With menu items named mother plucker, dirty hog, and gotchie yo kolache, Gourdough’s restaurant can definitely be described as… unique. But a restaurant that can pull off doughnut burgers? That can be described as awesome.  

 Located on both south Lamar and South First, Gourdough’s caters delicious doughnuts and snacks for numerous Austinites.

 Most well-known for its fun and creative atmosphere, Gourdough’s ambiance embodies a rustic-Austin style – dark, aged wood, a corrugated metal roof, and gigantic wall murals. The restaurant has indoor and outdoor seating, parking right outside, and most importantly, a diverse menu.

 Looking at the menu, I was tormented between the restaurant’s popular doughnut burgers and its other entrees. Since I had a large appetite, my server recommended his personal favorite – The Country Clucker. The meal included a crisply fried chicken breast sandwiched between a potato doughnut, topped with creamed corn and candied jalapenos. The meal was certainly filling; I had to bring about half of it home. Although it was good, it definitely could have been improved by cutting the amount of creamed corn in half and cutting out the candied jalapenos which my mother actually had to spit out.  In addition to the Country Clucker, I tried a lighter meal called the dirty bird. The dirty bird was a lemon pepper chicken breast with grilled tomato, pesto, spinach, with mozzarella and peppers all in between two halves of a doughnut (not a sweet one of course). This was more enjoyable and easier to eat, although a little heavy on the pesto. Overall, these meals were good in theory and could have been worked on. But of course, that was before dessert came.

 For dessert, I ordered two doughnuts: the Freebird and Blackout. The Freebird came with cheesecake filling, cream cheese icing, graham cracker crumbles, and topped with blackberries and strawberries. The Blackout was the polar opposite with chocolate icing, brownie batter, brownie bites, and chocolate chips. Dessert was honestly a showstopper, and to this day I crave the Freebird’s cream cheese icing. The Blackout was delectable, but I could only eat small amounts of it because of its heaviness, although it was still enjoyable.

 Gourdough’s offers fair pricing, mostly at $7-$11 for savory options and about $4-$5 for its sweet doughnuts. Since these doughnuts are gourmet and basically the size of two regular doughnuts, I would say the pricing is quite reasonable.

 One thing that was noticeable at the restaurant was the great quality of service. All of the servers had a positive energy which showed they actually liked being there, and the food came out quickly.

As a whole, I would say that Gourdough’s menu has many delicious options, but if I had to choose between its savory or sweet options, I would choose sweet in a heartbeat. Although savory doughnuts are certainly original, it’s much more important to have good tasting food. If they perfected their savory menu though, I would certainly come back for more. Most importantly though, do-nut miss out on the Freebird!