Austin has no shortage of summer-like days, typically spanning from March through November. All that hot weather means there can never be too much ice cream, and who doesn’t like ice cream? Let me put it this way: show me someone who doesn’t like ice cream and I’ll show you a social pariah someone who hasn’t been to The Ice Cream Social. It’s a new breed of ice cream truck, less focused on junky novelties and completely focused on churning out small-batch ice cream with big flavor.
Hill Country Pierogi, a trailer near and dear to us all, just celebrated it’s half year-versary. That’s right, they’ve been spreading pierogi love to Austin’s locals and visitors for six months! To celebrate they broke out the booze, pulled off a guest appearance by Coolhaus, and threw a delicious party for all to enjoy.
“Coolhaus” is commonly my answer to “what’s your favorite food truck?” Why? For starters because I love ice cream, I love cookies, and I love things made my way. But I’ve written about my Coolhaus escapades many times over. This isn’t just another gushing about a good perfect ice cream sandwich. No. This is a whole new level of praise. You see, when it comes to being awesome, Coolhaus has the secret formula. So what makes Coolhaus so great? Let me tell you a story.
I get excited trying new trailers and I get excited eating ice cream, so Kat’s Ice Cream was right up my alley. Set up on South First Street in an unassuming trailer, Kat’s serves up homemade vegan (yes, vegan) ice cream. The flavors are built on one of three milk bases: soy, almond, or coconut. You’d hardly know it though. I’ve enjoyed what Kat has to offer twice now and need to share what my tastebuds got to experience.
With TV, news, music, and gosh darn near everything else available on demand these days, it’s borderline ridiculous when some things we love aren’t available at a moment’s notice. Well, today I learned of another life necessity that doesn’t depend on the schedule of others: Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches!
In the land of endless Tex Mex, true Latin food is hard to come by. Sure, there are a handful of restaurants that serve South American cuisine, but only one trailer (as far as I know) that specializes in Latin-Cuban food. Don Churro has a menu full of Cuban goodness including sandwiches, churros, and other traditional fare that sets it far apart from the other trucks in town.
Time for another installment of eating meets running. This time it involves an irresponsible amount of running followed by an irresponsible amount of dessert. To make it sound more responsible, I’ll consider it a heavy dose of calcium and protein to refuel and recover from a difficult workout. Yea, that’s better. Anyway, after coming across a blog post (how many bad ideas start off that way?) I got to thinking about accepting a challenge of skyscraping proportions.
On Friday my very typical 8am-5pm job shifted my schedule to 3pm-11pm. I know, lucky me. Who needs Friday nights anyway? Don’t despair! I took full advantage of my weekday off hitting up quite a few trailers all over, including SoCo, South Lamar, downtown and near campus. The lucky vendors? The Mighty Cone, Bananarchy, Patika Coffee, and Conscious Cravings. How’d each of them stack up? Spoiler: Wonderfully.
We have a lot of fun here on this blog with wordplay, double entendre, and of course, puns. You’d be hard-pressed to find a blog post without at least a little implied double meaning. As proof, Google finds 22 mentions of the word “pun” in my blog (not counting the 3 in this post)! What we’re celebrating today, however, is the literal nature of the blog’s name. The real intersection where running meats meets eating.
When you have a great idea and execute it well, you don’t need any gizmos or gadgets to win people over. The folks at Coolhaus have done just that with their made-to-order ice cream sandwiches. Their truck is petite, not much more than a freezer on wheels with a driver seat, but you don’t need much more than that for something as good as what they have to offer.
