It’s not clear that Americans are really drinking less beer, but rather, not drinking as much of the big name brands.  I’m happy about this.  If you really care about taste, then you’re probably drinking craft beers or something from a local brewery.  If you just want something cheap, then why not buy the cheapest beer you can find?  It seems like Americans are doing this.  I’m all for supporting craft breweries.

The seating was mostly picnic-table style, which seems to be the norm in Texas for bbq joints, and I like the communal feel of it.

I’ve told people before that Texas bbq appears to be all about the beef brisket and how smoky you can get it.  Look at this cut of brisket!  So moist and fatty, not gristley.  Also, very smoky.  I’ve found a place I like better than Goode Co., although I won’t stop visiting Goode bc it’s very close, and they have a larger menu.

Texans are not really into pork, so I don’t think many ppl get pork ribs when they get bbq, but I had to compare to Phil’s.  It’s really tough to compare, actually.  I think I’d have to eat them side-by-side, and I’m still used to “wet” baby back ribs, but on the other hand, these ribs are much smokier in flavor than Phil’s and don’t need any sauce.  These are fork-and-knife ribs, though: the meat slides off the bone very cleanly and easily.  You can also see how pink the meat gets.

The styrofoam cups you see in the background of the first photo are the creamed corn and peach cobbler.  Wow, those were good.  I like the sides here better than Goode Co. as well.  The peach cobbler was real, but I don’t like eating it squashed into a cup.

Anyway, Rudy’s BBQ is a large Texas chain, and I would highly recommend it.  Knowing Houston’s reputation for bbq, the other locations may taste even better.

Blackfin tuna bacon and pink sea bream tiradito, green apple, avocado.  This was my first time tasting tuna “bacon”, and I understand why it’s named so.  The meat is slightly firmer and saltier.  It was nicely tempered with the acidity and tartness of the apple.  The tiradito was refreshing, and the avocado kept everything from being too acidic.

Snapper carpaccio, grapefruit agra dolce, garlic bruschetta.  The carpaccio and grapefruit were refreshing and flavorful without being overwhelming.  Both had very delicate textures, which made them easy to drape and fold onto the bruschetta.

I don’t remember the name of the fish, but I had never heard of it before, and now I see that due to the spill, it has been replaced on the menu with grilled wahoo.  It was a light fish, with a texture similar to that of sea bass.

I believe it was served with broccolini, butter foam, and some type of tomato relish.  It was good, but I was still reeling from the appetizers, and I was busy stuffing my face with the side dish as well.

I have to thank Jason for ordering this dish for me, bc I was torn between so many of the menu choices.  This is roasted grouper, corn pudding, salsa cruda, and grilled peach.  Delicious!!  I love grouper.

Plaintain and long bean saute.  I love sweet plaintains so much, and these did not disappoint at all.  Somehow these long beans went really well with the sweetness and there as a little bit of gingery kick to it.

After dinner, I had a glass of Dr. Pauly ice wine (yum!) with our Vietnamese coffee tart, condensed milk ice cream, and mint syrup.  The coffee tart had a very liquid texture that oozed out when we broke into the pastry.  It was a delicious dessert.

Very satisfied.

Reef

2600 Travis @ McGowen in midtown

Houston, TX

713.526.8282

This is fantastic news for me, because I love tea and want to drink it all day, but I’ve always held back, thinking it was bad for me.  I’ll still be drinking tons of water, but now I won’t feel guilty about my tea consumption.

Farm to Family Fighting the Dollar Menu

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beck’s Prime

Multiple Houston locations (they just opened an 11th location in north Houston)