chips and hot sauce - can't have one without the other

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say Seis Salsas again. And in Dallas, Gloria's (Salvadorian cuisine) has chips and a black bean dip-type-thing that's a meal in itself. Not that I've ever gorged myself on it and then not had room for the #9 special.

I like Seis Salsas with all them little cups of salsa to choose from. The place is usually packed. Very popular spot!

Chronicle readers say: Trudy's Runners-up: Chuy's, Cafe Serranos, Güero's Honorable Mentions: Z'Tejas Grill, El Sol y La Luna, El Arroyo, El Mercado

Trudy's has good stuff but I really like Chuy's fresh stuff. Alamo Cafe in San Antonio has excellent salsa as well.

Best chips and hot sauce 2000. Trudy�s No argument. Trudy�s is great. I just had migas there yesterday and the green sauce they put out was better than I ever remembered it being before. The chips are really fresh and I would they�re locally made. Chuy�s (�cheweys�), Cafe Serranos, and Hula Hut are the runners up. Guero�s Taco Bar, Polvo�s and Z�Tejas Grill get Honorable Mention. I would have to toss El Azteca in as one of my personal favorites for chips, and they�re down on Seventh Street in the heart of the chip making district of Austin. They should have a category for who makes the best chips, I�m talking chip factories, but that may be too

El Galindos come to mind as a superlative chipmaker, though I have no idea if it's the best.

I gather these chips are various sorts of corn. Our best ones (and they are pretty pricey, as well) are Taro chips. So delicous with our cream. The best are made in Hilo by Atebara who makes all sorts of chips from sweet potato to regular potato ones. Tell me the various sorts of corn chips available. We get them imported from the mainland.

The answer, from Infospace: C & C Bakery Incorporated 512-462-2277 3709 Promontory Point Dr # B Austin, TX Dos Hermanos Tortilla Factory 512-474-9655 2730 E Cesar Chavez St Austin, TX El Galindo Incorporated 512-478-5756 1601 E 6th St Austin, TX El Lago Mexican Foods Incorporated 512-476-0945 1700 E 4th St Austin, TX El Milagro Of Texas Incorporated 512-477-6476 910 E 6th St Austin, TX Fiesta Tortilla Factory 512-389-0389 3228 E 5th St Austin, TX La Monita Mexican Food 512-479-6566 2200 E 7th St Austin, TX Mission Foods 512-339-1247 9204 Brown Ln Austin, TX Romero Distributing 512-280-7088 130 Ralph Ablanedo Dr Austin, TX This is good information to have, now I can start a quest for the best corn chips in Austin.

Do you notice a trend in these listings?

Yup! Precious few Potato Chips made locally - if any! Can't believe nobody in Austin is making anything but Corn chips! No taro? No veggie (which tend to be too hard on your teeth but are good dipping) at all other than corn? Curious! How far from that Border are you, anyway? Must be more than Mexican chippers out there somewhere - or are they all up in Dallas-Ft Worth?

We're right smack dab in the middle of the state o Texas. We're a few hundred miles from the border.

Yeah, you really are, aren't you! Do potatoes grow in Texas or just corn? I can see where they might not be growing dry-patch taro to make chips, but there just has to be some alternative...doesn't there?

Potatoes grow here, of course. I just searched for corn chips, but I think these places predominate. Maybe Idaho would be the place to search for potato chip makers, close to the source and all.

They are famous for baking potatoes and other sorts. I guess every state grows their own - even Hawaii. We do import Idahos for baking though. Most of Austin's chips were of the silicon variety, I thought. No dipping them!

Don't visit Colorado for the chips and salsa... you'll be sadly disappointed. However, if you're cruising around and stop into El Tejado (S Broadway) or Casa del Sol (Colfax Ave) you'll luck into some pretty yummy stuff!

Trudy's serves pretty decent chips and salsa. And of course Seis Salsa is the be all and end of of salsas.

Is Seis Salsa a brand or a restaurant?? Where is it? (hoping, hoping, hoping we'll make it to Austin over Christmas time) I'm still quite partial to Chuy's very fresh stuff... at least in memory...

It's a restaurant with umpteen salsas as an offering. 2004 South First Street Austin, Texas 78704 Tel: (512) 445-5050 In one of the Austin Chronicle's "best of" polls they won this honor: Best Non-Alcoholic Drink Seis Salsas' Agua Fresca We are sitting at one of the lime-green tables outside Seis Salsas next to another lime-green table of people who are beginning to feel good. For their next round, they are ordering frozen and not, salted and without. When our drinks come - tall glasses of pastel pink and orange garnished with glistening slices of watermelon and canteloupe - we are smug. Our neighbors look over and exclaim in that too-loud happy hour way, "What do they have?" Agua fresca. Who can resist the urge to tease mere margarita drinkers with watermelon water? 2001 S. 1st, 445-5050

Sounds wonderful! I'll add it to the 'i want to eat here' list that I always compile before a visit!

I'll have to do a reality check and make sure it still exists.