Man Vs Food Meatfest

So on a recent trip to the Big D (Dallas for those of you who happen to live under a rock), my faithful food companion Kevin and I decided to follow in the footsteps of Man Vs Food yet again.

Adam went to a variety of delicious sounding places but we opted for a meat party at Sonny Bryan’s, you can check out the video here (starts about the 6:45 mark).

So we ventured down to the original Sonny Bryan’s located at 2202 Inwood near the Medical Center.

Unfortunately, we were greeted by this sign.  Yes tragically, they were out of meat so we had to head on down to the other location at 302 N Market in the West End, in the shadow of the giant Green Pickle Building.

The inside of the restaurant is full of neon lights and homage to the great state of Texas, basically perfect for a BBQ joint.

First came the rolls, fluffy pieces of heaven, warm and soft, basically amazing.  I tried to limit myself to one, but that was a lost cause.

Then came the main course, the Pitmaster Platter, a plate of every single one of the seven meats that this joint serves up.  This plate was piled high with turkey, chicken, brisket, ribs, sausage, pork, and ham.  The sausage and the ham were some of my favorites, but all in all it was a delicious plate full of meat.

For our two sides we decided to rock the cole slaw, which was surprisingly delicious with some celery seeds tossed in there that gave it a twist from what I was used to.

Option 2 was fried okra, how can you go wrong with fried okra?  Honestly.

One of my favorite aspects of this place was the sauce, a warm sauce in a Corona bottle, odd yes, but damn good.

As you can see this place was good, there was none left for you, enjoy.

A Letter To McDonald's

Dear McDonalds,

Please stick to what you do best.  Yes, I am talking about the questionably shaped chicken and mysteriously cuts of beef that you use in you burgers.  Time and time again your attempts to be something that you simply are not have failed and quite frankly left a bad taste in my mouth.

Your attempts at rivaling the higher quality burger joints that have sprung up around the nation are a lost cause that needs to end right about now.  Just because you label a burger “angus” does not make it good quality, in fact your patties seem to remind me of a sponge more than a slab of beef.

Then came this abomination to a test market here in Houston, the English Pub Burger.  Sure the picture looks good, how could you go wrong with two kinds of cheese, bacon, and grilled onions?  Really these are some of the greatest toppings to ever have the privilege of sitting on top of a juicy patty of beef so of course I was filled with a sense of optimism as I pulled up to the drive-thru.

Then I opened the box to this disaster.  The “artisan” roll was really a hard bun with some variation from your standard sesame bun (yes it was so bad I ate the burger bunless). The bacon (probably should also be in quotation marks) was paper thin and devoid of any flavor not named salt.  The onions at least had some density to them but really just gave the burger a slimy texture rather than adding any beneficial flavor.  Finally, there were the sauces, who ever came up with this combination of steak sauce and Dijon mustard should probably be run out of the food industry.  I am not English, but if this is how they eat their burgers on the other side of the pond I want no part of it.

Perhaps if McDonald’s had spent less money on trying to be clever with the packaging they may have been able to come up with a better burger here but something tells me that is just  a pipe dream. 

In closing, I will stick to my quarter pounder with cheese or some chicken nuggets (my favorite cut of the chicken, the boot) the next time I find myself at the golden arches.

PS- McDonald’s going after a local macaroni restaurant because their name is Jus’ Mac is bush league; trust me you are not even in the same class as them when it comes to a good meal.

Ins and Outs of the Lastros

Sure the Houston Astros suck, no they really really really suck.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a good time at a game though, even if you end up at a Pirates game like I did one night.

You might even be lucky enough to watch a guy throw the first pitch with his foot, quite possibly the highlight of the night.

You definitely will not have to fight through the masses here.

And no one cares if you make a mess eating peanuts.

If the game isn’t going your way you can always just get a 24 oz can of beer to make it go down a little easier.

Even if your preference in beer is a foreign beer.

Or a craft beer.

Which always goes great with some scrumptious ballpark food.

While you root for players that no one outside of Houston knows, but they are heroes most nights in this ballpark.

And if you are patient enough, there is always the highlight of the night.  Yes those are giant Taco Bell hot sauces racing around the field; eat that Milwaukee with your running sausages.

Persian Power

As we discussed in a previous post the term Mediterranean food is a broad term encompassing many different cultures and Persian is definitely one of my favorites under that umbrella.  It has many of the dishes that you might be familiar with in Greek or Lebanese cooking but a few twist thrown in there.

I am combing a few lunch outings into this one post in order to give you a broader sampling of this pretty awesome cuisine.  Shish Kabob Café II is located at Fry and I-10, it is a small hole-in-the-wall located in the Target strip center, unassuming yet so delicious.  You food is served on fine china of styrafoam and plastic baskets, but I could care less about presentation and as you know am all about the flavor.

The hummus here is a very hardy dish, no photo, but it is a little too smoky for my liking along with the pita being a little too tough for my liking.  So that has led me to one of my other favorite appetizers that you can find in most Med restaurants.

Dolmas are stuffed grape leaves, filled with rice and spices, and then covered in an olive oil.  These are great because they are light and the olive oil is accented with a twist of lemon.  Smack dab in the middle of the plate is a dollop of yogurt, and a sprinkling of pepper that kicks the flavor up.

Then there is the good old Med staple, the gyro.  I am a big fan of lamb meat in my gyro, nothing like some tender lamb to scarf down in a warm pita.  Granted, the pita here is a tougher pita than I am used to it does not really add to the quality of the ingredients but the insides are good enough to carry this weak bread.  The other difference here is the sauce and fillings compared to other gyros I am used to.  Usually, a gyro in my mind is lettuce, and a tzatziki sauce (a creamy cucumber sauce), but this one uses a pickled veggie mix along with the plain yogurt.  I love this combo, you get a much spicier gyro and it is completely different than what you tend to find at the Greek restaurants. 

My other favorite meal here is koobideh (various spellings available), basically a meat kebab made up of minced meat formed into a long shape and thrown on a grill.  The chicken and beef here is pretty delicious, two tender juicy strips grilled up to awesome. 

The perfect accompaniment to this meat is the veggies; first you get some grilled tomatoes, one of my favorite grilled veggies, tender and drizzled in an oil/spice blend.  Then there is the salad, a cold mix of onions, tomatoes, oil and spices full of tart and bold flavors.  The bed of rice is known as Polo, a long grain rice (similar to basmati) cooked up with some great flavor.

A Good Old Dive Diner

So while reading an article on the best lemonade in Houston I decided that it was sweltering enough that I might just have to venture out and try one of these delicious drinks.

That was how we ended up at Avalon Diner, located on Westheimer between Shepherd and Kirby seeking their sweet and slushy concoction that Syd Kearney seemed to enjoy.  The restaurant is located in an unassuming strip center, and the interior is even more unassuming, the booths have all seen better days, and some of the staff seems to be covered in more ink than a Sunday edition of the Chronicle.

Their lemonade is a sweet drink poured over slushy ice making it perfect for a hot Houston day, although it was a bit too sweet for me at times, a sweet tooth junkie would love it.

Naturally, we couldn’t simply get drinks so we decided to sample some of their dining options. 

First there was the BLT, an all around pretty great sandwich, but the bacon was perfect for it.  On its own it might have been too salty, but in the sandwich it blended with the other flavors, and was thick and hearty enough to stand out. 

My personal favorite however were the chili cheese fries, yes I know it is strange to get this in scorching summer temps but I couldn’t resist.  Sure the fries are simply thick crinkle cut fries but that didn’t matter to me, the chili was ridiculous.  They first grabbed my attention on the menu by alluding to the fact that they are a “made from a Terlingua World Cook-Off Championship Recipe”, for those of you who don’t know Terlingua (there are actual two cook offs here 1 2) is a pretty big deal when it comes to chili cook offs,   and this meaty chili definitely made the dish.  Basically, I scrape the plate clean to get up every last drop of chili and will definitely be back here in colder weather to get this chili in Frito pie form.

Pulling Pork

Some days I think I am a mad scientist when it comes to food.  My mom had purchased some pork steaks; a childhood memory of Jill’s involves the grilling of these slabs of pork butt.  These are okay, but they are usually tough and gristly when you grill them up.  So we decided to call an audible on this recipe and change up the meal.

For those of you unfamiliar with pork butt, it is not from the ass of the pig, it is actually the shoulder at the front of the oinker, sometimes also known as Boston Butt, most commonly seen in that delectable dish known as pulled pork.  That is exactly what we decided to change our meal to, usually butt comes in gigantic portions (it is a cheap cut of meat so quantity is king), and unfortunately for a few people that is overkill so the logic the steak cuts would create a smaller serving.

The key to good pulled pork, as with all barbecue, is low and slow, low temperature cooking over a much longer period of time (talking hours not minutes).  For those of you who like to interchange the phrases, grilling is high heat over a short period of time; consider it the next time you fire up the grill.

We used the Crockpot for this, letting the meat sit in a broth of beer, vinegar, ketchup, and a mixture of spices.  I am a firm believer in beer being an excellent cooking agent anytime you have the meat soaking in something or even when using a drip pan. 

As you can see after a few hours you have some tender succulent pork ready for pulling.

My personal favorite sign is when the blade bone slides right out without any effort.

My preferred method of pulling is using two forks to sort of scrape the meat so that it comes part in strands.  The one benefit in the steaks is that the meat is in shorter pieces instead of being 3 or 4 inch long pieces.

Now it comes time for the construction of the proper pulled pork sandwich.  Having not spent an abundance of time in the southeastern United States (epicenter of the bbq pork world) I have not had a whole lot of experience in this first hand, but fortunately I am a loyal adherent to Man Vs Food and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  Ergo, I have learned that the proper way to create a pulled pork sandwich is to top it off with a heaping helping of coleslaw.  I was too lazy to make my own coleslaw, so I picked up a container at Hickory Hollow on Heights here in Houston and it was perfect.

All in all I would say this was a successful cooking experiment, and even made some awesome leftovers for the next few days.  So yes if a Texan can accept a pulled pork and coleslaw sandwich, then perhaps there is hope for world peace.  Do not worry beef, I still love you more.

Mas Desayuno

Once again I have found myself in a hole in the wall Mexican joint scarfing down a delicious breakfast, perhaps I have a problem.  But if it is a problem, I am okay without finding a cure for the time being.

The last time I wrote about a Mexican breakfast for you I was at El Hidalguense on Long Point in North Houston, this time we are cruising west down Long Point (yes it is a hotbed for quality hole-in-the-wall Mexican food) to a restaurant in a strip center called Tacos Del Julio.

The restaurant is brightly painted, almost so bright that it burns the retinas.  The pain however, is quickly forgotten when a bowl of beans magically showed up in front of me.  Now you may be wondering “Who the hell would want beans early in the morning?” 

I had those thoughts at first, but as some condiments showed up, I quickly began to doctor the beans up with onions and cilantro and next thing I know the bowl was empty.  Surprisingly beans go quite nicely with a giant cup of coffee.

When it came time to order I was torn, the menu is nothing fancy, but there were enough appetizing options to make me go back and forth.  Finally, I asked the waitress for guidance through my difficult decisions and sure enough she led me down the right road, huevos divorciados.

The name is in reference to the fact that one egg is covered in green salsa, while the other is in red, thus they are divorced eggs.  This plate was served up with some bacon, bland potatoes, and some decent refried beans (yes more beans).  As you can see here it is almost set up like a Mexican version of Eggs Benedict, with corn tortillas on the bottom, a layer of ham steak, and then the eggs with the salsa.

As I mentioned, the potatoes sucked, but by taking the corn tortillas that were delivered to me I combined them with the beans and covered them in a few squirts of salsa and that issue was quickly alleviated.

Tacos Del Julio is a good cheap place to go and get a Mexican breakfast while rocking out to Mexican pop music with a dash of Justin Bieber sprinkled in.  However, there is one fatal flaw, there is a small play area off to  one side of the restaurant, and it leads to demonic behavior.  Go figure, a few piece of cheap plastic back yard playground equipment can turn a nice quiet breakfast into a migraine.  So do not linger too long here but it definitely is not stopping me from coming back in the future.

Food For Your Brain

So tonight I am doing it a little different since I am on a business trip and don't quite feel up to writing a food post.

I got a Kindle for Christmas this year and my reading has shot through the roof. I have read some great books including The Hunger Games trilogy and The Song of Ice and Fire series (about to start Dance with Dragons figured 4 books in a row deserved a break).

My favorite book so far has been at the recommendation of my father, The Empire of the Summer Moon. I am history buff and a proud Texan so this book had a much larger impact on me than it would for many of my readers but if you know someone who falls in either category consider it.

The novel is an intertwining tale of the Comanche Indian tribe (beginnings to end), Cynthia and Quannah Parker (Texas legends, there is a town and schools named after him), and the men that helped take this tribe down. Having grown up around much of the area that this novel took place in it was very cool to get the story behind the legends. The fact that these characters sacrificed everything for what they believed was right, doesn't matter which side was, is truly a great story.

The best part of this is the moral debate that this book causes. In recent years we have been bombarded with the wrongs that the "white man" has inflicted upon various tribes, and many were atrocious, but the Comanches take that moral compass and turn it on its head.

It is very heavy on history and military so if those don't interest you this book is not for you. But, if you want an often untold story from history dip your toes in this one, if all else fails you get to meet a character named "Erection that won't go down" and another named "Coyote's Vagina"... Winning combo if you ask me.

Burger at Barnaby's

I feel I should apologize to you today, my title sucks,  I have sat here for ten minutes drawing blanks on something witty or clever and it just is not happening today.  Let's move on to the meal instead and forget all about my witty shortcomings.

Barnaby's Cafe is a chain here in Houston that has multiple locations throughout the city; the location that I visited was on Shepherd Dr in the River Oaks area.  The menu offers a diverse array of options for people no matter if you are craving a juicy burger or something on the lighter side.  They even tout their all natural and humanely raised meats, not that I can really say it makes my meal taste a whole heck of a lot better but if it makes someone sleep better at night so be it.

The menu is a pretty simple sheet of paper that doubles up as your placemat, as you can see it has a little bit of everything, but my one complaint is that there are really no descriptions for the dishes.  For example, if I wanted Coronado Beef, I have no idea what that even is, I would have to ask my waiter a million questions just to decide on a meal.  Our waiter did not really seem to be mentally checked in so we decided to stick with things that we could decipher from the menu.

For a starter we decided to give there hummus a try (kind of trying to be healthier than our other option of waffle fries with blue cheese fondue).  Yes somewhere beneath all of those veggies is a bowl of very earthy hummus with good flavor.   The real star of this dish were the pita chips, these crisp salty bites were perfect with the hummus, a much better call than if they had given us regular pita.

I had come here with burger on the mind, and knew that this place did not disappoint the last time I came here craving beef.  That left it up to the complicated question of which burger to go with.  I decided first and foremost I would go for one of their more unique burger combinations, and in my last visit had knocked back a green chile cheese burger (you know I love those buggers), so that made my decision a little easier.  Finally, I opted for the spinach and feta burger, a combination that I decided was too different to say no to.

As you can see, this burger comes fully loaded with a gigantic pile of feta, a heap of healthy stuff, and my favorite surprise in it… Kalamata olives, a perfect kick of salty bitterness to complement all of the other flavors going on.  All of the Greek flavors mixing in with the juicy burger were great, my one complaint in this mix was that the feta is dry, don’t get me wrong I love feta, but with that much feta it just made an awful lot of chewing dryness to get a bite down.   It also came with a heaping helping of waffle fries, Barnaby’s has multiple fry options but these are by far my favorite ones that I have tried here.

Barnaby's is good, probably not the best burger joint, but it definitely has a meal for everyone it seems like.  The other thing I noticed here, sorry for not ordering it and getting a shot but I was craving iced tea, but there were old school milk bottles filled with lemonade on most tables, so I would assume they must make a good cup of lemonade.  Keep that in mind if you find yourself in one of these cafes anytime soon.