Blogs

Rambutan is a tropical fruit native to Indonesia and the Phillipines that we seldom see on the mainland. The name either means "hairy" in Indonesian, or "weird hairy red pods from an alien life form," I forget which. It sure tastes good though. When you cut the hairy pod open there's a white fruit inside that tastes a lot like lichee. To celebrate my first day of vacation in Kona today, I had rambutan for breakfast along with a loco moco.

Loco moco is a favorite Hawaiian breakfast. It's a plate of rice topped with a hamburger patty, smothered in mushroom gravy and garnished with a fried egg. I like my loco moco with Spam, but the resort where I am staying claimed they didn't have any. So I'll have to save the breakfast Spam for another day.

-Robb Walsh

BHCFS - Big Honkin' Chicken Fried Steak

When I suggested to a friend and fellow food blogger (Food in Houston) that we eat lunch in the Heights -- his old stomping grounds -- he sent me an impressively detailed list of candidate restaurants. The usuals were there -- Bedford, Shade, Dry Creek Cafe. All worthy selections. But it was the last suggestion, seemingly added as an afterthought, that caught my eye: Triple A Restaurant.

Triple A Restaurant? In the Heights? Never heard of it. Let's go!

The best way to describe Triple A Restaurant is that it's a restaurant hidden in plain sight. Tucked into the edge of the cacophony of warehouses and produce sheds collectively know as Canino's Market on Airline Drive, Triple A looks like another one of the non-descript, one-story office building that service the nearby market. Originally opened in 1938, it moved to its current location in 1942.

Photo by Margaret Downing

The scene last night was the wine vault at Voice in the basement of the Hotel Icon, 220 Main Street, and the occasion was a tequila cocktail pairing dinner for members of the media. Voice Chef Michael Kramer served up his usual magic with a dinner that started with a hearts of palm salad, took in a serving of crab in pasta, followed by a main course of steak covered in ground coffee, topped off by a crème brulee.

But the reason we were there was the upper end tequila brought in by the Don Julio company out of Mexico, founded by Don Juilo (a real person) who was ahead of his time when he first came up with the idea of premium tequila in his home state of Jalisco.

Voice Beverage Director Todd Leveritt came up with the coctail recipes, starting the evening with an Agave Splash, elegantly presented in a large wine glass with a beautiful flower floating inside. Leveritt made a point of mostly staying away from using either sugar or syrup in his drinks, instead using agave nectar. It made for a light, delicious drink, not too heavy on the alcohol.

Photos by Jay Francis

I discovered Payal at 5615 Savoy (just off of Harwin near Hillcroft) a few years ago when I went in search of some Indian stainless steel cookware. The Indians do spectacular things with stainless steel: dishes, cups, teapots, pressure cookers...you name it. And when I walked into Payal for the first time, my thoughts went back to the warehouse scene in the 1st Indiana Jones movie.

The taco truck called "Taqueria Hecho En Mexico 2," is parked beside a vacant lot on Blalock just south of Campbell. When you pull into the dirt parking lot, a carhop in a uniform approaches the driver's window of your car with an order pad at the ready. Taquitos here are 99 cents and are guaranteed to be 100% chilango. (That's slang for a native of Mexico City D.F.)

I tried pastor (pork) suadero (brisket) and campechana (chorizo) tacos. Each had only a couple tablespoons of meat, but the condiments were amazing. Along with the usual chopped onions and cilantro and free red and green salsas in little plastic cups, there were radish slices, a roasted spring onion and a lime wedge. It was a nicely garnished plate, considering the amazingly cheap price.

At 2:45 P.M. on Fat Tuesday, 2009, Pableaux Johnson, New Orleans food writer and raconteur extraordinaire, sent Houstonians this message:

"Whatever you are doing, stop it right now and take the rest of the day off. It's Mardis Gras people! You have a whole lot of drinking to do if you hope to catch up!"

-via Robb Walsh

A coal-fired pizza oven operates at extremely high temperatures. It cooks the pizza very quickly and gives it a slightly smoky flavor. If you make a pizza crust of an average thickness, the hot floor of the brick oven will char the bottom of the crust by the time the pizza is completely cooked. Coal oven pizza aficionados love the char--they savor the crunchy blackened crust the same way Texas barbecue lovers treasure the crispy burnt ends of a brisket.

Unfortunately, Texans weren't raised on coal oven pizza and they see do not see the allure of a "burnt" pizza. And so the whole coal-fired brick oven pizza phenomenon is kind of a joke in Houston.

If there's one thing that comes to mind when I'm craving a cold beer, it's a greasy, stringy, overrated singer from Detroit with a penchant for wifebeaters, sloppy seconds and further denegrating popular music.

The Michigan Brewing Company apparently feels the same way, as they've just invested $7 million in creating a new line of beer inspired by Kid Rock.  Yes, Kid Rock.  No, I didn't know that he drank beer, either; I pegged him as more of a Colt .45 man myself.

The sign in front of the Mardis Gras Grill at 1200 Durham reads, "Every Tuesday is Fat Tuesday at the Mardis Gras Grill." So what happens there when it really is Fat Tuesday? I asked GM Renee Evans. She told me that the restaurant is celebrating its namesake day with a Zydeco band on the patio, drink specials and lots of free beads. She is also trying to put together a special deal on mudbugs--even though it is still a little early in the season.

Ragin' Cajun is celebrating Mardis Gras with live music at all three locations (4302 Richmond, Westheimer and Gessner, and on Kensington in Sugar Land). Look for free beads and throws, and happy hour specials including 25 cent oysters, $3 frozen hurricanes, and cheap prices on beer. "It's our biggest party of the year," the manager at the Richmond location told me.

-Robb Walsh

...by eliminating bacon from your diet. Wait...what?

Did you know that Joel Osteen is kicking it old school now?  And by old school, I mean Old Testament.  Straight outta Hebron!

The new-agey motivational speaker preacher at Lakewood Church took a bizarrely old-fashioned approach recently when he advised his congregation against eating both pork and seafood, saying that "...for our health's sake, we have to be willing to make some changes."

He further explained his newfound nutritional path to salvation with deeply theological phrases like "back in the Bible days" and "this is kinda gross" before launching into a detailed diatribe about the inherent filth and evil associated with porcine digestive tracts.

He appealed to his followers, "I know some of you love pork chops.  You love ham and cheese sandwiches.  I grew up on all that.  I love...bacon."  (The marked pause makes me think Joel doesn't really love bacon.)  But that they should follow the example set by his family -- who now eats turkey bacon -- and give up pork "to honor God."