Asian Pulled Pork/Kimchi Tacos inspired from Austin Photo Trip w/ Hyatt Place
We’ve eaten a fair amount of tacos over last weekend in Austin, Texas and one more fact of Austin food culture that we can secure in our memory books is that the locals here LOVE their tacos. 
Asian Pulled Pork Tacos
Even at a great morning coffee-stop in downtown, they served breakfast tacos alongside a well crafted cappuccino and hand-pulled espresso. Now, that’s a scene we don’t often find in Southern California. In fact, while our whole weekend was spent shooting with Hyatt Place and eating at the Austin Food and Wine Festival, so many different kinds of tacos were devoured that we left inspired to return home to another taco meal. Yes, eating and shooting tacos on location isn’t the easiest of jobs, but we were up for the challenge on this awesome trip with the new Hyatt Place Austin Downtown.
Since our first work-related stay at Hyatt Place in Atlanta back in 2010, we were highly impressed with the hotel and for a second trip to San Antonio, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay again. Because of their philosophy on providing fabulous hotel amenities that are innovate yet approachable, stylish yet comfortable. What we were incredibly pleased with are their plush beds, free wi-fi and spacious rooms with a “cozy corner”, which was an oversized couch that we can explode with all our gear and computers.
If any of you travel often, especially for photo-shoots, you’ll understand why any extra space is so valuable for laying out all our gear. Not that we’re slobs in need of big hotel rooms, but with multiple photo bags on top of our personal luggage we can use all the space we can get. And if you have kids, then you’re probably needing the space more than we do!
photographing the delicious beauties and then devoured
Coming down to their hot a.m. Kitchen Skillet breakfast buffet with all the extra breakfast trimmings such as juices, pastries, fruit and yogurt sealed-the-deal for us to return again and again. For more peace and quiet while we worked in the morning, we brought our breakfast up to our room. That was such a treat! We didn’t have to worry about finding a quick breakfast spot to get our morning fuel in a new town. All those special touches were downstairs waiting for us.
So when Hyatt Place reached out and wanted to work with us on a food, photo and exploration trip to Austin it was an honor to be working with them as a partner. Everything comes full circle when we can work with a brand that’s already been a part of our work and travel lives. Hyatt Place Austin Downtown is their newest location that was built from ground-up and it truly shows in every detail and quality service. The location is convenient and perfectly centered around everything in downtown Austin. Everything we needed was easily walkable in streets of downtown. That was so perfect because of all the calories we consumed, every block we walked was an excuse to be able to eat more later. Guys, this hotel is gorgeous and with their Coffee to Cocktails Bar and The Gallery space to Eat, Greet and Meet, it’s not a surprise that Guy Kawasaki named it “Best Hotel for SXSW”.
We also attended the Austin Food and Wine Festival, where so many tacos were to our plate. We were happy-hungry-kids in a playground of food festivities with some of the best local Austin Chefs, along with Chefs from around the country. If you’ve ever attended a bustling food festival toting a DSLR camera and multiple lenses, you’ll know that balancing a glass of wine in one hand, a taco in another hand and a camera dangling from your shoulder takes some serious skill.
At this festival, grilling happens on top of a fire truck.
We’ve done this many times before and can proudly say that we’ve never (not yet at least), ever lost a taco or drop of wine to the ground. What’s the secret? You need a second person that you can trust to hold your wine (or cocktail) and your prized bite while you photograph it before it melts/warms up. That’s our little photo-tip to navigating the photographic part of a food festival. It’s nicer to have a eating/shooting partner.
For our asian pork taco inspiration when we returned home, it’s one of our most popular pulled pork recipes: the juicy asian oven roast pulled pork recipe. What we added was some delicious spicy Korean kimchi for that extra layer of flavor and some shredded purple cabbage for crunch.
even without the kimchi, these tacos are fabulous
You don’t prefer kimchi? Then these Asian pork tacos are even great without it! Here’s another pulled pork recipe: Our spicy sriracha oven roast pulled pork. What ever you decide to make, enjoy each bite of taco and don’t forget the beer. And for all you travelers out there, book a stay at Hyatt Place because you won’t be disappointed! We’ve always been happy with them for the past 5 years and always thoroughly impressed!
Enjoy,
diane and todd
This post is in collaboration with our partner, Hyatt Place. And as always, opinions are our own during this whole epic eating and photo journey of Austin!
Asian Pulled Pork and Kimchi Tacos Recipe
Ingredients
For the Taco assembly:
- 16 Corn or flour tortillas , warmed or charred
- about 1 1/2 cups of kimchi
- 2 cups shredded cabbage
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- 2 medium limes , cut into wedges
Instructions
- Make the pulled pork according to the recipe.
- When the pork is nearly finished cooking, prepare the tortillas, kimchi and limes. In a medium bowl, combine the shredded cabbage and minced cilantro.
- When pork is finished cooking, add to tortillas, top with kimchi and cabbage mix. Serve with fresh squeezed lime juice on top.
- Enjoy with beer! and some fresh juice for the the kids.
Love the photos!!! Thanks for the inspiration. Out of curiosity, if you’d like to share, which recipe plugin do you use to get that “recipe card look”?
I made this for Australian Cinco de Mayo, but used a pressure cooker on the pork to save time on a weeknight (I grill it in the oven at the end). Even with the time-saver it was pretty freakin’ delicious (and a great excuse to use my kimchi which survived our recent Newcastle power outages). Thanks for the inspiration!.
That taco looks mouthwatering! Out of curiosity, did you get to stop by Franklin BBQ?
Hi Vy! We’ve been to Franklin’s before on a past Austin trip. But we didn’t get to visit this trip. Hopefully again soon!
My hometown!! So amazing to see how Austin the food scene has exploded the last 10 years. I recently visited an urban farm focused on youth development on the EAST side of Austin, unheard of when I was growing up there. Gorgeous photos and story, thank you for sharing! Will need to try this recipe ASAP. Can’t wait for my next visit in June – I’ve been gone so long it’s hard to know where to go eat tasty foods – tough life, I know. Cheers and happy eating!
I have been wanting to visit Austin for such a long time! What a great food festival this must have been and I love the shot of the dangling chickens! You indeed have some awesome skills–juggling a camera and food and drink is no joke! Love your on location work and the tacos look incredible!