New Highland Bubble Tea Cafe and a South Congress Hot Dog Cart Open in Austin

Two of Austin’s newest food/drink openings are dishing out milk tea and hot dogs. First, Milk + Tea (formerly known as Ding Tea) opened a fourth location at 6929 Airport Boulevard, Suite 129 in the Crescent shopping center in the Highland neighborhood as of October 3. The menu includes a long array of teas, from hot to milk to boba to slush

And then, South Austin hotel the Austin Motel added a new hot dog cart to its grounds at 1220 South Congress in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood as of October 19. The Wiener Cart serves, well, hot dogs, including a traditional one; a veggie one; the Texas dog with a beef sausage, chili sauce, beer cheese, and pickled jalapenos; and the Chicago dog with a beef sausage, chopped onions/peppers, relish, pickled hot peppers, mustard, and pickle chips. There’s also pretzels and chips. It’s open from 1 to 7 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.

Thomas Keller dines in Austin

Notable California chef Thomas Keller visited and dined in Austin this week. On October 17, went to Tarrytown bakery spot Cookie Rich and casual daytime truck Goldy’s — owner chef Lorin Peters actually worked for Keller at the French Laundry before. And later that night, he had dinner at New American wine restaurant Birdie’s in the Chestnut neighborhood.

Uchi makes ice cream pints now

Austin-based Japanese restaurant Uchi is now selling retail ice cream from executive pastry chef Ariana Quant. The first flavor is based on its iconic fried milk dessert. The resulting fried milk ice cream is made with a sweet cream ice cream with mix-ins of salted fridge, dulce chocolate-covered cornflakes, and blondie bits. The pints are available at all locations of Uchi (including the South Lamar one in Austin) as well as for deliveries on Uber Eats.

Uchi

Texas burger chain stops using seed oil

Austin-based chain Hopdoddy Burger Bar is nixing seed oil in its foods through a partnership with cooking oil company Zero Acre Farms. The restaurant company is going to use Zero’s seed-oil-free oil instead of soybean oil at its Austin, San Antonio, and San Marcos locations.

Tracking Austin food events

North Loop sushi restaurant Kome is celebrating its 12th birthday through a bluefin tuna breakdown on Saturday, October 21, with free bluefin tuna nigiri for diners, as well as a free draft of Asahi. It starts at 4 p.m.