Haraz Coffee House, a United States franchise specializing in coffee from Yemen, has opened its first location in Austin proper at 500 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The new location is just across the street from the University of Texas at Austin campus.
Austinites may already have tried Haraz in Pflugerville, but this is the first location with an Austin address. It started its soft opening phase April 28, according to an Instagram post. Usually a soft opening means that the business is up and running in a limited capacity, or things are subject to change as staff find their footing.
Although Yemen is not a leading producer of coffee, its contributions to coffee are some of the oldest in the world. For Haraz founder Hamzah Nasser, serving Yemeni coffee is about culture and heritage.
The Austin menu according to online ordering platform Toast includes traditional Yemeni coffees with cream, cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon in different combinations; standard coffee shop offerings like lattes, cappuccino, espresso, and frappes; and coffee brewed in the traditional Turkish and Saudi styles. The pistachio latte is one of the brand's signature drinks.
There are also some non-coffee "refreshers" made with fruit, dessert pastries, and bags of coffee to brew at home.
Haraz Coffee House's Austin hours, according to Google Maps, are
Sundays through Thursdays from 8 am to 10 pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 9 am to 11 pm.
Tim Laielli is known for his visually polished yet thematically chaotic cooking videos.
Two social media chefs from the Austin area are testing their skills on a national level on Season 5 of Next Level Chef. Tim Laielli, Christian Alquiza, and other contestants will compete in cooking challenges, and if they make it past the qualifiers, receive mentorship from celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Nyesha Arrington, and Richard Blais.
This Fox show has a unique conceit. Chef teams work together in three kitchen stacked on top of each other, like a strange multi-story culinary incubator where the top floor's kitchen is pristine, with state-of-the-art equipment, the bottom floor's kitchen is decrepit, and the middle floor is an average commercial kitchen. Other twists bring added challenges.
The season premieres tonight, January 29, but Laielli and Alquiza probably won't appear until the second episode: the first follows auditions between professional chefs, including Houston chef Trinidad “Machete” Gonzolez, and the second (airing February 5) is reserved for social media chef auditions. The final group to audition will be home chefs.
Outside of his cooking videos, Laielli has a career as a wedding and engagement photographer. His camera skills and pro gear certainly give him a leg up in social media, though. His videos, served up via the Instagram account @barefoodtim, are feasts for the eyes.
Highly saturated, quick shots of food being cooked and plated catch viewers' attention while Laielli delivers a deadpan narration, usually focusing on a few highlights from the recipe, his family, and a sprinkling of political quips ("[these brownies] are so easy your 95-year-old senator could do it").
Laielli, who is based in Dripping Springs, has 1.4 million followers on Instagram and 910,000 subscribers on YouTube. He doesn't have an obvious signature style that viewers can expect him to lean on in the competition. If anything, his strength may be his willingness to try new recipes, often using his daughters' requests and cuisines around the world as a springboard (whether complying or completely ignoring them) into dishes like Thai curry, homemade McGriddles, and a lot of steaks.
Over in Austin proper, Alquiza posts videos under the punny account name @illsqueezeya. He's also worked for the channel First We Feast, home to the popular interview series Hot Ones, where host Sean Evans sits down with celebrities over a "gauntlet" of increasingly hot wings. Alquiza's show is Hot Kitchen, a snappy instructional show focusing on indulgent, dramatic foods like super-hot chicken and a 10,000-calorie cheat meal.
Alquiza's personal videos follow more of the standard food show format, with the chef speaking to the camera and offering step-by-step instructions to follow along with. Even though his image is mostly wrapped up with First We Feast, Next Level Chef considers him a social media chef.
The two Austin chefs have even collaborated before. Things seem to have gone well on the show, since both of them posed for a picture at Beyond The Lines Tattoo in Austin, with a text overlay revealing that the chefs got inked up together.
Looks like the chefs had a good time.
