Places to Visit in Austin

Recently my friends from Dallas drove down one long weekend to tour and “experience” Austin. As a student living downtown already, I was already tasked as one of the itinerary planners to see all the best Austin food and local scenic spots. However, not surprisingly for me, I was just as clueless on what to do in Austin, even though I have been living here for 3 school years.

Luckily, the google search results on what to do in Austin doesn’t actually mislead you, they in fact have a few good options. These included the obvious Austin public library, Zilker Park, and Mt. Bonnel trips. From there we also included a UT campus building tour and then we played it by ear.

Our Saturday ended up looking like:

• Brunch at Stella San Jac. This is a restaurant attached to the Westin Austin Downtown Hotel with a very green and pretty ambience. We ordered the Biscuits that came with 3 pieces and a side of honey butter which tasted very good, however a bit too salty with large salt rocks that were sprinkled on top. Their French toast was very moist and cake-like- which tasted amazing with the maple syrup and whipped cream. Everything also had pretty large portions, which made us really full by the end of this brunch.

• Republic square. the garden in front of the Federal Courthouse. We were passing by this on our way to the Austin public library when we saw a local run farmers market. There were local businesses selling baked goods, food, vegetables, and herbs.

• Austin Public Library. This library is of course one of the absolute places to go in downtown Austin, with modern indoor architecture, and a high rise esque building that has outdoor rooftops with a view of the skyline. A must go to see the skyline for free, or play board games with a group of friends.

• Intelligentsia Coffee bar. This small coffee shop has a modern and very wood like aesthetic with the baristas creating the coffee in the middle of the shop. They interestingly have matcha on tap, however according to my friends who are matcha connoisseurs, it tasted a bit too liquidy. I didn’t personally try anything here but the drip coffee and the hot green tea were alright. There was a Juiceland right next door though, which has really refreshing real fruit/vegetable smoothie/juices, however a bit overpriced with their sizes.

• After this we headed back to campus for a UT campus tour, including seeing the architecture in front of the mechanical engineering building, seeing the inside of EER, and passing by the boats and tower.

• Lastly we made a trip outside of campus and downtown to Austin Hill country to The Oasis. There were a lot of couples and families there and when we arrived there around 8:30, the waiting time for dinner was around 1.5 hours. We arrived just in time for some sunset pictures next to Travis, enjoyed the views and the live music, and then dipped to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant called Alo 5. This restaurant was not busy and had a nice selection of stir fry meals, banh mi, and simple vietnamese food. I and many others got the stir fry with a grilled or cooked meat plate that comes with rice and lettuce and really liked it.