The times? Double-dating with an age-defying University of Texas lecturer chasing after one of his students, who was best friends with the woman I was chasing. Their names are lost to me now, but I remember the food, because it was the first time I ever tried a crêpe. To this freshman product of the suburban tangle between Fort Worth and Dallas, the creamy taste of seafood with that gossamer French pancake seemed as foreign and decadent as being on Sixth Street at night with three people I hardly knew, eating at a place I could barely afford.
The memory is strong enough that I still approach crêpes as more than just food: Crêpes are a mode of transport. And they're on the move in Austin.
In the past two months, three crêpe trailers have popped up in the central part of the city. One's already gone, the victim of a fire and some bad luck at its crêpe-and-panini spot near the Mighty Cone trailer on South Congress Avenue. But two newcomers-on-wheels remain - Crepes Mille on South Congress and Crêpe Crazy downtown. They join the pioneering Flip Happy Crêpes trailer parked just off South Lamar Boulevard and made famous by Bobby Flay's `Throwdown' on the Food Network. Throw in Le Café Crêpe, which opened just before South by Southwest this year on Second Street, and you've got reliable culinary urban transportation.
Plenty of restaurants scattered across town sell crêpes as afterthoughts or as true badges of pedigree (Chez Nous and La Madeleine jump to mind, along with Blu Cafe, Buenos Aires II and a handful of Vietnamese spots), but the places in this story put crêpes first. Old Pecan Street Cafe makes the list, too, because everybody remembers their first time.
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Old Pecan Street Cafe
310 E. Sixth St. 478-2491, oldpecanstcafe.com . Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, until midnight Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays. Rating 7.6 out of 10.
It's been 28 years since my groundbreaking crêpe experience. So I sat down at this stubborn shelter from the Sixth Street storm with a sober sense of purpose and ordered quiche Lorraine. And until that egg-fluffed slice of ham-and-cheese pie showed up, I didn't realize my mistake. Growing up with no exposure to French cooking, I only knew two French dishes - crêpes Suzette and quiche Lorraine - because I heard about them on TV and they sounded fancy. I had reverted. The mind can be a terrible thing.
On the second try, I reconciled memory and menu with Crêpes de Mer, a mottled brown half-moon filled with shrimp, mushrooms and onion in a creamy, tangy white sauce lightly spiced with curry. I tried to conjure sordid memories of that scandalous UT double date, but the edges were softer in the daylight, and the crêpe wasn't nearly as intense or exotic, my perception of the cream-of-mushroom flavor softened by the French cooking I've eaten since that first experience.
Here's the new memory. For just $8.95, the crêpe came with a simple, fresh salad of greens, carrots, cabbage and tomato topped with nutty Parmesan cheese, plus a warm baguette, steamed broccoli with cheese and a big slice of sweet cantaloupe. All this was served next to an open window by the sidewalk, on white table linens, with professional service in a comfortable two-level dining room with wooden saloon floors.
The quiche Lorraine was excellent, by the way.
Le Café Crêpe
200 San Jacinto Blvd. 480-0084, www.cafecrepeofaustin.com. Open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays. Rating: 6.9 out of 10
The first brick-and-mortar manifestation of Austin's new wave of crêpe places was started in March by Chilean-born entrepreneur Guillermo Quiroga and French native George Dreyfus, known for his Dreyfus Antiques shop with the Eiffel Tower replica out front.
Yellow walls in this small bistro pulse with metal advertising and road signs from Europe. Small tables with mismatched chairs share space with counter seating along the windows. Outside, shaded tables dot the sidewalk, and at one lunch recently, those tables overflowed with people wearing badges from a teachers' conference at the Austin Convention Center nearby.
The crêpes here are made at the back counter, where you place your order and pay. Cooks pour big ladles of batter in a swirling motion on pizza-size black griddles, then deftly layer cheese, meats and sweets as the crêpes bubble.
Savory crêpes range from $7.25 for spinach, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes with Swiss cheese to $8.75 for `the Norwegian,' with smoked salmon, herbed Boursin cheese, basil and tomatoes. The salmon's strong flavor overtook the rest of the ingredients, and it was the single most expensive crêpe in this report. I started thinking about the wide world of lunch options at that price and thought this one under-delivered. I had similar misgivings about the price of the `Morning Crêpe,' with egg, spinach, onion, tomato and Swiss cheese for $7.85.
The $6.75 sweet options helped to redeem the value experience here, with simple combinations folded into pliant, perfectly cooked crêpes, including `La Fromagere' (brie cheese, pears and walnuts, drizzled with honey) and `Chloe's Crêpe' (filled with the hazelnut-chocolate spread Nutella and strawberries, served with whipped cream and chocolate sauce).
But I have to keep in mind that this is a sit-down place, with silverware. The cart crêpes are cheaper, but crêpes aren't exactly finger food in the same way burritos and pizza are. Crêpes are more delicate than tortillas, less sturdy than pizza crust, and the fillings tend to escape. Try to fold one into your mouth on the street corner or to balance it on a wobbly little trailer table and you'll appreciate the tabletop terra firma at Cafe Crêpe. The place also serves strong coffee, bottled beer and wine by the glass.
Crepes Mille
A trailer at South Congress Avenue and West Gibson Street. Open noon to 3 p.m. and 6 to 11 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, noon to 11 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 8 p.m. Sundays. Rating 4.9 out of 10
I question Will Sangritt's sanity. Not because he parked an Airstream trailer on South Congress Avenue between Perla's Seafood & Oyster Bar and the adopt-a-dog concession and decided to sell crêpes from it. And not because one of those crêpes is filled with dried, shredded, sweetened meat with the inauspicious name of `pork floss.'
No, I question his sanity because he moved here partly for the weather. The summer stuff. `It's hot and humid here, just like Thailand,' he said. The Thai native moved to Austin six months ago from Los Angeles, where he worked as a technician on documentary film projects, including food shows that sparked his interest in cooking.
Crepes Mille is a one-of-a-kind operation, a fact belied by the franchise-quality logo - designed by the owner - with fat, concentric white and red lines forming nested repetitions of the letter C, with a fleur-de-lis in the center to suggest the French roots of the main dish.
It's hard to see France from this trailer, though. The menu sports four main crêpes with disparate global influences:
1. The barbecue brisket crêpe ($5.95) featured a respectable version of the main ingredient, with tender meat and a tangy sauce that paired well with the eggy softness of the crêpe.
2. Pork floss ($4.95) was too sweet for me. And until I asked what it was, the dried pork's consistency - like cotton candy made of meat - freaked me out. Served with mayonnaise and sriracha hot sauce, this was what Sangritt called a fusion of Chinese and Thai styles.
3. The chicken `CrepeSadilla' ($5.95) was modeled after a Tex-Mex quesadilla.
4. The crêpe with crab stick ($4.95) was inspired by Japanese cooking, Sangritt told me. (Japan called. They want you to stop saying that.)
From the `sweet' menu, my favorite was a crêpe stuffed with fresh mango and sweet, sticky, purple-colored rice for $4.95. Drizzled with chocolate sauce and paired with a pungent orange-and-black Thai iced tea ($2), it was an enchanting dessert, even at a folding table with a patio umbrella swinging toward my head in a sweltering gale only my host could love.
Crêpe Crazy
A cart at Congress Avenue and Fifth Street. Open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Rating: 4.7 out of 10.
This was the tipping point for the Austin crêpe thing. I could buy the idea of a crêpe bistro, even competing trailers on South Congress Avenue. But when I saw this place - a cart no bigger than a ticket booth at a carnival - show up on the sidewalk across the street from the Frost Bank Tower in May, I thought its name worked just fine as an adjective, too: Crêpe Crazy.
The owners, the husband-and-wife team of Vladimir and Inna Giterman, moved to New York City from Russia in 1990, then to Austin in 1996. So why a crêpe cart now? `It has always been a dream of mine to fill in the missing gap of a must-taste food,' the husband said via e-mail. They plan to expand into catering operations as well, using a remodeled 1952 Ford parcel van, he said.
At Crêpe Crazy, you choose from seven savory and eight sweet crêpes. Savory choices range from ham and cheese ($4.50) to chicken pesto with spinach and cheese ($5.50) to a Greek-style filling with chicken, feta cheese, olives and tzatziki sauce ($6). A crêpe with sausage, tomatoes, mozzarella and a spicy red vegetable spread ($5.50) tasted just like a fresh calzone, if a calzone were wrapped in a paper-thin egg pancake and folded into a flat rectangle. It was hard to cut with a plastic fork and hard to manage by hand, a tough sell as a street food.
From the sweet side, I tried a crêpe filled with sweet cream cheese and sliced strawberries, dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with raspberry sauce from a Smucker's bottle ($5.50). The crêpe itself was different in color, taste and texture than its savory counterpart, the consistency of a flat noodle with a touch of sweetness. The result was more like a blintz, and I'd have liked more filling to balance out the doughy shell.
Next time, I'll try the simple crêpe with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon for $3. Now, if only that cart had room for a coffee maker.
Flip Happy Crêpes
A trailer at 401 Jessie St. 552-9034, www.fliphappycrepes.com. Open 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Check the Web site for occasional Sunday hours. Rating 7.9 out of 10.
I saved Flip Happy for last, because their crêpes taste the best. The grandmother of all the mobile Austin crêpe operations (well, maybe the cool aunt) has the pancake part down to an art, and they're not afraid to blast your fillings out with flavor when the situation calls for it, like with the garlicky kick of a crêpe stuffed with moist roasted chicken, goat cheese and sweet caramelized onions ($6.75). Even the fresh spinach side salad with tomatoes and feta cheese ($2.50) rings with salty, tangy flavors.
I've tried the Cuban (a spicy number with shredded pork and Tabasco), the Moroccan (chicken, roasted veggies and fragrantly hot harissa sauce), even a vegetarian crêpe with tarragon, mushrooms, spinach and goat cheese, each of them for $6.75, all of them wrapped like burritos and seven months pregnant with fillings and flavor.
Sweet crêpes range from simple lemon and sugar for $3.50 to peanut butter cream cheese with bananas and almonds for $4.25. The Nutella with strawberries is an understated triangle of goopy, chocolatey wonder for $4, perfect with a $2 iced toddy coffee with cream.
The only knock on this divinely odd Austin favorite is its favorite-ness, which guarantees that parking will be a drag (the neighbors are not amused) and the long, hot wait for the one-at-a-time wonder-crêpes will eat away a good part of your lunch hour before you even get to eat. Take a seat at one of the picnic benches under the awnings or the rambling collection of two-top folding tables and relax, if you can.
And if you're looking to school your summer-vacationing kids in the art of the crêpe (so they don't have to wait until they get to college like I did), this is the place to do it. They'll have lots of company.
Austin crêpe sampler
These aren't the only places in town to get the foldable French delight, but they get the job done in Central Austin.
• Crêpe Crazy, a cart at Congress Avenue and Fifth Street .
• Crep es Mille, a trailer at South Congress Avenue and West Gibson Street.
• Flip Happy Crêpes, a trailer at 401 Jessie St. 552-9034, www.fliphappycrepes.com.
• Le Café Crêpe, 200 San Jacinto Blvd. 480-0084, www.cafecrepeofaustin.com.
• Old Pecan Street Cafe, 310 E. Sixth St. 478-2491, oldpecanstcafe.com.
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