downtown Austin's real estate and neighborhood blog
I’m gonna go ahead and file this under ” T ” for “Things I’m Really, Really Pumped About.”
$4.00/glass, $10/half-liter. Party.
Cafe Crepe: 200 San Jacinto Boulevard, Austin, TX, 78701-4028, (512) 480-0084
Hooray for downtown Austin families! While walking on the trail yesterday, we discovered this banner hanging from the Legacy apartments We don’t know Emily, but we couldn’t resist helping her family with the announcement!
My colleague, Simon Cawley, shared this with me. The U-Haul indicator is a simple test of migration patterns in the U.S. Put simply, it costs more to rent a U-Haul moving truck when the destination city is more popular than the origination city.
So what does it cost to leave Las Vegas?
Try $1,880 if you want to rent a 26-foot U-Haul truck, fill it with your worldly goods, and drive it to San Antonio. (In these comparisons, Nov. 3 was selected as the moving date.) But if you wanted to leave San Antonio (August unemployment rate: 7%) and move to Las Vegas, it would cost you only $437 for the same equipment.
Want to move from Chicago (9.7% unemployment) to Houston (8.4% unemployment)? It will cost you $1,970. But it will cost only $449 to make the trip from Houston to Chicago.
Los Angeles (11.8% unemployment) to Houston was $2,051, while Houston to Los Angeles was only $555.
Not surprisingly, there is a significant Texas premium. 🙂
9/25/2012: Breaking news….G’raj Mahal announces through their Facebook page that they are expanding! 2nd Location will be at 73 Rainey Street, and it looks like they will have live music. Check out our story on the details of G’raj Mahal’s expansion here.
7/3/2012: Updated menu below! Large groups should note that G’raj Mahal now only takes a maximum of 3 credit cards per order – no matter how many people are in the group. I was told by a server that this policy has been around for years, but I’ve been with several large groups there and June 2012 was the first time this happened, so I think it’s actually relatively new. This policy seems particularly odd to me personally because the minimum credit card order there is $10 (last time I checked, unless they’ve changed that, too), so logic would tell me so long as the total bill for each card is larger than $10, there shouldn’t really be an issue from a fees perspective. I guess maybe it has to do with the servers not wanting to take the time to run multiple cards? I’ve asked Sidney Roberts, the owner – but she has yet to give me a response or reason on the issue….will keep you updated!
Incidentally, it’s also worth noting that the gratuity for parties of 5 or more is now 20% (it used to 18%, per their older menu).
7/2/2010: G’Raj Mahal is currently open from 5pm-12am on Weekdays, 5pm-3am Fri-Sat. CLOSED Mondays. Also looks like all delivery will now be going through Longhorn Delivery (contact info on menu). G’Raj Mahal is BYOB!!!
Sidney, the owner also wanted me to let everyone know that the lamb is halal, blessed, and grassfed – for those following strict diets.
REVIEW:
If somebody asked me what I thought about eating Indian food made in a truck, my *go-to* response would be – “less good choice.” At least, that was until I tried G’Raj Mahal Cafe (no website yet, but you can find them on Facebook), located at 91 Red River Street in Downtown Austin. Ummmmm…super yummy!
This gem opened a couple of weeks ago, and when I had the opportunity to try it out the other day, I was very pleasantly surprised. I had the Vegetable Goan Coconut Currie with the Classic Vegetable Samosa, which was all washed down with a Mexican Coke:
Looking at the menu, I initially thought the pricing seemed way super high. After all, this is food made from a trailer. However, the food was made to order, tasted fresh and high-quality, and the portions were generous. While I still think it’s a bit on the pricey side, I also believe that it’s worth it.
**UPDATE 12/14/2009: The owner (Sidney aka Ms. GM) just contacted me to tell me: “FYI…We reduced our prices this week slightly for the entrees as much as we could. However, we use such high grade ingredients, we are somewhat restricted to obey our food costs. We will soon have a late night menu with $5-8 items like naan wraps, lamb burgers, Indian “taco” salad, and spicy goan sausages.” Once I’ve received the updated menu, I will post it.
G’Raj Mahal Cafe does table service and take-out. The table service I experienced was friendly (even deferential) and the overall vibe was good. I would note that there is no indoor seating, but the outdoor seating is covered, and what I would describe as breezy, surrounded by peacefully flowing pieces of gauzy white fabric. Here’s a shot of the typical table:
Overall, I think it’s a good, unique addition to the downtown Austin restaurant landscape, gives the east side of Congress a quality casual dining option, and is a small business that I will support. It’s just a few steps from our residence at The Shore Condos. My only real complaint so far is that it’s only open for dinner (from 5pm-3am everyday). I think a Saturday/Sunday lunch (business permitting) would be awesome.
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I live on the east edges of Downtown Austin, and one of my very favorite things about my location is that I can walk to East Austin on a whim. It’s like I get the best of both worlds. There’s soooo much happening on the east side of I-35, and many of my favorite retail/restaurant stops are located in East Austin.
One of the best (in my opinion) coffee shops over that way is Cafe Mundi, an earthy, hidden coffee shop with one of the tastiest, but simplest, breakfast sandwiches in Austin. I was dreaming of said breakfast sandwich this past Saturday, so I took a nice and bundled-up walk over. As I was removing the million layers of clothing I had donned for my walk, I noticed a postcard advertisement on the table for a farmer’s market called HOPE (which stands for Helping Other People Everywhere) Farmer’s Market – which is held near 5th and Waller. Cafe Mundi (along with Daily Juice, Moonshine, Big Red Sun, and the Austin Art + Music Partnership, and others) is a sponsor of the HOPE Farmer’s Market, described on their website as “a weekly community gathering space where local farmers, artisans, community groups, families, and urban consumers can find fresh foods, community programs, artistic creations, agricultural education and wellness workshops.”
Now, this has been going on since October 25th, but I’ll be honest, I am generally either working on a project or nursing a hangover on Sunday mornings from 11 am – 3 pm, and have not had the opportunity to attend. I’m planning on changing that this weekend and going out and taking some pics and doing a little recon for all the DAB readers. Stay tuned for updates!
