The Times’ Top Recipes of 2009
I hate to cook, but I’m providing this link for those of you that like to cook in the hopes that I’ll be around when you feel the need to prepare a white-chococlate bread pudding with whiskey caramel sauce.
A critic’s most memorable dining experiences of 2009
Although the article appeared in the LA Times, it’s not limited to restaurants in LA.
I’ve eaten at a few of these places and I keep hearing such great things about Bazaar, by Jose Andres. Jason is determined to prepare one of Andres’s recipes for a party one of these days, and I hope this means he wants to try Bazaar with me the time after the next time I’m in LA.
Any New Yorkers care to weigh in on this one?
10 best non-Starbucks coffee shops in Manhattan
I always just drank coffee at Starbucks. Oh, and at this tiny Greek kitchen on the way from my subway stop to the school where I taught in Chinatown. $1.50 would get me a cup of coffee with tons of sugar and milk (perfect amounts for me) and a hot buttered bagel with a fried egg inside.
I don’t think I’ve blogged about the burgers in Houston yet. I used to think In-N-Out was pretty much as good as it got. Burger Lounge in SD confirmed that for me. I haven’t been to Five Guys yet, but I will. I have to share something with you non-Houstonites, or perhaps non-Texans. The best burgers I’ve ever had are all in Houston. And places like Father’s Office don’t really count as a point of comparison, because yes, if you put foie gras or duck fat or something like that in your burger, then yes, it tastes great, but is it still really a burger? When I talk about eating a good burger, I mean no-frills, but great taste. Patty can be mass-produced or hand-formed, and the ingredients should get no fancier than bacon and barbecue sauce. I expect a good burger to have a beef patty, lettuce, tomato, maybe onions, maybe cheese, maybe some pickles, and maybe ketchup and mustard to be in the category of a “burger.” I have tried several different burger joints in Houston, and with the exception of Avalon Diner (possibly the worst burger I’ve ever had), all have tasted - gasp! better than In-n-Out. I will admit that most cost more than In-n-Out, though. I’m not sure if Smashburger costs the same or not, but I’ll talk about that in a different post.
Beck’s Prime is a drive-thru joint, but there is limited seating. The seating and “patio area” remind me of the Jack in the Box on Valley View in La Palma. It looks pretty ghetto, but the burgers are anything but. They use hand-formed patties, and beef is (surprise, surprise) very delicious in Texas. I don’t even know how to describe what makes it so great. Maybe the lack of freezers? I have no idea. Beck’s Prime is a small chain, and the ingredients are basic (although you have a choice of several more “gourmet” burgers on their menu if you desire more than the basic burger toppings), but good quality. Fresh produce, and small touches like romaine instead of iceberg lettuce. The quality of the ingredients is what probably makes the burger so good. It does cost a bit more than the usual Houston burger, though, about $7-8.
I would also like to highly recommend their Strawberry Cream milkshake. This is one of the few places that makes strawberry shakes correctly (by “correctly,” I mean that they don’t use Nestle Quik or Carnation Instant Breakfast). One of the best strawberry milkshakes I’ve ever had is at Barney’s Burger on College Ave. in Berkeley (my neck muscles would get sore from trying to drink the shake through a straw), and this one definitely compares to it. I need to drink them side-by-side to be sure, but if my memory serves me correctly, Barney’s Burgers has a thicker shake. The friendly employees at Beck’s Prime recommended that I drink the milkshake with a spoon rather than a straw, but I stubbornly used the straw and managed pretty well. Also, Jason and I shared the “small” milkshake and got full, so I would like to tip you off that you can request a dessert-sized portion of the milkshake (it’s not listed on the menu), which is half the size.
The fries are delicious here as well. I haven’t tried anything but the burgers here (they were so good that I come here with burger cravings), but I suspect everything tastes good. If you want to have a good burger for dinner, I would highly recommend this place, and if you want any indication of how good I think this place is, this is the first place that I took my sister to when she came to visit me in Houston.
Here’s a photo I found online of a Beck’s Prime burger:
The weird thing about this photo is that the lettuce looks very different from the way I remember it. Beck’s Prime uses one or two big fat dark green leaves folded up, not pale and shredded like in the photo.
Multiple Houston locations (they just opened an 11th location in north Houston)
Jason and I have been wanting to try this place for ages, but never got up early enough to avoid the line or visit on a day other than Sunday (they’re closed on Sundays). I really wanted Patti to eat here, though, bc it was obviously a place for locals, and its reputation ensured that we wouldn’t be disappointed.
When we arrived, around 9 AM, there was already a line that rounded one corner of the building. There was no way we were going to give up, though, so we got in line. The line actually moved very rapidly (like Phil’s) and the owner and some of the staff would come outside to hand out menus and greet the customers. They were so warm and sweet and made you feel at home.
One of the surprises was a coffee/espresso bar. I had a Karamel Macchiato (way too sweet, but somehow authentically Southern soul food in that sense), and Patti had her choice of several quality blends at the self-serve coffee bar. You pick up your own utensils and such, showing why the line was able to move so quickly and people were able to get seated, served, and leave quickly.
We had the 2 highest rated dishes from their menu:
Katfish & Grits: The photos here do not look very good bc the food doesn’t look good. But the food TASTES excellent. You look at the plate before you and think, “Aw, shit - I should have ordered something else.” But then you take a bite and realize it’s probably the best thing on the menu. Fluffy doughy biscuit, eggs prepared over-medium as I requested, what Patti claimed was the best fried catfish she has ever had in her life, and buttery, coarse-ground grits. Amusingly, they placed one slice of roma tomato on top, the healthiest part of our meal. Haha. The food was delicious and exactly what it claimed to be, Southern soul food. I maintain that in the South, fried foods taste much better. They use a different technique or batter or something. The texture and flavor are amazing.
Wings & Waffles: Again, not much to look at, but HUGE in flavor. I don’t know if waffles can be that amazing - the waffles were just good, but the wings… Basically, anything fried in Houston is going to be good, I think. Delicious, juicy wings with a slightly peppery kick to the batter, which I loved. This time the healthful addition was a single strawberry.
The Breakfast Klub lived up to the hype. Do it.
Closed on Sundays. Open for breakfast and lunch only.
I’ve blogged about BB’s Cajun Cafe before, and Jason and I hadn’t gone in a while, so Patti visiting was the perfect excuse to go back. Unfortunately, they changed their menu, drastically reducing the choices available, so it’s mainly appetizers and Po’Boys now. No more Southern Man Breakfast, which I really miss. You can’t order fried catfish anymore, either, unless it’s in a po’boy. However, I’m not that broken up about the menu change, because they introduced a new menu item: grillades and grits. I had never heard of grillades and I had never heard of that combination. I don’t know if it’s possible to order it ANYWHERE in California, and the server (i suspect he was the manager, but no idea) informed us that BB’s was the only place in Houston that offered it.
As you’ve probably guessed, I loved it. I tried Googling it, and it appears to be a New Orleans comfort food dish, and it tastes like it. Spicy, hearty, warm, and earthy.
Grits go perfectly with grillades, which appears to be chunks of beef that have been stewing all day until they’re tender and infuse the gravy. This dish lasted me 3 meals, and I was stuffed each time. Oh, and this was after Patti abandoned her tacos and shared my dish with me. It’s like Cajun beef goulash with cheesy grits.
Anyway, despite the menu change at BB’s, I am still enthusiastically recommending that you try it.
Ahh, yes. Another BBQ post. Come on, I’m in Texas - I have to try as many places as I can, on my search for a place that compares to Phil’s BBQ. I have to admit it may never happen, simply due to the fact that Phil’s doesn’t serve beef brisket, and “true” Texas BBQ is apparently brisket. I am no judge of brisket, since I’ve had it so rarely, not having been a Texan for more than a couple of months. I don’t know what the criteria are, but I have been looking for a few qualities in brisket that I believe a good brisket should have:
1) smokiness
2) tenderness
3) fattiness (I say this instead of juicy because with brisket being cut so thin, you can’t really retain much juice)
One place that is heavily favored by the locals in my part of Houston is Goode Company. Goode Company is just down the street from my place, which is why I’ve hit it up a few times already with Jason. In a nutshell, the brisket here needs no sauce (and I think that’s how Texans judge BBQ - it has to be good without sauce), it’s the smokiest BBQ I’ve ever tasted, and even though it looks dry and lean, when you eat it you realize it’s tender and fatty.
Check out that smoke ring:
I haven’t seen people ordering the ribs - the chopped beef brisket sandwich appears to be the most popular choice here.
I wish we had taken pictures of the sides, because they were unique. The Austin baked beans were surprisingly sweet, and it was because it contained chunks of apples. They were also a bit spicy, but it may have been carry-over from the BBQ sauces I poured on the meats that were peppery and set my tongue on fire.
I’ve had Goode on 3 separate occasions that I can recall off the top of my head, and the brisket has always been good. Not as good as the BBQ at the Salt Lick, but for where I live in Houston, this may be as “goode” as it gets.
A couple of the guys from my program brought a huge box of Goode Co. brisket to the office with a tub of BBQ sauce, and we were just grabbing strips of meat in our hands, dunking it into the sauce and eating it straight. I ate so much of it that I got a little sick from meat overload, but it was so tender that I couldn’t resist. I would also like to recommend to people who try the brisket sandwich to get it on the jalapeno bread, which seems to be popular in Texas (I see it offered in several places). It is doughy and spicy and delicious.
Jason and I knew of this place because it has some relation to Hugo’s. We also found numerous Chowhound recommendations for Backstreet Cafe. The prices were very good, considering the quality of the food. I would describe it as upscale Tex-Mex bistro food, but at Cheesecake Factory prices. You can’t go wrong!
When we first were seated (which was immediately), we received this:
Delicious breakfast pastries instead of a bread basket! They were good, but I tried not to eat much because I didn’t want to get full before the food arrived.
For our appetizer, we split bacon-wrapped quail on a bed of stone-ground jalapeno cheese grits:
Really, really good. The quail was prepared perfectly, the bacon was savory, lightly crisped, fatty and juicy. The grits were amazing! They were coarsely ground and the jalapeno and cheese weren’t overdone. I want to taste this dish again and again.
Jason’s dish: shredded pork and potato hash with poached eggs, avocado, and tomatillo salsa:
This reminds me: potatoes in Texas taste far better than any potatoes I’ve ever had anywhere else. I usually don’t like potatoes (for example: I don’t like CA burritos), but every potato dish I’ve had in Texas has had what I claim are the best potatoes ever. I don’t know what it is - I think they’re a different type of potato. They look like Yukon golds, but I have no idea what they really are. For some reason, they taste like the best things ever. I have become a potato-lover in Texas, but now I have to remember to not eat potatoes anywhere else if I want to avoid an unpleasant surprise. 
I wonder if Texans eat potatoes in other places and think, “Oh, these must have gone bad…”
My dish: Bistro Breakfast - grilled 4 oz tenderloin served with two poached eggs, rosemary potato cake, spinach and tomato hollandaise:
When I first saw the plate, I thought, “Aww, this looks like a miss.” But then I tasted it and was in heaven. Again, the potatoes. That potato rosemary cake was unbelievably delicious. The tenderloin was perfectly prepared (I asked for it rare), and while the asparagus was a little tired, I thoroughly enjoyed my dish. The eggs were nice and yolky and had a slow run to them, more goop than liquid (which was a good thing!). But my favorite part of the plate was the rosemary potato cake.
I will return to this place, as I was delighted with the food. I will warn you that the food takes a long time to come out. This may be because each dish is made to order; it can also be due to the fact that this place gets crowded quickly. The coffee was all right - our waiter was too harried to refill our cups, and the coffee wasn’t as good as the kind at Raven Grill. I forgot to mention that at Raven Grill, the coffee comes with tiny house-made cookies!
1103 S Shepherd Drive
Houston, TX 77019
713.521.2239
Americans prefer chocolate chip nearly three to one over other cookie types.
When I am out and order cookies, I almost always select chocolate chip or some variant of it. But my favorite cookie of all time is Patti’s home-made oatmeal cookies. I love oatmeal cookies, and so I don’t enjoy them when they’re not made perfectly to my liking, and NEVER do purchased-oatmeal cookies taste like Patti’s home-made ones.
Speaking of yummy chocolate chip cookies, my favorite ones can be found in NYC: the best traditional chocolate chip cookie (in my personal opinion, due to my particular tastes) is found at City Bakery near Union Square in Manhattan. I like the chocolate chips to be numerous, melted, large, and I like the dough to be lightly crispy on the outside, but chewy (not to be confused with soft!) on the inside.
A chocolate chip “cookie” that is also very very good is found at Levain Bakery on the Upper West Side. The bakery is very difficult to find unless you know it’s there: it’s in a basement and it’s tiny. There is enough room for about 5 people to sit/stand comfortably, because it’s basically a kitchen with a table and a counter. The people who work there are covered in flour and you can see metal stacked trays of delicious baked goods behind them. Their chocolate chip “cookie” I place in quotation marks because it’s more of a scone than a cookie. It’s this huge round lumpy scone filled with chocolate chunks and walnuts (which I usually don’t like, but they’re delicious in these cookies). They have the same texture as scones, but the good kind, that are warm and soft in the center without being wet. I can’t really describe them as being anything other than really really good chocolate chip nut scones, so you’ll have to go there and try them for yourself.
Here is a photo of the famed “chocolate chip walnut”:
I put that I was a fan of LA on Facebook and look what I received for my troubles:
Wainwright had the gall to complain that fans shouldn’t be allowed to wave white towels during a baseball game. I say Halliday still would have dropped it.
Anyway, I love getting to catch these games live.
One odd thing I must mention because it is bothering me: I have yet to meet someone in Houston who follows professional sports. I should put out a Craig’s List ad for a pro-sports-loving friend to watch games with, but add that certain teams will not be tolerated. Like the Patriots. Or the Broncos. Or the Bears. And especially the SF Giants.