If you’ll be in Austin for SXSW this year, at some point you might want to eat. Yeah, eating seems almost primitive when there are so many other things you could be doing, but trust me, you’ll need sustenance. And hoo boy, are there ever plenty of eating establishments to choose from – too many to list here, in fact. To make life a little easier for you, we gathered a list of the places here in Austin that make our stomachs happy:

"Ok, so my must-eat Austin restaurant is: Zocalo Café. Tired of Tex-mex? Then Zocalo is the place for you. This modern, Mexican-food hot spot is reasonably priced and features fresh, delish interior Mexican food. My recommendations? Try the burrito with fajita-steak, topped with their verde sauce. It's wonderful. And, don't forget the chips and salsa -- to die for! I definitely crave this place often and love to take visitors here for a fiesta treat!"  - Shelby
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"Especially for SXSW, people SRSLY need to go to Casino El Camino on 6th street and fill themselves with their beer and burgery goodness! I love going there any time with friends because of its location and laid back vibe, but it is especially a great hotspot for SXSW festival attendees and volunteers. It has a cool Austin/punk rock/rockabilly atmosphere on the inside and a great outdoor patio with a fountain (and a view of the Hilton). If you drop by during southby, you might just run into a few of your fav bands--I had a the pleasure of a run-in with the Scottish group Glasvegas last year, who just happened to be chilling out in an upstairs booth after a gig at the Mohawk." – Amy
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"I have a thing for the French. I know, you can harass me all you want about this, but I won’t listen. Therefore, I must recommend Justine’s – a cool, off-the-beaten-path spot with a simple, French-inspired menu, including the best crème brulee I’ve had this side of Paris. The only complaint most people have about Justine’s is the wait time for a table, so get there early if you can." – Breanna
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"If I want to take a friend for tex-mex and margaritas (or Mexican martinis), Trudy's is my first choice. The atmosphere is fun, the food is good, the booze is better and in nice weather, you can even sit outside. My other favorite place in Austin is the Eastside Cafe. It's in a cute old house and many of their delicious dishes feature veggies homegrown in the garden behind the restaurant. Tasty + environmentally friendly = All-around awesome." – Maia
Map it (Trudy’s)!
Map it (Eastside Café)!

"If you need a good brunch spot, you can’t go wrong with Galaxy Café. Their coffee and French toast filled with fresh strawberries and bananas is a not-to-be-missed culinary experience!" – Merritt
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"Go to Oasis for the scenery – horrible food, but views that make you feel like you're immediately on vacation. If you do care about food, go to East Side Showroom. Dark,mysterious and oh so tasty." – Kelly
Map it (Oasis)!
Map it (East Side Showroom)!

"Two words you won't normally find together--classy and cajun--make Gumbo's one of the best off-the-beaten-path Austin locales. After dinner head next door to Brown Bar for some of the best Martinis in town." – Rusty
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And because I'm so generous I just plain love food, here are a few more links you might find helpful in your gastronomical quests:

Some tips on Eating Healthy at SXSW via The Raw Foods Witch

Addie Broyles at the Austin-American Statesman is keeping an updated list of SXSW food parties – check back often for new entries.

Natanya Anderson of Fete and Feast (one of my favorite local food blogs) has created the Austin Food Lovers’ Companion. She also whipped up a Food Blogger’s Guide to Austin, with links to other fantabulous local bloggers. 

As I mentioned in my last post, a few members of our team attended Video Camp Austin on Saturday. We had a great time! There were so many smart people to meet and learn from. The organizers used a “bar” style for the conference, where anyone could speak, you could attend any session and jump freely to another session if you wanted, and communication and interaction were strongly encouraged (after all, the vast majority of attendees were social media nerds – what do you expect?).

It would take days for me to recap every session we attended, but I wanted to share a few juicy tidbits that I rounded up from fellow P&P pals and my own notes:

- Video shouldn't be intimidating. Everyone has the power to do it, and it doesn't take thousands of dollars to create interesting video content online.

- Online video is really a piece of your virtual press kit--consider it an audition for TV.

- Some tips from SEO genius Chris Justice: consider trigger words and phrases when scripting video; identify the emotion you want your viewer to feel (emotion > comedy); imperfection is more trustworthy; consider where your video should be used.

- Saying to someone, "Hey! I follow you on Twitter!" isn't nearly as creepy as you think it would be.

- People want to do business with people. Not corporations.

- There's a video to fit every client's need.

- Customers want to see real people in a video (as opposed to illustrations or animation). It builds more trust.

- Emotion is the number one driving factor behind everything. Google is even measuring it now. Super secretly (um, scary?).

- Flip cams and cell cams could very well dictate the future of blogging.

- When making video, consider how it will look when viewed on a Blackberry or iPhone.

- Steve Garfield’s three elements for making a good video: spectacle, story, emotion.

- I love PetRelocation.com’s Pup in the Air series – what a cool opportunity to use online video to build trust and tell a story.

- The Kodak Zi8 seems to be the most popular camera for online video production – it’s (relatively) affordable and easy to use.

- Flickr can be used for more than just a place to showcase your amateur photography: you can increase SEO by uploading relevant pics, tagging them and commenting on them with your website URL included.

- ChannelAustin is a fantastic resource to the community – check out their website for information and tips.

- Letting your mom run a blog could be really entertaining.

- Talmadge, Dave, and Weston (the camp’s co-creators) are really cool.

- Austin is awesome (did we say that already?).


You know what’s awesome about living and working in Austin? There are so many cool, smart, tech-savvy people here. Not only that, but they’re more than willing to share their knowledge with less tech-savvy (although equally cool and smart…hopefully) people.

On that note, we’re really excited about participating in Video Camp Austin this weekend. This one-day event will bring together public relations, marketing, video, and social media professionals to learn about best practices in online video production and distribution. And it’s FREE. And there will be FOOD. Two of my favorite words in the English language.

Oh, you didn’t know video was so important? Well, it is. We got a little taste of what Saturday’s camp will bring at the Social Media Breakfast on Tuesday, thanks to Talmadge Boyd and Weston Norton of Reel Social Media. With better and cheaper technology, and of course the internet, making and distributing videos is easier than ever before. Video is one of the best ways to spread information and engage consumers - after all, YouTube is highly ranked in Google searches and has more than 100 million visitors. Our team is especially looking forward to learning about new ways to help our clients reach their readers.

If you aren’t going to this weekend’s camp, you can check out the Reel Social Media blog for lots of how-to’s and examples. We’ll be sure to share what we learn here on our blog as well!