7:30pm: We arrive promptly for our reservation at Dai Due. I made these reservations about a month ago when I read an article in Bon Appetit’s 10 Best New Restaurants issue about this restaurant. I thought it would be fun to have one fancy not taco or BBQ (or BBQ tacos) meal while in Austin. Dai Due is farm to table dining with a theme for the menu each night. Tonight’s theme is “wild card” which according to their website means they will feature “limited availability or esoteric items like wild game, foraged items and interesting cuts.” I am slightly worried at the description but I march forward. I’ve eaten snails and other offal with great success and enjoyment.

7:40pm: Dai Due is also a butcher shop so they are known for their meat. The menu is almost all meat options with one fish option; crab cakes. The restaurant is wooden with fresh flowers and herbs decorating the tables. It’s a nice feminine balance to the all meat menu. The menu features a number of interesting meat options including, but not limited to: a cold meat plate, venison ceviche*, pork neck chop, boudin noir & giant beef rib. Nothing vegetarian here; even the bread instead of coming with butter comes with whipped lard.

7:45pm: We order the cold meat plate to start. Emily is adventurous and tells us all how she loves organ meat. Can’t get enough organ meat. She’s really into tripe (animal stomach) tacos, which apparently are a common Mexican thing? Emily asked what boudin noir is; it’s blood sausage. She orders the blood sausage. Gabby sticks to her guns and gets crab cakes. She’s not one for adventurous eating. Chris orders a pork chop; also less adventurous. I get a confit of boar meat.** I was hoping they would feature more organ meat on the menu but sadly I just had to settle for the chicken liver mousse on the cold meat plate.

7:50pm: Cold meat plate arrives and is way less gross than its name. It’s mostly just different types of charcuterie with a meat mousse. I love salami almost as much as I love hotdogs so I am quite pleased with this appetizer. I don’t need any of those premium cuts; just some weird animal parts you ground up with salt and then put into an intestine. Yum. Waste not; want not.

8:15pm: Our food arrives. Feelings on dinner are mixed. Emily hates her blood sausage. I try some and it is sort of gross and bland. It also isn’t the texture of a normal sausage but instead very dry? Apparently this is the usual texture of blood sausage since it’s coagulated blood. However, it comes with mashed potatoes and baked apples, so everything on her plate is just bland and mushy. Yuck. Gabby’s crabcakes are good but nothing to write home about, I’ve had better in Delaware. Chris’s pork chop is really good and it comes with nice homemade sauerkraut. My boar confit is good but a little dry for a confit. It seems like they confited it and then put it back together and fried that meat cube which seemed unnecessary… I feel like sometimes chefs try to get too creative and are like let’s smoke it and then cook it and then raise it and then just like put some foam on top. WOO

9:00pm: We go to the Haymaker because Chris described it as a bro-y University of Texas bar. I was excited but once inside it seemed like most of the clientele were just old regular adult people. BORING. I was hoping to find my new sporty UT boyfriend who would buy me shots of fireball. Sadly that hope is dashed.

9:30pm: The water glasses at all the Texas restaurants are also gigantic! About 36 ounces of water, which is good because I am very thirsty from how big the drinks are but also bad because they are physically hard to drink from them. Being a graceful lady, I spill an entire glass ice and all onto Emily while trying to drink from one. We promptly leave.

*I don’t even understand how this could be a thing. I am gonna take a hard pass on slightly raw deer meat. I will save that delicacies for the apocalypse when we will all be feasting on raw deer meat and the blood of our enemies.

**Maybe a lingering lust from the wild boar we saw in animal kingdom! Sorry Pumba; it's the circle of life.