Food Trailer Friday: Flip Happy Crêpes

1 comment

A new(ish) trend in food here in lovely Austin, Texas is food trailers. These gems typically feature specialized, focused menus and wonderful food served on disposable plates from the window of a trailer or food truck. They are run on love and sweat, and produce some of the best eats you’ll find in Austin. For reasons I can’t quite explain, I seem to find myself at these trailers on Fridays more than any other day of the week. It may be because many of them are only open a few days a week, or it may be because Fridays are a little slower than other days at the office so I have the time to enjoy the trailer experience which can take a while given that most trailers only have a couple of folks running the entire show. Either way, I thought it might be nice to share some of my trailer experiences as well as my sources for finding these trailers as many don’t have web sites or much marketing. As it’s always been, people will pass the word about good food that fills your belly and your soul. To try and avoid redundancy with some of the other great Austin restaurant review blogs out there, I promise to make my posts different (and hopefully useful) by:

• Pointing back to my sources for the scoop on my trailers
• Creating dish-by-dish reviews on Dishola to compliment my bigger take on the restaurant
• Including any useful tips and tricks for your first visit to the trailer so you can have the best experience possible

Flipping for Crêpes

I’m always a little irritated with myself when I hear about a local source of good eats from a national source, so I’m a tad ashamed to admit I first heard of Flip Happy when they were challenged by Bobby Flay for this Throwdown series (watch the episode online). I think I must have had my head in the sand because many local foodies have had much to say about them, including:

• Tasty Touring
• Maggie’s Austin
• Austinist

They’ve also been featured in national publications such as Food and Wine and they are fairly-well reviewed on Yelp although the Austin American Statesman’s review was neutral.

What attracted me most to this trailer is that I love crêpes but hate to make them, which is silly because they are so easy to make, but when I can have something I love not typically found on restaurant menus made for me, I’m all in.

Dishola Reviews

I had both a savory and sweet crêpe on my first visit to the trailer (and then needed a nap) and opted to go with more classic offerings to get a taste for the overall experience. The ham and gruyere crêpe with mornay sauce and green onions was rich and satisfying, just what I expected. The strawberry and Nutella crêpe was well-balanced and featured fresh berries and just the right amount of Nutella. I’ve reviewed both on Dishola and am not alone in thinking their classic ham and swiss is out of this world.

• Ham and gruyere cheese and green onions
• Nutella and strawberry

A few other menu items have been reviewed on Dishola as well, so if ham and cheese doesn’t float your boat, consider one of their other offerings. Flip Happy has also been mentioned many times on the Austin Chow.com board if you’re looking for even more opinions on which crêpe you might enjoy.

Things to Know Before You Go

• Flip Happy isn’t open every day. They are typically open Wednesday through Saturday and only for lunch. They post their weekly schedule on their site and you can even add their schedule to your Google calendar.
• Take cash or checks – they don’t take plastic.
• Get there early or plan to wait. Each and every crêpe is made from scratch and Flip Happy isn’t necessarily a well-kept secret any longer, so the lines can get long quickly. If you can get there before 11:15 or after 1:30 you’ll spend less time in line. Or, plan a long lunch with a bunch of friends and enjoy the wait while relaxing at a picnic table.
• Plan to share. The savory crepes are huge and the sweet crepes aren’t small, but you’ll want to have both. Take friends so you can have both savory and sweet, and possibly more than one of each, without stuffing yourself to the gills with crepe goodness.