Rio’s Brazilian

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Location: Rio’s Brazilian – 408 North Pleasant Valley Road, Austin, TX

Connect with Rio’s via Twitter (@RiosBrazilian).

Menu

Mike Langford, Jeff Cutler dined on dishes that scared Jeff a little, but were off-the-charts in their inventive and delicious nature. As will the other venues in Austin, we allowed the chef to direct us to the best food. This included Salgadinhos – a general term describing all Brazilian savory pastries. Each is named by the shape of the pastry and type of dough used. We had Ben, the owner, just start serving us food. Mike had a Lagoa Bisque…featuring sweet potato and hearts of palm in it. Jeff had a Calo Verde soup that had bacon and sausage in it, and we all know NOTHING with bacon and sausage in it can be bad. We also had some Guava Juice and other tropical goodness.

Here’s another look at the items on the amazing menu at Rio’s.

Conversation Topics

1. MisoHungry!- Shout out to our coordinator on the ground in Austin, Jenny Chen MisoHungry on Twitter who made our shows rocktastic. She helped organize the venues for us and for that we’re eternally grateful.
2. Gary Lombardo!- Shout out to Gary who made the trek out to the outskirts of Austin to join us for lunch. Props to him for grabbing a taxi and joining us for lunch! He’s @garylombardo on Twitter and he was just one of the many folks who joined us in the studio audience for all our Austin tapings. Thanks!
3. Geolocation Craze – We talk a bit about the Gowalla and Foursquare wars. How people are using these tools and how they may benefit restaurants and other businesses going forward. Do you know where you are? These guys do. There’s also a bit of a concern that maybe too much info is being shared, that geolocation apps are being gamed by folks who want mayorships and points, and that even more technology is around the corner. Stay tuned!
4. Pacing Yourself When Away on Business- We chat about the complete exhaustion that can befall you if you take to the exhibit and conference halls at an event without properly thinking about pacing yourself, leaving heavy stuff at your room, and making the right decisions. You can’t do every party, you can’t carry a laptop or a 40lb camera setup with you everywhere. Even at a tech conference you might have to go low-tech and unplug. Grab a pen, a pad of paper, some cash and some business cards and have at it. Maybe a smarter recipe for success.
5. RANT! Mailing it in – Corporate Ambivalence - Ben at Rio’s was the perfect example of the company owner who pays attention to his clientele. But too often there are firms that don’t realize that people are becoming disenchanted with their products and services because of how they respond – or don’t respond – to the conversations and interactions going on around them. The coffee place that makes your latte incorrectly EVERY TIME YOU VISIT, or the cable company that might continually get your bill wrong, or the airline that starts charging you to use the toilet. These are all companies that are just moving toward the dollar and not paying attention to what people are going through. A prime example is government employees (and elected officials) who never spend any time commuting, so they have no idea that roadwork at 8PM could be inconvenient. We could – and did – go on for ages on this MASSIVE RANT.

During this Episode NomX3 Ate With a huge list of people. We still haven’t fully updated the list on our Twitter list but you can see the list of attendees here.

We are also very grateful to Brian Schwartz our fantastic editor. Without Brian we wouldn’t look half as good as we do. If you have video that needs editing or other rich media needs you’ll find no better than Brian.