Hello Austin dopers! I’m spending Christmas day in Austin with my heathen family. After we go to the movies, we’re thinking of going out to eat. I assumed we could go eat Chinese food with all the nice Jewish people, what’s the big deal? Also, it’s Austin. Plenty of people who don’t celebrate Christmas. My mother swears that they tried to do that about five/six years ago and that there were only like two places and an over an hour wait. That doesn’t even sound possible or probable.
I’m using my Google-fu and trying to find some places, but I thought some locals may know some good places off-hand. (We do have two vegetarians (usually not a problem in Austin) and we are kinda cheap, but are willing to splurge.) We’re all big fans of all kinds of ethnic food.
First Chinese BBQ (my favorite Chinese in town) was open but had a pretty long wait when we went there a few years ago…you might consider killing two birds with one stone by going to the Alamo Drafthouse for a movie and dinner.
Heh, I had this exact same problem last year. Christmas, Austin Texas, in need of dinner. We ended up at Russian House downtown. Funky doesn’t even begin to describe it, but I did enjoy it. (Disclosure: I have a lot of experience with Russian culture, so the menu didn’t confuse me and I knew to avoid the crazier vodka infusions.) They have a good selection of Central Asian dishes as well as the Moscow standards. I think they take reservations; I’d recommend you do that if you decide to go this route.