The Texas Book Festival provided us with an excuse to spend a long weekend in Austin, something we often talk about doing because that town is so darn cool, but something that always gets pushed to the back burner because Austin and New Orleans are really too far apart for an easygoing road trip (the drive is about 9 hours, if you don’t stop for barbecue, which would be absurd).

Matt’s sister and brother-in-law flew in from Los Angeles to spend the weekend with us, which is how we wound up staying at a hotel so hip that only Californians would know about it. The rooms at Hotel San Jose are stocked with my favorite, earth-friendly soap, Dr. Bronner's Liquid Peppermint; room service breakfasts arrive in wooden bento boxes; and the bar-by-the-pool serves gorgeous drinks like this one made with Champagne, passion fruit juice, and raspberries:

The festival itself was great fun, a free event held in and around the Texas State Capitol, just as the Louisiana Book Festival was organized in Baton Rouge. I sat on panel titled Evoking a Sense of Place with three novelists, including two Texans and the New Orleanian Tom Piazza. We drew a remarkable crowd, and I met several Louisiana natives now living in Austin during our book signing afterward. One of them told me that the secret to perfect red beans is Worcestershire sauce. Huh. Anyone else out there use this stealth seasoning? I’m intrigued enough to try it next time.

The at-the-capitol festival format really works for me. Capitol buildings tend to be impressive but under-appreciated works of architecture/art, and these events turn the capitol and its grounds over to the public, to whom it belongs. First Lady Laura Bush, a longtime literacy advocate, established the Austin festival.

While we were downtown on Saturday, we lunched at Lamberts, a “fancy barbecue” restaurant. Fancy, meaning that most (all?) of the meats served there are of the natural, free-range, organic sort. Fancy, also meaning that the barbecue is served on breakable plates, versus the typical Texas barbecue serving apparatus of butcher paper. The tables at Lamberts aren’t clad in white tablecloths, but it’s the kind of place that could get away with it.

Among our orders: wild boar ribs, and a combo plate of chicken and brisket with greens and potato salad:

While I enjoyed Lamberts and was especially grateful for the synthetic-hormone-free meats, the general consensus at our table was that barbecue simply tastes better when eaten from disposable wares, in an establishment with grit in its corners. Barbecue’s flaws are far more obvious beneath the harsh light of leather-bound menus and premium service. Case in point: the same eaters who judged Lamberts’ fancy barbecue harshly bowed at the altar of Rudy's, where the atmosphere was pastoral-picnic but the barbecue itself wasn’t nearly as good. A snapshot:

Better than either barbecue lunch was brunch at El Borrego De Oro, an interior Mexican restaurant where I ate housemade corn tortillas dipped into a wide bowl of lamb soup chile-dyed a deep burgundy. I got so into the slurping that I forgot to pull out a camera, but here’s a landmark shot taken outside:

We all agreed that our most phenomenal meal went down at Uchi, a sushi and contemporary Japanese restaurant with enough accolades to paper its walls (though, fortunately, the designers opted for red wallpaper with a large-scale Asian floral print). I know, I know: you go to Austin for the first time in six years and eat sushi? But enough people I trust recommended Uchi, and we had obviously eaten enough of the state’s four-legged animals, so we up and tried it. I’m not even sure that I should attempt to describe Uchi’s food here. I have no comparison for much of it (such as the green tea, rice, and salmon soup; and the octopus lollipops; and the wagyu beef seared on a hot river rock; and the brown butter sorbet). The rest of it (sushi, seaweed salad, miso soup) simply was the best of its kind I’d ever tasted. A dish called kona kampachi, which was something like Korean bibimbop designed around Pacific amberjack sashimi, was my favorite. I tried that during dinner #2 -- we ate there two nights in a row!