Although I'd love to see their hours expanded, restaurants like this having limited hours are huge for preventing staff burn out and for ensuring that they have the capacity to keep their standards high

Naka EndZone

I've never gotten shrimp there tbh. The sushi is good and their duck drunken noodles are excellent. Never been tempted by shrimp

If you're in the mood for American Bar food, Rochester Inn, Blue Goose Salon, and Hal's in the North Hills are all good options.

K Asian Bistro is very good Asian fusion.

BFG Cafe on Penn has a great gyro for an impossibly good price.

Angelo's is well known for great pizza, but they also have the best steak sandwich I've ever had (when they're on their game anyway. On occasion it's a bit underfilled, but even then it's delicious).

Abby's Jamaican Fusion in the Hill is awesome and the owners are so fucking nice. Their curry is decent, but having their jerk chicken for the first time was a real moment in my life. The brown stew chicken is also great. It's been a while since I've gone, need to head back soon.

Friendship Perk N Brew is an awesome lunch spot.

In the south hills, Sagun is great. Not a ton of Indian spots down there, so my wife and I ate a lot of Nepali while we lived in the area. Sagun is the best out of a ton of amazing Nepali restaurants we have. Really mind blowing momo.

Sam's Sun Sandwich has great gyros and baklava and Sam is a delight.

If anyone goes to just one of these, please make it Abby's. Really awesome place run by awesome people.

In addition to Fedd the God (the best in the city rn) my favorites include:

Guapo Lennon - sort of melodic trap, not super distinctive, but a good artist

Hardo - really nice, I like his recent project with DJ Drama and Deezlee a lot

Deezlee - the other half of that Drama project. I think hardo has better bars, but Deezlee is cool

Stunna2Fly - gang rap, good stuff. Similar to Jimmy Wopo, but not quite as good for me

Blacc Cuzz - a ton of talent. Most of his music thus far has been fairly generic, but the raw material is all there. Good ear for beats, some decent bars and flows, good hooks. Just needs to put it all together

Mayhem Mal - decent street rapper

My Favorite Color - doesn't really ride for the city it seems, but he's from here. Also a different, more campy vibe than the others on this list.

Reese Young - just okay to me most of the time, but worth checking out. Occasionally hits you with a great track

I'm a hip hop head with a degree in music composition. Our classical music scene blows Austin away. Our symphony is exceptional, our opera is very good and progressive for its size, we have a variety of active chamber groups, and CMU has a great program.

Our hip hop scene is sad, but frankly only worse than Austin because we don't have Houston and Dallas churning out great music right down the road. Fedd and Hardo are great and there are some other nice up and coming rappers, but we just don't have an awesome scene on that front. RIP Jimmy Wopo and Flatline Nizzy.

In no particular order and off the top of my head:

Thai Gormet Kabab King Sarafino's Angelo's Sagun

Honorable mentions to: Fig, Sultan Donor Gyro, and Gaucho

Bae Bae's vegan options are really solid

I'm an atheist who was raised Lutheran, so I think that's worth saying first.

Second, I think that you're missing my point. I'm saying that if one let's their Catholicism (or as I've recurrently said, and other sect or religion) guide their politics or their daily interactions with others, but fundamentally knows nothing about what their church believes, I don't understand them.

You talk a lot about openness and respect, but your church doctrine fundamentally is not about either of those things. Even at communion, the blood is no longer poured out "for all", but "for many". Your church believes that some how mortals need to earn their way to the grace of God through worldly acts. So, worldly acts need to be in accordance with the kinds of things God likes and opposed to those things he despises. If you don't understand what those kinds of acts really are, but spout on about what nations need to do to be more godly, I do not know what you're basing your politics on other than what you personally feel is good or bad.

Yeah, I understand all of this. But despite that a lot of people claim to hold a particular religious affiliation and predicate huge portions of their lives around it (even those who rarely attend church and aren't getting their dogma from a particular preacher). I'm saying that I truly do not know what is meant by "I am a Lutheran" or "I am a Catholic" (or literally any other sect or religion) when it is said by people who don't know what their sect believes.

I genuinely do not know what you mean by this comment.

The number of people who have get a "Catholic" (or any other religious) education and graduate without knowing even basic matters of theology is bizarre. This goes all the way through the university level! I have a hard time understanding what someone even means when they say they hold a particular religious affiliation when they know nothing about why their church runs the way it does. These same people often rely on their religion for moral and political guidance and it makes no sense.

Because people (justifiably) don't like landlords. You think that people in any given area should be happy that someone who already has somewhere to live is coming into an area that they literally don't know anything about (doesn't sound like you've even been there) and buying up property? When there's a so-called property shortage in no small part driven by landlords who have had no interest in performing improvements on their "investments" while they continue to profit on them?

Whether or not you're as good as a landlord can be is immaterial - landlords mostly fucking suck and you're about to be one if you aren't already.

Angelo's on Liberty

Like you disagree that it's a good Thai restaurant? It's definitely not the best in the area and it's a touch over priced, but it's pretty good. No Thai Gourmet, but the staples that I've had there have been at least good.

I mean, in defense of the north hills (food scene, not necessarily the people depending on the suburb), it's sparsely populated compared to the city and the other hills. Tough to support a great food scene when you're light on people and they all live fairly far apart.

That said, the north hills still has two of the areas best Indian/Pakistani restaurants (Taj Mahal, Kabab King), a great Burmese restaurant (Royal Myanmar), at least one exceptional Japanese restaurant (Sushi Tomo), several good Asian fusion spots (K Asian Bistro) a couple of serviceable Thai spots (Kanlaya for sure), California Taco Shop which seems to be well regarded in its lane, a couple of really good pizza places (Milano's and now the new Angelo's location), some decent Italian American spots (Silvioni's, Sprezzatura, Severina) and a number of good to great American food places, both pub style (Blue Goose, Rear End) and higher end (Hartwood, Brick and Barrel, Off the Hook, Napa Prime).

This is without touching any kind real local chain (ie Aladdins, Nicky's Thai). I don't think that it's really fair to say that the area lacks diversity, especially since it's so comparatively sparsely populated. I think that the real problem is that most people find a handful of meals or types of cuisines that they like and never even bother to look for a new restaurant or style of food. There's a lot more going on here than a lot of people notice and I think that's a shame.

All that said, I welcome Chengdu Gourmet and am pumped to make it over there.

It's brought up constantly anytime anyone asks for the best gyros, halal foods, butchers, local businesses, or for where to go in the Strip.

It's a dearly and deservedly loved local business and it's duly praised here.

If you're looking to stay around $50, you should hit thrift stores for sure.

Beyond that, learn to layer for sure. You can stay warm without breaking the bank by grabbing a 3 or 5 pack of decent undershirts at target, grabbing some sweaters and hoodies at the thrift store, and if you see a light-medium pull over jacket you like, grab that too.

If you still have some budget left, get a decent pair of gloves (leather or synthetic material with a nice liner is best, cloth ones just get wet and will leave you colder), a hat that covers your ears, and a scarf.

Source: born and raised in North Dakota

Edit: also if you or a friend have a Costco membership, I'm super impressed and surprised by the quality of the fall/winter wear. Really nice stuff