The Mighty Cone

Street fair and festival foods are certainly a favorite category. You don't need utensils, food items are generally pretty easy to eat, and deep fried items are certainly in abundance. Mmmmm.....how can you go wrong?! One of the newest trailers to hit Austin was born at the Austin Music Festival by the wild game enthusiasts at Hudson's on the Bend. What apparently was a huge hit for Hudson's at the hot and dusty ACL is now a "permanent" fixture, and not just for one weekend in September. The Mighty Cone has now reared its pointy little head.

Situated on our hip South Congress Ave (SoCo), The Mighty Cone is in the same lot (someday to become high end apartments or will the economy kill that plan?) with Hey Cupcake, one of the early entries into Austin's trendy trailer/airstream eateries. They've barely been open a week, but this is the time to get your doors open, as multitudes of hungover SXSW party-goers could use a little fried food to cure what ails them. A report from over the weekend said the line was around the block at lunchtime. My friend and I decided to brave it anyway, heading over on St. Patty's Day. Fortunately, at 11:45 am, we beat any lunch crowd, though we were hardly the only ones there.

As you can see from the menu board, it's not an extensive list of offerings....but from this first taste of it, I'd say what they do, they do well. (But I would expect that from the folks at Hudson's.) I got the Crunchy Chicken Cone, my friend the Deluxe Chicken & Avocado Cone, and we split an order of fries. Their crunchy eats are coated in a cornflake crust with sesame seeds, and fried beautifully, as there was no grease whatsoever. Did I mention tasty? Really tasty. The tortilla-wrapped chicken was very crisp, and served with a cole slaw with a creamy, spicy dressing on it, a nice amount of heat. You can make out the shape of the corn flakes, since they're not totally pulverized. The thin cut fries were also fried to perfection and a bit of chili powder sprinkled over them. The red picnic tables are outfitted with cone holders, a definite necessity. My only complaint is that the slaw slid down to the bottom of the cone, making it a bit hard to eat without a fork....such is life, I suppose. I was totally happy with the chicken, and the chicken-avocado got high marks too.

Saw some sliders being eaten; they too are served in a cone and looked pretty yummy. Didn't see any desserts coming out, but they sound so good, I'll have to return for them -- funnel cake and a wild turtle cone! And as the side of their trailer says: eat at Hudson's for under $10!