Hi friends, this is a strange one to write. Perla’s caught fire on Sunday, and the details are further down. Before that: a Thai counter on Airport Boulevard that made a national list last year, and a free Sunday market on the east side. A word on Saturday, too, since the whole city is about to revolve around one kickoff.
Three things, as always. One place to eat, one thing to do, and one thing to know. Here is your weekend.
Eat, this week
North Loop · lunch and dinner · closed Mondays
P Thai’s is a counter on Airport Boulevard that landed on the New York Times list of the fifty best restaurants in America last year, which is not a sentence you get to write about many rooms with gingham table covers. Chef Thai Changthong was a James Beard semifinalist for best chef in Texas this year, and the place sits on Eater’s current list of the thirty-eight best restaurants in town. It started as a stall inside a supermarket and became a restaurant in 2024.
Order the khao man gai it is named for: poached chicken, rice cooked in chicken fat, and a fermented bean and ginger chili sauce that is the whole point. Get the combo if you want the fried chicken too. One thing to know before you go, because it will decide your table: every dish here contains meat, and the kitchen does not do substitutions.
Do, this weekend
East Austin · Sunday, September 13 · free
Saturday belongs to the football game, so this one is on Sunday and that is on purpose. Siete Juntos takes over Fair Market on East 5th from 11 until 5, free, with about forty Latino-owned makers selling jewelry, ceramics, plants, and zines. Vecinos Tacos is doing the food, Mariachi Relámpago and Roy Lozano’s Ballet Folklórico de Texas are performing, and DJ Cortez plays between them.
It is Siete’s own festival, and I will say that plainly rather than pretend otherwise. What makes it worth your Sunday is the room full of people who made the things on the tables, and the fact that Siete matches what you spend on food and drink with a donation to Latinitas. RSVP is requested and it ends before dinner.
Know, this week
Here is the one I did not want to write. Perla’s caught fire on Sunday evening, and the first thing to say is that nobody was hurt. The call came in at 6:14, the fire started in the vent hood system and went up through the roof, and crews had it out in about two hours. The cause has not been determined.
The damage is the part that matters now. Fire officials called it extensive and said it reached every floor of the building, and Perla’s is closed indefinitely. The only word from the restaurant is a line in its Instagram bio, that it will share a reopening date as soon as it can. It has been on that corner of South Congress since 2009.
I am not going to pretend to be neutral about this one. Perla’s is one of my favorite places in Austin. If you had a table booked this weekend, you need another plan, and when they reopen I will tell you.
Awesome Austinites
Photography by Rebecca Marino.
TJ Lemanski, sculptor. He has lived in North Loop since the summer of 2011, which makes him a neighbor of this week’s Eat pick. The work of his you can go stand in front of is on the hike-and-bike trail at Holly Fishing Pier: five concrete columns, each one cast around a dead limb gathered from the trail, then the wood burned out. What is left is the shape of the branch and the char where it was. A cenotaph is an empty tomb, usually a war memorial. His are memorials to trees.
Asked what he would tell someone who moved here last week, he said this: “You moved here last week? Well, welcome to the second half of Austin’s six months of summer. Find a neighborhood pool or body of water immediately.”
Dish of the week
Quattro Gatti Ristorante e Pizzeria · Truffle rigatoni
This week’s dish is the truffle rigatoni at Quattro Gatti, sent in by the restaurant. Local mild Italian sausage, sauteed and then simmered, and it has been on their menu since 2009 without leaving. Seventeen years is its own kind of review.
One more thing.
There is a free musical on the hillside at Zilker this weekend. Kung Fu Cowgirl was written and made here, it runs Saturday and Sunday at 8, and it costs nothing. Parking at the Polo Field is free too. Bring a blanket. Sunday is the better night unless you have no interest in the game, because Saturday at 8 you will be listening to the fourth quarter through everyone else’s phone.
See you next Thursday.
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