Fancy Pants

For those of you who avidly follow this blog you might realize that I tend to err on the side of cheap.  I am not exactly a regular of fancy restaurants with high class menus, but today we are stepping out of the norm.  This is about a trip to The Bird And The Bear part of the Ouisie's family here in H-town.

To say that the decor in The Bird And The Bear is different, might be an understatement.  Yes, those are chairs hanging from the ceiling and I do not know how to fully accept that but it is fine, the food made up for the oddity.

The meal starts out with a awesome cracker bread, coated in spices and sesame, served up with an olive oil dip filled with herbs and peppers.  I could literally eat this stuff all day and be perfectly happy.

We were in a celebratory meal this day, and so the appetizer of choice was escargot.  I am a big fan of escargot, sure it is snails, but that is aside the fact, this dish was served up in an amazing brandied butter sauce, giving the escargot a much more tangy flavor than the usual butter and garlic sauce I am used to.  The flavor as so much deeper than what I am used to, but that change up made this some of the best escargot I have ever tasted.

Brunch option #1 was The Green Benedict, the idea was brilliant, eggs Benedict with fried green tomatoes and tasso (a Cajun version of ham that is amazing).  Unfortunately, the practice was not as good as the theory, the actual dish is a whole fried green tomato (obviously the fried part did not hold up as well as it should have), and a minimal amount of Hollandaise sauce (Cardinal sin in this guy's Benedict book).  

Once again, good concept mixing in all of these flavors, but I think it would have been better in a more standard Benedict form (sauce, egg, meat, bread) with maybe a slice of fried green tomato, but that is not how this came out, and it was definitely lacking in something.  The home fries and fruit however, were a good side, but it did not make up for the rest of the dish.

The came brunch option #2, for some reason we were stuck on the fried green tomato idea today, and opted for BLTC, a sandwich topped with bacon, fried green tomatoes, and MJ cheese all on some homemade brioche.  Once again, great concept but it was just too much going on for a sandwich, although the house made potato chips helped to lessen to blow.

I cannot recommend The Bird And The Bear for the simple fact that the food was not worth the costs.  The escargot was amazing, but the rest that we ate was mediocre at best and definitely not worth the high end bill that was handed to us at the end of this meal.

2+2=Awesome

So I felt bad leaving tonight's blog posting on a sour note, especially after my Kansas State Wildcats pulled off a pretty exciting victory over those silly cows from Austin.  So naturally, I decided to double up this evening and leave you with some pleasant thoughts.  The title is in reference to combining two of my favorite things, brunch and Tex-Mex, so yes it is awesome.

Cyclone Anaya was a wrestler, evidently a pretty good wrestler, although I highly doubt he was ever quite so good as this man.

Unfortunately, the Macho Man never hawked anything better than Slim Jim (granted those can be dangerously addictive), ergo he loses to Cyclone in the context of this blog.  Cyclone also beat out another former wrestler turned restaurant owner... Basically, most wrestlers should stay out of the food industry but I for one am thankful Cyclone and his family did not, cue the entrance song, and brace yourself for Cyclone Anaya's.

Chips and salsa... Better than any pyrotechnics or stage music I ever witness on a wrestling show.

I came here for one reason and one reason only this day though, I came for the brunch.  For those of you that remember the rules about brunch from my previous blog postings, that means it is okay to drink in the morning.  Not that I ever need much rationalization in the first place for it, but this makes it a little more socially acceptable.

For those of you out there who are amateurs, you should start with this, a good Spicy Bloody Mary.  Unless of course you have an unnatural fear of vodka or are simply a fan of beer the Michelada may be more your style.

For you astute readers out there you may have noticed a change of venue, we decided that the weather was too nice to sit inside at a bar so we took to the patio.  Please disregard all shadows, the sun was not kind and I was drinking, so it basically makes me a less than amateur photographer.  I do weddings.  Now that the shameless plug is out of the way, let's continue on with some grubbage.

Once again ignore the shadow, but here we have what I like to consider a staple of my Tex-Mex/Mexican/Anything breakfast, Chorizo and Eggs.  Scrambled eggs mixed in with the spicy Mexican sausage (yes there are differences in chorizo based on its country of origin, and I will be frank with you, from what I have tasted I think the Mexicans do it best), served of course with a side of frijoles and rice.  This is quite possibly one of the best hangover breakfasts out there, even better if you can find it wrapped in a tortilla to avoid spilling all over yourself as you lay in a puddle of humiliation.  Or you can be a real winner and go drink while you eat it off a fancy plate.  Your call, I am just the blogger getting carpal tunnel here for your own amusement.  Now onto the kinkier brunch item.

Look it comes on an elongated fancy plate so it must be good right?  Yes in fact that is correct, these my cheeky little friend are Crab Cakes Florentine.  Two jumbo lump crab cakes, topped with spinach, poached eggs, and wait for it... jalapeno hollandaise sauce.  I am going to give you a moment to let that all soak in and collect your thoughts.........................................

So I may not be the biggest fan of crabs, but I am a huge fan of Eggs Benedict, so I decided to go over the top here and give this one a go.  Look at those gigantic pieces of crab! Seriously, this thing is amazing, I mean the sauce and crab is so good that you almost forget that there is a huge pile of healthy stuff wedged in between it.  That is until you spend the rest of your day picking out pieces from your teeth, me personally, I like to leave them in as a badge of honor, rubbing it in everyone's faces that "Yes, I did just eat spinach want to fight about it?"

Thanks for tolerating tonight's crazy double blog post, I would think that those buggers would have been worth your time and patience.