There is one good place to get a hot meal in all of Austin-Bergstrom airport, and it's Thurman's Old Fashioned Burger. It's bizarre but they do consistently have the best wedge fries I've ever eaten. Normally I dislike wedge fries because usually they're mealy and acrid and dense, but whatever they do to theirs (I think probably parboiling prior to batter-frying) they're super fluffy inside and crisp outside. These fries are so good I gave them a cameo in an upcoming novel.
It's perplexing because Thurman's is just a little airport-only offshoot of Salt Lick BBQ, an Austin restaurant that also has a food stand in the airport which produces the saddest, soggiest "barbecue" I've ever eaten. Supposedly Salt Lick is THE barbecue to get in metro Austin, but...not the one at the airport, that's for sure.
(If you want spectacular barbecue and are willing to travel for it, go outside of Austin to Pig Pen. Get whatever meat you want, it's all delicious, but as long as you eat pork make sure you also get a pint of the Baked Potato Salad. It's warm German-style potato salad made with drippings from the bbq pork.)
Anyway, at Thurman's you can get a quarter pound burger and wedge fries for seven bucks and aside from the fact that being in ABIA means I'm headed home to Chicago, it's the best part of the whole goddamn airport.
[ID: A photograph of the edge of a quarter-pound hamburger in a brioche bun, flanked by large wedge potato fries crusted in seasoning; one of them has been broken open and the fluffy white interior of the wedge is visible.]
