Hi friends, Halloween is Saturday, and the clocks fall back an hour at 2am Sunday. Early voting ends Friday, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3; in Travis County you can vote at any polling site. On Sunday afternoon, the Mexican American Cultural Center by Rainey Street holds its Día de los Muertos, free and built for families, and that is this week’s Do.
Also inside: Ezov, an Eastern Mediterranean spot on East Cesar Chavez built around sharing plates, and a change to how Austin 3-1-1 answers the phone, starting that same Sunday. Andrew W. Smiley, who leads TreeFolks, the Austin nonprofit that plants and cares for trees, is this week’s Awesome Austinite. And if the kids are already in costume, the last item is a free trunk-or-treat in East Austin tonight.
Plus the bats from the water and a pecan cake baked in the shape of Texas. Here is your weekend.
Eat, this week
East Cesar Chavez · dinner, plus Sunday brunch from 11 to 2:30 · hummus $12, mains $28 to $38
Ezov is the Eastern Mediterranean restaurant from the Emmer and Rye group, and it is on the Michelin Guide’s Austin list. The name is the Hebrew word for hyssop, the wild herb at the heart of za’atar, and the cooking is spice-forward and meant for the middle of the table. The restaurant’s own advice is “Order the hummus,” and the traditional one, with warm chickpeas, tahini, and za’atar, is $12.
From there, add the whipped Bulgarian feta with hot honey and toasted hazelnuts ($14), the lamb and beef manti in tomato ragu with yogurt sauce and chili oil ($17), and one of the mains, from a mushroom shawarma skewer at $28 to a pastrami lamb at $38. The wine list goes deep into the Eastern Mediterranean, with bottles from Lebanon and Greece. Reservations are recommended on weekends, walk-ins are always welcome, and valet is free on Friday and Saturday. Sunday brunch fills up fast, the restaurant says, so book that one.
Do, this weekend
600 River Street, by Rainey Street · Sunday, 1pm to 6pm · free
The Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center holds its 19th annual Día de los Muertos on Sunday afternoon, and admission is free. The heart of it is the collective altar outside, under the stairs: add the name of someone you have lost, with a note, and bring a photocopied photo or a small piece of art to leave there if you like. If Sunday does not work, the community altars stay up through November 7.
Danza Azteca Guadalupana opens the outdoor stage at 1, with folklórico dancers and live music after it, and Teatro Sin Fronteras performs Xochimiquiztli, a 30-minute puppet play about the Aztec origins of the day, at 2 in English and Nahuatl and at 4 in Spanish and Nahuatl. Face painting is free, so expect a line, and there is sugar-skull decorating, a pan de muerto demonstration, an outdoor market of local artists, and food trucks. It is family-friendly and alcohol-free. Bring folding chairs and a refillable water bottle. The MACC’s own lot has no general parking that day, so take a rideshare, park in the Holly Street neighborhood just east, or ride the free shuttle, which runs from noon to 7 between the Sanchez Elementary parking lot and the MACC.
Know, this week
For now, Austin 3-1-1, the city’s non-emergency line, answers the phone around the clock. Starting Sunday, November 1, a person answers only from 7am to 9pm, every day of the week, in a year-long pilot. Outside those hours, the city says you can still file a request through the free Austin 3-1-1 app, for iPhone and Android, or online at austin311.org, and a non-emergency police report goes through the Austin Police Department’s iReportAustin.com. If 3-1-1 is a number you call at night, put the app on your phone this week.
Meet, this week
Austin Bat Tours is built around the Mexican free-tailed bats that emerge from beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge, and the part most people don’t realize, says owner Dan Travis, is that you can watch them from the water, on sunset kayak, stand-up paddleboard, and boat tours. The bats are what brought him here: one year he spent 31 straight days photographing them, and he still calls that first wave pouring out over Lady Bird Lake “one of the most uniquely Austin experiences you can have.”
Awesome Austinites
Photo courtesy of TreeFolks.
One Austinite, in his own words.
Andrew W. Smiley, executive director of TreeFolks. He moved to Austin in 2001 after a lifelong friend urged him to try it, and stayed for the friends, the outdoors, and work that fit his background in sustainability and food systems. TreeFolks, founded here in 1989, plants and cares for trees, and he stepped in to lead it through a hard leadership transition and then the pandemic. His own description of the job starts the way you would hope: “I plant trees. Okay, I wish that were my job.”
Asked where he actually eats, he named three restaurants next to one another, all owned by the friend who talked him into moving here: “Sawyer & Co. for brunch and lunch, De Nada for tacos and margaritas, and Lil’ Easy for authentic Cajun food and Abita beer.”
Dish of the week
Photo courtesy of Texas Pecan Cakes.
Texas Pecan Cakes · Texas pecan cake
This week’s dish is the Texas pecan cake from Texas Pecan Cakes, made in Austin and baked in the shape of the state. The company sent it in with one line: “Handcrafted in Austin with San Saba pecans, our Texas pecan cakes ship nationwide, straight from Texas to your table.” The cakes are made with San Saba pecans, real maple syrup, and pure vanilla, with no preservatives, and their site has a flavor road map of the cake: the Panhandle has the chewy, brownie-like edges, and the Heart of Texas is the moistest part.
One more thing.
Tonight from 6 to 8, the Rodolfo “Rudy” Mendez Recreation Center at Metz Park, on Canterbury Street in East Austin, holds its neighborhood fright night. The trunk-or-treat is free for everyone, and a costume contest for kids up to 12 starts at 7:30, with prizes in four age groups. Bring cash: the haunted house inside the rec center (open at 6:30), the table games, and the concession stand run on tickets, sold on site for cash only from 5:30.
See you next Thursday.
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