Visiting some of Austin’s best LOCAL spots! (Hamilton Pool, coffee with a GOAT 🐐, & brunch!)

I don't all coffee shops have this. This is so much entertainment, so fun. Holy crap. Holy cow. Holy ham. I want to go ham on this. Today we're going on a little Austin area adventure and while we've filmed videos in Austin in the past, this time we're leaving the downtown area and even the city limits to show you guys some cool spots west of the city. And first up we're grabbing coffee from a place we wanted to visit for a really long time but this isn't just any coffee shop. Some would say it's the goat and they have a super cute mascot that we're hoping is there that we can meet. We came to a spot called civil goat for coffee but like we said earlier it's not just a regular coffee shop. They have a goat mascot named Butters that just hangs around outside the coffee shop and will interact with you and stuff. It is crazy cool and we've seen places or photos of this place for so long but we've never been here. We've always wanted to go and it's you can't beat getting coffee and getting to interact with an animal at the exact same time. So this place is pretty off the beaten path. It's in on a road called Cuernavaca kind of in the Westlake area. They do have a location north of downtown but that location does not have Butters so don't go there and expect the goat. You will not find it there but yeah I this is just even if the coffee was horrible which I don't think it will be like awesome experience getting to hang out with a goat at the same time. The coffee is not horrible. It's very very good. Caramel latte. The coffee is super solid also and they roast their own coffee and then they serve it to you these super cool cups. Clay maybe? I don't know but they're really cool. All right but enough about the coffee. Cue cute montage scene of Butters. Why don't all coffee shops have this? This is so much entertainment and so fun. We could have hung out with Butters all day long but we have a timed reservation at an iconic spot just outside of Austin called Hamilton Pool Preserve that we need to get to. Hamilton Pool is a naturally formed pool and grotto that was formed when the dome of an underground river collapsed due to massive erosion thousands of years ago. That is just crazy and now it is a popular swimming hole for locals ever since the 1960s. So there are a few very important things to know before visiting Hamilton Pool. First is reservations only and that's with or without COVID and the reservations fill up super fast especially in the summer so make sure to plan ahead. It's $12 to make your reservation online and that counts for your entire car of people and then when you get here it's $8 per person and it's cash only so make sure to get out some cash. Another good thing to know is that dogs are not allowed so you'll need to leave your furry friends at home and to get to the actual pool it's about a 0.25 mile hike. They say it's steep so we will see but at least it's pretty short. Here we are. This is super cool. Wow it's huge. Look at this. So I've been here once before probably six years ago in the summertime. In the summertime this place is popping off. There's tons of people out there swimming and floating and it's usually sunnier. Today's kind of a gloomy winter day and it's just like a really bright like green and blue color in the pool. You actually can't swim right now. They do close swimming due to bacteria levels sometimes so check that in advance because even in the summertime it might happen then you come here you can't swim and you'd be sad but there's still more to see. You can walk all behind this thing. The grotto. The thing is the grotto. There is a huge perk to coming in the off season in the wintertime when you can't really swim and this place isn't really at its like swimming hole peak. This place is way less busy than I've ever seen it in photos. There were two other cars in the parking lot when we got here so although we don't get to lay out and float and soak up the sun we do get to enjoy it with way less people. It's a little tight in here against the wall. So as you can see there's a waterfall here. It's about 50 feet tall. Just a trickle right now but after some rain it can really be a thick column of a waterfall. Super cool. I had never been here and it was every bit of beautiful as I was hoping and expecting it to be so we have to come back in the summer so hopefully jump in and splash around in the Hamilton pool but we are getting hungry and it is time for some breakfast. For breakfast but I guess technically it's lunchtime so for brunch we came to a spot called Texas Honey Ham. It's located in Westlake which is west of downtown Austin and if you didn't know about this place you wouldn't know. It's just tucked away in this little shopping center. Pretty busy little area but we've heard great things about this place for years. As the name implies they have honey hams but they also have a wide variety of other things like breakfast tacos which we hear are amazing, sandwiches and then some of the goodies that we got. Oh yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You said it felt light but it does not look like it's a light meal. No. Whoa. So what I ordered was the Benny. I'm so excited for this. It smells so good. Okay so on the bottom you can't tell it's there but there is a honey cornbread muffin on the bottom and then they lay their uh their ham probably a couple pieces of ham over the top of it. Then a couple eggs over the top of it. Over easy eggs as you can see some of the egg run off there. Then their queso over the top of that sprinkled with cilantro and cotija cheese. I could just sniff this all day long. It's so good. It made the whole car smell like queso. Yeah it's delicious smelling in here. Oh buddy. Dude that is so good. Oh man. All right starting with the honey cornbread at the bottom. Sweet nice cornbread texture. The honey ham is nice and sweet too and then you have the creaminess of the egg and the queso as well. Queso's got a little spice in there. Oh it's sweet, spicy, salty. Dude this is one of the best breakfasts I've had in a while. This is delicious. Wow. Way better than I was. I mean it looked good and it smelled good but way better than I was expecting before we got here. Holy crap. Holy cow. Holy ham. Yeah. Are you gonna go ham? I'm gonna go ham on this. Roll them sleeves up. So I have kind of a DIY situation here. I got this thing called the ballpark and it's basically a frito pie but with some not as traditional frito pie ingredients. But since it's takeout I'm assuming they thought if they put it all together it'd be really soggy by the time I got to where I was going which is the back seat of my parents car. So this might be really hard to do but we shall try. All right step one. Open the fritos. And here we have all the goodies that go on the frito pie and it's all mixed together so it may not look the same as if you came here and got this not to go. But we have their green ranchero sauce I think. We have some cheese. I believe there's queso and then on the bottom there's this ham bone soup which is made with their ham. So it's a spin. Instead of chili they do ham bone soup. It's kind of like the bulk of the frito pie. Oh my and there's pulled pork. Oh yeah there is. I forgot about that. And beans. This looks so good. It's also supposed to have a fried egg on top but I got that on the side so Adam could eat it since I can't. But that would just make it even better if I could have that. That green sauce has a little bit of a kick and it has like a really really really good tangy flavor the pork and the ham bone soup just have a really good smoky flavor. Pork is so tender. The fritos since we got to kind of make this ourselves in the car still have a really good crunch to them. Then there's like the cheesiness the gooeyness the wow this is the bomb. After seeing Adam's reaction to eating this I just had to get a bite and this cornbread muffin looks so soft. It's uh definitely less burnt looking than the cornbread we made at a garner. Never had a real eggs benedict but this version of it I don't know how you can beat this. So yeah like you said this place is just full of flavor. Everything is so dang good. Oh you said one bite. I'm gonna take three. We got every last drop we could. Job complete. We hope you guys enjoyed seeing more local spots in and around Austin. While downtown is a ton of fun and popular for a reason there are so many incredible spots off the beaten path that are worth checking out too. And if you want to see more of what we've gotten up to in the past in Austin we'll post some links to some videos below. We've got some really fun Texas adventures planned coming up so we'll see you next time. I don't know why I had to smile. And we'll see you next time. Why did I do that? Why did I peace sign? I peace signed too. I don't know. This is my Texas honey ham dance. This dish just makes you want to do it. I know both of these are. We're gonna have a party in here. Texas honey ham. Texas honey ham. What? What? Okay.