Hub of Deliciousness

For those of you who don't know, Houston has some lovely weather, high humidity and a mild winter night means a nice pea soup fog will be drifting in most evenings, but it also means a decent time to sit outside and not sweat for once.

This was definitely the case one hazy night when we wandered up to Hubcap Grill on 19th Street in the Heights.  The Heights location is home to a great beer yard, perfect for lounging outside and sipping a few cold ones in between downing an amazing burger and fries.

Hubcap had me at hello the moment I saw their beer selection, that choice alone took about 5 times as long as deciding which of their amazing burgers to order.

My theme of the night for beers was to relive my days in Utah, enjoying a Squatters Hop Rising, a 9% double IPA full of bitterness and flavor.

I followed that up with a Wasatch Polygamy Porter, a rich dark ale from the same company, with a great motto of "Why have just one?" nothing like a little Utah humor on a beer label with the flavor to back it up.  As ironic as it may be to some, Utah has a great micro brewing culture that is pumping out some of my favorite beers that I like to indulge in anytime I visit my dad in Salt Lake.

Now on to the burger, I decided to go kinky with this one and selected the Cheeto-Burger, a patty topped with Cheetos and cheese sauce.  The flavors were crazy and the texture blew my mind, but the meat quality and the bun that seems to be made from a pillow makes me think that any combo picked from this broad menu is sure to please the taste buds.

Now do not come here looking for a veggie burger or a whole wheat bun, you come here looking for flavor and a kick ass product that does not end at the burgers.

Their fries are hand cut and ridiculous, and come in an untold number of varieties no matter what your taste may be.  We opted for the Stinky Fries, an aptly named dish of spuds topped off with malt vinegar and garlic.  The bitterness of the vinegar and the pungent garlic are great flavors on these thick cut fries, that seemed to match perfectly to my beer and burger.

Basically this place is perfect for burger lovers and beer lovers alike, and if you are like me and love both it might be just what you imagine heaven to be.

Keeping Austin Weird

Austin is a weird place, I do not really think there is any denying it.  There are few places in the world where you see old men wandering the streets in a bikini or such a wide variety of tattoos and piercings on just about every inch of skin imaginable.  Nonetheless, Austin does create some of the finest live music, beers, and food around so I will let them stay for the time being.

We stopped in at Casino El Camino one night, a place visited by none other than Diners, Drive Ins and Dives highlighting their unique menu and kinky decor.

Of course when in the Hill Country you have to drink the local water, so I was quenching my thirst that evening with one of my favorites, Fireman's 4 by Real Ale Brewing out of Blanco, Texas.  Fireman's is a crisp blonde ale that seems to go great with just about any food and even better on a hot Texas day.

We came here for the food though and the massive burger patties were calling out name from the moment we walked through the door.  The one weird aspect of Casino is the fact that all of the food orders are done at a tiny back kitchen window and you have to listen closely for your name to be called after a long wait.  Trust me it is worth every minute of waiting.

One of the burgers we went with was the Buffalo Burger, a massive patty topped with bleu cheese and buffalo sauce.  Full of all sorts of flavor from the spicy wing sauce to the creamy richness of the bleu cheese, but the real winner here was the patty, full of amazing beef flavor you just do not find patties like this too often.

Burger #2 was the Pitts Burger, piled high with sauteed mushrooms and onions, A-1 sauce, and provolone cheese.  Yet another masterpiece, and the toppings do a great job of accenting the meat rather than covering it up and hiding it.

Note:  I have been back here since this visit (sorry did not take any pics) but I got the Amarillo Burger, a burger piled up with roasted serrano peppers, pepper jack cheese, and a cilantro mayo.  This burger kicked my butt, serrano peppers are about 3-4 times hotter than a jalapeno, and no amount of beer could help me recover from the tears and inability to breathe, but it was still a damn good burger.

The greatness did not stop at the burgers though, we ordered up some of the Verde Chili Fries, their kick butt fries smothered in queso and a garlicky tomatillo salsa.  Basically these are some of the greatest fries I have had in my life because the toppings alone, plus it keeps you safe from any vampires you might bump into on 6th Street, and I am sure that they are there.

KING OF THE CASTLE

So my mom's family is from St. Louis, a city rich in cultural cuisines especially in areas such as The Hill or Lafayette.  However, when we visit there, we rarely step foot in these cathedrals of dining, instead we often find ourselves wandering beneath the gleaming turrets of another institution not necessarily known for its epicurean delights.

That's right... White Castle.  The chain known for its belly bombers (as my grandpa calls them) and a crappy movie.

The low grade beef patties are artfully crafted into machined squares, grilled in a pile of onions and served up on miniature buns.

If that does not scream quality and delicious I do not know what does.  If burgers are not your thing there is always a fall back option of my favorite part of the chicken, the rings.

We come here for nostalgic reasons, but if you wander into one of these places just make sure you have some Tums at the ready for dessert.

What A Burger

So for all of my readers who do not reside in the great state of Texas (or one of the neighboring states that has the opportunity to bask in our glow) I feel sorry for you.  Aside from all of the 100% pure unadulterated awesomeness that you do not get to reside in you miss out on one of the truly wonderful fast food experience known as Whataburger.

I am going to be lazy and not provide a whole heck of a lot of background information on this, if you have never seen a Whataburger ad you must live under a rock, because I spent my entire college career in Kansas being tormented by images of juicy burgers you can have "just like you like it".

My love for this place reached a climax this year when a one of their limited time releases combined my love of a good Whataburger and green chiles.

Behold the Green Chile Cheeseburger.  It was as glorious as it should have been and my only true regret here is that they do not have it year round.  Damn you green chiles for being a seasonal harvest.  This burger had American and Pepper Jack cheese as well as a heaping serving of green chiles, basically one of the best fast food burgers I have ever had.  Guess I just have to wait until next fall for it to reappear hopefully, consider my fingers crossed.

In Its Prime

So today I am serving up a primo burger to you, and you will eat it, and you will like it.  Unless you don't like the stuff on it or burgers in general so I guess you will not necessarily eat it or like it.

Beck's Prime is a local burger chain that knows how to serve up quality burgers and french fries.  My foodventure this go around took me to the "special" Beck's known as the Sportatorium located in Memorial City Mall at Gessner and I-10W.  A wall of televisions, a projector or two, and a decent selection of beers on taps all adds up to a good environment to scarf on a burger that makes you almost forget you are sitting in a busy mall full of screaming brats and annoying teens.

Seriously the best part of the beer here is that the pint glasses create one of my favorite sights in the world, beerbergs.  For those of you unaware of this phenomenon, it is the situation in which your glass is so cold your beer freezes up into an iceberg floating in a sea of deliciousness.

The Sportatorium offers a good selection of burgers, and I opted for the concoction known as Bill's Burger.  A 1/2 pound patty of certified Angus chuck, sauteed onions, cheddar, bacon, jalapenos, prime sauce (a sauce similar to Thousand Island known as secret sauce in some other circles), and some miscellaneous burger veggies.   Basically this was a 4th of July fireworks show crammed in between two soft and tasty buns that just kept exploding time and time again with each bite.  I was a fan, but the meal did not end there my friends, no not by a long shot.

These delicious hand cut fries were quite possibly the star of the meal, crispy and full of flavor it was almost a crime to dip them in ketchup, but alas I am weak.

Until next time my hungry little friends.

Operation Overload

First and foremost, please allow me to apologize to those loyal readers of mine for a lack of recent activity.  I have been busy and brain dead lately so what writing I started was not worthy of a posting.

Now on to the food…

Today’s adventure leads us to Burger Tex Grill, a small corner in a strip center that is rather unassuming and one that I have driven by for nearly a year before ever actually stepping foot in there.  It is located at Barker Cypress and I-10 on the north side near the Bally’s gym. 

As you can see the operation is fairly bare bones, the menu contains just a few items, but as with many themes in this blog, I am perfectly fine with the concept of doing one thing and doing it right.

Even the numbering system for your order is about as simple as it gets… yes that is a number written on my cup.

The food is about as simple as everything else seems to be here in the restaurant.  A cheeseburger and fries does not get much more basic than that.

Fortunately, there was a bar of condiments and let’s just say I might have gotten a little out of hand.  Of course you have the basics of onions, lettuce, and tomatoes but that is not where I lost my self control.  I bypassed those for jalapenos, pico de gallo, and then two crock pots located at the end of the cold bar.  Grilled onions and queso were too good to pass up and next thing I knew I had this pile of awesome.

Sure the burgers were decent, the ingredients were ok, but all the flavors combined helped to cover up whatever bad flavors there might have been.  Basically, I just pummeled my taste buds into submission and told that they would enjoy it.  The queso covered fries certainly didn’t hurt either.

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.

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.

California Dreaming

For those of you who do not know I spent a few years of my childhood growing up in the Bay Area of California.  Before you completely judge me please don’t forget that I was born in Texas and fortunately got out of California eventually, although I went to Missouri from there so not quite sure if that one was truly a saving grace.  Fortunately, I found my way back to Texas as time went on, but there are still some lingering memories of California foods, like Chinatown in San Francisco, clam chowder from Fisherman’s Wharf, and of course In-N-Out Burger.  The latter has finally seen the light and worked its way into the promise land by opening up a new location in Dallas.  Unfortunately, with the newness of the place it was still a circus even with it being a Monday night; the feeder road has cones everywhere directing you around the block even though it is on 75 right through the middle of Dallas, pure chaos.

These simple diners crank out some of the best burgers around, so good that even Tim Lincecum of the Giants has no problem stuffing 3,150 calories in his mouth at this place. I might have let you down by telling you this but I could not even come close to eating his meal so instead I will just share with you mine.

But first, a separate order of business.  Some of you may have noticed a mention of Kevin a time or two in some of the previous blog postings.  Just to give you some background information on him, he is my cousin, and he lives in Dallas, and he likes to eat too… Go figure.  Here is a picture for you to imbed in your mind for all future mentions of the word Kevin, and yes please imagine him in the hat no matter where we go or what he eats.

Now on to the main course, one of In-N-Out’s most famous features is their not-so-secret menu, a whole list of options that you will not find on the menu but will know about if you are in the know.  My research and associations with residents of the state of California have tipped me off about these over time so I felt obliged to live it up with these items.

As you can see this meal was hit on our way home from Kansas so there are three double burgers in that tray.  My mom rolled with a standard cheese burger, but Kevin and I rocked out the Animal Style Burger.  It is a burger with the spread (basically Thousand Island dressing similar to all secret sauces everywhere else it seems), cheese, grilled onions, and your standard burger toppings of lettuce, tomatoes, mustard, etc.  And to be honest it was nothing short of an amazing burger.

Of course no burger diner experience is complete with a basket of fries, and the other not-so-secret menu that I had to get my hands on was Animal Style Fries.  These were basically the same as the burger, piled high with cheese, grilled onions, and spread. We also had to get a regular basket of fries just to ensure that we had a control flavor, and that everyone was happy.  Unfortunately, the fries were not up to par but I know they can do better so of course I will give them a second chance to get them right the next time I find myself in the Big D.

This trip into the diner truly made our road trip that much better, few things good can happen during 12 hours in the car, but sure enough this was a great silver lining… even if we had to put up with Kevin while we enjoyed the burgers.

Manhappiness Pt 2

So you might have thought I was joking when I said that we went to So Long Saloon twice while in Manhattan...

Then you my friend would be mistaken.

Now since I already ranted and raved about just how good this place is I will take it easy tonight and just let you admire some more pics with brief descriptions.

The favorite beer of the night was none other than the Manhattan local Tallgrass, nothing like a little local ale to start a meal off right.

Then of course we have the familiar friend show up at the table...

 

With some salty buddies...

And just like that...

So long... so sad

But wait, from the kitchen comes a new friend, one to help fill the void left by our creamy raspberry beantastic friend.

The Bleu Cheese Burger, a pile of awesome loaded with delicious beef, ooey gooey flavorful bleu cheese, and some bacon tossed in there for good measure.  And yet again, you cant ignore the side kick.

Basically I love this place, and you should too.

Manhappiness

So for those of you that do not know I am an alumnus of Kansas State University, one ballin school located in Manhattan, Kansas aka The Little Apple.   Through my 4.5 years, yes I took a victory lap (ok half a lap) because I am just that cool, I spent many amazing nights in the bar district known as Aggieville.  Basically, if you were to take all things that are good in this world, combined them with all things fun, and then placed alcohol in the mix that might be about what Aggieville compares to, or at least it might come in at a close second.

Although I may or may not have tried this, it is actually not feasible to drink all day and all night so there is also a few stores in the Ville along with some pretty delish restaurants.  I mean let’s be honest, college kids need nourishment for their brains, and recovery from the night before.  One of the best little joints (and yes I mean little) is So Long Saloon, a flavor factory pumping out some of the most unique and quite frankly amazing foods for miles and miles around.

The décor alone is unique enough before a plate even shows up on your table.  Skeletons, in the style of Dia De Los Muertos skeletons from Mexico, line the walls along with artwork showing various old school country artists and even an Evel Knievel.  The crown jewel of the place is the bar though, the antique bar is awesome and a great place to sit and enjoy some Kansas beers while you wait to stuff yourself.

So the first goal of my trip to So Long was to get a little cerveza in me… or maybe more but who is really counting.  Judge me for what you will but I have a weakness at this place that goes by the name of Nancy, she is a beautiful girl, made up of Old Milwaukee (gross I know) sweetened with a splash of pineapple juice.  You may be thinking WTF Mate?!?!?! But I stand by this decision to drink these things, because quite frankly they are delish.

If the pineapple beer is just not your scene, you can always fall back on the Boulevard Wheat with a nice lemon wedge.  This beer goes down incredibly smooth and works great in summer or winter.

Little background information here on one of my favorite items, the first time that I saw this item in a free coupon my freshman year of college I was immediately turned off to the concept.  Eventually though word began to creep around that this free coupon was actually worthwhile, so when my dad was in town one weekend (duh had to get a free meal) I decided to take him there and give the coupon a little spin.  Sure enough, I have never turned back from that fateful day, and still have to somehow get a regular fix of this dish, even though the regularity has decreased greatly.  Introducing (drum roll please) Chipotle Raspberry & Black Bean Dip, yes it is a mouthful, but it is worth every single syllable.

Here is the recipe that we received from a bartender one night just to give you an idea of what makes this thing so dang magical:

1 block of onion cream cheese (not as easy to find so we usually use some sort of onion seasoning)

1 can of black beans

Some chipotle raspberry sauce (surprisingly easy to find when you actually look for it)

It really is that simple, however our batch never quite turns out right, when we cook it at home but it suffices enough to take the edge off the withdrawal.

But hang on to your hats folks…  The great food does not end at the appetizer, the burgers and sandwiches here are pretty darn near amazing.  My personal favorite is the Resist Temptation, and quite frankly I cannot resist this burger.  It is a patty of great quality topped with a fried egg, cheese, bacon, and mayo basically a meal right off the Weight Watchers menu.  Now maybe clogging your arteries is not your cup of tea, and for that I can still recommend every other sandwich I have ever had here including the Crank It Up and Head South and even the BLT. 

The fries are not bad, they are basic thin fries, but my personal favorite side is the onion rings.  Look at those golden brown beauties and tell me you could say no.

Basically, So Long is so damn good we tend to eat there twice on weekend visits if my mom is with us, so as a spoiler my next post will also be from this humble little joint but don’t worry I changed up my beer choices and even got a different burger for your eyes to feast on.