The Mighty Cone – The Quintessential Food of the ACL Music Festival is also Austin’s Finest Trailer!
Yeah…I know, the title of this post is a mouth full but so is the cuisine you will find at the Mighty Cone trailer! Cuisine from a trailer you ask? The answer is a resounding YES! The Mighty Cone is the brainchild of Jeff Blank Chef/Owner of Hudson’s on the Bend restaurant, one of Austin’s finest restaurants for more than 25 years! The story of how Mighty Cone came to be goes back to the origins of the ACL Music Festival. Jeff was tasked with organizing the food vendors for the new festival and wanted to set the bar higher than the usual food fare found at outdoor events. During the process he also had to develop a dish for his own booth at the festival.
The challenge was finding a dish that would still represent the highest quality of Hudson’s on the Bend while at the same time meeting the following criteria: It had to be delicious, easy to produce in mass quantities (while maintaining quality), portable, and also affordable for the thousands of music fans! One of the signature dishes at Hudson’s is the Hot and Crunchy Trout. It is covered in a ingenious coating consisting of corn flakes, sesame seeds, almonds, hot pepper flakes and other ingredients. The fish is fried (Deep sauté for those who fear the word, FRY!) and served with a mango jalapeño aioli and dressed with ancho chili sauce. Over the years Jeff and his staff experimented with a variety of foods and it turned out that chicken, shrimp and avocados were perfect! Oh yes, A V A C A D O S…are incredible served this way and vegetarian friendly too! Served in a tortilla nestled in a paper cone, the different offerings have been a hit from the very beginning. To give you an idea of just how popular these tasty treats are, during the 2009 ACL Music Festival, the booth sold more than 22,000 cones in only 3 days! Yeah that’s right, over 600 cones per hour! Word to the wise, get in line before you are hungry. They are incredibly efficient at getting out the orders but there will be lines!
Speaking of hungry, I am already starting to get a craving as I type this post. And I am fortunate to know exactly what I am indeed craving; a chicken/avocado combo cone and the great thing is these days I don’t have to wait for the ACL Music Festival. A couple of years back, Jeff opened The Mighty Cone at 1603 S. Congress #1, 383-9609 in the heart of the SoCo District. The trailer has been wildly successful and has acclaim locally and nationwide in the Wall Street Journal as well as other publications. The Mighty Cone will also be featured in an upcoming segment of a new Food Channel Network series about Food Trailers AND in a very special episode of one of the most popular talk shows on any TV network!
Open daily, weather permitting, you can stop by for any of the cones and they also have organic beef sliders, Blue Bell Ice Cream Shakes (peach being my favorite) chili dusted fries and an assortment of seasonal items.Every once in a while you can get Foie Gras as a unique topping to your slider! I don’t know how many taste buds are in my mouth but The Mighty Cone has something for each and every one! Once, when my wife and I were on the way to our favorite Italian restaurant in the SoCo District we had to cross Congress Ave. at the corner where The Mighty Cone is located and I found myself stopping in at the trailer for what I explained to my wife was, “an appetizer”! I figured I would just skip dessert at dinner and call it even!
This year I WILL be attending the ACL Music Festival and will definitely be stopping by for a cone or two. As a matter of fact, around 4:00pm, I am going to drop by and see if I can entice Jeff Blank accompany me to watch The Black Keys before the mad dinner rush begins! You never can tell though, the lines start early end it is well worth the wait! So, if you are at the ACL Music Festival for the next three days, in town for another reason or even better, LIVE IN AUSTIN you can stop by and enjoy something deliciously unique for diners in Austin, Texas. As the saying goes, “it’s the only time you can eat the best meal from Hudson’s on the Bend for less than $10″. And it’s just another reason we are enjoying living The Good Life in Austin Texas !
My name is Russell Lewis, I have twenty years experience assisting buyers and sellers in Austin’s finest neighborhoods. I am not all things to all people and concentrate the majority of my business in Central, West and Southwest Austin and the Westlake/Eanes School District. If you or anyone you know is anticipating purchasing or selling real estate and would like to learn more about living The Good Life in Austin Texas I would be happy to be of assistance. Email or call my mobile listed below for a private consultation at your convenience!
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