End of part 1

So, that's as far as I got with my project on this trip. Over nearly three weeks I managed to eat 27 of the hundred dishes. I also found another two to sadly no longer be available. They cost me $310 including tips. I travelled 220 miles on my quest, 127 miles by car, 13 by foot, 28 by bus and 52 by bike.

Other than the 10 pounds I put on what I take back to England with me? As you can see it was a pretty pepper heavy load. Four varieties of dried peppers in the top left, hot sauce along the bottom and chipotles in adobo between. Good Mexican and Tex Mex ingredients are hard to come by over this side of the Atlantic. I've never found a corn tortilla over here to my get sadness. With this little lot I'll be able to keep myself happy for a while though.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to restart the quest. Let's hope it's soon. Until then, happy eating!

Dish 29 - #21 Goat Buttermilk and Pecan Pie with San Leon Rum Ice Cream at Haven

For our last evening we went just a little way down the road to Haven. Robb chose the buttermilk pecan pie for the list but we had a full meal. It was restaurant week so I ordered from that menu: Jumbo Lump Crab Cake with Squash Blossom Sauce, Charred Corn Relish to start followed by Akaushi Steak, New Potatoes, 1015 Onion, Leeks, Mushrooms, Red Wine Demi with Coconut Tres Leches Bread Pudding,
Dulce de Leche Sauce, Meringue, Toasted Coconut to finish. She shared the crab cake then ordered the summer squash with quinoa and the buttermilk pecan pie which we split along with my desert.

There were some real high points and a few disappointments. The brioche that was brought out first was really good, the crab cake was good and the steak was awesome. The lady's main was really, really good. Texture, seasoning, everything about it was spot on.

On the other hand the potatoes weren't so good. They were a little underdone and the seasoning could have been better. It was the deserts that were the real let down though. Those who know me know I will always, always, always clear my plate when it's desert time. It's rare I don't eat every scrap of a savoury course but I always eat my pudding. The coconut tres leches bread pudding was so bad though that I left half of it. It was exceptionally dense and gluey and the taste was bland. The topping was good though. After that we tucked into the pie. It was much, much better than the other but if I'm honest it was probably my least favourite of all the dishes I've had from the list. The pecans were good; mid way between chewy and crunchy, the ice cream was superb although not quite as good as Hank's. The crust was pretty poor though, dry and bland, and there wasn't enough of the buttermilk filling for the taste to really come through.

I guess we just turned up on an off day for desert. Perhaps we'll go back some time and give it another shot. It's a bit of a shame that the last dish from the list of this trip was the least good. I've eaten some amazing things over the last few weeks though. The dishes from Hugo's, Indika, Feast and Ninfa's were among the very best I've ever had. There were a bunch of others were just as fine too. It was an amazing few weeks food and I can't wait for the next time I get to come back to town. I'm really excited about having some more of the delicousness contained in the list!

NRSS - Tierra caliente taco truck

All too soon it was my last day in Houston for this trip. It's really depressing to leave and know I won't see the lady again for months. I'm going to miss the city too. I love Houston. Anyway, while she was at work I headed over to the West Alabama Ice House for a beer and a bite to eat. Earlier in the trip I'd picked up an al pastor taco from the El Tierra Caliente taco truck that now parks there and been pretty disappointed; the meat was pretty dry. It was fairly tasty though. I decided to give them a second shot and was really glad I did. The barbacoa tacos I ordered were so wonderful I headed back up to grab a lengua too. The Texan beer and wonderful sunshine iced the cake. I wish they ladyfriend could have been with me. It was a lovely afternoon.

NRSS - Chapultepec Lupita

Later that night we headed over to minute maid park and watched the Astro's lose to the Braves. Bummer. By the time we left we were hungry but most places were closed. Luckily for us Chapaultepec Lupita was on the way back to the apartment and it's open til 2. I went for the carne guisada. It was a pretty huge plate; it was good though. The sides weren't amazing but the meat was great and the gravy really well spiced. You have to right around to the back to get in by the way. I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to work that out if the lady hadn't been before.

Dish 101 - Chinese barbecue at Sinh Sinh

I dropped Robb an e.mail to thank him for all his wonderful writing and let him know about my mission. Much to my suprise he invited me to tag along to a lunch he was having with a few other folks. It was an offer I couldn't refuse! The girlfriend and I rented a zipcar and headed to Sinh Sinh.

I won't say much, just that I had a really good time, it was fantastic to meet Robb and the food was pretty great too. The duck feet and tripe were particularly good. The lady ordered a tasty mixed veg dish with mushrooms and tofu skin. I was very, very happy to have had such a great opportunity!

Dish 28 - #3 Snapper on a Sizzling Comal at Tampico

We hit up Tampico just before closing time one evening with a couple of friends.

We picked out a snapper for the lady and I and got a lobster tail to go along with it. While it was on the grill we all shared some queso flameado with shrimp. It was damn good, the pico was pretty fine too.
It wasn't long until the fish arrived. It looked and smelled incredible! It tasted every bit as good as it looked too. It fell away from the bones and melted in the mouth. The lobster was slightly overdone but it was delicious too.

It was a cool place. I found the mexican / asian collision really cool. We got the fish with fried rice and there's a bottle of soy sauce on every table. It wasn't a cheap meal, about $60 for the main between us. It was totally worth it though. It just feels a little strange spending so much in a place that looks so unfancy. No question it's worth the price for that level of deliciousness though.

I'll just count my half of the main in the stats. At the end of the day I had:
eaten 26 / 100 dishes (28/100 including non-available dishes)
spent $290 (including tips)
travelled 217 miles (124 by car, 13 on foot, 28 by bus, 52 by bike)

Dish 27 - #46 Ice Cream at Hank's

There are several things that bring a tear to my eye when I think of leaving Houston. For the sake of form I'll continue ranking leaving the girlfriend behind number one. Not having access to this ice cream has leapt into the lofty highs of the list though.

It was an eight mile round trip bike ride on a day when there was a heat advisory warning. Both the lady friend and I declared it fully worth it. We agreed it was the best ice cream either of us have eaten. We're planning on being back in there within 48 hours.

We had the butter cream, caramel pecan , Texas oreo (everything's bigger in Texas, including the oreo chunks!) and the coffee oreo. Every one was was insanely out of this world delicious with the butter cream probably topping the pile.

At the end of the day I had:
eaten 25 / 100 dishes (27/100 including non-available dishes)
spent $258 (including tips)
travelled 205 miles (112 by car, 13 on foot, 28 by bus, 52 by bike)

Revisit - #34 French Fries at Little Big's

I'm well acquainted with the Montrose location of Little Big's. Today though I had a hankering to ride the little train in Hermann Park and couldn't pass up the opportunity to try out the new (to me) location just outside the entrance to the zoo.

The fries definately deserve their place on the list. They're crispy on the outside with a lusciously creamy soft interior and seasoned exactly to my taste. At least they are at the Montrose location. The ones I got today were woefully underdone. Not enough that they were raw inside, just enough that if the kitchen folks had taken a single bite or snapped one to have a look at the interior they'd have noticed and kept them swimming in the fryer a little longer. From the conversation I overheard there was some major facebook drama going down though.

It's in a great spot with a nice view over the lake and the sliders were as good as ever but that's unfortunately the best I can say. You really need these fries in your life when they're done right. Perhaps we caught them on an off day but I'd say head to the Montrose store just to be safe. I'd hate for anyone else to end up disappointed like the lady and I were.

NRSS - Pappas burgers

The lady friend had to work saturday morning and early afternoon. On the plus side Pappas were coming in to provide lunch and I was invited. Swings and roundabouts. When I saw the grill on the way in I got pretty excied. You could likely whip up some pretty serious burgers on that thing! In the end I was quite disappointed. The patty was a little bland and pretty densely packed. It felt like it had been overworked and left to sit for a while before cooking leaving it chewy and low on juiciness. In the plus column it was perfectly cooked (look at those lovely pink innards!), the bun was superb and it was set up as a bar so I got to top it myself so it ended up with the perfect amount of lettuce and stuff. The beans I ate along with it were pretty great.

Dish 26 - #14 Cassoulet at Feast

I kind of had this one. Well, I ate at Feast. I didn't have the cassoulet though. I think I'm going to count it on the list regardless.

Reading Robb's entry about the dish I got the impression, perhaps wrongly that he picked a dish that was a little more palatable to the mainstream and embodied the restaurant's core purpose of serving delicious, rustic European fare. Since I'm not someone who refuses to eat meat that's named as being from slightly more obscure animal part (as opposed to the meat from those bits that sneaks in to all kinds of ground meat many of the same folks will happily eat) I widened the net a little. I ate a meal which (bar desert) was truly simple, rustic food. It just was pretty pig face and tongue heavy though.

I have looked forward to eating a lot of these meals. Some I've really looked forward to. This one I was genuinely excited about though. I have heard some fantastic things about Feast. I went for lunch, mostly because the special is such a superb deal. For just under $20 including tax you can get a three course meal. For one of the best restaurants in the city, and probably the country, that's a stellar deal!

I had the pork cheek, red bean, and kale soup to start, followed by the bath chaps with mustard greens and mashed swede and finished up with the peach melba. The soup was great. I'm pretty sure it had a hearty dash of Worcestershire sauce in there to boost the umami. The bread that they served before it was good, especially the genuinely sour sourdough with it's fantastically chewy crust. I think the soup I'd eaten a day earlier was better but not by much and that's saying something.

The main course was truly a stunner though. They brought a steak knife along with the dish but it was total overkill. I could literally, and I swear I'm not exagerating, have eaten it with a spoon. The meat and fat were meltingly tender. It must have been cooked incredibly slowly over a period of many hours. The greens were fantastically bitter and cut right through the fat to cleanse your mouth a little. I never managed to find swedes (or rutabagas if you will) in the U.S. as good as the ones in England. These were mighty good though. Mashed swede is one of my favourite simple pleasures. The peach in the desert was superb as was the sauce. The ice cream was fantastically flavoured but could have done with a little extra churning as it was a tiny bit crystalline.

If it's purely due to lack of custom I find it incredibly sad that Feast can't run a lunch time service every day. I cursed the fact that I was otherwise engaged for lunch the next day. If I hadn't been I would have gone back to eat at Feast again. If there was another lunch service between now and when I fly back I'd be at it. As it is I think I'll go one evening. I don't want to regret not taking the opportunity while I'm here even though I can't really afford to hit it in the evening when prices are so much higher. Luckily it's restaurant week!

Montrose is awesome. The density of fine eating on Westheimer between Montrose and 45 is simply mindblowing. It's to the benefit of my waist line and bank account I no longer live around here but my tastebuds suffer.

At the end of the day I had:
eaten 24 / 100 dishes (26/100 including non-available dishes)
spent $254 (including tips)
travelled 197 miles (112 by car, 13 on foot, 28 by bus, 44 by bike)

Dish 25 - #12 Fried Chicken at Frenchy's

After lunch we retired for an hour or so to escape the mid afternoon sun. As soon as the temperature began to drop we got back on our bikes and rode down to zoo. She really loves it there and I'm more than happy to tag along. As always it was the naked mole rats, octopus and reptiles that captured most of our attention. We stuck around til they started throwing folks out at 7pm then grabbed the bikes and headed for the cycle track along the bayou and out to the third ward. It was chicken time.

It's a great ride along there. It's such a shame that so few Houstonians cycle anywhere. It's fairly hot right now but even so it's not too bad to cycle if you put on a pair of shorts. Outside of summer it's pretty much perfect cycling weather most of the time. It didn't take long for us to track down Frenchy's. The queue was pretty small here too. Who knows why this time. There was a wait for the drive through and once again the line grew while we sat and ate.

I decided to do what I've often found to be the best thing - ask the staff for advice on what's the best food they offer. I followed the advice I was given and got a meal deal with dirty rice ("that's the best side we do!"), collard greens ("you always need some greens") and a chicken breast ("no bone's to deal with and white's always good for you, baby!"). The only thing not up for debate was the biscuit. I eat them at almost every opportunity. I'm glad I did too because it was a great one. Streets ahead of the Breakfast Klub's. The rice was solid, the greens damn good and the chicken was out of this world!

By the time we left the sun was setting over the medical center and the temperature was the lowest its been during my trip here. It was a beautiful cycle home after a pretty perfect day.

At the end of the day I had:
eaten 23 / 100 dishes (25/100 including non-available dishes)
spent $229 (including tips)
travelled 194 miles (112 by car, 13 on foot, 28 by bus, 41 by bike)

Dish 24 - #40 Indian Borsch at Indika

For lunch we met up with a couple of friends and headed to Indika. It's their favourite restaurant in the city so I'd been waiting to eat there until they could join us. I was still pretty stuffed from the monster breakfast I ate a few hours earlier. The Lady felt more up to lunch though since, unlike I, she doesn't have deep seated need to clear every morsel from her plate. I ordered just a bowl of the soup, and, eventually the chocolate ginger tart with sesame crust and coffee ice cream which the pair of us split for desert. She got the preset special. They also brought out small complimentary starters and cookies as always.

I didn't restrict myself to the soup though, I at least tried every one of the dishes served to the pair of us. A fair few I ate a full half of. I've eaten a lot of Indian food in my life. This was certainly the most interesting, absolutely the most delicate and refined and quite probably the best. It's one of the best meals I've ever eaten. Every dish was subtle, suprising and superbly complex. It was obvious that every single item on the menu had been incredibly well thought out by someone with a deep understanding of their craft.

The soup was especially outstanding as was chocolate ginger tart. Some of the foods I sampled were incredibly delicately flavoured. The soup wasn't. It was as complex and interesting as everything else but also as bold and vibrant in taste as it is in colour. It was the best part of a truly exceptional.

Dish 23 - #55 Catfish and Grits at the Breakfast Klub

Yesterday the lady took the day off work. We seized the opportunity to visit the Breakfast Klub without weekend sized waits. We turned up a little after 9 and there was only one person ahead of us in the queue. It got busier as we ate though and people were just about out the door as we left. That's nothing compared to the twice round the block moster lines I have seen though.

I wanted the catfish, grits and poached eggs from the list, I'm a huge fan of biscuits so that rounded out my order. The lady fancied cheese grits, hash brown and a biscuit. She was told it'd be cheaper to get one of the meals that came with a meat and those things. We went with that and I took the bacon she ended up with. I was happy I did, it's not a classic pairing for nothing!

The catfish was the best I've had. I'd say it shared a skillet with the bacon because there was a definitely meaty taste to the crust, especially on one side of the piece. The grits too were outstanding and the eggs perfectly cooked with a great runny yolk. The biscuit was disappointing though. It wasn't all that flavourful, didn't have a great crust and it seemed a little too airy. The rest was truly outstanding though.

I couldn't eat like that for breakfast often. I felt like I needed a nap when we left. That wasn't on the cards though. We had a trip around a few Montrose thrift stores (I got a hardback Doris Lessing novel and an awesome Lodge cast iron cornbread pan in need of a little tlc) before lunch...

NRSS - Celebrity cupcakes

I was in the village and wanted something sweet. I also wanted to confirm Celebrity Cupcakes are better than Sprinkles.

They totally are. I grabbed a vanilla vanilla and a red velvet and cycled over to the Lady's work where we split them. Unfortunately they got a little bruised on the way over there (they were a lot prettier when I bought them!). Normally I'd prefer the vanilla but the red velvet was clearly better. The cake in both was super moist with a great texture. The vanilla was very, very sweet though, it was a little too much even for my sweet tooth.

Dish 22 - #86 Italian-Cuban Sandwich at Logan Farms

In Robb's write up he specifies the Logan Farms location at 10560 Westheimer but I was heading into Rice village so I stopped in at that location. I can't imagine the sandwich is much different.

It was dead when I got there. I've had that with a lot of places. Primarily because I've gone at off times (I went to Logan Farms around 4pm). That's been a good thing. It means the staff have been free to talk. I've eaten alone at quite a few of these places and the staff have mainly been pretty friendly and chatty. I had the attention of a waitress and some kind of manager guy here. He suggested the curly fries so I did as I was told. We had a bit of a chat about the other stuff on the menu, the sandwich ingredients and what there is to see on the road between here and Oklahoma City (nothing but dust apart from Dallas apparently).

Tha sandwish was damn fine. Great bread, good quality meat and excellent pesto. If I was making it for myself I'd have put in about half the ham and upped the amount of chipotle mayo. The real star is the pesto though so you wouldn't want too much heat. It's entirely probable that my meddling would spoil it. It's pretty damn awesome just as it was served to me.