Chunk tuna with tomatoes, roast potatoes, green beans, red onion, boiled egg, lettuce, and dijon vinaigrette $6.75
• This is also offered as a sandwich… stick to their sandwiches. However as a sandwich,I can’t imagine it impressing me that much either.
• The give a nice scoop of tuna, but it was canned tuna lightly dressed in a vinaigrette dressing. It was mixed with red onions and some capers and it felt like something you could easily make at home and better. The ingredients were all fresh, but it was just really bland for me and boring.
• The Dijon vinaigrette was also quite bland for me and it tasted like olive oil and lemon juice. I would have liked a stronger mustard kick to it with “dijon” in the title.

Salmon Salad – 3/6

• Baked salmon, tossed with red onion, boiled egg, pickles, apple, walnuts and olive oil with lettuce, carrots, tomato and cilantro $8.75
• This wasn’t my order. I could actually see this one being better in a sandwich – most their stuff probably is. In a sandwich at least I could have a bite with all the ingredients together and that would have been good. The sandwich would have also had some cucumber mayo which would give more flavour.
• The salmon was better than the tuna and at least it’s baked in house and not from a can. It’s lightly dressed in a vinaigrette again, but it just needed more flavour and it was a bit dry.  The idea is their, but like the Tuna Nicoise Salad, it’s something you could do at home and there was nothing really special about it. Stick to sandwiches!

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