Texas: The stopover that ended too soon: Part Three: Mother’s Cafe

on our way back north to the dallas/ft worth airport, we stopped once more in austin to get a bite to eat. our last departure had us at kerbey lane for an early breakfast, this time it was 3:30 which was putting me several hours behind on lunch. we decided on mother’s given it’s close proximity to other things we needed, and dan had already been there before, so we knew it was good enough to stop again.

one thing i noticed immediately was the lack of background music. i strongly dislike eating in silence; the sound of jaws masticating is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, but thankfully the murmurs of other diners bouncing off the high ceilings added padding to the din. according to dan it can get almost uncomfortably loud during the dinner hours.

i ordered the barbecue tofu, which the menu heralded as their trademark. the tofu wasn’t barbecue at all in my opinion; it was heavily blanketed in a mildly sweet tomato sauce. the tamari-peanut glaze underneath, however, was absolutely delicious and i would have loved to see more of the focus on it.  the tofu itself had a pleasing texture from being previously frozen and thawed, rendering it delightfully chewy.  the perk for me, however, was the precarious pile of green potatoes on the side. laced with fresh sage, these were the dreamiest mashed potatoes i’d ever had- not that it should be a hard feat, but the holiday glow the flavor produced was unexpected, especially in the sweltering summer heat. i’ve never much been a fan of black eyed peas, but as i expected, they went down easy when engulfed in tomato sauce and mashed potatoes.

dan ordered the mole enchiladas; on his last venture to mothers he had ordered enchiladas as well, but one of the other varieties and he remarked that they had been ‘ok’. these looked inviting, especially with the sphere of guacamole on top, but according to dan’s zeal, or lack thereof, something was still amiss. i’ve never had traditional mole-only my animal free renditions, and i couldn’t sample his either on account of being gluten-free, so i have to assume that his sauce was to mole what my sauce was to barbecue.

ah, yes. the desserts.

i sampled the gluten free mocha almond torte. i think i could have renamed this “black hole torte” because once i got in, i couldn’t get back out, or up. it was absolutely dense, decadent, and not too sweet. i could only manage a few bites though, as it was so rich i immediately felt ill. the leftovers were pretty fab the next day with a cup of coffee, but i still found myself wishing i had a vanilla cookie to break up the dark flavors.

all in all, texas has some incredibly vegan friendly cities to surprise you with. granted, we only had a few hours to spend and couldn’t really ‘dig in’, but austin alone is a town filled with food trucks, cafe’s, and bars filled with every kind of cuisine imaginable. even dallas/ft.worth, aka ‘cow town’ has more than just spiral diner to surprise you with, we just never have the time when we’re there to explore. we plan on making another pilgrimage through austin next fall, and with it will come plenty of belt-tightening spots for us to try.