Chili Bob's Houston Eats

Pyburn's Food Market

2012-01-17T10:56:00.000-06:00

12675 Fondren (2 blocks north of S. Main)

My family's route into the big city when I was growing up in Brazoria Co. was right up the old 288 which became Almeda Rd. and would take you right downtown. We must have passed the original Pyburn's in Almeda hundreds if not thousands of times. I seem to remember it was usually busy but we never had any reason to stop. So it was news to me when I read in the Press a year ago that they were noted for their boudin and dirty rice and I made a note to stop in sometime. Perhaps I'd make a nostalgia trip down the old highway some day (now known as FM 521 which actually was the original designation going back to the 1930s, I think).

Now I don't have to. The grocery store has come to me, or, at least, my part of town. This new location of Pyburn's has only been open a short time. I seldom go down that far on Fondren but had seen some work underway recently on the building which previously was a short lived independent meat market. It's not close enough to me to be my regular neighborhood grocery but it's a heckuva lot closer than Almeda Rd.

It has quickly become popular and has been doing a good business when I've been by or stopped in, partly due to the lack of any viable competition for quite some distance no doubt, but it's a nice, clean and well lit facility, more like a small grocery store of decades ago or the Pantry stores that HEB made it's first entrance into the market with - there are somewhat narrower aisles and taller shelving. The staff I have encountered is very friendly and helpful. The meat department is a standout section with butchers at the ready and it has a complete line-up of the home store's noteworthy boudin, dirty rice and other sausages. The boudin is predominantly rice but also includes chicken liver and gizzards, yellow and green onion, pork, bell pepper, parsley, garlic and black and red pepper. The natural casing crisps up and has a nice snap to it when roasted or smoked. It's a firm boudin, not one that dissolves into a soup when cooked. I'll be tossing several links of the mild on the smoker in a while; I'm headed to a potluck get-together this evening and I'll be fishing for copious compliments.

There's an in-store hot-foods deli due to be operational in a few weeks. I don't know what kind of foods they'll be offering but I'm looking forward to finding out what else comes out of Pyburn's kitchen.

Arepas y Empanadas Dona Maria

2012-01-02T15:26:00.011-06:00

1315 E. 1st Street (aka FM 1960B East), Humble

I first encountered this place just over 5 years ago. While tending to some business in Humble I happened across the trailer in the driveway of a large convenience store/gas station and pulled in. As I recall I wasn't even aware it was Venezuelan until I got within reading distance of the menu.

I was very impressed with the freshly fried, beautifully golden empanadas. It was my first experience with Venezuelan food and it was something of a revelation to encounter these little fried pies made with a corn instead of wheat based dough. I've also come to appreciate the fact they were freshly prepared as most Venezuelan (and Colombian) places prepare these in advance and keep them under heat lamps.

I stopped by a couple of times that week but have never had reason to go back to Humble until last month, when I thought I'd pick up an hallaca for my hallacas report. I wasn't that surprised to find that the cart was no longer there and mentioned in my report that it seemed to have gone out of business. I hadn't been worried because I thought a trip to Humble would be a good scouting trip anyway and I drove around all over downtown Humble hoping to spot it or a brick and mortar replacement, but to no avail.

After I posted that report I received a tip by email that there is a brick and mortar replacement and even a listing on Yelp! and, of all places, b4-u-eat.com. Sometimes I forget to check in the most obvious places. Still hoping to nab an hallaca or two I made a second trip to Humble and discovered I had passed right by the place and missed it, partly because the strip center it's located in doesn't face 1st Street but rather a small side street/driveway that's named Artesian Place, and it's rather far back from 1st Street. If I had been looking for a flag rather than a trailer or restaurant, I might have noticed the Venezuelan flag planted at the corner and flapping in the breeze but I didn't. (BTW, I've also received a tip there's a Puerto Rican place in Humble - there's a Puertorrican flag on the banner - and I spotted a big Indo/Pak grocery store. Who knew Humble was such an international city?)

I arrived too late for this year's supply of hallacas but I tried the other Venezuelan treat that's become a favorite, the Patacone, a sandwich which substitutes mashed, fried plantain slices for bread. This is the version with chicken, Patacon de Pollo, as they were out of the Carne Mechada. I wish they had had the beef so I could make a more direct comparison to all the others I've had but I have to say I really liked this with it's very thin plantain that was as crispy as kettle potato chips and seemed to soak up less grease that the much thicker slices I've encountered everywhere else.

I was presented with four sauces - I think these are all considered variations of guasacaca. What's a poor, non-Venezuelan boy to do? I had no idea which one would be best so I used all four, making for a wonderfully, wonderfully messy and tasty sandwich (the basic ingredients include cheese, ketchup and mayo).

The menu includes the usual arepas, cachapas, tequenos, empanadas and pastelitos plus Pabellon Criollo and Hervido de Res con Arepa (beef soup). Patacones are available with beef, chicken, pernil and queso de mano. There are hamburgers made with beef or chicken available with egg and avocado added plus Pepitos which are Venezuelan versions of po'boys dressed with cabbage, parmesan cheese and potato sticks. There are also tacos, tortas, burritos and pupusas. The restaurant is open Monday thru Saturday, 7a - 7p.

Dona Maria is already at the top of my list for my hallacas roundup next year and I hope to find an excuse to make the trip to Humble again before then to try some of the other items on the menu.

Local Foods

2011-12-24T12:50:00.015-06:00

2424 Dunstan

This new sandwich shop in the Village, next door to and owned by benjy's, has been getting lots of positive reviews in the short time it's been open, in the press and on user review sites. And unlike the flurry of rave reviews that frequently accompany new places on user review sites, these accolades actually seem to be written by someone other than the owner, sitting at the keyboard, menu propped up alongside. (Disclaimer: I have the menu propped up next to the keyboard, but I am not the owner). Local Foods serves a small menu of sandwiches, soups and salads made from locally sourced ingredients. It occupies the space formerly occupied by the Original Antone's Po Boy shop, which has moved out on Bellaire at Wesleyan.

I had noted the raves about the seafood sandwich with Gulf shrimp and Texas Blue Crab. Well, I have had this thing about seafood of late so I was off to try it.

Very impressive, and a very generous sandwich and sides for the price - tender shrimp and crab with house-made green goddess dressing. Best sandwich ever? as some have raved. Well, I don't know about that but it's certainly in the running as best seafood sandwich I've ever had. I felt I was going to be hard-pressed to bring myself to try anything else on the menu.

For my sides I chose the Tuscan kale with golden raisins and toasted pine nuts and the white bean, bacon, grape tomato and dill and was equally pleased.

My dining companion went for the house-made pastrami with caraway sauerkraut and provolone on rye. He pronounced himself very satisfied. I got to sample only a small bit of this but definitely plan to try one for myself one of these days. He was not that pleased with his sides, red skinned potato, oregano, sherry vinegar and dijon aioli and the quinoa, olive, carrot and oregano. He said they both needed salt; I didn't try either of them.

On another visit, I tried the Avocado, Potato, Leek and Chive soup, topped with house-made potato crisps with a side of the butternut squash, cilantro, red chili and Thai basil. Though I didn't taste much avocado the soup really hit the spot and once again I was very pleased with the side, but at $4 for a 1/3 to 1/2 cup portion, sides ordered a la carte are kind of pricey.

I had seen bags of benjy's blend from Katz's on display on my first visit but didn't spot any coffee being served; on my second visit, there were airpots of coffee, leaded and decaff, in another corner, a welcome addition.

On my first visit on a blustery, balmy autumn day, the doors had been propped open, the winds occasionally gusting into the interior, the trees in the parking lot swaying constantly, I felt far removed from the hustle of the big city, almost like I was at some seaside cafe overlooking a coastline (not the Texas coast, either). I loved the eclectic seating and minimalist decor. My second visit came on a shiveringly cold day, however, and with the doors closed, the hard surfaces of the walls and floor and glass reflecting sounds made the space seem very impersonal and harsh. Nevertheless this is a welcome addition to the small list of places in the Village I'm willing to hazard the traffic and parking situation to take advantage of.

Local Foods

Total Catch Market

2011-12-17T17:00:00.009-06:00

4410 W. 12th Street

I first heard about Total Catch Market last spring when it opened but it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I stopped by to check it out. Since then it’s become a regular Saturday morning trek for me and seafood has been a lot bigger part of my diet that ever before.

Though I grew up within 15 miles of the coast, seafood was never a big part of my family’s diet. The fish we ate came out of the deep freeze or cans, just the way General Electric, Gorton’s, God and Starkist intended. Only occasionally did we go fishing (and even less often came home with anything). I don’t even remember that there were seafood counters in grocery stores back then. Yes, Texas is beef country, right down to the coast.

It’s not as though I don’t like fish; there have been only a handful of fish dishes I’ve had in my life I haven’t liked and I love virtually all shellfish. It’s just that the habit of eating seafood was never formed and has never taken root.

That has changed rather dramatically since I’ve been going to Total Catch. I’ve eaten more seafood in the last couple of months than I usually eat in a whole year. And it hasn’t been farmed catfish, farmed tilapia and farmed salmon but far more interesting and tasty fish, straight out of the Gulf. And I've been eating out a lot less.

Total Catch sells the bycatch of Gulf fishermen, little known but tasty fish that you’re likely to find only at ethnic seafood markets (I’ve seen some of these fish at Fiesta stores, for instance) or not at all unless you catch them yourself. Each Friday they post on their blog what fish they’re going to have the next day, together with some brief descriptions and maybe suggestions for preparation. The market is open starting at 9am on Saturday in the small retail storefront at the Lousiana Foods warehouse on West 12th Street, off of North Post Oak. Get there early or you may miss out completely or have very slim pickings but it does depend on how much catch they have and how big the crowds are, so it varies.

Barrelfish and Triggerfish have been my favorites so far. The triggerfish looks like a fish only it’s mother could love, perhaps, but it’s a very tasty, very firm-fleshed fish. That’s almost a 3 pound fish (it’s about half skull); I did it whole, on the grill, and had fish tacos from the leftovers for a couple of days. The barrelfish (about a 14 oz filet) was even better, with a texture reminding me of pork loin. I’ve had that as filets, steaks and in fish tacos. I was told it is sometimes sold as Bel Grouper (not sure of the spelling as there is no such fish), because it’s similar to grouper. I’ve seen it at one of the Fiestas near me labeled ‘gruper’ with barrelfish in parentheses on the sign.

I”ve also enjoyed the Porgy (I believe that was Silver Porgy) and Blue Runner and the Beeliner or Vermillion Snapper. The first fish I tried was a Blackbelly Scorpionfish but I forgot to take a before picture and the after picture was not a pretty sight as I really overcooked it on the grill - it had been a long time since I grilled a fish. I've also had hake and drum.

One of the things I like about Total Catch is how fresh the fish are. You’re not going to get fresher fish unless you catch it yourself, go down to the coast to get some right off the docks, or shop at one of the few places with fish tanks with a few live species to choose from. There’s much more variety from Total Catch and there's never any fishy smell.

I have also really gotten into this because it appeals to my interest in exploring new and different tastes. Beats me why some of these fish aren’t more popular. Yes, yes, yes, so far I've stuck to fish that actually look like fish! - they get some pretty exotic species in from time to time but mostly they've been gone by the time I get there.

Here’s more on Total Catch from Robb Walsh, the Chronicle, and even a report from Dallas. And don't miss the Professor Fish Heads blog, linked to on the Total Catch blog, for more in depth information about some of the species including a recent article on fish offal.

Now I’m planning on having fish for Christmas, but it’ll be Gravad Lax and Heering from IKEA and possibly a poached salmon not from Total Catch - I’m having my own Julbord celebration. But looking beyond Christmas I know what one of my New Year’s Resolutions will be, and it’s going to be easy to keep - Eat More (Locally Caught) Fish.

This Year's Hallacas Haul

2011-12-08T13:27:00.019-06:00

Venezuelan holiday tamales

I got my first taste of hallacas last year with a sample from the El Punto Criollo cart on Beechnut at Highway 6. Of the various nacatamales I've had (Colombian, Guatemalan) I liked it best and went back to get a few more to tide me through the year. I've been hoarding my stash up until a couple of months ago when I finished off the last one, buoyed by the expectation that this year I'd be collecting specimens from the other Venezuelan places around the area.

This year I found three (in order below) - from El Punto Criollo, Tuttopane on Westheimer, and Deli's Cafe in Katy. I called Budare, also in Katy, and the Sabor Venolozano truck on Westheimer and learned they don't have them (or maybe just didn't have them the day I called? - we didn't speak each other's language so I wasn't entirely sure).

None of the samples so far this year were as impressive looking as what I had last year and I'd have to say they weren't quite as tasty, but they still were good. I like my tamales very moist and was a little disappointed in the texture of the masa in the Tuttopane and El Punto Criollo samples and decided to simmer the one from Deli's instead of steaming it. That gave it a little edge over the others, at least for me. All had diced meats (beef, pork, chicken) as opposed to the larger chunks of last year's sample. Besides the meats there are potatoes, onions, pimento, raisins and olives. The potatoes in Deli's were mashed instead of in chunks; I initially didn't think I'd like the mush-like filling but that one did end up my pick of these three while the meat-intensive sample from Tuttopane was my least favorite.

The were all about the same size; prices ranged from $7 to $7.75 with the one from Tuttopane the priciest one. They should be available until year's end or so. I'll probably be going back to get more of each.

(The h is silent in hallacas - ayacas).

Deli's and Tuttopane review on this blog.

The Deli's website is down but here is Tuttopane.

El Punto Criollo review

Big 6 Bar-B-Que

2011-11-12T19:42:00.010-06:00

9431 Highway 6 South @ Bissonnet (and on the northeast side).

This trailer has been doing business along Highway 6 for several years but recently moved about a half mile south of it's long time location to a strip center on this corner and is parked right next to the Yum Yum Snow Ball trailer.

I'd been meaning to try it for a long time and had a taste for some barbecue so I wheeled in. The menu lists chicken, sausage and ribs before brisket and I wondered if that was a suggestion of what they think their best product is but I prefer to judge a barbecue place first by the brisket, in this case a sliced beef sandwich since I wasn't hungry enough for a plate.

It was about 8 oz of meat; they use oak and pecan and the smoke sure smelled good. The brisket on top was all from the lean part and was good and smoky and tender with a nice char but a bit dry. Fortunately there was some fatty meat in the middle of the sandwich which redeemed it. Sauce, minced onions, pickles and sliced jalapenos all came on the side, each in their own small containers. The onions were a little past prime and I decided not to use them but the real negative was the sauce, an unappealing smelling concoction to my nose. I'm anti-sauce anyway and this one did nothing to change my mind. I had to use a small amount to keep the sandwich from being too dry and fortunately the flavor of the meat itself wasn't overwhelmed by it. Sauce on the side and some fatty meat included without it being requested are all good signs at a barbecue place as far as I'm concerned.

I got a small sample of their home-made sausage, a typical East Texas fine-ground, synthetic casing product but made with pork instead of the usual beef. I thought it was very promising. They also have a home-made smoked boudin.

They've opened a brick and mortar place on the Northeast side, off of Lockwood, north of 610. It is open 7 days a week but the trailer is only open Friday-Saturday-Sunday.

Big 6 Bar-B-Que

Calliope's - 2nd location

2011-11-11T03:42:00.007-06:00

UPDATE 12/19/11 - NOW OPEN

I saw the banner hanging on the space yesterday evening on the way home from grocery shopping - Calliope's, the best New Orleans style po'boys in town, is setting up a new location. And they're not following the herd to the Heights, they're coming to far southwest Houston.

They'll be moving in to the space at 7950 W. Bellfort, one block west of South Fondren. This will be at least the fourth attempt at a restaurant at that location. It was most recently the short-lived Cajun Made Cafe; before that, a short-lived outpost of Frenchy's Fried Chicken, and before that a burger joint specializing in 1 pound burgers. Here's hoping the fourth time is the charm.

There's nothing on the website yet but it is already listed on b-4 as coming soon.

With the Sno Dreamz SnoBall stand a block away, perhaps we have a nascent Little Big Easy developing.

Myung Dong

2011-11-09T16:13:00.018-06:00

6415 Bissonnet

And the award for Stealth Restaurant of the Year goes to....Myung Dong. The street-side signs are faded beyond legibility, the sign on the rooftop in Korean is gone, the door is hidden back on the side and the piece of paper taped to the door gives only the days and hours of operation without identifying the business. And I must have been to La Roca right next door dozens of times without ever realizing there was any kind of business operating out of this space that served the general public, much less a Korean restaurant along this stretch of Bissonnet.

But I happened upon a picture of the building on Yelp and immediately recognized it. The reviews on Yelp are almost uniformly positive and so was a report by Tasty Bits a couple of years ago. Once I saw the picture of the seafood pancake, I had to go.

For my first visit I went in during the hellish days of our summer; advised by a Yelp reviewer that there was no a/c, I went right after they opened intending to get food to go but I found the room pleasantly cool, with two floor fans on stands keeping the air moving, though it was a little musty from having been closed up for two days. For some reason I couldn’t understand (very little English is spoken), they couldn’t do the Bee Bim Bap to go so I opted for the Seafood Pancake - Hae-Mul-Pa-Jun. I took a seat, fortuitously as it turned out, where I could see into the kitchen a little bit and once the lady started cooking and the aromas started wafting out, all traces of the unpleasant mustiness disappeared. And it was clear this was gonna be good.

It took a long time for my food to be ready. During the wait a delivery of supplies took place. I saw cases of frozen oysters, chili powder and other supplies I couldn’t identify being brought in. Finally I was summoned to the cash register to pay (cash only), took my sizable tray of goodies and happily made a bee-line for home. It weighed a ton. Well, more like 4 pounds, maybe, but way too heavy for my kitchen scale. I’ve had Green Onion Pancakes at Chinese restaurants before and picked up Scallion Pancakes in the ready-to-eat section of Super H Mart, but I’d never seen anything like this. The aroma was incredible. I portioned out some for my first sample and dug in. Oysters, shrimp, mussels, scallops, they were all there and in great abundance; I think I got a bit of each in the very first bite. The crust had a nice crispness on top and bottom and was good and moist throughout. It’s been noted elsewhere they use surimi instead of real crab but with all the other types of seafood in such abundance, I hardly noticed. And it was readily apparent why it had taken so long to prepare. This is more like a sheet cake than a pancake.

The quantity of dipping sauce and banchan that accompanied the pancake was rather skimpy. I found myself regretting that I had not tried to write down what was in the sauce so I could attempt to duplicate it later but I have since learned that a shortage of banchan is not a problem you’re ever going to encounter here if you eat in. I ate on the pancake for 3 days, then wound up freezing about a third of it. This surely would be enough for a family of four for at least one meal. (Pictures of the whole package will be posted below. The pancake reheats successfully from being refrigerated, not so well out of the freezer in my experience).

I was much less impressed with the Kal-Guk-Su that I tried on my next visit, hand-made noodles in anchovy broth with vegetables. The noodles had been snipped into short lengths, precluding the joy of slurping, and some were clumped together and undercooked, the anchovy disappointingly very understated. While this was no where near as impressive a dish to me as the pancake one of the reviews on Yelp explains the origin of the restaurant name and the significance of the dish and proclaims it the ‘Star of the Menu.’ So there you go - to each his own.

One of the things about Korean restaurants is even if your main is disappointing you’re not likely to leave hungry. On this visit I was introduced to the wide array of very generous portions of banchan including about 2 cups of rice that reviewers have referred to as purple but I believe is unhulled, sticky rice which takes on a purplish tint when cooked plus a very good kimchi, nabak kimchi in a cool broth, kongnamul (sprouts), fish cakes, sesame spinach and one I haven’t identified with bitter greens, both leaves and stems.

I have become fond of the ever-watchful mackerel which is one of the banchan at Jang Guem so when I saw a couple of mackerel preparations on the menu at Myung Dong, I went for one, Ghong-Chi, grilled, salted pike mackerels. Mackerel flesh is very oily and these were very moist on the inside and tended to flake into small pieces, difficult to handle with the chopsticks, but very good.

Once again there was a full array of banchan and I way over-ate. There were also some new offerings. The spaghetti-like item was crunchy, shredded daikon I think. In front of it chunks of daikon, also, possibly. The little silvery fishes, stir fried sardines they’re referred to in the ready-to-eat coolers at Super H Mart, I initially thought I was not going to like but wound up polishing off all of that bowl and ignoring the fish cakes. The chewiness was another nice contrasting texture to add to the mix.

There are many other things on the short menu to try. Korean food is addictive but it’s way too easy to over-eat when presented with such a feast and since it’s mostly vegetables I can tell myself ‘it’s low calorie, a few more bites won’t hurt.’

By way of disclaimer I perhaps should acknowledge that I haven’t commented on any of the meat dishes which are probably the main thing that people go to Korean restaurants for, but I eat very little meat these days and the portions, judging from the reviews and pictures on Yelp, are very large and I just haven’t felt like trying them. Nor have I had the Bee Bim Bap here; their version is not served in a hot stone bowl so you do not get the crispy rice to savor.

This is a two person operation, at least it has been every time I’ve been in. Service is practically non-existent as the lady spends almost all of her time in the kitchen and the man is frequently by her side or across the prep table from her helping. Diners help themselves to the tea from a big pot on the counter, and the condiments, such as they are. It’s not that the people are rude, they’re just busy and that’s fine with me. The lady can cook, and it’s perfectly alright that she spends her time doing that rather than fussing over me at the table.

They are open Tuesday thru Saturday, 11am to 9 pm. Since the menu photos on Yelp are pretty useless, here are some better shots of the short menu plus some pictures of the seafood pancake and banchan that I got to go on my first visit.

AL/Al's Quick Stop and Grill

2011-11-04T20:27:00.014-05:00

2002 Waugh Drive

I’m sure this little corner grocery was in existence umpteen umpteen years ago when I lived near Cherryhurst Park but I never went in. The menu says only since 1991, probably meaning the popular eatery inside the store. I’ve been hearing about the latter for years and wanted to check it out but I seldom get back down to the ‘trose.

It was 8 months ago when I found myself close by and decided to try it out. Though I’d heard most about the gyro when I noted the spit was not turning nor glowing I opted for a falafel plate with tahini and relish.

My first thought on getting a good look at the finished product - uh oh. That’s not the color I like to see when I behold falafel and just as I expected the exterior was too crusty and overcooked, there was even a slight taste of charring. The interior, a beautiful forest green, was mush. I seldom throw food away but I tossed several pieces of this as just not worth eating. The pita bread was dry, too, but the rest of the plate was very good; I particularly liked the pickled vegetables and hummus and would go back to try other plates if I get those things; the bed of parsley and radish underneath the falafel patties was also a nice refreshing note.

Though I had shied away from the gyro, I had noted there seemed to be some pink on the meat on the spit and I still wanted to give it a try but it was not until earlier this month that I was back in the neighborhood. Though again the spit was not turning I went for a gyro anyway. A large portion of meat was deftly sliced off and warmed up on a flattop. A modest portion of onions and tomatoes were added as well as a pita.

Okay, this one lives up to the hype. Though it’s not apparent in the picture there was a tinge of pink on some of the pieces of meat and this was by far the juiciest gyro meat I’d ever eaten. And probably the biggest gyro - I think the whole sandwich weighed in at 11 oz. Some reviews online have stated it’s only beef, not the typical beef and lamb mix, but I didn’t think so and the menu does say it’s both. The pita in this case was fresh and fluffy, almost like naan. I could have used more of the onions and tomatoes and sadly the quantity of tzatziki which I got (to go) was very inadequate. I must admit the sauce is half the reason I like gyros so I was disappointed but I’m sure if you ate in, you could ask for more, if necessary.

The menu is very varied with Tex-Mex, Mediterranean and American sections; given how infrequently I’m in the neighborhood, it’ll probably be a long time before I try any thing else and I’m probably going to want another gyro next time.

Now, under the heading of Unsolved Mysteries of the Montrose, I'm not sure what the name of this place is. The sign and the take-out menu both say AL Quick Stop. Capital A, capital L, no apostrophe, no s. (The take-out menu makes it even clearer- there are pictures of the menu on Yelp so I’m not going to post it here). But it’s known by everybody as Al’s, listed on every user review site that I know of as Al’s, and there are dishes on the menu such as ‘Al’s Diced Salad,’ and ‘Al’s Chicken Sub.’ Rogue sign maker and rogue printer perhaps? Or perhaps the chef at AL is named Al?

Sammy's Wild Game Grill

2011-10-25T18:05:00.013-05:00

3715 Washington Ave.

I like this little place on Washington Avenue, in spite of the fact it's on Washington Avenue. It's in a small, wedge-shaped space back from the street, easy to miss, especially if you're headed east.. There's even a drive-thru. How suburban, and in the Heights, yet.

Despite a rather sleek interior and full bar, it seems to be in existence mostly because of the food, not a desire to be trendy or hip, and without a 'we're so cool, shut up and eat our food' attitude. They do, however, make at least a passing mention of being 'gourmet.' (Shudder).

The lure, besides the unconventionality of the setting, is in their specialty meats, showcased very simply in burgers, dogs and sandwiches. The website touts the meats, even putting the nutrition information in full view on the front page instead of squirreling it away someplace that requires multiple mouse clicks to find. In the restaurant, there are placards mounted on the divider between the dining area and kitchen with the nutrition data and notes on the provenance of their meats so you can be well-informed as well as well fed. Sammy's is on a mission. Bravo for them.

On my first visit, I tried one of the house specialties, a Barbecue Pulled Wild Boar sandwich with cilantro slaw, pickles, cheese, fried onion strings and barbecue sauce. I was a little concerned that the menu description mentions cheese. Barbecue and cheese don't go together to me, I'll leave that combination to BK and Whataburger. I was even more dismayed when I saw what appears to be regular American cheese on the sandwich. Other than doing a good job of insulating the crispy fried onion strips from all the juiciness below, the cheese added nothing to the sandwich for me and next time I'd ask for it to be omitted.

But other than that, I liked the sandwich with it's bold flavors and it was as juicy as all get-out. I thought the pickles and sauce were nothing special but it's really about the meat. The pretzel bun from Slow Dough Bread Co. was dense and chewy enough to stand up to the juiciness and there was never a chance of it becoming a soggy mess, falling apart in my hands (very important when being a gourmet), but it was messy enough that I had to wash up afterward.

One of the meats they offer is elk. I've had bison and venison many times but except for the bison dogs and bison chili at Bubba's Texas Burger Shack, I've never really had anything made with bison that I liked - it's too lean and dry. I've had some good things with venison, sausages from some Texas sausage makers and the venison chili at Armadillo Palace, that I like, but I've heard great things about elk. I've heard it makes awesome chili. I know you can buy elk here in Houston and online but have never gotten around to trying it so on my second visit I tried the Elk Dog (and kudos to Sammy's for calling their dogs sausage dogs rather than hot dogs).

The Wild Boar sandwich had come will all the factory options installed but with the dog I was confronted with the dilemma of what toppings and sauces to add. I didn't have a clue what goes with elk. I asked the cashier for a suggestion and he mentioned sauerkraut. Really? Sounded awful to me for some reason. I settled on the purple cabbage, feta and cilantro aioli. Much to my relief, they went very well with the elk and didn't overpower it. I loved the meat and I must try everything else on the menu with elk. I wish they made an elk chili. (Actually, I wish they made several chilis; the only one of the menu is Rattlesnake Chili).

The very sturdy roll from Slow Dough was perhaps the only element that was a little off, too sturdy to be at all soft and squishy like the roll encompassing a dog usually is and chewier than it needed to be next to the tender meat. Maybe those excellent New England style split-top buns from Slow Dough that the Good Dog Food Truck uses would be a better choice, I don't know.

Whatever. I'll be back for more.

Sammy's Wild Game Grill

Sazon

2011-10-21T20:23:00.010-05:00

Kempwood @ Blalock

I have to thank commenter Rubiao for tipping me about this one. It's quite a ways outside of my regular roaming area but I took a little detour after a shopping trip to Super H Mart, cruising up Blalock past the best Polish grocery store and restaurant in Texas (and possibly the whole Southern US).

There are actually two units here; a short Sazon bus purveying hot dogs, hamburguesas, papas asados, papas fritas and tortas is parked at a right angle to the bigger unit. And the menu is not the same old-same old lonchera menu, either. One specialty is barbacoa de borrego available either as consomme or tacos.

I got a couple of tacos with everything, after ascertaining that meant onions and cilantro and not lettuce and tomato. Then I helped myself to the salsas on the side of the truck including a very spicy salsa fresca with marinated onions, habaneros and jalapenos, I think. That was the best of the three and really picked up the tacos which were already very good. There are not that many places offering borrego; I wish this wasn't so far away.

Also on the menu were pancitas, which I think is menudo made with sheep stomach, fajitas, cabeza de res, flautas de pollo and more.

Refresqueria y Taqueria South Houston

2011-10-19T05:56:00.002-05:00

3812 South Shaver @ Edgebrook, South Houston, TX

After a recent shopping excursion to Mi Tienda I headed south on South Shaver instead of back across Spencer Highway, hoping to find a new scenic route home. It wasn't a mountain road snaking through snow capped peaks or a coastal highway overlooking a surf pounding up against a rocky shoreline that I was expecting to see, nor even a meandering drive through a lush forest. About a mile south of Spencer I did spot exactly the sort of scenery I was hoping for - a sign for a refresqueria touting trompo. The beauty of the scene was enhanced by a sign also touting home-made tortillas.

As we all learned from Robb Walsh a few years ago, authentic trompo preparation (al pastor) is prohibited in Houston by health department regulations. The meat that goes on the spit has to be already cooked and can only be kept warm on the trompo. This results in al pastor as served in Houston frequently being over-cooked and dried out.

This refresqueria y taqueria, however, sitting right next door to South Houston High School, clearly was not in Houston and hence not subject to those restrictions. Whenever I see trompo advertised at a taqueria or lonchera outside of the Houston city limits, I know there is at least the possibility they do it the way it's supposed to be done.

I've tried this gambit a number of times, sadly with disappointing results more often than not, but it's always worth a try and I made a note to hit this place the next time I trekked over to Mi Tienda.

Alas, the curses of living in Houston. I can get just about everything I ever need for Mexican cooking at the carnicerias, mercados, tortillerias and Fiesta stores near me (even a Food Town), and I seldom have a need to go all the way over to Pasadena. It was going to be months before I was over that way again and a few weeks later my expectations and cravings got the better of me and I made a special trip just to try the trompo.

I arrived about 1:15 pm and encountered a problem I had not anticipated - no parking place. The parking area was jammed with two rows of cars in a strip center lot intended for just one; a narrow alley was left between the rows making it possible to gingerly enter or leave the front row. More customers were parked on the shoulder of Shaver. This place is popular. I cruised around South Houston for a few minutes, spotting a few taco trucks of possible interest, but having come this far I was not going to be denied. After passing back and forth several times I finally spotted an opening and zipped in.

A full parking lot is not necessarily a sign of good food within, of course, but it is a hopeful sign. Just inside the door was another - the trompo itself, readily on display in the open cooking area just inside the door. However I noticed the coils were not glowing and the spit was not turning, the meat had been whittled down to resemble an apple core more than a child's top. Had I gotten there too late? Was the meat that was left going to be too dry?

I was just planning on trying the trompo but assessing the situation and surveying the menu, I went for one taco de mollejas (sweetbreads), one taco de cabeza (the menu says pig's head), and one taco de trompo, plus a Coca Cola Mexicana Grande.

The waitress delivered a basket of chips and generous sized bowl of salsa to the table along with a cup of very good frijoles charros with almost as much meat and chicharron as beans. The chips were cold, possibly store bought, but the creamy salsa verde was interesting with just enough heat. I nibbled at a few chips as I observed my order of trompo being skillfully sliced off the spit. In a corner, some balls of dough were retrieved out of a bowl covered with cloth and placed one by one in a large wooden tortilla press and my tortillas were ready for the grill.

Before long, one of the three taqueras brought out my basket of tacos and I smiled as big as I could, pleased at the appearance of these beauties and patting myself on the back for being such a genius to have discovered this place. I hadn't even tasted any of the meats but they sure looked promising. One of those 3 bowl servers like you get with a baked potato was brought to the table with one bowl of chopped onion, one of chopped cilantro and one of lime slices and I was ready to dig in.

I nibbled a few pieces of each meat plain, then folded up the tortillas and tried them that way. . The trompo was just a little dry but not bad while the other two meats were exceptionally good. I applied a little lime and tasted again, then the onions and cilantro and more lime and tasted again, then finally some salsa to finish each taco off. The thin, floppy, slightly irregular tortillas, just one per taco and slightly crispy around the edges, were exemplary. They had to be the thinnest tortillas I've ever had. These were some very good tacos, worth the time and trouble I had gone to to try them.

My tab came to $6.50 - $1.25 per taco (more for flour tortillas), $2 for the coke; apparently there is a $.75 charge for the beans though I didn't recall seeing that on the menu. Fair price, anyway. Three tacos and beans and I was stuffed.

While it lacks the ambiance of Karanchoe's in Channelview and the trompo is perhaps not quite as tasty (it's been more than a year since I've been there), this place is not without it's charm. I could wish for better chips and salsa (and a little fresher looking cilantro) but South Houston is a whole lot closer to where I live than Channelview and I have the occasional need to be in the neighborhood, anyway, so I will be back.

The menu includes tacos, platillos, hamburguesas and a few other things. The meats, besides what I had, were fajita, pollo, barbacoa, chicharron, and deshebrada, as best I can remember. I saw no sign about hours or days of operation but it is cash only. One side of the menu is s devoted to the refresqueria offerings.

Budare Arepa Express

2011-10-11T16:31:00.010-05:00

402 W. Grand Parkway S (TX 99), Katy

I was heading back into town from the westerly nether regions recently and pulled off I-10 to check this place out. I'd seen it mentioned on Yelp. Katy has been called Katy-zuela because of the concentration of Venezuelan expats there but so far as I know this is one of only two brick-and-mortar Venezuelan restaurants in Katy and none of the Venezuelan mobile units I know about are located there.

Like the other place, Deli's Cafe, this one specializes in arepas, which are like Mexican gorditas, but with lots more on the menu. It's a small place but nicely appointed; most of the tables are two-tops.

There are 23 varieties of arepas on the menu; I went with the Pabellon which puts most of the ingredients of the Venezuelan national dish, Pabellon Criollo, in one of these corn pockets - carne mechada, black beans, fried plantains and cheese (queso de mano, I think).

This was by far the largest arepa I've ever encountered and I enjoyed it but, perhaps due to some medications I'm taking, everything seemed underseasoned for my taste. There is a help-yourself condiments bar with 5 different sauces available in squeeze bottles, 2 kinds of peppers, chopped jalapeno and some small peppers looking like stunted banana peppers that I'm not familiar with, and other things. Oddly, there was no guasacaca among the sauces.

My sandwich was almost ready before I spotted the poster for the Patacones, a spectacular Venezuelan sandwich which uses mashed, fried plantain for bread and which I've had before at the short-lived Pana's on Scarsdale and from the Sabor Venozolana truck on Westheimer (picture here). It is not listed on the menu board. This place is too far away for me to be a regular but next time I'm out that way I'm definitely going to go for that.

Budare

Chili Cook-off for Kids

2011-10-01T23:50:00.003-05:00

There's a chili cook-off coming up on October 22 that promises to be interesting while also raising funds for a worthy cause. Young Professionals for Children, part of Child Advocates, Inc., is hosting a chili cook-off to raise funds for it's important activities. Several well known restaurants are participating and there should be some goooooood pots of chili simmering on that day. I was invited to be a judge but won't be able to attend.

There's more specific information on their website and there should be more as the day gets closer. There's also contact information on the website.

Tacos la Joya

2011-09-28T12:58:00.012-05:00

Southwest Freeway frontage road, outbound, @ Beechnut

I'm always on the lookout for something different and new, something I haven't tried before, and driving down this stretch of the 59 frontage road I seldom use I spotted this lonchera I'd never seen before advertising tortas y tacos al vapor.

It's in the parking lot of the Bonita Chica Bikini Bar for those interested (there's also a Wings spot, what else?, and Tau Bay and several other businesses - it's a big parking lot).

Tacos al vapor, i.e., steamed tacos, are a rarity around here. I can't name one place that serves them and I had to give them a try. According to some discussions and explanation online, they may be produced by layering tortillas and meat in a tamalera, covering with a towel and steaming for a hour or so. Sometimes the tortillas are folded over the fillings and the resulting tacos are somewhat like dumplings; some people prefer to eat them with a fork.

That's not the way mine were produced, however. I saw tortillas being put into the tamalera, just inside the window where you order, but the tortillas for my tacos came out of a plastic bag and were heated on a griddle, just like other tacos are done. But with the differences that they were heated in stacks of two and for a very long time, maybe close to five minutes, getting flipped at least a dozen times and tested (kudos to the taquerero for wearing a plastic glove as he is supposed to). The burner must have been on very low.

At last they were removed from the griddle and assembly took place very quickly. A pile of meat was retrieved from the tamalera with tongs and the cebolla y cilantro were added, they were wrapped up and handed to me along with a half lime and a small cup of dark green, thick salsa, in exchange for $3.75 for three and I was on my way. They're available only with this chopped beef filling.

It was apparent right away when I dug into them that the tortillas were very moist so I concluded they must have been steamed previously and held until needed. The quantity of salsa was completely inadequate but it was a squeeze of lime that most benefited these delicately flavored tacos. Obviously with steamed beef, you're not going to get the intense flavors of some other means of preparation, so if you're longing for the caramelized beef of tacos al carbon of the intense flavors of al pastor or barbacoa, you're not going to get it with these tacos. I really liked them however.

The first time I saw the wagon during the day it was closed; I caught it open around dusk. I didn't notice any posting of hours but since it's only about 20 yards from the door to the bikini bar, I'd hazard a guess they're only open in the evenings.

Now, does anybody know where to get tacos a la plancha in Houston? That's another method of preparation I'd like to try.

Edit to add: I was quite surprised to read in the Press that these tacos did not live up to my expectations. I hadn't realized that.

Kräftskiva at IKEA

2011-08-20T02:18:00.010-05:00

I-10 @ Antoine, once a year

My mother was half-Swedish, on her father's side. Both his parents came over from Sweden in the 1870s and 1880s and the two families settled near each other in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But he moved away from his family to go to law school before marrying and moved his young family completely out of Michigan by the time my mother was 5. She learned to cook as a teenager from her maternal grandmother, who was of English descent, through New England, and she was never exposed to any Swedish customs or culture or cuisine, nor was I.

But I spent several years doing family genealogy and had a fascination not just with birth dates, deaths and weddings but with how my ancestors lived, what kinds of times they lived in, what were their prized possessions (revealed sometimes by wills), who were their neighbors and who did they know and what did they eat. And I've wanted to sample the foods and customs of their home countries and possibly visit there.

Our roster of Scandinavian restaurants here pretty much begins and ends with a certain home furnishings store so far as I know and I've been to the IKEA cafe a couple of times over the years. There really isn't much on the menu that's specifically Swedish, though most recently I had the smoked salmon plate, a decent meal for $6. It was a little less that ideally fresh from sitting out on the cafeteria line for too long but it was a nice, light counterpoint to this blast furnace summer we're having.

When I learned of the Kräftskiva or traditional summer crayfish party, I signed up (you had to purchase tickets in advance). I arrived early, hoping to get some shots of the buffet, and for some reason they called it a buffet rather than a smorgasbord, but hordes of my possible kinsmen had arrived early also and the gates had been let down and they were already wreaking havoc on the mounds of food while I snaked my way toward the ticket table.

Billed as all you can eat adults actually were limited to two plates of the crayfish each. It was clear some people had done this drill before and bought more than one admission ticket so they could get more but two was enough for me - there was much more on the buffet I also wanted to try. There were lots of people in the room who I suspect had only minuscule amounts of Swedish blood coursing through their veins. Crayfish or crawfish, I guess no matter how you spell it or spice it it's hard to keep Texans away when you're serving it. Swedish crayfish are served chilled, seasoned just with lemon and dill, and they were succulent and tender and delicious. Who needs cayenne and garlic? I did wish there wasn't so much more I wanted to try.

The rest of the buffet offered cold water prawns, seasoned again with lemon and dill, rolls of smoked salmon with dill sauce, boiled new potatoes with dill (no wonder I love boiled new potatoes with dill - it's in my genes), a selection of Swedish cheeses and a cucumber salad, plus hard-boiled egg with shrimp and mayonnaise. I passed over what is probably the most popular Swedish item on the regular cafe menu, Swedish meatballs with lingonberries, and there were also mashed potatoes and a tossed green salad that I remember.

Then there was a selection of Swedish breads, crispbread, crisproll and dinner roll; I've had them all before, plus the Swedish meatballs, purchased in the IKEA store. I love the crisprolls and the dinner rolls. Besides the two chocolate covered marshmallow heads pictured, made not with dense, heavy marshmallow, but almost whipped cream like texture - the dark chocolate one was the best, there were some Swedish cookies which I stuffed my pockets with before leaving.

I thought this was markedly better food than I've had in the cafe. The prawns were served cold and with shells, tails and heads intact; apparently Swedish diners are more fearless than most Americans. I observed most people laboriously picking the shells off but I just noshed away. I know there are people who claim the heads are the best part. I haven't had an 'Aha!' moment with regard to that yet but it certainly is a good way to work off some aggression and tension mandibularly, chewing on those shells. I think next time I may skip the shrimp and load up on more salmon and crayfish, though.

All in all it was a very enjoyable evening. I felt not only stuffed but also culturally enlightened just a little bit. I saw only one lady in a colorful traditional garb and I wanted to get a picture but by the time I had finished making a glutton of myself, I couldn't find her.

I've read they have done a traditional Swedish Easter smorgasbord in the past; I hope to make one of those in the future and I'm looking forward to the next crayfish party.

God it's great being Swedish.

Pupuseria Emanuel

2011-08-17T14:11:00.006-05:00

5822 Telephone Rd.

I had to drop a friend off at Hobby recently and took the route down Telephone so we could get a Tex-Czech fix at the Original Kolache Shop. Heading on down the road I spotted Pupuseria Emanuel and remembered I’d read an Alison Cook review a couple of years back and had it on my list to try if I was ever over that way. So I dumped my so-called friend at the terminal, told him I’d call him if I wanted to pick him up when he got back to town, and headed back to tend to the important business of the day.

It's several notches below funky as far as ambiance goes - a couple of metal benches and a metal picnic table out front, more of the same in a screened-in but un-air conditioned dining room. The pupuseras work out of sight so you can't see or hear them patting out the pupusas but you can see them sizzling on the griddle. As I walked up to the window the entire griddle was covered with them - they were working on a large to-go order and it was ten minutes before they took mine.

The pupusas here are larger than most and excellent, not as greasy as some and with lots of filling and with some varieties not commonly seen. I got a couple of those - calabacito con queso and camaron con queso. The curtido is mildly brined, not overwhelmed by the vinegar as some are, and the salsa is shockingly spicy. At most Salvadoran places, the salsa is not much more than tomato sauce since Salvadoran's supposedly don't like spicy food, but this had a lot of heat. The pupusa de camaron y queso was the best. It was just tiny, frozen shrimp but they imparted a lot of flavor making this probably the most flavorful pupusa I've ever had. Too hot to pick up right off the griddle, of course; amazingly I got all the way home and they were still good and warm.

There are a couple of other unusual items on the menu - besides tamales de pollo and elote there is a tamale piques, which means a bean filling. I was going to order one of those, too, but they said they couldn't do that the day I was there. There are also some desserts including Nuegados con Miel - fried dough with honey, which sounds like a sort of a Salvadoran beignet.

Prices are a maybe little higher than most pupuserias but the pupusas are large. This is Central American comfort food at it's best.

There are English translations on the menu posted in the window for those who don't know much Spanish or Salvadoran food but the staff I encountered was not very fluent in English. There's a second location now on Edgebrook that is also a panaderia.

I couldn’t find Cook’s old review but did find my notes - she recommended the pastelitos. So I guess I’ll go back some time to try those and since I’m going to be in the neighborhood, I’ll go ahead and pick up that guy.

The Chili Shak

2011-08-16T23:15:00.008-05:00

9600 Fondren @ S. Braeswood

Wot?, as my distant (thank goodness) cousin Jim Bob would say. A chili parlor in Texas? Don’t they know every Texan over the age of two has their own SECRET RECIPE for chili that is MUCH BETTER than any other and they won’t order chili at restaurants? And don’t they know Texans don’t like to eat hot and spicy foods except in cool weather? Well, those are some of the excuses I’ve seen on discussion boards or heard from restauranteurs (maybe with a little exaggeration on my part) concerning why there are so few places that offer more than a perfunctory bowl of chili, our official state dish.

As a matter of fact, the proprietors of The Chili Shak are from Los Angeles so maybe they haven’t heard all those excuses, and I’m glad they haven’t. But this is not some West Coast la-la-land chili, it’s all beef and no beans. It’s a family recipe, too, not out of a can. There is only one variety and one spice level but chili is in or on everything on the menu including Chili Rice, a family favorite that seems to have inspired the business, Chili Nu Nus (chili on spaghetti but not Cincinnati style chili), chili fries, chili dogs, chili burgers, chili nachos, chili fritos, chili on baked potatoes and chili on tamales and burritos plus a chili sausage dog. One thing that is missing curiously - and it was my first clue the owners are not from Texas - is a chili pie; maybe that’s what chili fritos refers to. If so they might want to consider changing the name so Texans aren’t completely lost when looking at the menu.

The chili is a little lacking in heat and cumin for my tastes but I know there will be some people, including some Native Texans, who will find it too spicy. As someone who has perfected my own SECRET RECIPE for chili that is MUCH BETTER than anybody elses, I could gritch about this or that but the fact is I'm tickled to have an honest-to-goodness chili parlor in the neighborhood. I really liked the Chili Dog - a bun-length all-beef skinless weiner, split and grilled, on a grilled bun, with a smear of mustard and a generous ladle of chili plus onions and cheese. Jalapenos are available as an extra. It was very messy but it was possible to pick it up and eat it out of hand, one of the requirements of a hot dog as far as I’m concerned.

The proprietor says he thinks their best offering is the Chili Burger, but I haven’t tried that.

The website gives the history of the enterprise but isn't about the restaurant. They're closed on Sundays.

Taco Keto

2011-07-28T06:41:00.010-05:00

1401 Cullen

I first heard of this taco truck a couple of years ago but never caught it open until recently. The owner is from Guerrero and there's a unique thing about their tacos. What they're known for is the enchiladaded tortillas used. Actually what I observed was dabbing some of the salsa roja on the tortillas on the griddle rather than dipping them, but the effect is pretty much the same and the tortillas fluff up some as they are grilled besides absorbing the flavors of the salsa. You get only one tortilla per taco here, at least with the corn (didn't try the flour if they even offer it), and fillings are perhaps a mite skimpy, but the extra step with the tortillas makes a big difference flavor-wise. I found myself craving more of these before I even got back home. As you can see, they also use grilled onions, and a generous amount, and the other unique ingredient is potatoes. I wasn't too sure about that last ingredient so asked for no potatoes on the al pastor (top) and potatoes on the fajita (bottom), but I wound up with no potatoes at all and all the onions on the al pastor. There was a breakdown in communications between the two workers on the truck, apparently.

Oh yes, another thing - parking is virtually non-existent: they're in the parking lot of a tire shop. I drove a block away to the parking lot of a rather infamous Kroger in a torrential downpour that lasted about 3 minutes to dig in.

I'll be going back to this truck again.

Open only Tuesday thru Saturday, 11a to 11p.

Cedars Bakery

2011-07-27T11:56:00.016-05:00

8619 Richmond, previously reported on in my Vegetarian for a Week, Part 1

Ever since I first read Ellie Nassar's post in 2007 about Labib's in Beirut my mouth has been watering for mana'ish, so when I first came across Cedars a month or so ago and saw they called some of their offerings manakeesh (there are many spellings) instead of just Lebanese pizza, I had to rush over to try it.

I had the kafta manakeesh, apparently the same meat that would be formed onto skewers and served as kafta kabobs. There are only a couple of manakeesh on the menu with other offerings labeled pizza and bread and whether they cook them on a saj or not I don't know, but I was wowed by this. Talk about aromatic - I was almost knocked back from the table by the aroma of the sizzling, flavorful and juicy topping. The crust, just their thin pita I think, is thin enough to be flexible a la a New York pizza. They also serve a couple of wraps, including a sojok and manakik, both being sausages, and schawarma on the weekends.

Cedars Bakery

The Kolache Shop

2011-07-20T20:43:00.008-05:00

120 S. Hwy 288 B @ Main Street, Clute

Behold the celebrated and award-winning Jalapeno Pig. It was named Grand Champion of the state of Texas in 2007 in a statewide kolache competition. This place does call their offerings pigs-in-a-blanket rather than sausage kolaches or klobasneks. It’s about twice the size of any I’ve had before, weighing in at about 6 or 6 and a half ounces, with a good chunk of sausage with natural casing, not just a lil’ smokey or breakfast link much less a wiener, with a modest amount of cheese but a generous amount of jalapeno. An extra attraction is the bread, said to be from a family recipe. It’s more of a country style white bread with a coarser grain than most kolaches with a nice crust and crumb. The bread is also available as rolls. The pigs come with or without cheese and jalapeno, of course, and also as ham and cheese. Another option is the Fajita Pig - fajita meat and Monterey Jack in the same bread. Apparently it’s their fastest seller but I didn’t like it nearly as much. I'm a sausage-aholic though, and not much of a fajita fancier.

Their kolaches, in only about a half-dozen varieties, are quite substantial, too, but not as good as some of the best I’ve had from the Original Kolache Shop on Telephone Road or Kountry Bakery in Hallettsville and Schulenberg or Weikel’s outside La Grange.

They’re open only limited hours, 5 to 11 am, Monday thru Friday. The shop is neat on the inside, with booths and a few tables and a very friendly staff as you would expect in a small Texas town. These may not be worth a special trip from Houston to try but if you’re in the area it’s a real good bet for a breakfast nosh.

Vegetarian for a Week, Part 3

2011-07-20T16:36:00.012-05:00

See the first part of this report here and the second part here.

On day seven I finally made it to Shiv Sagar for the Dabeli. I’d had this just once before here and thought it was the best I’d had with a wonderfully fluffy, toasted bun but he bun was different this time, seemingly nothing but a store bought hamburger bun, so this was a little bit of a let down. It was still good, though. If you like peanuts, there's a ton of 'em underneath all that sev making for a crunchy good sandwich with plenty of the chutneys to doctor it up.

Walking out I noticed Neeta’s in the same center. I’m sure I’ve noticed it before but it’s never registered and there’s not much about it on line. I guess in a shopping center with Himalaya, Shiv Sagar, London Sizzler, India Grocers and Chandrika Massala, something has to be overlooked?, but I saw the sign in the window about the lunch special Gujarati thali and decided to continue my little experiment for one more day.

This was definitely one of the best meals of the week, putting me in mind of the Gujarati thali at Sweet n Namkin I had been reminiscing about. The tray was not loaded down with as many elements as the thalis at Shiv Sagar and Shri Balaji and made for a perfect light lunch. The katoris are, I think, the smallest they make, about 1/2 cup or so. They also have a ‘combination plate’ lunch special which I think includes a sampling of their meat dishes; those plates were coming out a lot faster than my vegetarian thali but I was very pleased with what I got. The Navratam Korma, which I think is what the katori at 9 o’clock contained, was slightly sweet, something I’ve never encountered before, as were the shredded potatoes at 2, but I saved the light, cake-like steamed dhokla speckled with black mustard seeds for my ‘dessert.’ It looked like cake anyway, even though it wasn’t the slightest bit sweet and who says dessert has to be sweet?

Neeta's

So what have I learned from this experiment? Not much really. There were a couple of misses during the week, a couple of pleasant surprises, but it proved to be not much of a stretch for me, as I expected. I got meat cravings only once, on day 6. On the way to the courthouse, I passed the exit on the freeway I would normally take to go over to Frenchy’s on Scott and I couldn’t help but think some fried chicken would sure taste good for supper. The thought passed quickly but just to be sure I took another route home.

I could have gone on, I think, but decided 8 days was enough; I have no intention of actually becoming a vegetarian - I will continue to enjoy both vegetarian and carnivorous meals as the urge strikes me. I did wind up going back to Pine Forest Garden on what would have been day 10.

One self-realization was how much I missed exploring and trying new things. I played it very safe for a whole week; other than Cedars, which I’d been to only once before, Neeta’s was the only place I went where I didn’t know in advance what I was going to have or had a good friend to guide me. I missed the anticipation of something or someplace completely new and unknown, even though part of the time they wind up disappointing.

I made the same mistake in the meals I made at home during the week. I laid in an enormous amount of produce for gazpacho, vegetarian greens, squash soup and more, plus apples, oranges, bananas, plums, nectarines, peaches, kiwis and grapes for snacks. But I relied totally on tried-and-true, standby recipes I’ve been making for years instead of trying something new.

If I were to do it all again, I’d include exploration of new recipes as well as new restaurants.

Vegetarian for a Week, Part 2

2011-07-14T06:41:00.021-05:00

See the first part of this report here.

By Day 4 I was thinking wistfully of the Gujarati Thali at Sweet n Namkin but since that's no longer possible, I pulled a wild card out of the deck and went to Pupusa Buffet, previously mentioned here.

Salvadoran is not a cuisine that springs readily to mind when thinking of vegetarian options but I remembered the one time I went, to the original location on Bellaire just after it opened, I had liked the pupusa con queso y ayote best and I couldn't think of any other pupuseria that even offers one.

I arrived at the Hillcroft location just as lunch service was beginning. My pupusas were just being brought out of the kitchen as I ordered them - two squash and one loroco. Too hot to handle at first, and too soggy, I couldn't wait and dug into the first one using a fork. By the time I'd finished that one, the others were cool enough and dried out enough to pick up and eat. I discovered that the sogginess I had noted on my first visit is not just due to their being on a steam table - they come out of the kitchen that way.

I also got a big portion of the very vinegary curtido, surprisingly spicy for Salvadoran food with two kinds of chile peppers, both in escabeche, and the salsa picante.

Being vegetarian in Houston has got to include some vegetarian Indian and Pakistani fare and I had planned on going to Shiv Sagar for dabeli on Day 5 but got a late start on the day and didn't want to deal with the crowds in Little India on the weekends, so I headed over to Savoy Tika Kabob Restaurant and Grocery on Wilcrest for a couple of their great samosas - chunks of potato, peas, crushed spices, two kinds of chillis, I think - this is still my favorite of the samosas I've found, slightly larger and much spicier. I was going to get an assortment of pakoras, too, but they didn't have any on the menu. The samosas proved to be enough by themselves. The garlic chutney was very garlicky; I hardly bothered with the date/tamarind chutney.

On Day Six I had a jury summons for the afternoon sessions at the county courthouse. With not enough time to go to a restaurant for lunch I made a wrap at home with some of the markouk from Cedars Bakery using some vegetarian shrimp I had picked up recently at San San Tofu (made from milk whey protein), lettuce, daikon, cucumber, and, for lack of anything better, salsa. It was quite good. In fact, I made another one for dinner. I forgot to take pictures both times as I usually don't take pictures of my home meals, so that's just a picture of the markouk, right out of the bag, all folded up. The sheets unfold to 21" in diameter.

Go to the 3rd part of this report here.

Vegetarian for a Week, Part 1

2011-07-12T21:00:00.029-05:00

After reporting on the vegetarian restaurant Quan Yin recently I made the observation that I sometimes think about becoming a vegetarian, not for ethical, health or religious reasons but just because the food at Houston vegetarian restaurants is so good. But I never thought about doing it on a dare.

A couple of weeks later one of the moderators on eGullet announced he was going to try to go vegetarian for a week and challenged other eGulleteers to join him. The response was a little underwhelming at first but I was interested. His thread is really about cooking vegetarian rather than dining out so I'm posting about my dining out adventures here.

Of course I know people, including many of my relatives, who are of the firm belief that they will keel over and die, possibly within mere minutes, if they don't have meat at every meal, but I have long liked my veggies at least as much as meat. I was a vegetarian for about 6 or 8 months back in the 70s and most of my meals at home these days are meatless unless they include take-out or leftovers. Though I keep fish on hand in the freezer and there's probably some pork and chicken somewhere in there too, I bought beef to prepare at home only twice all of last year. I don't think I've gone as long as just 48 hours without meat in a long, long time but I didn't think this would be much of a stretch for me.

After a false start one morning when I absent-mindedly munched on some leftover cha lua from Banh Cuon Tay Ho as part of breakfast, I started in earnest with lunch at Cedars Bakery, 8619 Richmond. I'd been to this Middle Eastern bakery/cafe only once before and enjoyed a kafta manakish and remembered they had a veggie pizza on the menu, specifically the Harhoura Veggie Pizza.

Just what the difference between a manakish and pizza is here I'm not sure; they both appear to be cooked in the same brick-lined, gas-fired oven on the same thin pita bread crust. At least I never saw a saj, the domed cooking surface that a manakish is typically cooked on. But while the manakish was cut in quarters and was thin and flexible enough to be foldable like a New York style pizza, this was cut in thin wedges and wouldn't hold up when picked up. With no cheese on the pizza, the toppings just toppled off. It was just chopped tomato, onion and bell pepper but did have a very nice heat level, which is kind of unusual for Middle Eastern food in my experience. A couple of their other pizzas may be meatless, too. I should have asked first.

I did pick up a package of their beautiful, aromatic, tissue paper thin markouk, the thinnest flat bread I've ever encountered, and it was very useful in the ensuing week in meals I prepared at home.

My friend Ziggy Smogdust has been telling me about Pine Forest Garden, 9108 Bellaire, for at least a couple of years. The chef adheres to strict Buddhist vegetarian cuisine principles and it's one of Ziggy's favorite restaurants. I'd been just once and asked Ziggy to meet me there and help me pick the good stuff for lunch on Day Two.

The best thing on the first plate was the fried tofu skin wrap at 11 o'clock, wonderfully juicy with a crisp and crunchy, fresh tasting filling that I never took the time to examine, thinking I was going to make a second pass at the buffet and get another one. I'm pretty sure it had some sort of sprouts in it and possibly some nuts. I also enjoyed the turnip cake and the long beans and zucchini; the long beans still had a good bite to them. The greens in the middle of the plate were something of a mystery (the buffet is not labeled); Ziggy had always thought they were Chinese broccoli but Samuel, the chef, recognized Ziggy and came over to chat. He told us what they were - the Chinese name - and I cannot recall it. My guess would be Chinese mustard greens. The mock meat at 1 o'clock was even more of a mystery; neither one of use could figure out what it was supposed to be. It had a texture more like pieces of chicken skin than muscle meat which wouldn't have been bad had I not be expecting a fibrous texture like meat.

New things are constantly being brought out for the buffet and on my second pass through either there was no more fried tofu skin or I missed it because there were so many other things I wanted to try. By the way, vegetarian food is very filling and I was getting very full already. The big hits of my second plate were the deep fried mushrooms, the tree fungus, aka wood ear mushroom, at 1 o'clock, and the 'salmon croquette.' The deep fried mushrooms were just a little sweet and a little crispy; I could have eaten a whole plate of them. I've had the tree fungus only minced in banh cuon before and never encountered it like this; I loved it. I'm not really sure what the little fried ball was supposed to be but the texture reminded me very much of a salmon croquette. The disks at the top are mock fish. I've had these before in plates from San San Tofu and liked them just fine but here, braised, the texture became too soft and mushy.

Ziggy also had a second plate, with a big piece of the fungus and some sweets which he wanted me to try including lightly deep fried sweet potato and a Buddhist 'jello' - actually a cross between jello and custard in texture - and mango flavored. I'd noticed them on the buffet and just assumed they were pieces of mango and had passed them over. They were, however, virtually impossible to pick up with chopsticks.

Pine Forest Garden is going to be one of my favorite restaurants, too. I'm looking forward to going back sometime to try their dim sum service, from 3 to 5 as I recall.

I had made a list of all the vegetarian restaurants I've been to in Houston and had scheduled a visit to Georgia's Farm to Market on I-10 for Day Three, but I was still full from the feast at Pine Forest Garden and didn't want to deal with the temptation to over-eat at their large salad bar so I opted instead for something much closer to home, Saba's Kosher Cafe, 9704 Fondren @ South Braeswood, previously reported on on this blog.

Saba's has remodeled, possibly to counter the new competition in the neighborhood, and is a nicer room for dining-in now. The menu has been in flux and my favorite item, which I had decided on in advance, the Moroccan Cigars, is not currently on the menu, although they said it will be coming back. I opted instead for the Sabitch Baguette.

I'd had the Sabitch plate before, grilled eggplant, hard-boiled egg, Israeli salad (diced cucumber, tomato and bell pepper) and hummus, which comes with a pita on the side. You can get this as a pita sandwich, too, but this was excellent. There was some hot sauce, I think the Yemeni skhug is what they use, similar to harissa. The server might have noticed some consternation on my face, though, as initially I thought this was going to be a very dry sandwich, so he offered some tahini sauce too. Turned out it didn't need it, though I added it for flavoring, but there was probably at least a quarter cup of hummus on the sandwich and by the time I got through, the oil in the hummus together with the moisture from the salad was turning the lower part of the sandwich rather soggy.

See the second part of this series here.

Some Places I've Been Eating Lately

2011-06-21T16:26:00.028-05:00

When I'm not hung up by a major obsession (most recently Sichuan cuisine and soup dumplings) I like to keep trying new things. These are some of the places or dishes I've tried recently and really liked.

Fainmous BBQ
10400 S. Post Oak # E (back in the corner)

Not all that many places around here serve pulled pork and even fewer do it well. Jamie Fain is from Tennessee, where pork barbecue rules, and turns out some very good pulled pork. Lightly smoked over hickory, my sandwich was juicy and flavorful, about as good as any I've had in Houston. There are two Tennessee style sauces (not sure what that means) - a mild one and a surprisingly spicy one. I thought the spicy one overwhelmed the meat and preferred the mild one.

The link sandwich was good too, a mildly seasoned pork sausage with a nice snap from a natural casing and likewise very juicy. The pulled chicken turned out to be chunked and I thought the spicier sauce helped that one out, while the sliced brisket was a disappointment. If you're looking for the intensely smoky sort of brisket you'd get from a Central Texas style joint you're not going to find it here and I gotta have that when I have brisket.

Sides include a creamy slaw (you can get that added to a sandwich to create a Memphis style pulled pork sandwich for a little extra), baked beans and potato salad, plus smoked, stuffed spuds. There are also ribs and half chickens, which I haven't tried. Sandwiches come in regular (4" buns, pictured), large and jumbo.

I'm a native Texan but I think the pulled pork sandwich, done well, trumps a chopped barbecue beef sandwich any day and I'm glad to have this place on this side of town.

They're open Tuesday thru Saturday for lunch and early dinner and have been very busy on Saturday when I went in.

Don Cafe
9300 Bellaire

I've recently gotten interested in banh cuon (Vietnamese rice crepes) and remembered I'd read Don served a good one; I stopped in intending to get a banh mi to go but spied this on the menu and requested it instead. I'm sure this would have looked better plated up in the restaurant, but it was very good. This was with the more common pork filling instead of the shrimp I had recently at Banh Cuon Hoa II on Beechnut and I liked it better. I'll be trying this again in-house as well as several other places in Chinatown that specialize in banh cuon.

Thuan Kieu Com Tam
10792 Bellaire Blvd, Suite A

Another dish I've been interested in trying lately is com tam - Vietnamese broken rice dishes. I was headed to the eponymously named place in Hong Kong City Mall when I spotted this one, which hadn't been on my list, and decided on a lark to save myself the hassle of the hordes at HK Mall on a weekend and try it. It's a large and noisy room; the young host virtually ran to the front door to welcome me and I was seated less than 2 minutes when a server appeared to ask if I was ready to order. It's a large menu and normally I would have wanted more time but I knew what I wanted and went straight to the Com Tam section of the menu and went with the first choice - Com Tam Thuan Kieu Dac Biet Mon A - bi (shredded pork) - barely visible under the fried tofu skin, baked egg, lap zuong (sausage), charbroiled shrimp (tom nuong), tofu skin with shrimp (tom hu ky), and pork chop (suon), plus garlic chives, pickled and fresh vegetables. A completely lame imitation of a tomato came on the plate and my pork chop was overcooked and dry but otherwise I liked this dish, especially the baked egg and pickled veggies. As is the case about half the time when trying a new dish, I really didn't get the appeal of the broken rice but as is also the case a lot of the time when I try it several times, I grow to like it so I will be having it again. There are several places in Chinatown which specialize in these dishes with com tam in the name of the restaurant; there are an amazing 50 varieties of com tam on the menu here.

Quan Yin Vegetarian Restaurant
10804 E Bellaire

I had seen this place several times before but never remembered to put it down on a list of prospects; it's been around a long time. I spotted it again pulling away from Thuan Kieu and finally remembered to make a note to go back.

The interior is in more appealing shape than that rather shabby shopping center; service was quiet and very courteous. There are signs in the windows proclaiming it's a vegan restaurant but not all dishes on the menu are identified as vegan. There is a menu book but also a big picture menu which I found most helpful/tantalizing in picking a dish. The picture menu is available on the website, too, and I had an idea what I wanted before I went in.

The Hand Roll was delightful - peanuts, lettuce, shredded cabbage, mock cha lua and vegetarian cheese plus a veggie mayo, wrapped in seaweed. Move over spring rolls - I just may like this better.

I seldom order soup at a restaurant; soup is one thing I do pretty well at home and seldom feel like paying someone else to serve me something I can fix at home but the Quan Yin Special Soup (Sup Dac Biet) was calling out to me. Mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, carrots, bamboo shoots, cilantro, and mock chicken breast in a veggie broth, about 6 cups worth overall. Add a little acidity, a little heat or a little umami to your individual servings with the condiments on the table and have a feast. This was just what the doc ordered.

I left very contented, feeling extraordinarily virtuous for eating such healthy fare, thoroughly hydrated and looking forward to going back. Sometimes I think about becoming a vegetarian in Houston, not for ethical, religious or health reasons but just because the vegetarian food in this town is so damn good.

Quan Yin

MexAfrican Foods

2011-06-12T18:00:00.007-05:00

9817 Bissonnet # N

I'd seen this little store before but wasn't sure it was open; the shopping center has been home to a continuing parade of failed eateries and is mostly empty. Recently I saw a lighted 'Open' sign in the window and pulled in to check it out. I was hoping against hope it was an eatery offering a fusion of African and Mexican foods, maybe African inspired tamales and enchiladas?

Alas, it was just a small grocery. The narrow aisles carried the usual West African staples, some spices and herbs and flours, jars of ready-made 'African Stew' which mentioned jollof on the label. There were also some Goya products displayed, apparently the reason for the 'Mex' part of the name (the street side sign, easy to miss, says Mexican African Caribbean Food).

In the rear was a small meat case with oxtail, cows foot and some other typical cuts; in the freezer case were bags of stockfish pieces and whole stockfish, the unsalted, dried cod from Norway that is widely used in West Africa.

At the checkout counter I spied what I hoped to see - some ready made snacks. Communication was virtually impossible, however. All I could pick up was 'bread' and 'bean' referring to the items I picked up.

It turned out they were all 'bread' - fried breads, that is. The round one was very dense, slightly sweet and tasted faintly of banana or plantain. The flatter more irregularly shaped ones were still warm, very savory and surprisingly spicy; they were also still quite greasy.

The dubyadubyadubya wasn't much help on these but I finally formed the opinion the slightly sweet one was Puff Puff, a Nigerian donut, often served with powdered sugar, while the savory ones were Akara, essentially a black-eyed pea fritter. I like the Akara much better; they would go good with greens or in lots of situations where cornbread might be served.

There had been a couple of empty display cases and trays at the counter so I went back a few days later to check for some others snacks. This time the clerk spoke perfect English and confirmed my deductions about the Puff Puff and Akara (you can just call me Sherlock from now on). I found cone shaped items, wrapped in banana or plantain leaves, labeled jollof - an African tamale? - but I was more interested in the foil pockets which had moi moi, the Nigerian steamed black-eyed pea pudding. This is a popular breakfast and street food in Nigeria and I've seen it on menus before but never had it. As with the Akara, the peas are soaked until the hulls are easily removed, leaving them a pale yellow/cream color instead of brown, then mashed or ground into a paste or flour. Moi moi is made with red palm oil, onions and red pepper and has a reddish tinge and a little bit of heat depending on how much red pepper is used. Sometimes onions, bell pepper, corned beef or chicken are mixed in, too. Sometimes habanero is used but these were only mildly spicy and I don't think it was habanero.

I've never made anything with red palm oil but I have to go back and get some and try it plus the jollof tamales.

The store is open 7 days a week.

Tejano Salsa and Tamale Company

2011-05-25T22:15:00.008-05:00

10421 S. Post Road

I was headed up South Post Oak one day recently when I caught sight out of the corner of my eye of a large banner proclaiming 'hand made hot tamales, now open.' It took a couple of turns and a couple of Uies before I was able to get into the parking lot (you have to be headed north on Post Oak just south of West Bellfort) only to find they actually weren't open, but I did see the bales of corn shucks stacked in the windows and knew I had to come back.

This is a new store-front and tamale factory for Houston-based Tejano Salsa and Tamale Company, offering about a dozen varieties of hand-made tamales. I had never even heard of them before and they aren't in my neighborhood grocery store but here they are with a full line of salsas, cheese dips and more.

When I was able to catch them open they were still in a very rudimentary operating mode. They have frozen tamales and hot tamales, by the half dozen or dozen. I got a half dozen of the pork with salsa verde in a cry-o-vac pack, steaming hot, for $6. They were large, about 4 oz each, tasty, with shredded pork. The masa itself was dry for my taste - I like very moist tamales - but good, nonetheless.

Besides tamales they have the complete line of their salsas and dips and some sodas. There are no tables but I was told they hope to add plate lunches in the future to their offerings.

I see from their website their tamales have previously been available at Spec's.

Tejano Salsa and Tamales

Cooper's Po-Boy Express

2011-05-15T07:35:00.021-05:00

S. Gessner @ W. Airport - MOVED

The latest mobile unit to roll to a stop on the southwest side is a streetcar - a New Orleans po-boy cart. Clang, clang, ding ding, woot, woot -I have no idea what sound a New Orleans streetcar makes but what a great visual tip-off to the goodies that await at the window. When I first saw this I couldn't believe my eyes and was sure they must just be parked here because the owner lived nearby. But no, they're here to stay, although hours are somewhat limited. We have places to get tortas galore, banh mi shops too numerous to count, but when it comes to other types of sandwiches we've been severely lacking here on the southwest side for anything other than chains. Could it really be that now we have a purveyor of some of the best sandwiches on the planet, New Orleans po-boys, and just 5 minutes from my driveway?

I couldn't wait to try it out but I had to. There are no hours (or menu) posted on the cart and the website is not much help but at last I caught them open. They just got their permit the end of March and started operations around the middle of April but some equipment problems have arisen, notably that I know of an inadequate ventilation fan to handle the smoke generated by using the grill. Roy Cooper supervises the frying and grilling, an ever-beaming Patricia Harris greets the customers and keeps an eye on the whole operation. I think these people are as excited and happy to be offering their foods as I am to have them.

The menu is small, 8 types of po-boys, hot sausage or smoked sausage, hamburger, roast beef, turkey or ham ranging from $5.99 to $7.99 for a half sandwich and from $9.99 to $11.99 for a whole, a choice of toppings, fries, chips, beverages. The hot sausage is Danton's, the smoked sausage is D & D's, both products from Bogalusa now carried by Fiesta stores. I tried the Danton's hot sausage first, an all-beef pan sausage liberally laced with cayenne. The sandwich, a half is 8 inches, contained 3 patties, grilled, with shredded lettuce, tomato, pickle and gobs of mayonnaise, the latter an essential part of a New Orleans po-boy to me, and was really good. The bread is a really important factor, of course; many places here in Houston that claim to offer New Orleans po-boys get the bread all wrong but this one is pretty close, very similar to the bread used by Antone's, although it could benefit from a little more crustiness.

When I was called to the window to pick mine up I got a big face full of the exhaust fan problem - I was hit in the face with a blast of smoke that knocked me back; inside it was smokier than the pit room at City Market in Luling and I didn't see how they were going to cope with that for several hours. I think this problem has been taken care of; for the sake of the crew, hopefully so.

I wouldn't be surprised if most people name a catfish, shrimp or oyster po-boy as their favorite but my favorite New Orleans po-boys are the roast beef with gravy and debris and the hamburger po-boy and I went with the roast beef on my second visit although I had second thoughts while standing around smelling the fish frying. This wasn't quite as good as the hot sausage; as I suspected, there wasn't much gravy on this po-boy. Per city of Houston regulations, a mobile vendor cannot provide an eating area nearby so almost all business is grab and go and too much gravy would turn that bun into a soggy mess very quickly. I could accept that limitation but I was disappointed in the lack of any debris - the meat had not cooked enough to begin to fall apart. Still, the flavors were all there. Also there was a slice of cheese, a surprise to me since I didn't even realize that was available. I prefer no cheese on a roast beef po-boy with gravy and I'll have them leave that off next time.

I look forward to trying all the other varieties here. They're open only Thursday, Friday and Saturday from around 11am to 8pm.

Cooper's Po-Boy Express

Downhome Bar-b-que and Grill

2011-05-07T23:33:00.012-05:00

S. Gessner @ W. Airport

This intersection has come alive with food trucks of late. On a recent Saturday, there were four units in operation - Taqueria Zihuatenejo, Roy’s Mobile Barbecue, a po-boy trolley and this unit. The po-boy trolley has been having technical difficulties apparently and has been missing some days when it’s supposed to be open but I’ll be reporting on that soon. There was also a guy selling cocos frios and melons out of his pickup and a transient flower vendor had set up a large tent on another service station driveway making for a very colorful and festive scene. The intersection is like a food court on wheels. (UPDATE: All of these units have disappeared from this intersection. So much for our mobile food court. It was probably a violation of some city ordinance).

Downhome Bar-b-que is one of the more recent arrivals. I’ve been seeing it for a couple of months but never open when I pass that way. Recently when the craving struck me I made a special trip and luckily caught it open.

I was offered a generous gimme piece of the brisket. It was tender and juicy as it should be with maybe a 1/4" smoke ring; mesquite is the wood used but the smokiness was not so intense that a disagreeable tarry taste was noticeable so I went for a sliced beef sandwich. There was about 6 oz of brisket, both fatty and lean, on a big thick bun with onions and pickles on the side. The sandwich was a little dry - it actually could have used a little more sauce just because of all the bread - but it was good and quite filling. Eating my way through it I encountered a few bites with some of the charred pieces of the bark on the brisket, a welcome note. The tomato based sauce is medium thickness, a little tart, a little sweet, and with a little heat which builds. I thought it was nicely balanced.

The large smoker cage on the back of the trailer bears the insignia of Rocky Mountain Smokers but I don’t know if the current operator has any connection to that, which I assume to be a competition team.

I never use a sandwich as a way of evaluating great Texas barbecue so on another visit I inquired about the sausage offered. It is made for the pitmaster locally and is a fine ground, all beef sausage with a little cayenne. I was again offered a generous gimme piece and liked it enough to go for a plate of links and ribs since I already knew the pitmaster turned out some decent brisket. The ribs are trimmed St. Louis style and were extraordinarily tender but there isn't much meat on these types of ribs. The juicy sausage reminded me of one of my favorite unsung sausages of Central Texas from the late Eurestes Grocery in Waelder; with the addition of a little pork and a natural casing, it would have been very much the same but I liked it as is, too.

The sandwich was $7, the combo plate $10; a one meat plate is $9. There are no prices listed for meats by the pound. The brief menu also includes chicken and a choice of potato salad, slaw or baked beans as sides. Both the sides I got I would judge to have been store bought products.

They are open from around 11 or 11:30 am to about 8pm, if there’s still cue to sell, Wednesday thru Saturday.

Asturias Bakery and Cafe

2011-04-30T21:18:00.011-05:00

3852 S. Dairy Ashford, just north of the Westpark Tollway

I have to thank alief foodie for alerting me to this place. I've driven by many times on the way up to Phoenicia or Cafe Caspian, etc., and just assumed it was another Mexican Panaderia. I guess I hadn't looked very closely in some time or I would have noticed the Bistrot 1919 umbrellas and looked into it further.

Asturias is an Argentine bakery and cafe (the menu card calls it a Confiture). It's a little larger than Manena's but about as cramped. There are serve-yourself display cases of breads (Pan Francis, Criollos, Cremonas, Libritos) and facturas (mini Danish), plus cakes, etc. There are packaged cookies on the shelves, baked in-store. I was tempted by a tray of alfajores but I'd better not have a whole dozen of those around. There are Argentine groceries including flours and mixes, ready-baked Boboli type things that I assume are meant to be used for pizza (made in house), Yerba Mate products, La Saltena products, spices, and Argentine cheeses. Frozen products include sausages and some frozen dough, half pints and pints of Trentino gelato from the company started by an Argentine ex-pat here in Houston a few years ago, and more. There are ready-made Sandwiches de Migas, the thin, crustless Argentine sandwiches that I love, in about nine different varieties including palmitos, ham, turkey, and prosciutto, and also some ready made po-boy type sandwiches. I assume you can get those made fresh.

I got a beef empanada plus three facturas and a criollo. The baked rather than fried empanada was heated up in a sandwich press. It had a juicy beef picadillo filling, savory rather than spicy, with a slice of hard boiled egg; this would be similar to the Gaucho at Marini's but not as spicy and with a much thinner, flexible crust. They also have a chicken empanada. The facturas had the typical fillings of crema pastelera, dulce de leche and dulce de membrillo . The Criollo, like the Libritos and Cremonas, is a flaky bun, similar to puff pastry.

The serve espresso and cappuccino and the like, hence the Bistrot 1919 umbrellas on the sidewalk.

The website is in a holding pattern. I've uploaded menu card scans to Urbanspoon.

Aroma Pizza Cafe

2011-04-30T07:06:00.012-05:00

6285 Bissonnet @ Hillcroft

This is the newest addition to the small list of Kosher (Dairy) restaurants on the SW side. Located in the same strip center with Sheba Ethiopian Cafe, Hoagie's and More Pupusa, Pho and Banh Mi shop, and El Reyna Tortilleria and Birreria, it's a small, sleekly decorated little cafe. They have a little bigger menu of pizzas than nearby Saba's plus salads, sandwiches, paninis, focaccia, burekas and pastas plus a couple of breakfast dishes. They also serve coffees made with Katz Velvet Espresso.

The Kosher restaurant scene has been active lately with the addition of this one, relocation of Suzie's and remodeling of Saba's that I haven't checked out yet.

There are a number of interesting pizzas. I tried the Sweet Potato Pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella, thin slices of sweet potato mimicking pepperoni or Canadian bacon in appearance and thin, wispy strips of red onion on a sesame seed crust. This was driving me crazy with the smell on the way home. The menu hadn't emphasized the sesame seed crust and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box; I've been on a sesame seed kick lately - sesame laddu, sesame crackers, sesame bread sticks - so this was a plus.

There was a time, decades ago, thankfully, when I was of the persuasion that extra cheese made everything better and always got a pizza loaded with toppings and extra cheese. I'm sure if I was still in that mode I would think that stuffed crust or 4 cheese pizzas were the greatest thing since, well, pizza, but my tastes have simplified over the years and I now prefer pizzas with minimal toppings, sometimes just cheese, sauce and fresh tomatoes. This one was very much in line with my tastes with a nice balance of ingredients. The slight sweetness of the sweet potatoes and caramelized onion strips contrasted with the nuttiness and crunchiness of the seeds and the saltiness of the cheese and tomato. I would have liked the crust a little crispier but I liked this one.

Another one that sounded good was the Balkan pizza - sauce, mozzarella, feta, eggplant, zataar and sesame seeds. This one had very strong, competing flavors that didn't work well for me. The zataar overwhelmed pretty much everything else and the combination of mozzarella and feta also was too much. I was mostly interested in the eggplant as Middle Eastern cuisines do interesting things with eggplant but there was a skimpy amount and I could hardly taste it. I'm sure this works for some people but I didn't like it nearly as much as the sweet potato.

They also have a Red Hot Chilli Pepper pizza with jalapenos and black pepper that I haven't tried and several other combinations plus a pretty standard array of toppings to choose from as add-ons but no meats, of course.

The salads I've seen being served in-house have been large and the paninis have looked good.

Being Kosher it's a little pricier. Ten inch pizzas start at $8.50 and go up to $20 for an 18 inch. The only meat available is tuna, as a salad and a sandwich. And of course they're closed for Jewish Holy Days although they do open an hour after Shabbat and stay open until midnight on Saturday.

Aroma Pizza Cafe

Haute Wheels

2011-04-24T20:30:00.003-05:00

I haven't been following the Food Truck scene in Houston since the first of the year. It's just not swelteringly hot enough to be standing around in a parking lot, breathing the fumes, waiting for a taco or a pocket pie right now. But there's an event coming up that I'm looking forward to, Haute Wheels.

It's Houston's first ever Food Truck festival and it will bring together many of the most interesting mobile vendors for a two day event. Not only that, it's going to be on the Southwest side, on the HCC campus on the West Loop. This will be the closest most of these trucks have ever been to where I live and thus will be the best opportunity to sample many trucks, some of which would otherwise require a lengthy round trip to access.

Note it will cost $16 to get in and that doesn't get you any food. Still, I plan to be there at least one day and if I can't taste everything I want to then, the second day also.

Sankalp

2011-04-19T16:04:00.020-05:00

16338 Kensington Dr., Sugar Land

Pure Indian Vegetarian, The Taste of the Country and The Taste of South are some of the descriptive phrases in the window and on the menu and website for this restaurant. I went down to check out the Chaat House that used to be at this location and was surprised to see it replaced by this. I was even more surprised when the silverware holder on the table and the menu informed me it's part of a chain of more than 50 restaurants across the country. The country referred to is India; there are only a handful of locations in the US, 5 or 6 currently, but more are being added. I don't eat at a lot of chains but I was interested to see how the food might compare to some of my favorite places in Little India. I wondered, do Indians have higher expectations of chain restaurants, higher standards?

The restaurant is based in Gujurat and serves the foods of South India including the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The menu is thick both because of the binding and rather thick stock and also larger type but it is not overly long. In the Idli Stall section are almost a dozen offerings; in the Dashing Dosaz section, well over a dozen. There are Amazing Uthappams, Ravishing Ravas and so on.

I had been anticipating a vegetarian meal but wanted something substantial; there were two vegetable kurmas and I settled on the Chettinad Kurma with a Malabari Porotta. I had no idea what Chettinad referred to but the Wikioracle has revealed to me that Chettinad is a region in Tamil Nadu State that is known for it's spicy and aromatic dishes. I noticed when the dish was placed before me that it was very aromatic and it also proved to be wonderfully spicy. I had wondered if the spices would be tamed down for a chain restaurant's clientele which I generally think of being less adventurous eaters but if this had been tamed down at all, the unadulterated version might be outside my comfort zone for heat. There were peas, still with a bit of crunch, carrots, small florets of broccoli and cauliflower, green beans or long beans, a little corn, I think. I was very pleased by the dish; it was one of the two best vegetable kurmas I've ever had and certainly the spiciest. The portion was a little small but kurma is very filling and I left satisfied.

I was given a choice of steamed rice or Malabari Porota to accompany this. I've been eating almost exclusively Indian and Thai food for several weeks and was getting tired of rice so I went with the Porota. The Malabari Porota is produced by rolling out the dough in a long thin strip, coiling it up into a multi-layered circle about the size of a corn tortilla and then frying it. It proved to be very good, easily torn into pieces and excellent for sopping up the kurma. It was smaller than other porotas/parathas I've had.

This is outside my usual grazing range and I don't turn to chain restaurants very often but a few days later, hungry for some Indian food, I thought I'd give it another try to see if my first impressions held up. There was a problem, though. The restaurant was in it's first 2 weeks of operation and there were recurring equipment problems; 2 of the first 4 times I tried to eat there they weren't open when the sign said they should be, some dishes could not be prepared and the kitchen was slow overall. They were also very short staffed. I think all these problems have been taken care of by now. I tried again a couple of days later and caught them open.

According to the corporate website the company operates a chain of pizza parlors called Uncle Sam's and a chain of Northern Indian barbecue grill places called Saffron offering both meat and vegetable grilled items; all locations of both chains are in India. I wondered if any of the items from those menus also made it onto the Sankalp menu and I did find one pizza, a Chennai Pizza Uthapam. I wasn't in the mood for pizza, however, so I went for a quesadilla.

This is the Madurai Sandwich Uthappam. The way it was described by the waitress and the way it looks I thought: This is an Indian vegetarian quesadilla (there is a cheese version with paneer). This was two thin, light uthappams, more pancake-like than any Uthappams I've had, layered with peas and carrots and curry paste and maybe a few other vegetables, garnished as you see. It brought a smile to my face plus it was tasty. Madurai is a city in Tamil Nadu; I don't know if this is a typical dish there or a creation of the restaurant's menu development department but I don't care how authentic it is - it was tasty and fun and I was encouraged to try more of their Uthappams. The waitress said you could pick it up and eat it like a sandwich if you liked but I think it would have been pretty messy.

The Uthappam came with a dipping bowl of the house coconut chutney and was preceded by a small cup of a spicy and sour Rasam and a cup of Sambar, plus four house chutneys. I had seen these being served at other tables but didn't get any with my Kurma. The portions of Rasam and Sambar were small but a server came around offering to refill both, even offering to leave the saucier on the table. The chutneys included, from the left, Coconut, Gunpowder, Mint/Coriander/Chile Pepper and Garlic. I went straight for the garlic chutney and was sure it was going to be my favorite until I tried the coconut and mint/coriander concoctions. Those were all good but I didn't get much spice or flavor or anything out of the gunpowder chutney. I learned on a subsequent visit that gunpowder chutney is produced from ground spices, ground lentils and oil and the ingredients tend to settle. You have to dig down in the cup and stir it up to get the spices and flavor, at the top is mostly oil.

With this meal I also ordered the restaurant's version of Chhas, the Indian buttermilk, which is also referred to as Neermore on the menu. As served here is was thicker than any I've had before, the same texture as American cultured buttermilk but not as sour; it was not as spicy with cumin and cilantro as others I've had but I liked it.

I had decided Sankalp was worthy of a blog post, perhaps blowing any credibility I might have as an explorer of off-beat eateries, but I wanted to visit one more time to try something on the Dosa menu. Dosas are a fascinating food, thin, light crepes with a spicy filling. Well, the Masala Dosa is fascinating and can be excellent. My favorite is at Shri Balaji Bhavan. But every time I've tried other varieties of dosas I've been disappointed. The menu here offers 2 dosa combination plates, the Three Barrel Dosa, one of them being Nilgiri that I can remember, and the Dosa Combination Platter and I wanted to try one of those to sample three dosas at the same time. I ordered the Dosa Platter which included an achar dosa and a Chennai dosa with seasoned paneer, plus one other I've forgotten. These were described as small but each was about 10 or 11 inches in length. They looked like three large breakfast burritos on the plate. This came with the Rasam and Sambar plus the four chutneys. To my surprise my favorite was the sour and salty achar dosa but overall this was the least satisfying meal of the three I've had; I still don't get dosas, other than the Masala Dosa.

The website of the Sugar Land store is under construction. On the corporate website you can find out more about the company including their Guinness World Record Dosa. Click on the Sankalp page on the home page and then on Menus at the top to see a pdf file of a menu that is close to the menu of the Sugar Land location. On the home page is a link to USA menus but the menus which come up there are very different. Apparently the Sugar Land store has a menu that is closer to what is offered in the restaurants in India than other US locations. I've identified a few items on the menu locally that are not on that corporate menu file and the menu you'll see at the restaurant has more elaborate explanations of the items.

Sugar Land seems to have a substantial Indian community; there are two other Indian restaurants on this short street and I've also eaten at Udipi and the new Indian Spices and Snacks on US-90A in old downtown Sugar Land. It will be interesting to see how this one fares.

Mo's Knockout Grill and Mediterranean Food

2011-04-02T19:50:00.009-05:00

7918 Kirby

I've been having to spend some time in the Medical Center lately and have checked this place out and wound up returning several times. It's in the space formerly occupied by DJs Old-Timey Hamburgers which was originally a Toddle House, I think.

I have been trying for years to like falafel. Conceptually I should like it but the execution is frequently poor; there must be something about frying little round thingies - hush puppies, oysters, popcorn shrimp, falafel - that stymies the skill set of the average fry cook. Such items too often come out over-cooked. In the case of falafel, this means too hard and thick a crust, dried out interior, or, sometimes, they're grease-soaked. My first bite of a falafel gyro at Mo's was a pleasant surprise and so far they have not let me down. The fry cook, by some accounts, Mo's Dad, has a light touch and the falafel comes out about as perfect as any I've ever had. The picture is of a falafel appetizer plate I had on a subsequent visit and I'm surprised the camera didn't catch the steam rising from the piece I just broke open. Actually, the interior was a little mushy but after resting and cooling off a few minutes, it was wonderfully light, spongy and cake-like, almost. The falafel is not as spicy here as at Zabak's I'll have to admit but since the spices aren't incinerated or charcoalized by over-cooking, it is possible to appreciate the savory bites every bit as much as the ones I've had at Zabak's, which has disappointed me on occasion by serving overcooked falafel with hardened crust.

Another revelation was the pita at Mo's which is steamed, guaranteeing you don't get dried out, leathery bread requiring tearing rather than biting. The piece in the picture was a toasted a bit better than other samples I've had; it was so beautifully toasted on both sides, I was tempted to ask for some butter and syrup and improvise a Middle Eastern pancake.

The kibbeh is also excellent. It's juicy and flavorful lamb with pine nuts and onions. What I particularly liked was the bulgur wheat shell was thinner than what you often get, making for a very favorable meat per kibbeh ratio. These may well be the best kibbeh I've ever had.

The gyro was huge, too big for me at one sitting. I took home about half of that one and calculated the original had about 8 ounces of the beef-lamb mixture.

I've eaten at off-hours and haven't had a chance to look over the shoulder of any other diners so haven't seen any other foods than the ones I've had. I have seen the sharwarma rotisserie in the kitchen and it looks promising.

The fries, which accompany every sandwich, have been disappointing; it's a small serving, which is okay by me, but I wish there was an alternative choice. The biggest disappointment however has been the tzatziki which is thick and creamy, almost a study in congealment, and lacking in garlicky punch and lemony zest.

Mo Abdin was a professional boxer, hence the name of the place. Virtually every available space on the wall is occupied by his boxing memorabilia including his trunks and gloves, WBC Title Belt, and dozens of pictures. The food comes out fast but it's fun taking a few minutes to check some of it out.

I'm glad to know about this place. It joins a very short list of good eateries convenient to the Medical Center.

Istanbul Market

2011-03-25T04:23:00.011-05:00

7912 Hillcroft

Bissonnet is one of our great food streets with a very wide diversity of eateries. As far as ethnic or national cuisines go it's probably most known for Mexican and Salvadoran but there is Greek, Italian, Cuban, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Vietnamese, Kosher, Korean, Caribbean, Filipino, Colombian, Ghanaian, Pakistani and probably several others I've forgotten. The intersection of Hillcroft and Bissonnet has quite a diverse collection itself. Within a block or so are Hoagie's and More (Vietnamese/Salvadoran - a banh mi/pho/pupusa shop), Sheba (Ethiopian), Aroma Pizza Cafe (Kosher), Pupusa Buffet, Taqueria La Fogata, the venerable Droubi's (which I have just re-discovered after not having been for several years), Myung Dong (Korean), La Roca (Salvadoran tamaleria), a Honduran mobile unit and this place - a Turkish grocery.

It's a small, very neat and clean, well-stocked store run by two friendly young guys. Despite the size, it would be easy to spend quite a while browsing all the offerings, many of which you likely will not find elsewhere in Houston. There is a large selection of Turkish sweets and snacks, jarred olives and ajvar, stuffed zucchini, eggplant and vine leaf goodies, dried Turkish peppers, utensils for making and serving Turkish coffee, and much more.

In a deli meat case are a half dozen varieties of sujuk plus beef mortadella. The sign indicates Hallal beef and chicken products are also available but they're not on display; there may have been pastirma but I don't remember it. In the coolers is a variety of cheeses from Turkey including Hellim, Peynir and Kasar as I recall, plus yogurt, aryan and other dairy products.

In still another deli case there is a small selection of Turkish olives.

I went in hoping that they would have a ready-to-eat section offering some hot foods as so many Houston ethnic grocery stores do. Of course the olives and cheeses, etc., are 'ready-to-eat' but I was hoping to have found a place right in my neighborhood where I could grab some doner or pide on the run instead of having to drive all the way in to the Village. Alas, no such luck. The only offerings of that sort are in a deli case right inside the door, two pastries, baklava and kadaif burma.

The clerk told me they had just started carrying the kadaif and he preferred it to the baklava. Just looking at it I thought I might agree with him (okay, I botched that piece up a bit getting it out of the tray). It's twisted, shredded wheat (call it vermicelli if you like) with honey and pistachios. However the baklava was just awesome and was my favorite of the two. These are sold by the pound and that was almost 4 dollars worth (that's a dessert plate, not a dinner plate).

They're open 7 days a week.

Panaderia y Pasteleria DF

2011-03-23T00:10:00.011-05:00

6039 Bissonnet @ Rampart

This intersection has quite a collection of eateries representing three continents. There is Gorditas Aguascalientas and Costa Del Sol, a Salvadoran Restaurant and Pupuseria on one corner. Caddy-corner, in the same center with this new Mexican bakery and torta shop are Taqueria El Alteno, a Jaliscan style Mexican place, Tierras Colombianas, El Cuscatleco, another pupuseria, and Maru Ethiopian grocery. Less than 50 yards away is yet another Jaliscan style taqueria. Before Panaderia y Pasteleria DF moved into this space it was occupied by the Pie Factory, representing the good ol' USA.

It's a very plain space offering the usual Mexican pastries, cakes and breads. The bolillos are good but what's unusual for a panaderia is a large menu of 'Tortas Exquisitas estilo DF,' more than a dozen listed on the menu board and in signs in the windows. There are some familiar ones listed - Cubana, Chilanga, Asada, Milanesa - plus several I've never heard of before - Tatiana, Toluquena, Alemana, Espanola, Rusa - plus one listed in a sign in the window but not on the menu board that sounds intriguing - Torta de Nino Pobre. I'm wondering - have they come up with a sandwich combining the sandwich making artistry of Mexico City and New Orleans????

Pierna, Chorizo, Huevos and Milanesa are fillings listed repeatedly; I don't remember a Pastor. I tried the Torta Espanola - chorizo, quesilla, and huevo on a toasted telera with the usual accompaniments. It was embarrassingly, disgustingly good. These sandwiches are so huge one usually makes for two meals for me, or at last one meal and a large snack, but I finished this one off in one sitting; I couldn't help myself.

Just why it's called Torta Espanola I don't know since that clearly is Mexican chorizo, not Spanish. If the people running the notorious Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona, knew what they were doing, they'd have a whole section of their menu devoted to tortas - these are clearly not health food options.

Besides the tortas they also offer burritos, quesadillas and a taquito plate plus tamales. These are the larger, denser Mexico City style tamales like those at Tamales Dona Tere. They're not quite as large nor quite as good as those, though. When I inquired about them the senora brought out the big tamale steaming pot from behind the counter and plucked out a couple to show me; obviously these are hand-made. They had only two varieties available, con pollo en salsa verde and con rajas in salsa roja. They were sold out of a puerco en salsa roja variety. I liked the rajas best - onion and chile pepper strips - though I still prefer a more moist Tex-Mex or Salvadoran tamale to the Mexico City style.

Heritage India Cuisine

2011-02-24T07:21:00.011-06:00

3201 South Main (US 90-A eastbound) at Ave. B, Stafford

The Stafford-Missouri City area seems to be the center of the expat community from Kerala in the Houston area. There is Kerala Kitchen, a caterer on FM 1092; both the Indian grocery stores in Stafford feature foods from Kerala with many at Discount Grocers imported by Grace Supply of Missouri City. There is an Indian Christian Church on 5th Street, a denomination that was founded in Kerala in the first century and has it’s headquarters there, and there is this restaurant. Kerala is a state on the SW coast of India and the foods are quite different from those of Northern India which most people are familiar with or my favs, the vegetarian dishes of Southern India.

Wheat breads are not as common as in the rest of India; although chapathi and porota are served there is no naan on the menu. Fermented rice pancakes made with coconut and a little sugar and known as palappam are the staple bread (and are delicious). They look like smallish pieces of Ethiopian injera and are thicker and slightly spongy in the center, thin and lacy and a little crispy on the edges which are typically curled up a little due to the utensil they’re cooked in. Kappa, translated as tapioca and referring to yuca/cassava/manioc, is a staple starch along with rice. There are very wet curries, broths more than gravies, and very dry curries, thought to have inspired the dry curries of Malaysia. Coconut oil is used rather than ghee.

The word Malayali or Malayalee does not appear on the menu, nor does Keralan, but I am advised by an Indian correspondent that that term would be preferred over Keralan as a name for this cuisine. The word comes from the common language spoken by the peoples of the region. So far as I know this is the only restaurant in this area serving some of these dishes and there are very few restaurants offering this specialty anywhere in the US it appears.

I’ve had the Kerala style thali, a bargain at $9 with nine katoris plus papadum and rice. In order from the top sambhar, payasam, fish curry (kingfish), achar, avial and thoran (vegetable dishes, the latter being a dry vegetable dish briefly cooked), steak fry (a choice of steak fry or pork fry is offered on the thali, the former being a dry curry) and chammanthi, a coconut chutney, plus kacheyamoor, a spicy butermilk curry that was presented separately since there wasn’t room for it on the tray. I had just put some new batteries in my camera, something I haven’t had to do in months, and forgot I needed to reset the resolution so I apologize that picture is below par. You’re seeing mostly the reflection of the achar or pickle and the chutney.

I’ve also had the Sunday Home Style Kerala buffet ($11) where there was papadum, palappam, rice, kappa, fish curry, pork fry, duck curry, chicken wings, avial, thoran (a different recipe), payasam, kacheyamoor, chemmendi (a mango chutney, I think), fresh fruit and a couple of other items I didn’t try or get the name of. I don’t know if the chicken wings were tandoori as I didn’t try them because I just didn’t have room but they looked very much like they were. Payasam is the South Indian version of Kheer; invented in Kerala and popular all over South India, it is made with vermicelli instead of rice and includes pistachios, almonds and raisins as served here.

Al la carte I’ve also had the Kappa Fish Curry, a typical Kerala meal with a big bowl of stewed yuca/tapioca served with the Fish curry. The palappam (extra) are great for sopping up the broth of the fish curry and contrasted nicely with the slightly tart, tamarind based broth. As I was having that one of the owners asked if it was too spicy. I assured him as a Native Texan I was having no problems and he said they really tone it down from how it would be served in India so of course I asked if they would serve it that way on request and he indicated they would so if you go, remember that if ordering a dish off the menu.

Continue reading the report here.

Al-Nile Restaurant and Bakery, Grocery and Halal Meat

2011-02-19T04:56:00.012-06:00

6502 Bellaire @ Rookin

This is new signage identifying this place as a restaurant. I’ve driven by this place dozens of times, usually heading east on Bellaire on the far side of the street. I’ve noticed it before but never realized it was a restaurant until I was stopped at the light heading west a couple of months ago and could see the signs in the windows advertising Shawarma and Desayunos for $2.99. Hola and selam and welcome to the United Nations of Sharpstown. I could also see that there were tables and chairs in the windows facing the side street.

I wasn’t able to find out much about it online other than it had changed hands recently and was allowed to serve food on reusable plates and with reusable utensils. I hypothesized that a restaurant serving schawarma with Nile in the name might be Egyptian so I read up on Egyptian cuisine before stopping in only to be confounded when I first confronted the menu board. Though I recognized a couple of listings - I guessed Beans and Egg was a reference to Ful Medammes (confirmed a few minutes later) and Falafel - both of which are Egyptian in origin - none of the other dishes looked like the Egyptian dishes I’d read about online, nor did they look like Ethiopian dishes.

There was no schawarma or desayunos but there was a line at the bottom of the board that said Gracias Por Su Visitar. I think the change of ownership is probably a factor here.

It took about 10 minutes before anyone came out from the back. In the meantime I browsed the shelves of the small grocery store where I saw products from Syria, Spain and California, rows of Goya products, mulberry syrup, pickled turnips, and bagala, cumin chickpeas, from Lebanon, bags of masaseca and loaves of both the white and brown injera from nearby Maru Ethiopian Grocery. In the freezer were packages of okra and jute leaves and frozen pita and in the cooler, lassis, Karoun’s yogurt drinks, Bulgarian Feta Cheese and tubs of Abali yogurt, plus non-alcoholic malt drinks from Lebanon and Holland and Arizona Tea.

Two young men sat at a table drinking from glass mugs what I assumed to be coffee; the dishes on their table were devoid of food and piled on the side. At another table 3 people, soon joined by a fourth, talked but they had no food. I’ve since learned they don’t serve coffee here; the beverage was hot tea.

Finally a young man came out from the back and apologized he had not known there was a customer. I immediately began asking about the dishes but his explanations didn’t help much so I just decided to order the falafel and head for home to hit the internet to try to identify some of these dishes. But he said he couldn’t serve the falafel because he was all alone in the kitchen and didn’t have time to make it so I went for the Beans and Egg instead. He said he could have that ready in a few minutes and he would give me a salad, some pita and a hot sauce on the side. At this point I was going to consider my visit a success just to get out with something identifiable and edible but this was sounding pretty good.

He came back out in just a few minutes carrying a tray of food for the table of four. I saw something that looked very much like fufu in a bowl of a red sauce, a small salad and some pita bread - that was all I could get a glimpse of. The food all seemed to be for one man and he immediately started pinching some of the substance in the middle of the bowl off and popping it in his mouth. I thought fufu was a West African thing; does the Nile extend all the way to West Africa? Which of the dishes on the menu board was fufu?

As the man went back into the kitchen I spotted a display case in the corner I had not noticed before with some t-shirts for sale so I went over to take a look and at last got a clue - I saw t-shirts promoting a free and independent state of South Sudan and proclaiming ‘I am a Free Citizen of South Sudan.’ In the clutter on a counter nearby there were several business card holders including one with cards for Dar4 Auto Sales, a car lot in San Antonio, and one for this business itself: Al-Nile Grocery & Halal Meat was the name at that time, with a sub-heading for the restaurant - House of Delicious - Sudanese, African and Middle East.

Okay, so my knowledge of the geography of Africa is a little rusty. Sudan is the largest country in Africa and more of the Nile flows through Sudan that either Egypt or Ethiopia with the White and Blue Niles meeting at Khartoum, the capital. This was before the recent referendum on separating the south from the north had even gotten underway and I’ve never seen any of the t-shirts since.

It was about 10 minutes before my food came out. In the meantime I had selected a powdered sugar cookie from a table of baked goods on display (I’ve since learned the baked goods are produced elsewhere). The food smelled great on the way home. I only recently discovered the dish Ful Medammes but it has quickly become a favorite and I’ve taken to keeping canned fava beans at home because the dish is so easy to prepare and so satisfying; it’s no wonder it’s been around since the days of the Pharaohs. I’ve been experimenting with seasonings and condiments to add when I make it at home and I’ve only had it one time at a restaurant up until this place but now that I look for it I have encountered it on many menus of Middle Eastern and African Restaurants.

This was the best version I’ve had, pungent with cumin, with a nice kick from chile pepper plus lemon juice, piping hot, topped with chopped, ,hard boiled egg and a small amount of cheese that I couldn’t identify but might have been feta. My salad had suffered a bit from being closed up with the steaming hot beans and the greens had darked a bit, the pita bread, beautifully golden on both sides, was thinner than any I’ve ever had before and the hot sauce was a real plus - the color of wasabi paste but spreadable, grainy like a mustard, packing a wallop of garlic, chile pepper and lemon juice. The large powdered sugar cookie had a date filling. This turned out to be a very satisfying first visit after all.

I hit the internet and immediately began finidng the dishes I remembered from the menu - Molokhiya, Aseeda, Tagalia, Tamia (these are the internet spellings).

On another visit a couple of weeks later I hoped to find Tamaaya and Shorba on the menu, two dishes I had read about online that intrigued me the most, but neither were available (the former is ‘Sudanese Green Hamburger,’ the latter a lamb stew from Khartoum with vegetables and spices, seasoned with peanut butter and lime). The falafel was not available again nor was my second choice so I settled for the Mo Khia (the spelling on the menu board). This is actually another dish of Egyptian origin, some say created by the Jews during their stay in Egypt. Molokhiya or jute leaves or Jew’s Mallow is a plant in the same family with okra and it has the same properties as okra, adding a thick mucilaginous texture to dishes. The stew included chunks of lamb. The sliminess didn’t bother me at all but jute doesn’t have much taste, less than spinach, no where near as much as collards or mustard greens.

I was given a choice of accompaniments, injera, pita or rice and went with the injera. Kissra is the staple bread of Sudan, made of corn or wheat, typically, but I was told it’s the same thing as injera and they don’t make their own here, they just serve the injera from Maru. I got three pieces of the white injera and proved to be a bad choice - it didn’t hold up to the thick stew at all, dissolving almost immediately when I tried to use it to pick up the pieces of lamb. It is common in Sudan to eat with the bare fingers of the right hand and it was quite messy; fortunately plastic utensils are provided. The very fresh injera didn’t even hold up to the simple salad of lettuce, chopped tomato and cucumber, sans dressing of any sort, nor the hot sauce (Shata it’s called) which accompanies everything here.

The stew got a little boring. I’ve read one reason people don’t find African food very interesting is they use a lot less salt than we are used to in the West so I looked around for a salt shaker but saw none, nor was there a pepper shaker. Then I realized I probably was supposed to add the Shata to the stew but by that time the Shata was all gone - I had polished it off like it was a side dish (I’ve got to do something about my garlic addiction, I guess). I was subsequently to learn I was using the injera wrong, too.

Continue reading the report here.

The News that Fits plus Pfft!s

2011-02-16T20:33:00.008-06:00

Good News about Sweet n Namkin - they're now open starting at 11am Tuesday through Saturday. Tuesday thru Friday they close at 10pm, 11pm on Saturday. Sunday hours are 10am to 9pm.

They've also been expanding the menu and there is a small lunch buffet plus specials every day. There are also more choices on the Gujarati Thali, available everyday and the daily special on Saturday.

And Pfft! - they were gone:

Bad news, though, about Huarache Azteca Express in Stafford, one of my two favorite taquerias. Apparently it changed hands some time back and the name was changed to Huarache Antojitos Mexicanos, then it closed. There has been a for lease sign in the window but it has been taken down so maybe there'll be a new tenant soon.

Also gone is El Caracol, a Honduran restaurant on Bissonnet in the same center with Caribbean Cuisine. Not many people ever heard of it and that's a shame because it was the best Honduran food I've encountered in Houston and had a friendly staff, a rarity at Honduran places. Must've been just a bad location - out of the way and a cuisine that not many people go out of their way to try.

Sheger Restaurant

2011-02-14T20:26:00.007-06:00

5506 Bellaire, Suite C

Unlike the Sudanese restaurant I happened upon recently where it took me a quarter hour to get a clue about what cuisine I was about to experience, this one's sign gives it away: those are the colors of the Ethiopian flag. I've also learned Sheger was an old name for Addis Ababa in one of the regional dialects.

They've been open since September. I've passed by numerous times without ever noticing them because they're easy to miss, back from the street, not facing the street, and with no street side sign.

The room is large, sparingly appointed. The young hostess was very pleasant and personable.

I went with the Yesiga Wat. I'd never had this before at an Ethiopian restaurant but had seen it mentioned in a thread about beef stews on a discussion board and wanted to try it. Beef stew my foot! I know a bowl of chili when it's served to me and that's what this is - the Ethiopian version of chili. And damn good, too. I wonder if any competitors in chili cookoffs have considered using niter kibbeh and mitmita in their recipes? It came with just a generous side of aib, the Ethiopian cottage cheese made from buttermilk, and 3 pieces of injera.

The menu does not list any beverages but there were perhaps 2 dozen beers and a few wines displayed behind a counter/bar. There is a section set aside for the Ethiopian coffee ceremony but after finishing off the wat I didn't think I had room for even one cup of coffee without exploding.

I'm kind of swamped with places I'm investigating right now so it will probably be some time before I get back by but I am very happy we have another Ethiopian restaurant in town. Although they have escaped notice so far the word is out in the Ethiopian community, apparently; I was alone at first just after noon, by the time I left 5 tables were occupied.

Sheger Restaurant

Gimme them old-time burger stands - Mr. CharBurger

2011-02-10T19:17:00.013-06:00

10029 Telephone Road at Swiftwater

History is one of my hobbies and I was reading an article online about Telephone Road recently and saw a mention of this place. I remembered the last time I picked up someone at Hobby in the evening I had seen a little hamburger stand as we headed down Telephone to the Beltway and meant to go back and try it so I thought I knew exactly where it was and I headed out one day, hungry for an old time burger, without bothering to look up an address. I almost came home hungry. I drove up and down Telephone several times without spotting it (or the burger stand I thought I remembered seeing). Then I spotted. It was on the other side of the street from where I had been looking and there is no street-side sign. I never did find the one I thought I remembered seeing.

I went planning to try the charburger, perhaps a chili cheese charburger to compare to Bellaire Broiler Burger if they had one, but as soon as I saw the Smoko Burger on the menu I had to have it.

One of my fond memories of food as a kid is of a hickory sauce burger from a place in Wharton called Mayer’s as I recall. My mother insisted on making all our meals from scratch at home, even after working an 8 hour day as a secretary, and we ate out only when we were traveling. We planned our trips to arrive at some place we had heard about in time to eat - Cottonwood Inn in La Grange, the nearest Leslie’s Fried Chicken, and Mayer’s, among them.

From the first time we all tried the burger at Mayer’s, we were hooked, everybody in the family. A 4" bun (there was only one size bun back then, I think), a thin patty, chargrilled, hickory smoked sauce, onions and pickles. That’s all there was. It was great and we didn’t know anywhere else to get one. We didn’t have much reason to go through Wharton on our trips, but we made the detour to get one of these things many times.

I knew the Smoko Burger had to be the same thing and I went right for it without asking any questions. Mr. Charburger probably dates to the 1950s. The enclosed area in front has probably been added since then and there is only a single concrete table with benches on the side of the building at which to eat. Everybody else was getting their burgers to go. A nice Vietnamese lady runs Mr. Charburger these days.

Portions have gotten a lot bigger than they were when I was a kid, and somehow, as if by magic, appetites, have grown to accommodate the larger portions. The bun was much bigger and thicker, the patty, too. They hadn’t made very good use of their charbroiler, there were barely any charring marks on the patty nor charred taste. I couldn’t believe how many onions there were on this - at least 1/4 cup, maybe a third; likewise the pickles. I never would have eaten a burger with that many raw onions as a kid. The sauce was too thick and it should have gone on top of the meat, not directly on the bun, and, and, and....

Wait a minute, am I complaining too much? Yes, I am. If I had been that picky about my food as a kid, my parents would have dropped me off beside the road somewhere west of Ozona and never looked back.

The truth is, I loved this. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but I've had several nostalgic, retro-food experiences lately and none have been as enjoyable as this, although I did get a good laugh at a certain Tex-Mex place I hit where I had to restrain myself to keep from cackling out loud about how bad the food was. But here, for just a few minutes as I savored my Smoko Burger, I was a kid again, sitting in the backseat of my Dad’s Rocket 88 as we headed out on one of our family treks, eager to get on the road and play the only game my family ever played that I ever had a chance of winning, being the first to identify the make of the oncoming cars (I had better eyesight that the rest of the family).

Thanks, Mr. Smoko Charburger. You made my whole week and I loved every bite, every minute of it.

Best of 2010 - Part 1

2011-01-01T10:03:00.025-06:00

It's been a great year being Chili Bob. I've sampled a huge number of new places and had many good meals and only a few that made me wish I'd jumped at that career as a toll booth collector for the HCTRA and been making change in a toll booth and having a sack lunch that day. I've also had some great finds and I thought I'd jump into the fray this year with my own version of best picks of the year. For the first (and possibly last time), here's what I thought was the best of what I encountered this year. Keep in mind the limited focus of this blog - for the past year, mostly street food and small ethnic eateries that are new discoveries.

In making these selections I've followed a principle we always followed in my line of work: cream rises to the top and clearly separates itself from the rest of the glass. Also, not only is the delineation of 10 bests in any category arbitrary, sorting out any below the top 2 or 3 or at most 4 in any category is arbitrary, too (and requires much to much mental effort). Well, that and for none of these categories do I have 10 to reasonably consider anyway.

BEST STREET FOOD - Gourmet Food Truck Division

1. Pork Belly Taco from HtownstrEATS - I've caught up with this truck several times since my report and am very impressed with both the inventiveness of the menu and the execution but nothing has surpassed the pork belly taco (or it's complement on that day, the butternut squash taco).

2. Just about any Crepe from Melange Creperie - this is such a novelty food to encounter on the streets of Houston (and such a welcome one); I haven't had a disappointing one of all the varieties I've tried.

3. Signature Taco - Indian beef short rib on grilled flatbread with spicy raita from Fusion Taco - I've liked everything I've had from the Fusion folks, especially the Fish Taco, perhaps the best I've ever had (in a category that doesn't get much love from me) and I love the Asian slaw on all their tacos, but this one really is special. The filling is different from the usual taco, the condiment is different and they've changed the holder but intrinsically it's a taco; it occupies the same space, intrinsically, as a taco. I haven't even tried the quesadillas, chalupas, flautas - hey!, it's a taco truck, not a quesadilla truck, right?

4. Grass-fed beef hamburger from Oh My Pocket Pies! - once again, I've liked just about everything I've had from OMPP! (is this sounding like a broken record?) but the deal is, a few years ago I was obsessed with finding the best burger in Houston, Burger Joint Division; hence the category on the sidebar. But I hardly ever eat burgers anymore; I've had maybe 5 at the most in the past year including a vegan burger at Loving Hut. There's so much more out there to try and enjoy but a great burger is still hard to resist and this is my favorite burger in Houston right now - simply and straight forwardly presented, without all the frou-frou that other burger joints are throwing between a bun in the competition to create the most elaborate, trendy, eye-popping and media-attention-grabbing variation as possible, just lettuce, pickle, onion, mustard, mayo, ketchup (if those condiments were good enough for Moses and the Twelve Apostles, they're good enough for me). I even forgo the cheese - with this burger, it's the grass-fed beef and the fresh-baked Krafts'men bun that does it.

BEST STREET FOOD - International Food Truck Division

We have a small and perhaps slowly growing collection of food trucks that don't really fit into the Gourmet truck category but aren't taco trucks. I've hit quite a few of them this year, more than actual taco trucks in fact. These were the best finds:

1. Arroz con gandules with Pernil at El Mofongo Boricua

2. Chicken Seekh Kabab Masala at Tandoori Nite

3. Empanadas and Hallacas at El Punto Criollo

All happen to operate along Highway 6 between I-10 and Bissonnet but that's just a coincidence. So far as I know, most of these International vendors are on the Southwest and West side of town.

BEST NEW FINDS - Brick and Mortar Restaurant Division

Again, more great finds, places that will be in my regular rotation for a long time, I surmise. I think about the food I had at these places regularly.

I've been unable to rank, them, however. I wind up either with three tied for # 1 and the fourth in second place or one in first place and the other three tied for second. I could have listed them alphabetically but decided just to list them in the chronological order in which I reported on them which happens to also be alphabetical. It's like destiny or something.

1. Argentina Cafe - empanadas, Sandwiches de Migas, Matambre and Chorripan - although the variety of empanadas isn't as impressive as Marini's, this is my go-to Argentinian place.

2. Jonathan's Grill - Pampanga's - Authentic Filipino Cuisine, Kapampangan Style, the haute cuisine of the Philippines and served up by a great crew in a food court.

3. Sheba Cafe - of our limited number of Ethiopian places, I prefer the wots here slightly and also the coffee, though the injera tends to be on the dry side for my taste.

4. Sweet n Namkin - Discriminating bloggers agree, this unpretentious Indian and Pakistani vegetarian snack place is a real jewel.

Trudis Birria de Chivo

2010-12-19T10:45:00.015-06:00

Beechnut @ Bissonnet

It's been about a year and a half since I've been to this place. Out of sight, out of mind and I don't drive by this intersection as often as I used to, plus they've always been open very limited hours. In fact, for a long time after they started serving, I thought they had come and gone and I had missed them. Recently I made it a point to check them out again.

They serve only one thing - birria de chivo. Birria means mess or stew, I think, and it can involve any meat but around here it usually means goat and this place makes that clear. They're located in what was originally a Bambolino's Drive-thru Pizza by the Slice kiosk (wasn't that one of Ninfa's restaurant group ventures?) and were only open Friday-Saturday-Sunday from around daybreak until they ran out, usually by early afternoon. For such a limited menu, limited hours operation, they did very well.

There was only a handwritten menu, scrawled on a piece of cardboard and taped in a window and practically unreadable. Fortunately, the owner speaks some English.

There have been some changes. The piece of cardboard is gone, replaced by a bright yellow piece of poster board in one of the windows. If you stare at it intently, in just the right light, you can see that at one time it had writing on it, perhaps a menu, perhaps an advertisement for an eye doctor or something. The deck has been expanded and the hours and days of operation also.

They didn't recognize me from long ago; I was told they only serve goat and only tacos, plates or kilos. I got a couple of tacos to go, took just one bite, and started kicking myself for not having been back for so long. These are good tacos, among the very best I've had all year, tender stewed goat seasoned with the chile broth, with cebolla y cilantro, a small side of pico and a fiery, smokey salsa plus of course some lime. There are probably at least 2 or 3 chillies used (guajillo, cascabel, maybe something else?) Some day I will have to do a taste test between these tacos, the borrego from Gerardo's on Patton and the lamb barbacoa from Huarache Azteca Express in Stafford. It'll be close, I bet.

I went back again soon to get a plate. The weather was a bit nippy for me so I got it to go - a 32 oz cup about half full of meats and other pieces of the animal, about half broth. This came with the onions and cilantro added plus the pico and salsa. Tortillas are extra. The 'plate' comes two ways, 'dry' (also known as barbacoa) and 'wet,' also known as consomme. I've always gotten the latter but I presume if you get the former you do get some of the broth - you wouldn't want to miss that. This is snout to tail cookery; depending on what the ladle scoops up from the pot, you'll get interesting little bits and pieces of some of the rest of the animal; sometimes you get very little of the offal.

I always seem to have leftover tortillas from take-out from some taqueria or carniceria so I've never gotten their tortillas but as I recall, the price was $1. My tacos were $2 each, the plate was $8; it was enough for 3 meals for me with tortillas and another side.

I looked back at my notes and saw that back when, the menu offered platos chicas and platos grandes; I don't know which I got this time or maybe they only offer one size now.

They're open 6 days a week now, though still for very limited (and varying) hours. Closed Mondays, they open Tuesday and Wednesday at 4pm and are open into the evening. Other days they open around daybreak and are open until 2pm except Friday and Saturday when they stay open until 10 pm. During the week, or at least when school is in session, you go up to the window to order; other times, the family's children act as servers - you give your order to them and they pass it to the person in the window.

There are frequently other vendors on the deck, selling beverages or cds, etc. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, especially, the tables will be crowded with whole families chowing down on plates of tacos.

Be sure to dress appropriately for the weather.

H-TownstrEATS - Mobile

2010-12-08T11:59:00.013-06:00

Get Thee some of These:

Pork Belly Taco with lightly pickled cucumber and Butternut Squash Taco with cilantro yogurt dressing. Incredible. Best street food I've had in Houston and I've had some very good stuff from the competition.

This is a very promising new truck, chef-driven as they say, with a varying menu (I've only seen these two items a couple of times). They're doing it right in my book: moving around instead of picking one spot (Montrose, Village, Greenway, for instance) and making good use of Twitter and Facebook to keep fans apprised of where they're going to be and what they're going to be offering. Not to mention serving up some great food.

I was a little less thrilled with a couple of other offerings I tried, the Korean style sirloin beef taco with onions, cilantro and queso - this was not bad but a little unimaginative, perhaps in the toppings. I was hoping for another something mind-blowing but this was not that much different from other beef tacos. And the grilled chicken burrito/wrap (forget just what they called it) - this was very promising to behold but wraps always seem to me to be less than the sum of their parts and that was the case with this.

Both of these might have benefited from the application of some of the condiments available on the truck but I had already driven away. There are several bottled condiments and a couple in squeeze bottles, plus some chopped peppers and possibly some relish?

I've seen a great looking Ancho Chili Frito Pie, a pretty regular offering I think (glad to see somebody offering chili on one of these trucks). The bacon-wrapped hot dog looked over-dressed for my taste but I plan to give it a try. When I tried to move in on someone who'd chosen those two items to get a better look, he got very protective.

If you've been holding back from trying street food for some reason, one visit to this one will likely change your mind and it's a good place to start, but there are already several others of the same caliber and there have been several new ones hit the streets in just the last few weeks.

Facebook, Twitter

El Punto Criollo revisited

2010-11-23T14:16:00.010-06:00

I stopped by Saturday at this cart's new location on Beechnut just outside Highway 6. I guess it's the same cart as I encountered a couple of months ago up near I-10 - this one does have a menu board on the side and a completely different crew but it's the same phone number.

I knew the empanadas were good so I tried the Patacones, the Venezuelan sandwich that substitutes mashed, fried plantain for bread. This was the juiciest, most flavorful carne mechada I've had with a little bit of queso that I failed to ask the name of, maybe some refritos, I wasn't sure, and that's about it. There are bottled hot sauces on the shelf on the side of the cart but you have to ask for the guasaca, the Venezuelan guacamole sauce, and I forgot to and it wasn't offered. It would have made this a bit better. It was a pretty hefty sandwich for $1, much more filling than a typical $1 taco, but it was pretty heavy in the stomach because of all the grease soaked up by the plantain.

This place offers a plate lunch of Pabellon Criollo, the national dish of carne mechada, black beans and rice; I've got to go back and try that.

A sign in the window advertised Hallacas (ayacas), the Venezuelan holiday tamale. I've wanted to get my hands on one of these for a couple of years but missed out so I grabbed one to take home and heat up later. It was a lot smaller than I expected, about the size of 2 or 3 Tex-Mex tamales - I was expecting something like the just-one-makes-a-meal nacatamales of Colombia or Guatemala - but it was awfully good. There was beef, chicken and pork plus green olives, capers and raisins and a pimento or sweet red pepper for decoration. Also unlike those others which are about 50% masa, this was only about 20% masa - it was mostly about the fillings.

These are said to be so labor intensive they're only prepared around the holidays and people stock up on them in the freezer; I did likewise, going back a couple of days later to pick up several more.

The Hallacas will probably only be available through the end of the year and are $5 each.

Since they are outside the city limits, they have a table and a couple of chairs under an awning for your heightened dining enjoyment.

My earlier review.

Sign up to be a SOFTie

2010-11-23T11:45:00.004-06:00

Jay Rascoe of Guns and Tacos, J.R. Cohen and Dan Joyce have launched Save Our Food Trucks, an organization that's going to work with mobile vendors and the City to hopefully make some changes in the city regulations regarding these business which are believed to be some of the most restrictive. It's a worthy effort; the food truck movement in Houston has been crawling along like traffic in the Galleria area at Christmas.

They're going to be talking to the operators themselves to determine what they think the issues are. Hopefully we'll also see some explanation from the City about why some of these restrictions exist and then of course, the dining elite, ahem, should be allowed to sound off.

You can keep up with developments on the website.

Way to go guys!

Tandoori Nite

2010-11-15T17:04:00.021-06:00

7821 Hwy 6 South

I've been wanting to try this one for a long time wondering if we might have two great Indian mobile purveyors. Why not? We certainly have quite a few very good Indian restaurants, as I have been discovering in recent months.

I've been doing a bit more cooking and eating at home of late, experimenting with Indian and Pakistani dishes in hopes of familiarizing myself with the ingredients and methods so I can better appreciate what I have when I eat out. Recently when I needed some supplies I made an evening jaunt out to the big World Foods market on Beechnut just past Hwy 6 to stock up and stopped by Tandoori Nite to pick up some food to go.

There is no menu on the sides of the truck; as you approach, you are given a menu card (below) or a sheet which lists the dishes and prices. I decided on my first visit to get the Seekh Kabab Masala. They tried briefly to talk me out of it, urging me to go for the Chicken Curry or Chicken Tikka Masala. This of course made me want the Seekh Kababs even more.

I went with the chicken as opposed to the beef but I really had no idea what Seekh Kababs were, never having had them before. Think chicken meatballs - Seekh Kababs are made with minced meats, mixed with herbs and spices, most notably in this case red pepper flakes and coriander leaf. Had I known what they were I might have passed and that would have been a mistake. Many times, it's better not to know what you're eating until after you decided if you like it.

I saw the kababs being skewered and inserted into a tandoor-like cooker in one corner of the truck, then pulled out and removed from the skewer and put in a sauce pan with some prepared curry spooned in and other ingredients added while the dish was finished off. This was excellent and quite spicy. It's a Pakistani dish and it seemed to me that in terms of intensity of flavors and complexity of flavors, this equaled some of the great dishes I've had at Himalaya. Wow, that's pretty strong. I particularly liked the minced onion and slivers of ginger, still crisp/tender, and lots of them.

I really wish I could have seen more of what was going on. If I have one gripe about this truck it's that it sits up so high that despite windows on both sides, it's impossible to see much of what these guys are doing, and they clearly know what they are doing. I'd like to see more of it. I did see one fellow in the corner, busy inserting and removing skewers from the cooker and pulling out naan, parathas and roti with a hook but I never managed to see him using a naandle nor got a look at the oven itself.

I had anticipated this would be a one time thing just so I could say I covered the base but the food was so impressive I had to go back and see if my first impressions were justified. On a second trip I tried the Chicken Saag Wala, another dish I've never had before. Bone-in, skin on pieces of chicken (a drumstick across the top, a portion of thigh in the left corner) in a rich gravy with spinach and coriander, onions, some tomato, ghee, a little bit of cream, I think, and more. This was much more savory than I expected. I had intended to eat at one of the tables under the awning (they're outside the city limits and are allowed to provide seating) but it proved to be much colder out on the prairie than in my driveway closer in and I wasn't dressed warmly enough and had to get it to go again. Dealing with the bone-in pieces of chicken was a bit of a tactical problem (I got no utensils or napkins) but not a deal breaker. While this was not quite as impressive as the Seekh Kababs it was still a very satisfying dish.

In both cases I got about 2 cups worth; what's pictured is only about 1/4 to 1/3. I tried the naan on one visit and the tandoori roti on the other and paused to remove them from the foil soon after leaving but they were already a bit soggy from the steam of being wrapped up.

I highly recommend Tandoori Nite. I'm thinking if they do this well on the less well-known dishes, they probably do very good versions of the popular dishes like Tikka Masala and Chicken Curry, too.

I understand we have another Indian or Indo/Pak truck out on the north side, listed on my Roll Call of International Mobile Vendors and one of these days, when I head out to visit an old college chum up that way (Oklahoma City), I'm going to stop by and try it. Meanwhile, Tandoori Nite and Bansuri are much more convenient to me.

Most entrees are $7.99 with the vegetable curries at $6.99. The most expensive item is the Tandoori Chicken Charga at $12.99.

No Borders

2010-11-15T11:18:00.010-06:00

A truck from Sylvia's Enchilada Kitchen

This is a recent addition to our growing list of gourmet food trucks in Houston offering some of the specialties of Sylvia's famous Enchilada Kitchens with a little twist, mesquite smoked or grilled meats. I've caught up with it twice for lunch along Washington near Durham.

I had been hankering for some enchiladas for some time and failed, after several visits to taquerias both famous and obscure, to satisfy my needs so on my first visit to No Borders I went for some of the enchiladas, specifically the Puebla, chicken with Sylvia's mole poblano. Thanks to Houston's regulations prohibiting seating at a mobile vendor, I grabbed my stash and made a beeline for Memorial Park a few minutes away where I noshed contentedly. There are no sides accompanying the enchiladas, just two enchiladas smothered in a rich, velvety, chocolaty mole. I immediately loved the smokiness factor. These were some of the best chicken enchiladas I've ever had, bar none, brick-and-mortar or mobile or whatever.

A couple of weeks later I tried a couple of the tacos, a beef fajita on Sylvia's thin, home-made flour tortilla with onions and cilantro and a very modest portion of ranchera sauce, and the turkey with mole poblano on corn. The flour tortillas are excellent, of course; the corn, though apparently store bought, are very good, too. I went with the turkey, the traditional meat for mole poblano, I think, and eschewed the onions and cilantro; the result was not as satisfactory and I'd get those condiments next time, I think. It was a little awkward handling that taco with those thick slices of turkey, also.

I was satisfied after the enchiladas, owing to the rich mole and a very generous amount of chicken, but was still hungry after the two tacos. Both meals were $6. The only side is roasted corn on the cob and I wish they would add some other possibilities, rice and beans, pico de gallo?

Still, this is a welcome addition to the food truck scene in Houston.

They're operating very short hours; be sure to check No Borders on Twitter before heading out to try them.

Krishna Chaat House

2010-10-22T01:02:00.015-05:00

5959c Hillcroft, 2 doors down from Udipi Cafe (co-owned)

I tried Krishna Chaat House in my quest for vadas and was happy to find several on the menu. I went for one that sounded interesting, Sambar Vada, and was rather surprised by what I got. This was my beloved Mehdu Vada ('lentil donut') served in sambar, with a cup of rasam and two chutneys on the side. Actually, I've learned there are numerous variations of the donut shaped vadas, not all containing lentil, but I believe this one did. The sambar was thick with vegetables cooked to a very soft state - a big chunk of potato, some sort of squash, onion, etc. The vada, plumped up somewhat by the liquid, was like a dumpling and I couldn't help thinking I was eating something like a vegetarian version of chicken and dumplings. This is a snack? More like a light meal for me and it was real comfort food. Well, soporific, actually, I went right home and had a great nap. There is also a rasam vada on the menu.

Across the top of the vada was an ingredient that baffled me. Tough as a matchstick it seemed to have no purpose other than decoration and wound up on the edge of my plate. I encountered the same thing in a cup of rasam at Shiv Sagar across the street, a couple of doors down from Himalaya, the next day. I have since learned this was Moringa. No, that's not a dance number by Xavier Cugat, it's a vegetable also popularly known as drumstick, sort of an okra lookalike. The tough exterior encloses a softer interior that is consumed like you would eat an artichoke leaf, by scraping it with your teeth. The taste is said to resemble artichoke, too, although I couldn't vouch for that since both times it wound up on the edge of the plate. Next time, I'll know better.

On a second visit I went for the Khasta Kachori, already reported on here. I also tried one of the two beverages on the menu that I've never had before, Masala Lemon Sharbahat. This comes in the masala, salt and sweet varieties and is apparently Krishna's spelling of what Wiki shows as Sharbat, a fruit drink made from the leaves and flowers of a fruit tree instead of the fruit itself. You can see a tiny portion of the glass in the picture on the other post.

I had picked up a copy of a take-out menu to study and went back again to try one of their combo plates. These are no longer listed on the menu board or the menu card at the counter but I inquired about them and they sent one out, the # 1. This is offered as a Dal, 2 Sabjis, Raita, Rice, 2 Rotis, Papad, and Chaas or Tea, for $6.95. I also got a sweet (at the top of the platter) and pickle (at 2 o'clock).

The Mixed Vegetable Curry at the bottom of the platter included peas, green beans, carrot and baby limas, among other items, and was very rich. Like most dishes here and at Udipi, it was mildly seasoned. The Eggplant Masala included two whole eggplant that were very minimally cooked, requiring a knife and fork to eat. They had a texture more like a raw apple or under-ripe pear, quite unusual for eggplant. This was the spiciest dish I've encountered here.

The sweet was Payasam, the South Indian term for what in the North and Pakistan is called Kheer. This is usually translated as rice pudding but is typically not much like what is called rice pudding in the US and can be made with something other than rice. In this case, it was made with vermicelli (seviyan) and was drinkable. I'm really getting to like this Indian practice of including a sweet as part of the meal, to be consumed along with the meal if you like, instead of waiting until after the meal.

But I don't get Indian pickles; they are very, very sour. I sampled the ingredients but still don't comprehend how these are supposed to complement the rest of the meal and mostly it went uneaten.

The other beverage I wanted to sample was Chaas. This is usually described as Indian buttermilk. I've been privileged to have a couple of correspondents helping me to learn about Indian foods; one of them, Jenni, from the UK, points out it is not much like the cultured buttermilk we're familiar with in the US. This was readily apparent visually and on first sip. It was about the consistency of low fat milk. It is supposed to be the liquid left over when yogurt is turned into butter. Jenni informs me butter is made from yogurt in Indian, not sweet cream, and also says that many places cut corners in making chaas and just thin out yogurt with water, as lassi is made. After also sampling this also at Bhojan, I am inclined to think Krishna does a more authentic version.

I have been enjoying yogurt drinks for many years and like buttermilk, too, and this is a real keeper. I've had yogurt drinks with mint or other herbs but never coriander leaf before so I've learned a new trick, though I'll have to make do with thinned down yogurt at home for the base. As you can see, you not only get some of your daily requirement of dairy fulfilled with this drink but also some of your daily requirement of veggies - it was thick with chopped coriander leaf.

The metal tumblers are a real plus, too, noted for keeping beverages cool and making them taste cool, they sure beat drinking out of a styrofoam or wax-coated paper cup.

I believe Krishna is closed on Tuesdays. A copy of the Udipi Cafe menu is on the counter so perhaps it's possible to order anything off the Udipi menu here? At 5:00 pm, as Udipi is switching over to menu service, Krishna offers a small vegetarian evening buffet.

Comida Tipica Hondurena - El Caracol - Mobile

2010-10-18T22:52:00.008-05:00

Currently located at Bissonnet and Hillcroft

For some reason, Honduran operators prefer buses over trucks but this is a smaller one than the other units I've seen, although it does have a bigger menu.

The man on board was very friendly and spoke good English. He wanted to make sure I understood this was not Mexican food. I went for the pastelitos, Honduran empanadas, and a Balleada Sensilla or simple balleada. Sopa de Caracol, conch soup, is supposed to be Honduras's national dish but the Balleada surely must be the national snack food. I fell in love with them on first bite - a simple, always fresh-made, four tortilla, folded over a simple filling of refritos rojos, crema and queso. I've never bothered with the more elaborate creations because this is so satisfying.

A glob of fresh masa dough was pressed out right in front of me on the same sort of tortilla press I have at home, then teased out to about 10" in diameter. Just as I thought he was going to start tossing it in the air like pizza dough, he lightly greased a hot griddle and slapped it down. It began to puff up almost immediately. It was turned over after a couple of minutes and quickly browned on the other side, picking up a little charring. Then a half cup of refritos rojos was smeared on one half, crema was drizzled over it all and, unfortunately, powdered cheese was sprinkled on. Honduras is not noted for it's cheeses; it's probably a good thing they typically use Mexican cotija or even powdered parmesan. The balleada was folded over, wrapped in tin foil and set aside while the pastelitos were deep fried.

They came out of little paper pockets, i.e., were not freshly made on-board, but whether they were store bought or not, I don't know. These were deep fried (4 of them), then placed in the plate, freshly grated cabbage, grated on a mandoline right in front of me and a generous amount of close to 2 cups, was layered on top, some warm tomato sauce was ladled over, a little crema was drizzled, I think, then the ubiquitous Honduran condiment which another Honduran restauranteur has confirmed is nothing but mayo and ketchup was also drizzled on, fortunately with restraint, and the ubiquitous beet-red pickled onions are added and I was good to go.

Some Honduran places slather on the mayo/ketchup sauce with abandon, the way mediocre barbecue joints pour on the sauce to make up for mediocre meat, so I'm always glad to find a place that applies it with restraint - a little goes a long way.

As with anything involving beans, the quality of the beans matters a lot; I've had some outstanding frijoles rojos at Salvadoran places, where they use a special variety, I think, called silk beans. This balleada was not the best I've had, nor the worst; it certainly was large, but the beans were a little bland. These things can vary also when American style sour cream is substituted for crema, overwhelming the rest of the ingredients, and cotija is used instead of powdered cheese.

Generally, Honduran food, which very closely resembles Tex-Mex in some ways, is very bland, one of my biggest complaints. The best pastelitos I've encountered had a nicely spicy mix of ground beef and rice, but these, with a filling of rice, ground beef and potato, were quite bland.

The bus disappeared right after I had visited it the first time but I happened across it a couple of weeks later at a new location on Bissonnet at Hillcroft. There was a woman on board who spoke no English. I tried the Honduran tacos, another of my favorite Honduran foods, similar to a Mexican flauta with a rolled flour tortilla filled with either shredded chicken or ground beef. These are great when the tortilla is not too thick, I think, and there's a better balance of meat to tortilla. The tortillas in these, which were pre-made but made on the bus, were as thick as huaraches. I didn't care for them much at all. The woman also was of the slather-on-the-ketchup and mayo- persuasion and I couldn't think of the word for Enough! in Spanish quick enough.

One thing I did notice right away about this bus's menu is the Pollo Frito con Tajadas, i.e., banana chips. I've tried this at every Honduran restaurant I've visited and always been pleased with the sides but very disappointed in the chicken itself; it has always come out very tough, almost unchewable in one instance, so I don't know if I'll ever try it here.

Not all Kachoris are created equal

2010-10-12T10:21:00.014-05:00

I have been eating a lot at Shri Balaji Bhavan on Hillcroft lately after hearing about it for some time, trying out some of the lesser heralded offerings as well as the very popular ones. I've been interested in Indian snack foods like pakoras and vadas and read about kachoris but hadn't yet had one. When I found one on the menu, the Pyarelal Kachori, I had to try it. I thought I understood kachoris to be small, fried, filled dough snacks, a sort of Indian snack-sized empanada, so I was quite surprised by what I got.

I haven't been able to find out anything about this, such as whence the name. It is sometimes referred to online in the possessive, Pyarelal's Kachori. This was a flaky puri like shell, about 4.5 inches in diameter, stuffed with channa (chickpeas) and potato, with a peanut or two and moong gram I think, garnished with chopped tomato and onion, drizzled with a date/tamarind chutney and further garnished with puffed rice and coriander leaf. Far from being a snack, it was quite filling, practically a meal in itself. I tried picking it up to eat out of hand, thinking that was the way you were supposed to eat kachoris, but didn't get very far with that. I had to try.

Wishing to avoid the long lines (and wait for the kitchen) on weekends at Shri Balaji, I trundled down the street to Krishna Chaat House, next door to and operated by Udipi Cafe. I've never been in here before, thinking that 'chaat' indicated they just offered those snack mixes with sev, nuts, papri, etc., which I prefer not to keep around the house, so I was surprised to find a small diner-like place with booths along the wall. There is a big menu board on one wall and the complete Udipi Cafe menu is available on the counter at the front so apparently it is possible to order anything from the sister restaurant here. Here I discovered another kachori, the Khasta Kachori. Now I was pretty certain from what I had read online that this would be the snack-sized, pop-em-in-your mouth type.

But nooooo. This one was even more of a festival for the mouth as well as the eyes with a layer of potato topped by a mound of channa in a curry paste, garnished with onion and tomato, two chutneys and yogurt, coriander leaf and sev, sort of a dahi puri writ very large. I gobbled it up forthwith, grinning all the way.

I have now learned from a couple of very knowledgeable sources that there are indeed two types of kachori. Originally, it was a small snack involving a bread-like dough, filled with various fillings and fried, said to be a substantial bite and capable of being held for weeks without refrigeration (I haven't tried this). More recently a new type of kachori appeared, first in Delhi but spreading from there, very popular except perhaps among purists. This involves the leavened, flaky, puri like shell, cooked in hot oil so it puffs up, then stuffed (or overstuffed) with fillings, dressed and garnished. These are known generically as Raj Kachoris or Khasta Kachoris, khasta indicating the use of a shortened dough or just meaning flaky.

And I still haven't found any examples of the original type of kachori. There do appear to be some listed on the menu for Bhojan with fillings associated with the original style instead of the raj kachori so I will have to try them out.

And in the meantime, I still have this thing about Vadas.

Edit: for more on vadas and kachoris, see Quick Bites VI

Beep-beep - it's a Bustaurant

2010-10-12T06:42:00.004-05:00

The latest development on the scene in the mobile food genre is the Bustaurant, a restaurant on wheels, already roving the streets of LA and SF. The first one was said to be in London utilizing a double-decker bus.

I wonder if these would be legal in Houston? As I understand it, no seating for diners can be provided (for a mobile unit or brick and mortar restaurant) unless a restroom is also available. So, if one of these buses has a potty/lavatory on board, would it meet regulations?

I have seen a handful of units in Houston, trailers and buses, that have dining compartments but have never seen one in use. I was struck when I visited Austin last winter to see not only the hugely popular gourmet trucks on South Congress and South First had eating areas but even isolated, road-side taco trucks would have a table and chairs. Operators here can't provide that amenity nor even be parked close to seating such as a picnic table in a park.

La Vina Cuban Restaurant

2010-10-05T18:28:00.009-05:00

9419 Richmond

I've stuck my fork in some pretty awesome pork this summer. In fact pork dishes have been among the most impressive meals I've had all year - the Pernil at El Mofongo Boricua, the Masitas at this place and now the Pernil Asado.

I have to give credit where it's due. Although I'd been to this place for the Cubano sandwich, it was a review on 29-95 that prompted me to return.

Apparently, the restaurant has changed names and is now La Vina again - it's on the window, the menu, the receipts and the to-go menu. The names of the dishes have also changed. Earlier this summer I had the Masitas Fritas which is like the Cuban version of carnitas and it was far better than the overwhelming majority of carnitas I've had in Houston.

Recently I returned to try the Pernil Asado with Moros and Yuca Mojo. I didn't like this as much as the Masitas; it wasn' as juicy as the Masitas and there was some bitterness from too much charring of the meat but it was still quite good and the mnced garlic garnish was a treat. The black beans are excellent here but I did not like the mixed beans and rice as much as having the two served to savor separately. The yuca was something of a revelation: I'm not sure I've ever had them simply boiled (with garlic) like this and I definitely like this preparation better than fried.

I've also enjoyed the Batidas de Trigo and Mamey here and IronBeer. I had the Cubano sandwich once and remember thinking it was just about as good as any I've ever had and then thinking 'So What?' Sorry, but I just haven't been able to get excited about this sandwich and I've had it at about 7 or 8 places around Houston over the years.

I didn't get a picture of the Masitas for some reason but there's a good one in the 29-95 review by John Hook.

Sweet n Namkin - Revisited

2010-09-06T10:59:00.030-05:00

10736 W. Bellfort - CLOSED

I first reported on this place several months ago, shortly after it opened as primarily a sweets and snacks shop. It's undergone some big changes recently and now offers a menu of vegetarian dishes everyday plus some specials and I thought it was worthy of an updated report.

The restaurant is co-owned with Salaam Namaste next door; a door connects the two but they maintain totally separate kitchens, both 100% Halal with Sweet n Namkin also being 100% vegetarian. The two kitchens are to assure that there is no 'hocus-pocus' about vegetarian dishes being prepared in a kitchen that also prepares meat dishes, I was told. It is okay for customers to take food from one side to the other, however, to eat with friends.

There is a menu of about a dozen vegetarian offerings every day now plus specials four days a week. On Wednesday, the special is Biryani, on Saturday, a Gujarati thali, pictured above, and on Sunday Halwa Puri. I think the other special is either Thursday or Friday but I can't remember what it is.

I know of only one other restaurant in Houston offering Gujarati dishes, Bhojan on the SW Freeway; I haven't been there in over a year now but I have had excellent food there. They ply you with a very good buffet and an endless supply of fresh, hot roti. Here, the special is a fixed thali consisting of a yogurt curry, warm and spicy with green onion and cilantro, an eggplant curry (brinjal) on the left, even spicier, and a third curry in the background with squash (zucchini) and split yellow peas that I could identify; this one was not as spicy as the eggplant (these components may vary). Besides the rice and onions, there is a warm, fresh, melt in your mouth pappadum and two fresh warm chapatis in the background (both this place and the one next door just refer to chapatis as tortillas in explaining them but they do make their own on premises). There is a wedge of lime and a piece of Laddu, a sweet. Lurking behind the onions is a pickle that I didn't get the name of and could only identify one ingredient, a 1" long, 1/2" wide piece of ginger root. I understand this is to be added to the other dishes as the diner sees fit but I sampled it but didn't use it.

This was excellent and much spicier than anything I've had at Bhojan. I've been asked regularly whether I wanted something spicy or medium but I can't remember if I was given that option on this dish.

This was more than enough to fill me up but I also had a watermelon lassi. The lassi here are thin, closer in thickness to an aguafresca than a milk shake. I can appreciate both this and the very thick ones like the ones I had at Bhojan which practically require a spoon; this one was tasty and thirst quenching without being so filling.

The vegetable biryani was a beautifully colorful and aromatic dish with long grain rice, peas, green beans, tomato, corn, potato, shredded carrot, and cauliflower plus whole clove and cardamom, pieces of cinnamon and some apricot to add a little sweetness, plus other spices including chile powder. As with the thali, this came with a cup of slivered onions on the side.

Several items are offered here that are also offered at Bansuri, the famous Indian food truck around the corner. I had never had the Dahi Puri at Bansuri or anywhere so this is the first time I tried this dish and I loved it. The thin mini-puri shells are filled with chickpeas, a creamy, whipped yogurt, sweet and spicy chutneys, and topped with a generous heap of sev, the little fried noodles. I got it spicy and my mouth was happy for minutes after finishing it off. These things are as much fun as a loaded ice cream sundae with its contrasting flavors and textures of the ice creams, fruits and nuts and syrups. In this case, it's the creamy yogurt, the slightly firm, slightly chewy, slightly salty chickpeas, the sweet date/tamarind chutney and spicier cilantro/jalapeno (you can see them through the thin puri shells) and the crunchy sev. You're supposed to put a whole one in your mouth but I found them a little large for that and, anyway, I liked the process of biting into one, letting it begin to drip and ooze, and then putting the rest in my mouth. I used the spoon to finish off the Yogurt Chutney Noodle soup that covered the bottom of the plate when I was finished and I did go through a heap of the flimsy napkins.

I had a salt lassi with cumin with this, only a little salty but with about two tablespoons of cumin seeds; again, very refreshing and thirst quenching without being that filling.

This place subscribes to the Little Bigs philosophy of sliders - sliders are mini-sandwiches in theory only. These Dabeli were much heftier than the ones at Bansuri and were very good. The patty, mostly potato with some onion, achieved that color by the incorporation of all the spices including red and green chile powders, cilantro, cumin, and others and perhaps also the chutneys - it wasn't clear that there had been any chutneys applied to the buns. The nuts looked like almonds but didn't taste like almonds to me; I was told they were hazelnuts. There was a generous number of nuts in each sandwich and there were also like-sized pieces of potato and onion in the patties.

These were very tasty (and spicy, per request) but unfortunately they use store-bought large dinner rolls and they were a little dry and very bready; I also would have liked a little more crunchy sev under the hood.

There is a variety of ready to eat pakora every day including potato, spinach, onion, jalapeno strips and whole jalapeno, plus samosas and a puri that I think is a Choley Puri. The whole jalapeno pakora is only partially seeded and deveined and has chat masala added for heat, the jalapeno strips, I believe, are seeded and deveined. I've liked them all but they are not crispy. These come with the tamarind chutney with date and a cilantro/jalapeno chutney.

As detailed before, there are also shakes, lassi, fruit juices and fruit cups, plus kulfi and falooda. (My earlier report on Sweet n Namkin is here).

I think this place is a real neighborhood gem. The young woman who runs the front of the house is always so cheerful and pleasant and helpful and a pleasure to deal with. She keeps insisting I have to try the Halwa Puri, a traditional Pakistani Sunday breakfast, served all day, so I'll have to go in to try that sometime.

They are currently open from 3pm to 11pm, Tuesday thru Friday, until Midnight on Saturday , and 10am to 10pm on Sunday. I'm hoping they will expand the hours to include weekday lunches. Salaam Namaste, next door, is open much longer hours.

All Bengal Sweets and Restaurant

2010-09-03T00:34:00.033-05:00

13438 Bellaire Blvd.

This restaurant has been in operation previously on Cook at High Star and only recently moved to this location. I had never heard of it before and had just gotten a glimpse of the sign passing by one time and went back to try it, not realizing I was going to be able to get anything more than sweets and snacks. The menu, however, includes a few curries, some tandoori and grill items, and three biryanis.

Space is shared with a small (2 aisle) Indo-Pak and Bangladeshi grocery store and Halal meat and fish market but the menu here says it's the 'one and only authentic Bangladeshi cuisine.'

I started with a few snacks, which were all ready-to-eat, a couple of onion pakora, a fish chop, a samosa and a dal puri. The pakora were maybe the best I've had, aromatically and taste-wise very oniony, both crunchy and chewy; it's been my experience that pakora look great but too often are more comparable to limp french fries than good, crisp ones. That's not the case here. The fish chop was interesting, sort of reminiscent of a fish croquette in a high school lunch room. The samosa was almost the equal of my favorite in town, the excellent, huge ones at Savoy on Wilcrest. This was much smaller and not quite as complexly seasoned or piquant but benefiting from some bits of potato and whole peas instead of just a puree inside. The dal puri was like others I have had, no where near as spectacular tasting as it was looking, unfortunately. With these I got a simple jalapeno 'sauce' that didn't appear to be anything more than pureed jalapeno,without much heat.

I got a Pakola with this, a Pakistani Cream soda, at least in name. It tasted nothing like any cream soda I've ever had before, completely lacking in vanilla as far as I could detect. One article online calls it an ice cream soda but the label on the can itself only calls it a cream soda with citric acid and 'cream soda flavours.' It wasn't bad but perhaps something of an acquired taste, kind of like Dr. Brown's Cel Ray Tonic is for some people. It was made with real sugar and is the color of lime jello. They also have a Pakola Lychee soda.

I took a little stroll thru the tiny grocery where every available space was filled with merchandise, there were freezers, a small produce rack with an interesting, baseball bat-sized gourd/squash, bulbous on one end, what I guessed were bitter melon and a few other items. I marveled at the list of fishes I'd never heard of on the list of available fishes on the wall of the small meat and fish department. I picked up a package of spicy Chanachur, the Bangladeshi name for Bombay Mix, and some Black Onion Seeds from the spice selection.

I asked one of the proprietors, who had shadowed me closely, answering my questions, what his best sweet was and he suggested the Chom Chom. I got one of those (on top in the photo) and another one that I thought looked awfully good which is known as Kala Jamun. That's a saucer sized plate, by the way.

These were simply incredible. I'd had Cham Cham before at another sweet shop but it was no where near as good as this one; it had held a hidden pocket of syrup that burst when I bit into it and drizzled down my chin and on to my shirt. Bangladeshi sweets are said to be characteristically 'wet' and these were but not drippingly so like that one. Biting into these or applying pressure caused the syrup to swell to the surface but it was reabsorbed when pressure was released in a nifty and intriguing display of culinary engineering. They were almost overwhelmingly sweet, as sweet as any honey-laced baklava I've ever had. The second example had an exterior layer, a thin crust if you will, providing a little more textural complexity, and a beautiful, rosy red interior which I wish I had taken a picture of. If I understand correctly, the Kala Jamun is produced by deep frying the Chom Chom. Besides these two, the only ones I've tried, the Laddu looks awfully good.

These have become my new favorite sweets from the Subcontinent and I have to practice self-restraint and moderation around them.

There is a variety of syrups and herbs and spices used to flavor these, principally rose water and saffron, I think, but more intriguing to me is what they're made of. I couldn't believe it when I came across a recipe and explanation that they're actually made of cheese! I let a portion of one dry out in the refrigerator for a couple of days and managed to convince myself that I could detect the tiny curds and a cheesy taste (yeah right) but I would never have deduced that without having read it online. I had yet another revelation on another visit when I spied a bowl of the Chom Chom behind the sweets counter, the unfinished product, and they looked just like stubby cheese sticks.

I also went in once to try one of the curries. I had read that Hilsha is the national fish of Bangladesh and also that it's very, very bony. I was also warned of that my the guy taking my order so I decided to try the Rohu Fish Curry which he said had 'some bones.' Actually, this was very bony by my standards. I wasn't very impressed by the dish, the curry wasn't bad but not very interesting; it had more tomato than any curry I've ever had I think, and a nice level of spiciness but the fish itself was the disappointment. Rohu is supposedly a variety of carp and carp is supposed to be an oily fish but the flesh was very dry, not moist and flaky. The curry came with a generous portion of plain white rice which was also presented very dry, not sticky but a little clumpy. I understand Bangladeshis eat with their bare hands so that may be the preferred way to serve it.

On another visit I had some more onion pakora and also the eggplant pakora and tried the Goat Rezala and liked it a lot more than the fish. It was a very pungent curry, actually looking much like the Rohu Fish curry but without anywhere near the amount of tomato and more piquancy. The goat was bone-in, of course, and goat is a pretty bony meat, too, and there wasn't all that much meat, actually. There was also at least one piece of organ meat, which I couldn't identify but certainly was not muscle, and possibly another, a small section of liver, so those who are off-put by offal should avoid this one. The rice on this occasion was also dry, although not as dry as before. I haven't tried any of the roti.

The chai is not bad here. They use disposable plates, cups and utensils for some items, plates, flatware and glasses for others. Unfortunately the chai is served in a disposable foam cup.

Prices and dishes may vary at the restaurant, of course.

In Search of Houston's Best Bun Kabab

2010-08-31T22:05:00.030-05:00

Say what?

I first encountered the bun kabab at the snack bar at Dilpasand Mithai on Hillcroft a year and a half ago. On one of my visits there to try the barfees I ordered one, not having any idea what I was going to be getting. After eating one the concept was not much clearer. It was a vegetable patty, seemed to be mostly mashed potato, on a hamburger bun, with onion and shredded lettuce, black pepper, maybe some garlic powder, and lots of ketchup. I had asked for one 'spicy' but the predominant flavor I got was ketchup.

Since then I've learned the bun kabab is a very popular snack in Pakistan and it occurred to me maybe I had just gotten a less than primo example of one. Since then I had ordered one at another Indo-Pak snack bar on Highway 6 but though it was on the menu board, they no longer served it. Then when I discovered the second location of Dilpasand Mithai recently and saw it on the menu, I went for it.

It proved to be a good choice. Delivered piping hot from the kitchen and with lots of heat, it was a perfect light snack for a hot summer afternoon, tasty and filling without being too heavy; there was only a very modest amount of ketchup.

I had been strolling through the Desi Food Warehouse in the same shopping center and didn't have my camera with me so was unable to take a shot but a couple of weeks later, back out on that side of town and craving something light to eat, - okay, I wanted another bun kabab - I stopped in again. Ramadan was underway and the restaurant was not serving any food to eat on premises but fixed one to go (the kitchen staff is Mexican, I believe), so I retreated to my car in the parking lot and took the picture above.

The ones I had previously were on the smaller 4" buns but this one used the larger sized bun and was a lot more filling and not quite as spicy but very good. The resemblance to a Whataburger is obvious; change out that checked wrapping paper for mustard colored and you could probably fool a lot of people - until they bit into it. This is not a mashed potato fritter, just mashed potatoes (maybe some mashed lentils, maybe onions, I think).

This has become something of a minor obsession for me, just what I need to help me get through the (hopefully) last few weeks of sweltering summer when I'm not eating much more than sandwiches and snacks. I happened to remember that Salaam Namaste, a Desi game room and Indo-Pak fast food place on W. Bellfort, just off 59, had bun kabab on the menu and I stopped in to try it, only to discover they have three - a meat bun kabab, a 'special,' which includes egg, and a vegi kabab. What is this I wondered? I was directed through a door to the sister restaurant, Sweet 'n Namkin, for the vegi bun kabob. These two restaurants have totally separate kitchens, both 100% Halal, with Sweet 'n Namkin also 100% vegetarian.

This was another good one; the patty had been sauteed just a little I think and browned up a bit and included small chunks of onion and lentil and perhaps some other vegetables. There were some thick slices of roma tomato and only a dollop of ketchup (more was offered on the side), and a generous amount of raw onion and cilantro. It wasn't quite a spicy as the one at Dilpasand but was very satisfying.

I went back online to do some more research and discovered something I had totally missed before, the meat and egg combination is the most popular variety in Pakistan; I thought this was just supposed to be a veggie snack.

So of course I had to go back to try the 'Special' at Salaam Namaste.' What I got was the least photogenic of any I've had so I didn't take a picture but it turned out to be the best. A thinner patty of veggies, topped with a thin 'omelet' folded over multiple times, with onion, roma tomato and cucumber slices and lots of cilantro, the spiciest one yet, too, and on top of that, a shaker of spice on the table (including at the least cumin and tumeric) that kicked it up even more.

So I've still got to try the beef bun kabab at Salaam Namaste. A Beef Kabab Roll or Chicken Kabab Roll is common as a snack food offering on Pakistani menus here, but not the Bun Kabab. I've checked at Alfa Capri, another Desi game room/snack bar just a few doors down on West Bellfort, and they don't serve a bun kabab and I've checked the menus of several other Pakistani restaurants and haven't found another one to try so the quest goes on but may be over already, too.

In the meantime I had come across this Pakistani blog comparing the bun kabab to McDonald's and coming down squarely in favor of the bun kabab. I don't know how authentic the McDonald's burgers are they're getting from those kiosks pictured in Karachi but I'll have to join the chorus of comments: I'd rather have one of these, too.

My earlier report on Dilpasand Mithai.

Salaam Namaste. I have been going to this restaurant off and on for several years but not much in a couple of years; it's undergone a renovation of sorts and there's more emphasis on the food and less on the game room aspect now.

My earlier report on Sweet n' Namkin which is undergoing a maker-over of it's own, becoming more of a vegetarian restaurant and less of just a chaat and sweets bar.

Oh yeah, and another good thing about these? So far, no one has asked me if I wanted fries with one or wanted to SuperSize it.

El Punto Criollo

2010-08-26T00:09:00.016-05:00

506 Hwy 6 West (??), less than 1/2 mile south of I-10 SEE AMENDED LOCATION BELOW and a report on a revisit here.

I was on my way to check out another restaurant on the far west side when I happened to spot this one. I knew from the word criollo that this was not another taco trailer so I swung around to check it out. Cuban?, Puerto Rican?, I wondered; it wasn't until I got close enough to read the menu in the window that I discovered it serves Las Delicias de Venezuela. I had forgotten that Pabellon Criollo is the national dish of Venezuela. It's on the menu here along with arepas, empanadas, pastelitos, cachapas, tequenos, and chicha Venezolana, a rice based drink served sweetened and chilled. There are also hallacas listed on the menu and I thought I'd really lucked out. Hallacas are the Venezuelan version of a nacatamale, typically including more than one meat, capers, raisins and olives as filling and I've never been able to sample one yet but she said it should be covered up on the menu as it is only served during the holiday season, as is typical.

The lady is very friendly and cheerfully answered a lot of questions I peppered her with; she speaks pretty good English. I had more trouble communicating because of the roar of traffic on the highway than because of a language barrier.

Though I had my heart set on something at the other restaurant I decided to pick up a couple of empanadas to sample since I've been out on this stretch of Highway 6 only a handful of times and wouldn't likely be back soon. I got a beef and a chicken ($2 each) and was impressed with how hefty they were. I was offered a variety of salsas, red and green, one described as hot, but I asked about the guasaca, the Venezuelan creamy avocado dressing. She seemed pleased I knew of that and procured some from the refrigerator.

I had actually just left a dentist's office and made it all the way to 6 in amazing time; I wasn't supposed to eat anything for another quarter hour, lest my teeth self-destruct, so I hopped in the car and headed on down the road where it turned out the restaurant I had my sights on was closed; sure was a good thing I brought a spare lunch along.

Most Venezuelan empanadas I've had were snack-sized; these were close to being the largest I've ever had, about as big as a burrito, and crammed full of meat. The chicken one was the tastiest, shredded chicken breast with some red pepper and other herbs apparent, tender and juicy. The guasaca was surprisingly tart and complemented the chicken quite well. The beef empanada had tender shredded brisket and was a little more simply seasoned and not quite as interesting. The guasaca didn't go with it as well and I wished I had also taken some of the salsa. These things were big enough that two was a meal.

With the recent closure of Miguelito's I guess we now have more Venezuelan mobile units (3) than brick and mortar places (2) in the area.

Edit: now located next to the parking lot of World Food Market, on Beechnut just west of Highway 6, with an awning and table for comfort.

El Punto Criollo on Facebook

Edited 1/28/12

El Caldero Boricua

2010-08-18T18:59:00.014-05:00

15115 Bellaire Blvd, outside Highway 6

I loved this restaurant before I ever got to the door. Just the aromas wafting across the parking lot convinced me I was in for something good. It's a small place, seating only twice as many as the legendary Tex-Chick in the Montrose, and kind of cramped at that. The way the menu is set up is a bit confusing, too. Basically it's a la carte ordering but not everything available is listed and perhaps most perplexing, main courses are cheaper than sides sometimes. Don't fret, the counter person will help, making suggestions for things to try if you're new.

On my first visit I tried the pasteles, a Puerto Rican tamale of sorts (there are Puerto Rican tamales) but made with mashed plantain or green banana instead of masa and with a filling of savory pork, steamed in a banana leaf. The melding of fruit and savory was a bit odd to the palate at first but it was very good. I also got a portion of 'yellow rice,' which apparently means arroz con gandules here. This was awesome, one of the most flavorful rice dishes I've ever had, rivaling the best rice dishes at our Persian or Afghani restaurants. There are apparently three sides available to choose from, white or yellow rice and .... plain beans? There isn't a clear listing of what the sides to choose from on the menu.

As I waited a brief time for my food, I observed a couple of women at the next table having a feast, the table loaded down with great looking dishes, only one of which, tostones, I could identify. I really wanted to be nosy and ask what everything was.

That was a half portion of the yellow rice ($3) and I was still a bit hungry so I inquired about desserts. There are only two available, not shown on the menu board or menu; one I have forgotten but the other was 'coconut pudding.' That sounded like just the ticket.

Although the word was not mentioned I believe this is the dessert known as Tembleque, served chilled with a generous dusting of warm cinnamon. I had asked for a small portion; that was said to be a half portion ($4).

On another visit I went for the Pernil ($2) and yellow rice, a double portion ($5). The aroma of the roasted pig filled the small restaurant as the server removed the holding pan cover and I made my way over to the counter to marvel as he peeled back the layer of skin and fat covering the pan and forked out portions of the meat, no knife needed. Some dishes are held on a steam table and there are also readily visible pots of food simmering on a stove behind the counter. This looked like it was going to be awesome. An online source says Puerto Ricans like their meats fatty; that's pretty easy to see. I included pictures from two perspectives because I couldn't really capture just how much food that was nor how good it looked with just one. Unfortunately, somehow, though the pan was covered and the meat simmering in its own juices and covered by the layer of skin, it was tough and stringy, a major disappointment.

It is easier to tell from this photo, by the way, that the 'yellow rice' is arroz con gandules because of the visible bits of meat included.

As I had been paying for my meal on my first visit the cashier had asked where I was from and I had replied 'just a couple of miles from here.' The significance of that question didn't hit me until later.

On my second visit a woman was busing some tables who looked familiar to me and she recognized me from my first visit and asked if I had been there before, pointing to the exact spot I had been sitting. She observed I had appeared to be really hungry and really enjoying the food; I guess I made something of a spectacle of myself. She was one of the women sitting at the table next to mine whose bounteous spread I had envied. She asked me where I was from. I said Houston and asked where she was from; she said New York. Then I told her what she and her friend had been having had looked very good and asked what it was. The only dish she named was, I thought, Catfish Stew. Puerto Rican Catfish Stew sounded awesome but I couldn't find it on the menu; I think probably what she had said was Codfish stew, i.e., the bacalao guisada, and I misunderstood. Whatever it was, it looked good.

One of the offerings not listed on the menu, although there is a picture, is the Jibarito, the Puerto Rican version of a steak sandwich using mashed, fried plantain in place of bread. It's listed on the menu board as $7 but I was told it is now $9.

El Caldero Boricua

Pasha

2010-08-17T11:49:00.018-05:00

2325 University Blvd.

It's hard to believe, all the years I've lived in Houston and all the times I've gone to the Village to eat, I'd never been to Pasha until this summer. I'm not sure I even knew it existed until a couple of years ago, it's kind of easy to miss. For years, my go-to places in the Village were Alfred's/Kahn's and Antone's, later joined by Istanbul Grill. There were other places I ate at, uh, what were they now?, but these were overwhelmingly my favorites. And let me pause to make the point that to me, the neighborhood will always be 'The Village,' as it was referred to when I was a kid growing up. I don't know when Rice bought the naming rights but to me, it'll always be The Village, not Rice Village.

But I did learn of Pasha a couple of years ago, with some good recommendations, and set out to correct the error of my ways this summer when I took a break from focusing on street food.

I hadn't visited one of our Turkish restaurants in a couple of years when I first stopped in and I was hungry for doner. This was the lunch special portion preceded by a Shepherd salad, seasoned and marinated thin slices of beef and lamb, cooked on a rotisserie, some pieces still pink in the center, juicy and lusciously flavorful, and a very generous portion for a lunch special. It was better than I remembered ever having elsewhere.

Pasha is quite a different space than Istanbul just around the corner; quiet and peaceful, a respite from the bustle outside, linen table cloths and stemmed glassware, but not at all stuffy, at least not when I was there for lunch several times.

In the dim light of the restaurant, I couldn't decide what the item at the top of the plate was; I didn't remember mention of potato and there was a bed of rice underneath the pile of meat, anyway, but a wedge of potato dusted generously with paprika or something similar is what I guessed. The light from the flash makes it more readily identifiable but it was not until I cut into it that I realized it was a wedge of tomato. It tasted as much like a tomato as it looked like a tomato and was a waste of space on the plate and the complimentary basket of pide had been at room temp and a little stale but otherwise this was an excellent meal and I kicked myself for waiting so long to come here. Then they brought out the complimentary shot of hot Turkish tea and I sat and sipped and savored for another 20 minutes or so, a blissful few moments of repose from the blazing sunlight and busy-ness outside. Do you get the idea I like this place?

Only a few days later, back in that part of town and craving some more doner but also wanting to try something different I went back and decided I could fulfill both desires by ordering a doner sandwich. On this occasion (and every other I've been) the complimentary pide was warm and wonderful but I discovered it doesn't make for a very good sandwich. The pide at Pasha is too rigid and impermeable, the small pieces of meat and other ingredients kept falling out because the bread was so rigid. Worst of all, one of the real joys of the first meal had been that bed of rice underneath the meat that had soaked up all the juices and which I lingered over down to the very last grain; the bread simply doesn't soak it up like that and remains rather dry.

Now about those fries. You have a choice of three sides, Shepherd salad, fries, or cup of soup of the day. Given my disdain for fries - I usually eat them only when they're automatically included with a sandwich or something - I decided to go with them since I'd already had the salad and soup wasn't appealing on another sweltering day, but it was a bad choice. They were mediocre, probably frozen. They were accompanied by an enormous squeeze bottle of ketchup, one of the few food substances on earth I avoid more than fries, that was plopped down on the table with what seemed like a sneer. This wasn't anywhere near as satisfying a meal, and I didn't get the complementary tea, either. I don't advise the sandwiches at Pasha, stick with the plates. I did manage to salvage a little more from this experience - I discovered that drizzling what I had left of the zataar that accompanies the complementary pide classed up those fries enough to make them more palatable, more palatable to me than the ketchup would have (the squeeze bottle remained untouched).

Live and Learn being the order of the day I couldn't wait to come back so a few weeks later I stopped in again. I'd been eating some very big meals at other sit-down venues and wanted something a little light so I went with Menemem, a traditional vegetarian dish. Several cuisines have dishes involving eggs and vegetables and this is the Turkish version and it was great, tomato, onion, bell pepper, eggs and feta, served with Turkish rice. I particularly liked that the vegetables were still crisp-tender instead of being cooked to a soft, mushy state and I was every bit as enthused about this dish as I had been about the doner on my first visit. The rice was great too and I finished off every last grain even though it had not benefited from any meat juices; I grew up in Brazoria County where they grow, or used to anyway, a lot of rice and I love rice in almost any presentation, more than potatoes.

And on this occasion the grilled tomato both looked and tasted a lot more like a tomato should.

This meal was so light I followed with a dessert, something my rather small appetite usually doesn't allow room for. I went with the Sutlac, a baked rice pudding, served chilled topped with minced pistachios. As smooth as flan though not as creamy, I loved this also, plus I got my shot of hot tea to sip.

I haven't hit it for dinner when things might be a bit more formal but Pasha is a great lunch spot and judging by the pictures on the website, there are lots of great dishes yet to try.

Pasha

My Pita Bakery and Deli

2010-08-15T19:30:00.023-05:00

9804 Hillcroft

This place used to be Super Pita before a change of ownership in May. I thought they were out of business once when I drove by because the windows were so barren but lately there's almost always a crowd. A young waiter told me they spruced the place up a bit and the food is much better. I only went to Super Pita twice and tried something on the steam table. It wasn't too bad but not memorable either. Now the steam table appears to be gone, at least at lunch, and food is freshly prepared. That's a plus. I got the impression from the take-out menu that the emphasis is on sandwiches although it's still possible to get most of the dishes that were available before off the menu and about half the dine-in customers have been having plates.

Sandwiches come on baguettes, pitas or laffas, all baked in-house, with typical Middle Eastern fillings such as falafel, schawarma, kabobs, etc., plus schnitzel. There are also some 'Gold' sandwiches with typical Western deli fillings like roast beef, smoked turkey, salami, etc. I tried a falafel pita on my first visit. When the falafel had been cooked (5 pieces) I was called up to the counter to pick my toppings. There are about 15 to choose from, none labeled. The edge of the pita is cut and folded back and the fillings stuffed inside. The man said 'Hummus?' and I said yes. 'Anything else - Israeli salad?' I said yes. 'Anything else?' 'Tabouli' I said. 'Anything else?' I saw a green sauce that I guessed might be spicy and pointed at that. Spicy? he said. Yes. 'Anything else?' Then there was the red sauce. 'Spicy?' I said yes. I was beginning to feel a little guilty about loading up so much but he kept saying 'anything else?' I think I stopped at that point, I'm not sure, maybe I got one or two other things. I think the red and green sauces were the Yemeni condiment schug. Those were listed by name on the Super Pita menu and though they're not listed on this one there have been so few changes in the menu I'm guessing that's what they are.

He squirted a couple of other things on the sandwich out of squeeze bottles and wrapped it up with a side order of fries which came with the sandwich ($4.95) and weighed in at about 2 ozs, a perfect size order of fries as far as I'm concerned.

Well the truth is I'm not very fond of pitas or falafel to begin with but I had just been to Zabak's a few days earlier and I thought it would be good to do a comparison. The pitas are thick and hearty and a bit dry for my taste; the falafel was, well, falafel, and no, not as interesting as Zabak's. With all the added condiments, though, it was not bad as a sandwich and I was pretty confident they had offerings I would like better. I had got too many condiments and couldn't sort them all out, taste-wise.

Looking over the menu I became fascinated by the laffa sandwiches. They had been on the Super Pita menu but I'd never noticed them and I resolved to try one on my next visit to see if I like laffa better than pita. Laffa is an Iraqi flatbread that is more like a thin naan or thick chapati rather than a pita; too thin to be used as a pocket bread it's used as a wrap.

I also wanted to try the shawarma so on another visit I got a shawarma laffa; this time I added just the hummus, Israeli salad and some grilled eggplant. Laffa are about 10" in diameter and weigh from 3 to 5 ozs (hand-made and irregular); the filled sandwich weighed in at 15.5 oz on my kitchen scale and I loved it. The laffa is like a soft, pliable naan and is just what I need - another type of bread I like. I could gritch that the shawarma was a little too dried out and the eggplant added a bitterness than was unwelcome but this was a very good sandwich - actually, big enough for two sandwiches ($10.95) - and a new favorite sandwich. The fries this time were a little underdone.

Okay, so the resemblance of a laffa to a large flour tortilla and the sandwich to a burrito can't be overlooked but there's no lard, obviously, and where else in Houston can you get a Kosher falafel or schnitzel burrito?

Like other Israeli restaurants, Super Pita at this location before and Saba's on Fondren, the menu includes dishes brought to Israel from other countries. Besides the laffa there is sabich from Iraq, a Morrocan style fish dish, a Tunisian style tuna sandwich on the breakfast menu, a Bukharian pilaf, a goulash and a couscous. I was fascinated by the Egyptian dish Foul Mudammas which dates back to the Pharaohs. It's served here as mashed fava beans on top of a bed of hummus in a bowl, topped with the green spicy sauce and accompanied by a couple of pitas. Though it's offered as a side ($4.95) it's enough for a meal in itself, though I prefer it a little spicier, with some cumin or chili powder and a hard boiled egg.

The grocery shelves and bakery display cases are less impressively full than when it was Super Pita but sitting in bakery section, waiting for my Foul Mudammas, the aroma of the fresh challah and pastries being brought out was driving me crazy. I picked up some laffa - three loaves are $2.50. Heated up in every home-maker's modern home substitute for a tandoor, a toaster oven (or in my case, a pop-up toaster) it crisps up a bit and makes a great accompaniment to many dishes.

This little neighborhood in Meyerland has a collection of some good eateries - New York Coffee Shop and New York Bagel Shop just a block away, The Russian General Store a couple of blocks away and Fioza, which is highly recommended by Ziggy Smogdust, just across Brays Bayou.

My Pita is kosher and closes for all Jewish holy days.

At last, Red Velvet Fried Chicken....

2010-08-15T14:14:00.010-05:00

So there's chicken and waffles (so old hat) and now Red Velvet Fried Chicken. And lest you think it's just fried chicken on top of a piece of Red Velvet cake, nooooooooo. Read about it here.

and some comments here.

But it's not here, it's in San Fran.

I don't foresee wanting to go home with a 10 piece bucket but this makes me curious and I'd like to try it.

El Mofongo Boricua

2010-08-09T11:54:00.016-05:00

1925 Highway 6 South, between Westheimer and Briar Forest

Ever since I started getting into street food, lo these many sun-baked parking lots ago, I've been reading up on street food around the world and become fascinated with the subject. Certain countries are known for their street food cultures, Puerto Rico among them. A recent article by the site Budget Travel named Puerto Rico as one of 14 destinations worldwide for street food aficionados. I've wondered why we didn't have any Puerto Rican here, indeed why we have, for most of the last 30 years, had only one Puerto Rican restaurant (actually, that should be spelled Puertorrican I think). And then I not only discover this trailer but also another Puertorrican restaurant on the far west side which I'll be reporting on soon.

I headed out to try them out only to be frustrated a couple of times to find them closed so I called and found out the current hours (only 2pm to 10pm, Friday thru Sunday). I showed up about 2:30 on a Friday afternoon and there was no one in sight. Later is better, here; in fact, though you can't count on them to be open precisely by 2pm you'll often find them open past 10pm; the two times I've been I asked how late they'd been open the night before and the answers were 12 Midnight and 1am.

I talked to Chely himself, a wrecker driver during the week who is not as old as his graying hair and beard make him seem; he asked me my name on the phone and where I was from, which I thought was a little strange. Then, when I got there, he asked again (and recognized me from my call). But don't worry if you can't name some town on the island you hail from, you'll be welcome here, as I was. As another customer explained to me as we stood around chatting, Puerto Ricans are very outgoing and like to talk; I observed that's generally true of Texans, too, and we should get along famously.

On my first visit I tried the arroz con gandules, rice with pigeon peas, capers, stuffed olives, considered by some the national dish, with pernil. The rice was rich, flavorful, great, but the pernil was even better. I watched as she (I presume Chely's wife, who does most of the cooking inside the trailer) kept slicing pieces off the roast for my plate, even pulling out another knife at one point to cut through the crispy skin, and worried there might not be enough for the rest of the evening but then I realized it was not my problem. This was just sublime; I couldn't stop taking more bites of the pile of meat on the plate though it was obviously enough for two.

And of all the variations of rice and peas popular in Caribbean cuisine, I like the Puerto Rican version best I've decided after just one sample but this is one of the items prepared ahead of time and warmed up in a microwave so it wasn't as good as it could have been.

I saw the pinchos being cooked by Chely over mesquite charcoal on a grill; trust me, there's lots more meat on them than the picture on the trailer indicates. I also saw pinchos de pollo being consumed - they seem to be the most popular - and they looked great. Unfortunately no one was a sharer. I also saw fried pies - didn't get the name of them - a corn meal like batter with cheese filling that looked more like the cheese was incorporated into the dough rather than stuffed in a pocket.

I inquired about the cuajito, defined online as pork belly (buche) in a spicy sauce. Chely said pancha de puerco as he rubbed his considerable tummy and offered me a sample. I'd say the sauce is savory, not spicy, but there is hot sauce (Louisiana brand) on the table. I loved this; definitely better than beef tripe.

I've also tried the Mofongo y carne frita which Chely says is his best dish but I just don't get mofongo and I didn't care for the carne frita (fried pork cubes) nearly as much as the pernil.

When I had first approached the window on my first visit I had noticed a baseball bat across one of the cabinet tops inside and I wondered if things sometimes got a little rowdy later in the evening. As I was standing around chatting with another customer, Chely stuck his head out the window and called me over to witness the mashing of the plantains for the mofongo. Inside I saw a beautiful wooden mortar, about a foot tall with 1 inch thick sides, sitting on a chair. It was apparent the pestle that came with it was barely long enough to stick out the top and using it would result in seriously scuffed knuckles; hence the baseball bat, which allows for two-fisted pulverizing action as the fried slices of plantain are ladled into the mortar.

The trailer can be missed easily if you're hurrying along on Highway 6, partially obscured by trees in a mostly vacant shopping center parking lot, but when they're open there'll be a line of Puerto Rican flags staked out along the highway and you can't miss it. Later is better, for sure, given the heat these days. Both times I've been it was late afternoon and it was sweltering, even under the shade provided by some young trees. Take advantage of the late hours and go after it starts to cool off. This is not fast food; I've waited 25-35 minutes for my order. I have seen lots of people coming up to pick up to-go orders and more than one picking up something called in but eating on site.

BTW, I asked another customer about the Puertorrican community here and why there aren't more and he said, in essence, they're coming. Puerto Ricans have mostly emigrated to Miami, then, NYC, then Orlando, but now they're discovering Houston, drawn first by the Space Center, then the Medical Center and now the petro-chemical industry. This is just fine with me, so long as there are more cooks and restauranteurs in the mix, not just astronauts, doctors, scientists and engineers

El Mofongo Boricua on Facebook - there's not much on the page and the hours are wrong. The current hours, as of this post, are Friday-Saturday-Sunday, 2pm to 10pm, but as noted above they tend to run late.

Sheba Cafe

2010-07-21T21:10:00.026-05:00

6251 Bissonnet @ Hillcroft

I've been seeing this restaurant when passing by on Bissonnet for months now but it never has registered with me. Recently on a wee hours insomniac's cruise I saw it again and finally remembered to look into it when I got home. When I realized it was Ethiopian I had to check it out.

It's a pretty new place, open only a few months. I like the room a lot. There's very limited seating - only 4 tables, 12 chairs, plus some stools at a counter. Unlike many small ethnic restaurants it's actually kind of roomy for such a small space. The table linens look like craft work instead of mass produced and the overall effect is peaceful, not what one would expect from the exterior of a cookie-cutter strip center in Southwest Houston.

I asked the waitress, who I think is also the owner, for a her best dish and she suggested the Kitfo (minced tenderloin of beef in spiced butter, the ubiquitous niter kebbeh of Ethiopian cuisine). I hadn't read up on Ethiopian in some time and didn't remember just what this dish is and misread the menu, thinking that by ordering it medium rare I was ordering it less cooked than it normally is served. Actually, this is the Ethiopian version of Steak Tartare and fortunately she seemed to have realized I didn't know what I was doing and the dish came out barely cooked at all, still very rare if not completely raw. It was accompanied by a small side of Iab (eyeb), a slightly sour Ethiopian cottage cheese made from buttermilk, and a small portion of Gomen (collards) and it was excellent. Having tasted the dish and observed the cleanliness of the restaurant I would have no qualms about ordering this raw next time.

At the end of the meal I had a cup of Ethiopian coffee. She doesn't do the coffee ceremony here but she does roast and grind her own beans and this too was excellent. Some years ago, having read about Ethiopian coffee, I bought some roasted beans myself and ground them at home for my coffee but it was nowhere near as good as this. I usually don't like sugar in my coffee but I understand Ethiopian coffee is typically consumed with lots of sugar or honey so I added a generous amount and it made it even better. I lingered over my cup for some time after the meal as customers tend to do here and walked out the door on a huge protein, caffeine and sugar high with expectations of returning very soon.

Actually I wound up going back the very next day. I had not been able to eat even half the Kitfo (you eat a lot of bread at an Ethiopian restaurant, of course). I had calculated from the portion I took home it was about a 12 ounce serving of tenderloin + niter kebbeh and I wanted something light on my second visit. I decided to try their vegetable combination platter to compare with what I had the only other time I'd visited an Ethiopian restaurant. This was only half the number of wats I had at Nazareth but much larger portions of each. From 11 o'clock there is the Kit Alicha (split yellow peas), Gomen (collards), Shiro Wat (pureed split peas), Tekel Gomen (sauteed fresh cabbage and carrots), Fasolia and Carrots (green beans) and Mesir Wat (lentils), plus a salad in the middle with some slices of fresh jalapeno that had been completely de-veined and de-seeded. I loved the Mesir Wat, Fasolia, Tekel Gomen and salad; I'm not fond of either of the split pea preparations or the collards - what can I say, I'm a dyed-in-the-cotton Southern boy I guess, I love a mess of greens but I've never found any preparation I like as well as one that includes pot likker.

Light? Hah! I know well by now of course that vegetarian food is not necessarily 'light' fare. Once again I couldn't finish the dish, barely more than half, and I passed on that excellent coffee this time - I wanted to go home and take a nap.

I wanted to visit again soon so I could post a report since this place is pretty much off the radar and deserves to be known. I knew my friend Ziggy Smogdust wanted to go with me on a visit to an Ethiopian place so I emailed him a copy of the menu and we made plans. While the vegetarian dishes were good I was so impressed by the Kitfo I definitely wanted to try another meat dish; we discussed one of us ordering a lamb dish, the other one of the other beef dishes. I went in wanting to ask about the Dulet, listed on the menu (linked below) as a lamb dish - tripe, liver and red meat with onion, garlic and jalapeno with niter kebbeh, cardoon and mitmita, the ground African bird's eye pepper used for heat (shakers on each table for added heat as diners prefer), served anywhere from raw to well-done - but it is not on the in-house menu any more. I asked about the best lamb dish and she suggested the Yebeg Yeawaze Tibs. Ziggy beat me to ordering that one and I went for the other raw beef dish, Gored Gored.

That's the beef dish on top; guess which was better? Actually we were both disappointed in the Gored Gored; supposedly filet mignon it was a little tough and chewy and though both dishes are made with awaze, not as spicy or favorful. The lamb dish was awesome, I may like it better than the Kitfo; it had a slightly greater heat level from the jalapeno slices, though Ziggy was regularly reaching for the Mitmita shaker. Both dishes came with a small side of Tekel Gomen.

One of my pieces of injeera was rather dry; I tore off a sample of Ziggy's and his was not quite as stale but neither was really fresh. This had not been a problem on my earlier visits but was a little disappointing.

I wanted Ziggy to try the Ethiopian coffee. He is much more of a coffee connoisseur than I and I wanted his opinion. I could tell from the reaction on his face at the first sip that it was going to be positive - he was really impressed and asked the waitress some questions about the preparation. Score another big one - you have to try the coffee when you go to an Ethiopian restaurant.

They are open 7 days a week; due to proximity to a school they are not able to serve alcohol nor allow BYOB. This will put them at a disadvantage to the other Ethiopian restaurants in town. Obviously if it catches on, there's going to be a problem of limited seating.

Having only been to one other Ethiopian restaurant and a grand total of four meals I'm clearly no expert nor able to judge which of the two I've visited is better but I do plan to hit both of them again, as well as Blue Nile and Addis Ababa, our other well-known places. This one is so convenient to me I will probably hit it with more regularity.

A web site is supposed to be in the works. In the meantime, I have scanned the hand-out menu and posted it here where you can read more complete descriptions of the offerings. Remember prices and dishes may differ at the restaurant; in particular, as noted above, the Dulet is not on the in-house menu any more; there are also beverages listed on the back of the menu - as best I can remember they were Ethiopian coffee and herbal tea, latte and cappuccino, sodas and bottled water.

Tropical Diner and Cocktail Lounge

2010-07-13T06:13:00.030-05:00

9409 S. Gessner, just north of Bissonnet

THIS LOCATION IS NOW CLOSED. I BELIEVE THEY HAVE A NEW LOCATION IN KATY.

I first went to this place about 10 months ago, a couple of months after they took over the space from the short-lived 3Ps Barbecue. At that time they had a daily lunch buffet plus menu service and a cocktail bar. The buffet was rather small and there were no jerk items on the day I went in.

I had some Brown Stew Chicken, a stewed dumpling that seemed to have been stewed with bananas or plantains (which I didn't get any of), sauteed plantain, meatballs, rice and peas and a cabbage dish. There was a soup which as i recall was chicken. I like dumplings but this one was very gummy, otherwise everything was okay but nothing stood out and nothing (excepting that scotch bonnet) was very spicy, which I, rightly or wrongly, associate with Jamaican food. Nothing was labeled on the buffet but a server had identified the dishes for me. There were also several pans on the steam table with nothing in them and I judged that perhaps they didn't quite have their act together yet and have put off going back for many months.

I'd noticed they're doing better business than 3Ps and I recently stopped in to give them another try; I'm glad I didn't write them off completely. Gone is the daily lunch buffet and in its place is a lunch special menu with prices ranging from $6.99 to $8.50. That includes a jerkwich served on coco bread and fish and chips ($8.50) which I'm going to have to try. The regular menu includes small and large plate alternatives and includes fried chicken ($6.99 and $8.50) which I also want to try.

I chose the small jerk chicken plate on this visit ($7.25). This came with rice and peas, a salad and a single slice of sauteed plantain. The chicken was juicy and tender but at first I thought under-seasoned. However as I worked my way through the plate, the jerk seasoning asserted itself more and I wound up very satisfied with this dish. The salad ingredients were crisp and fresh (I could have had a dressing if I'd wanted it); the rice and peas were a little on the dry side (and with very few peas) and I sure could have used a bit larger portion of the plantain.

Among the beverages besides the usual soda, tea and coffee are tropical sodas, Ting and Ginger beer plus smoothies, Tropical Rhythm, a line of tropical juice drinks from Grace, and home-made carrot juice and ginger beer. I'd never had home-made ginger beer and decided to order that ($3.00 for a glass). Initially I was disappointed that it wasn't carbonated at all (nor fermented) but I really came to like it. I judged it was possibly sweetened with honey and the waitress said sometimes honey, sometimes cane sugar but she didn't know what had been used for that batch. It was rather murky (unfiltered) and got stronger toward the bottom of the glass. This is a strong drink you sip slowly. I thought I could feel the plaque being dissolved in my arteries just as I sat there and was disappointed when I got home and looked it up to discover that's not one of the claimed benefits of ginger. Maybe it was just the sugar high.

There is now a Sunday lunch buffet ($10) and I went back to check that out, planning to opt for something off the menu if the buffet didn't look very good but the buffet is all there is on Sunday (hours are also much shorter - 12N to 4pm only). The buffet looked pretty good and I decided to try it.

At 10 o'clock are some of the slightly sweet meatballs like I'd had before; at 11 is a green curry chicken dish. The baked macaroni and cheese at the top of the plate was one of a small number of non-meat dishes and was disappointingly dry (mac 'n cheese is not a favorite dish of mine anyway). The slaw was crisp, chilled, lightly dressed and only slightly sweet; I liked it a lot.

At 4 o'clock was the least appealing dish, salt mackerel. I wouldn't go for that again. I also got beef liver, which was excellent. The most interesting item on this plate, however, is the stewed beef tripe at 8 o'clock. I've never become a fan of menudo but have enjoyed tripe tacos, especially when extra crispy, but I loved this - it was my favorite thing on the plate, tender, only slightly chewy, very savory. One of the cooks who was doubling as a server (they seemed to be short-handed) said it's on the regular menu but I didn't get the name of the dish and I can't identify it on the take-out menu.

I also got a piece of jerk chicken which was not quite as juicy as what I'd had previously, and a piece of carrot cake. Besides what I sampled, the buffet included a tossed salad, rice and peas, the stewed dumplings and plantains, brown stew chicken, Sock-it-to-me cake, watermelon and cantaloupe wedges and, I think, one other beef dish. It was a more than adequate spread for me.

I tried the home-made carrot juice to accompany the buffet ($3.50). This was a sweet as a strawberry shake and not very carroty. I thought I had it figured out (carrots, honey, nutmeg and vanilla) but couldn't account for the color so I asked the chef who told me it had sweetened condensed milk in it rather than honey. A non-dairy version is available but not listed; ask for it if you're lactose intolerant. This also got more interestingly thicker toward the bottom of the glass; some people might not care for the slight graininess toward the bottom but it didn't bother me. This was good but I definitely prefer the home-made ginger beer.

They also have ready-made patties (beef, chicken, vegetable) and roti (your choice of filling).

They're open Monday thru Saturday 11a to 8p. The staff has been very hospitable. I overheard one diner thanking the chef for kicking up the spice level on his order and the chef saying they restrain the use of pepper since not all diners appreciate it but you can ask for spicier versions of the dishes.

This is a good addition to the SW Houston dining scene and I hope they make it.

Kaq-ik at Guatemala Restaurant

2010-07-11T09:26:00.013-05:00

3333 Hillcroft, N

For some time the turkey soup at Guatemala Restaurant has been beckoning to me. I've had some very good Guatemalan food in Houston at the now closed Lo Nuestro on Bissonnet (the last time I went, the kitchen had taken a big nose dive) and here at Guatemala and at the Chapinlandia Bakery, but nothing that really seemed to match the dishes discussed on Antigua Daily Photo, a very good Guatemalan blog. I've been following some fascinating posts on Chowhound by a San Francisco woman who is living in Guatemala with her new in-laws and writing about her culinary experiences and it has piqued my interest in Guatemalan cuisine. Recently when the temperature dipped down to the low 90s I thought it was time to have a big bowl of this hot and spicy soup.

According to some accounts, this was a dish reserved for Mayan kings and their guests. Ik is said to mean 'hot and spicy' or to be the word for the ground form of the dried chile cobanero, a key ingredient. Most recipes include several chile peppers and I'd judge from the taste of this one that there were at least 2 or 3 although I couldn't identify any of them as I'm not familiar with them at all.

I thought there might be some guisquil (chayote) in the broth - there's been some in every dish I've had at this restaurant - or plantain or yuca, which were present on just about every dish I had at Lo Nuestro, but this was just what you see, a turkey leg in a bowl of broth. Achiote is used for the coloring; other ingredients include garlic and coriander. There were sprigs of an herb floating in the broth that I couldn't identify; I thought cilantro, perhaps, but looking into recipes online there is mention of samat, another Central American herb, and peppermint.

Whatever was in it this was delicious and very spicy for Guatemalan cuisine. It was served just with the rice and three white tamales, the firm, almost gummy tamales I've had here before. It turns out this is the classic presentation. All you get for an eating utensil is a soup spoon - this is a soup you eat with your fingers (and I went through a wad of the flimsy napkins on the table). To break the monotony of spooning up about two and a half cups of broth, I cut one up of the tamales and dropped it in the broth; it absorbed the flavors the way tofu would but it did help make the process of consuming all that broth a little more interesting.

This is a very simple but very satisfying meal, among the 2 or 3 best Guatemalan dishes I've had; I was elated and the staff was as appreciative of the big smile on my face as I was of the big smile in my mouth from the heat.

Here's a post and discussion of the dish on Antigua Daily Photo.

My earlier review of the restaurant.

Beef Tendon at Friend's Kitchen

2010-07-10T23:29:00.016-05:00

9889 Bellaire

Once upon a time (recently) Ziggy Smogdust and I set out to visit Cafe Singapore on Bellaire but found it closed (Mondays). We studied the menu posted in the window and knew we had to come back and try it. In the meantime, we had both mused about spending some time working our way thru the restaurants in the 9800 block of Bellaire, just inside the Beltway. I've been to San Dong, Cafe Fu Fu, and Banana Leaf in there, Ziggy has been to Jang Guem and some others.

We drove back toward town and started strolling along the sidewalk in front of Fu Fu, QQ, and others, reading the menus posted in the windows. Many of the places were packed, a few were closed. Toward the back we came across Friend's Kitchen, a place which neither of us had ever heard of before. Ziggy saw something on the menu he was interested in, a cold appetizer of beef tendon. Sounded good to me; there were some available tables in the place which had a mixed but mostly Asian crowd.

I had never heard of this before but Ziggy had been doing some research on it; it was excellent, with crispy vegetables, cilantro and Sichuan peppercorns. The tendon itself was tender, slightly chewy, and very tasty.

Thank goodness Ziggy was willing to share - I ordered the fried dumplings and shrimp and tofu off the lunch menu. I was very disappointed in both although I think Ziggy found the dumplings interesting - I thought they were not as good as I've had at Fu Fu and San Dong and perhaps were only the frozen pot stickers like you can buy at Sam's. We saw several good looking dishes being served to other customers, however, so I chalk it up to my poor ordering.

Revisit 5/11: I stopped by to get something to-go recently. The menu is still posted in the window like most of the restaurants in that strip so I looked it over before going in. The sign in the window still says Friend’s Kitchen but the business card and take-out menu call it My Friend’s Home Restaurant - Classic Home Style Chinese Cooking. The place was packed when I was there before but had only a few tables occupied this time and I was worried about maybe a change in ownership and decline in the food but they say the name actually hasn’t changed?

Anyway, there are some interesting, exotic dishes on the menu including Qingdao Seaweed Jelly, Wuhan Duck Neck and Cabbage with Jellyfish but I stuck with something more familiar, squid with mustard greens. As a lunch special this was only $4.95, a bargain, and was very good, not quite as good as the beef tendon had been but better than the other dishes I’ve had. The squid (the body, not the tentacles) was firm but not tough or chewy; the mustard greens, apparently pickled Chinese mustard greens, were very aromatic with lots of crisp diced stem pieces to contrast with the leaves. They were also very, very salty. I really liked this despite, or perhaps because of, the saltiness but I watch my salt intake and am not used to this much so I was guzzling water for 24 hours.

I will be back but I think I’ll stay away from dishes with Chinese mustard greens though I really love greens.

Belated Update: I realized I'd never added the following - I went back a week later as part of a tour I was doing, trying to find steamed soup dumplings.

I really liked the ones I had here. The skin was a little thick but each dumpling was steamed atop a slice of carrot, adding both a new dimension of taste and texture that I found very likable.

The waitresses I have encountered on my several visits have all been very nice and there’s been no problem communicating because of a language barrier. B4 has this listed as Shandong Cuisine but there's a sign on the building that says Shanghai Cuisine and there's a story there, too. The restaurant at one time was called Shanghai Cuisine and is still listed that way on some restaurant review sites; Robb Walsh visited it in 2009 and said it was the first Chinese restaurant specializing in Shanghai cuisine in Houston at that time.

I've scanned the take-out menu here. Prices and Dishes may vary at the restaurant, of course.

San San Tofu

2010-07-10T22:37:00.015-05:00

6445 Wilcrest, just south of Harwin

This is one of my favorite cheap eats places in Southwest Houston. I understand they've moved into a new, larger location in the last year or so but I've only been going about 9 months. It's not really very close to me or I'd probably go more often.

There's grab-and-go stuff at the cash register, a better selection earlier in the day, shelves of groceries and pharmaceuticals, etc., a small eating area that is frequently packed (mostly Asian customers) and a steam table offering plate lunches and a small selection of vegetarian diem sum.

You get a plate lunch for $5.50/$6.00 including a rice or noodle main dish and sides. It's enough for 2 meals for me and I'd never be able to finish it all so I've just gotten things to go. Everything is very tasty. I picked up a quart of the veggie soup one time, canh chua, which had mushroom pieces, greens, tomatoes and the most blazingly hot chillies I've ever put in my mouth.

I usually get a few pieces of the diem sum, too.

Prices and dishes may vary at the restaurant. Note the limited hours.

Quick Bites V - Sandwiches

2010-07-04T07:46:00.040-05:00

For the last month or so I've really been eating against the norm - my norm, anyway. For a couple of years I've been focused on exploring little hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop ethnic restaurants and for the last 8 or 9 months, really into street foods. Here recently I've been hitting more sit-down-service type places, even white table cloth places. I just needed a change of pace. I'll probably get around to writing some reviews of the fancier digs I've visited and I haven't given up on the other types of eateries, at least I don't think I have, I'm just taking a hiatus and re-adjusting my aim. And it hasn't been a total abandonment of those pursuits. Here are a few places I've eaten at over the last several months but not reported on.

Tan Ba Le, Baguettes and Fast Food, 11169 Beechnut @ Boone

I first saw this place several months ago but only recently got around to trying it. I thought it was new but maybe not. I ordered two banh mi; I saw the long baguettes on the counter and assumed they would be cut in half but it turned out they already had - each sandwich measured 11" in length. This place could up its American appeal by advertising them as foot longs. The bread was lightly toasted just before the sandwich was assembled; I got a pork bbq and a vegetarian one. Both had a very rich mayo, tons of shredded carrots with just a few shreds of daikon, cucumber, cilantro and jalapeno. The meat in the pork bbq was a bit overcooked and dried out; in fact as she was preparing it the server was picking out some pieces and discarding them in the trash. The meat was very flavorful, however. The bread was amazing, I think the lightest, least dense and chewy Vietnamese baguette I've ever had but the sandwich's size was too much for me, I got a meal, a late night snack and a breakfast snack out of these.

As they were putting the rubber band on my first sandwich and starting on the second one I saw their steak and eggs platter come out; the place was doing a good business but I hadn't had to pass by any occupied tables on the way to the counter so hadn't gotten a good look at anything but I immediately thought I'd have to come back and try one of those. When I had first spotted this place I had looked it up on line but found nothing. Now I find that it had been blogged about last fall, specifically the steak and egg dish, bo ne, the house specialty, and I had missed the report or I certainly wouldn't have taken so long to get around to trying this place.

The staff has been very friendly and helpful; the menu board is mostly Anglicized Vietnamese.

My pork bbq sandwich was $3; the vegetarian one was $2.

Parisian Bakery III + Cafe, 8300 W. Sam Houston Parkway South, @ Beechnut in the Viet Hoa Center

Ziggy Smogdust turned me on to these last year. There are two other locations, one on Beechnut @ Wilcrest and one on Gessner @ Harwin. I've been to the Wilcrest location and like this one better; it's a bit cheerier and more friendly and it's also closer to me.

The baguettes here are shorter than Tan Ba Le (8"), fatter though and a little denser and chewier. I got the bbq pork banh mi here, too (and I nearly always get a pate chaud when I go here). What really stood out on this was the huge amount of meat; it was tender, not overcooked, but didn't have as much of the marinade and wasn't quite as flavorful - but there was a lot. There were also a few larger strips of daikon in the toppings, visibly identifiable but not really noticeable taste-wise, which otherwise were identical to Tan Ba Le, the cilantro was pretty bland.

The sandwich was $3, the pate chaud $1.25.

Comparing these two, I'd give the edge to Tan Ba Le, though I'd have to admit it was my first visit. I preferred the bread and that it was toasted just a bit, and, though it was overcooked, the more flavorful meat. Meat lovers might prefer Parisian however I'm sure the sandwiches differ from visit to visit depending on whose making them. I wouldn't avoid either place and it'll be partially a matter of convenience for me which one I go to.

Both the above places sell their baguettes separately. At Parisian, the 8" baguettes are 3 for a $1; each weighs about 3 oz. At Tan Ba Le, a full 22" baguette is $1 and weighs 6 oz.

Saldivia's South American Grill, 10234 Westheimer, just inside BW 8

In my explorations of South American cuisine over the past couple of years I learned that some version of a steak sandwich is very popular in several South American countries, in some said to be as popular as hamburgers in the USA. In Uruguay it's called a Chivito but despite the name there is no goat in a Chivito. I saw some awesome pictures of the sandwich online and when I found out we had a Uruguayan restaurant that served one, I had to try it out. Saldivia's, which is very new but recreates an earlier restaurant by the same owner, serves the dishes of both Argentina and Uruguay.

I fell in love with the room and it's rich woodwork; it's the former space of Cafe Malay, I think. Despite the somewhat upscale setting, the restaurant has the feel of a neighborhood cafe for expats and the owner, Gus, is a very friendly guy who likely will welcome you at the door and treat you like a friend.

The sandwich includes a grilled steak, thin slice of deli ham, lettuce, tomato, mayo and a fried egg served on a slightly crunchy and chewy baguette and was very tasty. I think the egg may have been fried in butter; even the tomato stood out - as tasty as home grown. The roasted potatoes were a little tough and chewy. There is chimichurri on the table which I had tried with an empanada and the complimentary mini-baguette appetizer but I found it too vinegary and didn't try any on the sandwich.

I've had the Churrasco sandwich at Marini's and the Lomito, a virtually identical Argentinan steak sandwich at El Gaucho and this is the best example of a South American steak sandwich I've had by a wide margin.

There are some other interesting entries on the menu including grilled mollejas on the appetizer menu. Besides the menu shown online there is a daily lunch special, Monday thru Friday, for $8.95.

As of my visit a couple of weeks ago there was zero signage along Westheimer and the restaurant, hidden in the back row of a strip center behind the Brookwood Gift Shop, is easy to miss.

Saldivia's

City Eats, 4003 B Rustic Oaks Dr., Kingwood (faces West Houston Parkway) - CLOSED

My first taste of Sabrett's hot dogs and the typical condiments and I was underwhelmed. I bought a pound of the wieners to bring home so I could try them with some different condiments and decided I liked the Sabrett's wiener a little better than the Vienna Beef wieners used in Chicago Style Dogs because of the slight smokiness but it didn't have as much snap. I like a Nathan's Natural Casing dog over both Sabrett's and Vienna Beef, however, The Sabrett's onion sauce would take some getting used to - there really isn't that much onion in it, at least as far as bits and pieces. Besides selling the wieners (in strings, not pre-packed and cry-o-wrapped) they carry all the condiments - Sabrett's onion sauce, sauerkraut and mustard - and they also serve Italians. The website doesn't mention it nor did the in-store menu but signs in the window and on the counter said they are now serving Zweigle's White Hots from Rochester.

I went thinking I would be coming home with some of the mustard, onion sauce and kraut, but having tasted the first two, I just bought the wieners. I have to say, I saw a burger being served and it looked pretty good.

City Eats

Sno Dreamz

2010-06-20T14:36:00.006-05:00

Fondren, just south of West Bellfort, next to the Chevron

Update 11/20/11 - a big banner now proclaims Shaved Ice - don't know if this means they no longer do New Orleans style snow balls, though. It was closed when I went by.

Now that the Season of Swelter is obviously here, I had to check out this little stand that I've been noticing for a couple of months. Over the window it says Sno Dreamz SnoBalls - is this really New Orleans style snoballs or is that just a catchy name? When I saw Tigers Blood listed as one of the flavors, I thought I knew the answer to that one.

There are more than 36 regular flavors, about 2 dozen more specials, 4 sugar free, add-ons, and more on the menu, a dizzying array. A sign in the window says they've added some Mexican flavors, tamarind, horchata, dulce de leche. I chose Wedding Cake with Cream (condensed milk). I'm sure it wasn't the word 'wedding' that attracted me, I'm just a sucker for the word 'cake.'

Okay, not a lot of color contrast in this one (and not a lot of sharp focus, either) but this was really good. That's a small (8 oz cup, $1.50, + $.50 for the condensed milk).

They used to serve boudain but have taken it off the menu since it wasn't selling; there are a few options besides the snow treats including pickled pigs lips - she said it's a New Orleans thing. They don't have a menu printed up and I couldn't get a shot of the menu board because it's behind glass and I got too much glare.

They're open Monday thru Saturday 12N to 8pm, Sunday 1pm to 8pm.

I've got a feeling I'm going to be a regular over the next several months.

Update on Vallejo

2010-06-20T14:33:00.004-05:00

Ziggy Smogdust went over and checked out this new taco truck and really dug the tacos Tlaquepaque. I wasn't planning on going back anytime soon but decided on his recommendation to check them out myself. I've added a picture and some more observations to the original report here.

A Couple of BBQ Trailers

2010-06-16T19:32:00.024-05:00

I seem to be starting to like barbecue again. It's been a while.

A few years back I OD'd on the stuff, especially the Central Texas, smoked meats variety. Every trip to Central Texas, and I made quite a few, I hit a succession of the famous places in Luling, Lockhart and Taylor, once even doing two within a couple of hours and on one occasion making a daytrip just for the purpose of eating 'cue at a couple of places and then heading for home. And I was ordering full orders at these places, not just sampling one slice of brisket, one rib, and moving on (no sides though, other than pickles, onions and white bread). Then, I'd had enough.

I've been avoiding the stuff for a few years now, and not just because Houston 'cue isn't quite as good - I was just tired of it. I've been to Pierson's a few times and it's certainly one of the best locally. I'm fortunate to live near Boogie's on the SW side and have been there several times and I think it may be better than Pierson's, but that's about it.

But with Boogie's still out of commission for the foreseeable future, apparently (they do make an awesome burger, btw) and Pierson's still not having moved down to the SW side to be more convenient, I got a hankering recently and thought I'd hit a couple of the places I've heard about.

Bar-B-Que Done Right

A trailer on Laura Koppe, just east of Homestead, off of 59N.

Laura Koppe is a 'furr peice' away from where I live (and a long way from being a scenic roadway) and when I found this place, there were no signs of life, no 'Open' sign, no smoke belching from the wagon. Fortunately, when I approached the window and it slid open I was hit in the face with a whoosh of hot smoky air and it smelled great.

After a brief discussion of the offerings and the ordering process (the smallest plate listed is three meats but he'll prepare a two meat plate on request, just giving you more of the two you select) I ordered some brisket, both fatty and lean, and ribs. Having read Robb Walsh's review of this place in the Press, I had decided in advance to forgo the sausage. The guy smiled and asked 'Did you read what Robb Walsh had to say?' Well, duh, yes I did. Don't all barbecue afficionados pay attention to what Walsh has to say? I guess maybe I looked like I just fell off a turnip truck out of East Texas on the ride over from 59.

He got busy making my plate and I stood back to bake in the sun. He did mention that in addition to the Walsh review, he's been visited by Texas Highways Magazine and will be in a feature - I think it's on bbq trailers as a Texas highway phenomenon - in the July issue.

There were more signs of life - more customers showed up, one to pick up a huge phone-in order, the others mostly ordering the chicken and turkey legs but having to make a second choice since those weren't ready, said the man. When I got my order, the parking lot was getting pretty crowded so I moved down the street a bit, pulled into the grass next to a ditch along the side of the road, and prepared to feast.

It smelled and looked great. I had asked for sauce on the side; this translated to the corner of the container which meant sauce underneath. Well, that's better than slathered all over the meat and it wasn't bad sauce anyway, not that the meats needed it.

The ribs were loaded with meat, tender as they should be, smoky, great. Not as good as the very best I've had at Boogie's but perhaps the equal of Pierson's and I liked the sauce better than Pierson's.

The brisket was another story. Tender, flavorful, excellent texture and a nice balance of lean and fatty, but virtually no smoke flavor. Actually, under the lighting conditions in the car, the smoke ring was even less apparent than under the flash. Now I like brisket, it's one of my favorite cuts of beef, and I've fixed it many times in the oven or in a huge stew pot on top of the stove, and I liked this brisket overall, it was very tasty, but it didn't qualify as barbecue for me because of the lack of smokiness.

The mashed potato salad had a strange, soapy taste. I could only manage a couple of nibbles at the time but I found when well chilled it was more palatable. I wonder if the bowl it had been mixed in had not been rinsed well after washing? Strange.

Besides the Constitutionally mandated pickles, onions and white bread I really liked the inclusion on the plate of the pickled vegetables - carrots, onions, pepper - a la a Mexican restaurant. That's a nice addition.

All in all I liked BBQ Done Right's barbecue and I'll be willing to give it another try and may recommend it be included in our next barbecue taste comparison.

Plantation Bar-B-Q

On US 90A eastbound, just east of Richmond, in front of Lev's, an auto repair shop.

Robb Walsh had included the brisket breakfast tacos from this wagon on his list of 100 favorite dishes and a friend of mine who lives in Sugar Land has also made me aware of it.

This is a quintessential Texas roadside scene, a homemade trailer parked under the shade of a big tree not 30 feet off the roadway; an overturned cable reel for a table and some tree stumps for seating - excellent. There are more stumps and a rack with pecan wood just out of the picture. What more do you need, a drive-thru with a squawk box and a playground for the kids?

But is this a taco trailer or a barbecue wagon? The menu on the left is breakfast tacos (besides the brisket tacos there were barbacoa, bacon and lengua as I recall); the menu in the middle is the lunch taco menu and the menu on the right is the sandwich/plate barbecue menu.

My sinuses had been doing their best impression of Niagara Falls for about 36 hours and I was little out of it this day; I asked if they made their own sausage and when the answer was no I passed on ordering the sausage, forgetting that there are some awesome Texas sausage makers out there and they might use one of them. I also forgot to specify some fatty brisket and sauce on the side. Fortunately I got some of the fatty portion and it was a modest amount of sauce, which wasn't bad anyway, although the brisket didn't need it.

The brisket was a just little less tender than I like and I could have used more of the fatty portions. It had only a mild smokiness but I thought it was very good. Pecan can be a little overwhelming but this was not. The potato salad was probably an institutional product but not bad but the real star of the plate for me were the beans. Look at the size of some of those babies! I'm pretty sure these were home-made, not only because of the size but the flavoring; these were straight forward pintos with out a lot of seasonings. Beans are one of Mother Nature's finest gifts and most of the time they're really doctored up in the preparation. Sometimes it's good to just have them highlighted on their own as they were here with minimal seasonings, probably just salt, pepper and some kind of animal fat. I could have eaten a couple of cups of those beans.

There was a big problem with the ribs, however. If you looked closely you might have noticed they seem to have a pretty thick crust. Unfortunately that's an understatement - much of the meat was almost charcoalized, i.e., as hard as charcoal and inedible. I had to throw about half the 'meat' away and I didn't get a good idea from the rest if they were really good although I did think they were promising.

It was a major disappointment but despite that I'm willing to give this place another try. I'm going to give the the benefit of the doubt that they don't serve ribs like that all the time but I do think they should have been able to tell when they were cutting them up that they were overdone. I hope I have better luck next time.

Banana Leaf

2010-06-13T19:52:00.012-05:00

9889 Bellaire @ Corporate, # 311

We lost several of our Malaysian restaurants last year, at least three I think, including the two I was familiar with, Nyonya Grill down in Sugar Land and Kuala Lumpur on Bellaire. There's been a lot of buzz about Banana Leaf in the interim but I'm just getting around to trying it out. Got a craving for roti canai, what can I tell you?

I was surprised at the size of the place when I walked in. To tell the truth, I don't pay much attention to those details in the reviews I read (actually, I just look at the pictures), but I expected a banquet hall sized-room, packed with a throng of people. Instead, it's the size of your typical Houston hole-in-the-wall eatery, though much more nicely appointed than many. There was a throng - the tables are rather close together.

The roti canai was heavier than what I'd had before at Nyonya or K.L. and had picked up more oil than those, as I remember. Still I had no trouble finishing it off. While that's a bit of bad news the good news is, because of that I may actually have the will power to forgo one of these on every visit, thereby saving 5 or 600 calories, probably, and have room to try some dessert. The ginger dipping sauce was great.

I tried to order the Malaysian Buddhist, a vegetarian stir-fry, but the pretty and helpful young waitress said it wasn't very good and tried to steer me to some other dishes. I realized she might be assuming I'm not very adventurous but I didn't want to leave on my first visit actually having had a bad dish so I went with her advice and settled on the Eggplant/Shrimp stir-fry.

Whether I had been steered toward a dumbed down, Americanized dish or not became irrelevant when I tasted this; it was great. I'd had some very good dishes at K.L. and Nyonya but I believe this topped them all. I couldn't wait to go back.

This came with a separate pot of rice, about 4 cups worth and I also got the Hot Black Rose tea which has a very delicate, wonderful aroma. I dug into the rice the way the proprietor of Nyonya said is the way Malaysians do it, picking up clumps of it in the fingers. I noticed I was the only one in the restaurant doing this.

On another visit a few days later I wanted to order something off the lunch menu as I wasn't very hungry; I did forgo the roti canai but the dish I wanted - I think it was the Masak Lemak - the waitress (same one) said was not available. Hmmm. She tried to steer me toward a tofu dish or a pork chop dish but I wound up settling for a shrimp curry. It was a wonderfully savory curry, only mildly hot, not quite as awesome as the eggplant dish but still quite good.

While waiting, I saw several of their sizzling platters coming out and they looked incredible. I know what I want the next time (assuming it's available).

There are small flat screen video screens next to the tables along the walls on both sides which show a progression of pictures of their alluring dishes but both times the ones nearest me have been stuck on the crispy, fried calamari. Maybe they're trying to send me a message?

Banana Leaf

Fritanga Nica is moving

2010-06-13T19:46:00.003-05:00

I got a note from Jonathan Cardoza of Fritanga Nica that the restaurant will be moving. They're having a going away party at the present location on the 20th. He didn't mention the new location but I'm sure it'll be announced on the website.

I was happy to be one of the first to discover and experience and report on this restaurant and got it listed on b4. It's turned out to be a big success story.

Fritanga Nica

BANSURI IS CLOSED!

2010-06-13T19:36:00.007-05:00

And it's all Houston's fault, too. (Tee-hee-hee-hee-hee).

The Bansuri Indian food truck on Wilcrest is taking a summer hiatus. They'll be closed for almost two full months, until the end of July.

I managed to score some Bhel Puri on one of their last evenings.

UPDATE: THE TRUCK IS BACK IN OPERATION.

Mexican Pollo Grill

2010-06-10T06:47:00.016-05:00

8599 W. Bellfort @ S. Gessner, next to a Citgo

Update 11/20/11: This unit has disappeared from it's long time post. In it's place is a similar vehicle dubbed Tacos El Valle with a typical taco truck menu and no mention of pollo asado.

This is one of several new street food vendors I've been happy to see appear in my neighborhood recently and I was eager to check it out. For a couple of years I've been regularly making a trek up to one of the El Norteno units on Longpoint or a yellow and red La Silla bus on Telephone, just off 610, when I've had the craving for some good pollo asado. In addition to the aggravation of the drive there's the aggravation of being driven crazy by the aroma of the food filling the car on the trip home. I've checked out numerous pollo asado providers on the southwest side, perhaps as many as a dozen, both mobile and brick and mortar, without finding any as good but this new unit is very promising.

Pollo Asado is the specialty, of course, though there's a pretty full menu, unlike the El Norteno buses. Mesquite is used, like La Silla, and you get the standard sides - rice, beans, salsa, onions, pepper, tortillas - but there are some pluses besides it being so close by. A problem with pollo asado is holding it until someone orders it and I've had orders from both El Norteno and La Silla (and other places) that had dried out from being held too long on the grill; so far, that fate has not befallen the birds from the Mexican Pollo Grill. Maybe I've just been lucky. The beans,as you may detect from the picture, include chopped up wiener (there are hot dogs on the menu here, too) and are very good, the fiery salsa is chipotle based, and, most importantly, the onions are caramelized rather than just baked or steamed, adding another dimension of flavor.

A very friendly lady presides over the very large kitchen on this former moving van, very fluent in both English and Spanish. I almost expect her to call me 'honey' when I order, like the waitresses at BBQ Inn. Besides pollo asado and hot dogs, there are huaraches, tortas, breakfast tacos, burritos, quesadillas and fajita tacos, plus nachos and nachos grande (for $5, with fajita meat), chocolate cake, lemonade, and .. tada...jello salads!

The sign in the window says they're open 9 to 7, 6 days a week, but they've been missing a couple of times over the last couple of months when I've sought them out.

Prior to the arrival of this unit, the best Pollo Asado I've found on the SW side is the Argueta Pollo Asado wagon reliably parked on S. Fondren at W. Airport which turns out dependably juicy (not dried out) chicken but has mediocre sides (canned beans, I think, maybe instant Mexican rice, if such a product exists).

This unit is unconventional in a number of ways, from the vehicle to the name to the menu and recipes. I'm happy to have it in the neighborhood.