Monday, December 15, 2008

Waterloo

Right in the heart of Austin, Waterloo Icehouse is named after the original town of Austin. That's right, for all you people who do not know your history Napoleon was defeated near the town of Waterloo, Belgium in 1815. 21 years later, Anglo settlers first arrived in our area and settled down in a few huts scattered between the Congress Ave. and 1st Street bridge. Today, homeless people in Austin honor these first settlers by setting up cardboard shacks in the same location. Waterloo Icehouse also honors them with the name of their restaurant. And what better food to serve there than Austin's leading food group, hamburgers.

Waterloo has a good menu of burgers serving up the Works, a Hickory Cheddar burger, a Guacamole-Bacon-Swiss and a singing website. Hear the song at http://www.waterlooicehouse.com/. For the Burger Odyssey this was our first non-burger joint we hit up, the chopped steak with mashed potatoes looked delicious, but the burger came highly recommended. This was also the first restaurant that is younger than Matt and Ed (it was founded in 1976, Matt and Ed were founded in 1975). To get there, Matt and Ed met up at Matt's downtown crashpad and braved the two block walk to 6th and Lamar. Oh, whoop-de-doo you might be saying, real tough walk. Well, we guessed the windchill to be 20 degrees! That's right we had to manage a massive artic blast on this walk. By the way, see our side business on the web at "Matt and Ed's Temperature Guessing Service Sponsored by Sage's Driving Service." (You had to be there to understand that last statement, the funniest Odyssey to date.)

We were met up, as usual now, by the Rock Star and the Sage, featuring Ali, a Tavern coneseiuer. They drove and thus were not quite as affected by the blizzard. FriedEd ordered the Hickory Cheddar and asked to hold the hickory and cheddar. (Note: FriedEd did not really say this but it would have been funny if he did.) This was a good tasty burger with a nice moist patty. However, the hickory seemed to overwhelm the meaty flavor and the bread to meat ratio definitely favored the bread. The fries were good but potatoey.

BurgerMatt ordered The Works burger, which included bacon and jalapenos, and it was quite tasty. Along with the burger, fries and Dr. Pepper, Burger Matt partook in a Waterloo Icehouse tradition and ordered a cold beer as well. Numerous beers on tap, as well as a plethora of bottled beer, gets huge bonus points as does the music store next door and Amy's Ice Cream. Amy's is great spot for those of you ambitious enough to indulge in another Austin favorite. We thought about visiting Amy's Ice Cream yodeling and singing and swinging our arms "We are here to save your business." Another you had to be there moment.

As we walked out of the restaurant back into the North Pole, we debated the year end awards. Check back on Wednesday for the 1st Annual Salvo Awards. That will be our last post of the ocho. We look forward to a new year of the Burger Odyssey and all the added weight it will bring. We plan to start the new year off with a Bang as we are headed to the most talked about Burger joint in Austin, none other than Casino el Camino. We invite all to join us on any one of our Odysseys in 2009 and look forward to having numerous guest bloggers as the Odyssey roles on.

FriedEd

Burger 86

Fries 87


BurgerMatt

Burger 85

Fries 83

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