Wedge Salad

I am almost entirely sure that Killen’s has not always been Killen’s. I have a distinct memory of going there for a special French dinner with my mother a few weeks before I left on a school trip to Europe. Our teacher was friends with the executive chef and somehow talked him into making a special meal for the group and their families before departure. This was before I cared about food—or anything, really, in typical sixteen-year-old style—but I was still impressed with what I ate. I remember thinking that if the food in Paris was half as good our meal that I would be quite pleased. (Oh, and it was, right down to the croque monsieur in the Louvre.)

Since my eight-year absence, Killen’s has gotten fancy. Zagat ratings, Ronnie Killen was almost named the Executive Chef for the White House in 2005. You know, the usual. No biggie. It’s definitely a special occasion place, and luckily for me, I happened to be in town* for one: my mother’s birthday.

I’ve been on a salad kick lately, so the wedge salad caught my eye as a starter. You can’t really go wrong with something fresh and crispy bathed in Roquefort dressing and apple wood smoked bacon bits. It was fantastic and, for a wedge of lettuce, surprisingly filling. (I also had a revelation when my mother offered me a bite of her crab cake. One of those, “Oh, this is what crab is supposed to taste like. No wonder everyone loves it so much!” kind of moments.)

I haven’t had a single steak since I left Texas on June 1st, so there was really no question that I was going to remedy that. The question was how was I going to remedy that. I scanned the menu looking for something small—I’ve been out for dinner twice since I got in and have since discovered that my talent for stuffing myself with huge amounts of food has worn off a bit. I was just about to order the wet-aged six-ounce center-cut filet when our waiter came to the table to recite the specials and said a magical phrase: “…a minimum of three ounces.” Three ounces sounded like the perfect amount.

Mishima Steak

This was not three ounces of just anything, mind you. It was hand cut to order from beef from Mishima Ranch in Northern California. Kobe style. They actually export meat to Japan. It had a rating of 12 on the beef marbling scale, which is the highest rating available.

It was comically tiny on my plate, but I ate it in small bites. Every bite was as good as the first, and by the time I was finished I honestly don’t think I could have had any more of it. With all the marbling, it was the richest steak I’d ever tasted. It was like they’d taken a twelve-ounce steak and shrunk it down to three-ounces without losing any of the flavor. I left a square of vertical lines on the plate where I swiped my last bite of steak to pick up every little molecule that was left. My plate looked like a Japanese rock garden when I was finished with it. It was almost a Zen experience.

Crème Brûlée

For dessert, I had crème brûlée because I can never really resist it. My mother ordered a piece of carrot cake three times bigger than my steak that had fantastic icing, and my step-father ordered a chocolate mousse cake that was even bigger than that. My mother said it was the best birthday dinner she could have asked for. We all left with very full and happy stomachs. (And some leftover carrot cake, too.)

*If you recall, in May, after I graduated, this really cute boy in Raleigh asked me to move in with him. So, in June, I did. Then the same really cute boy in Raleigh asked me if I wanted to marry him. So, in July, I did. You know, the usual. No biggie.

Fried Pork Chop & a Side of Bacon

In the past, whenever someone would protest my recommendation of The Breakfast Klub with a mention of their line, I would brush it off. “It’s not bad! It moves really fast.” This is back when the line snaked around the corner of the building, parallel to Alabama. It’s always been worth it to me, so I had no hesitation bringing my boyfriend here for breakfast on Saturday morning. We got there around 11:00am, when the Midtown Farmers Market was still in full swing. I’ve never been, so I thought we might pop over there after we finished breakfast, before they packed up for the day at noon. (Ha!)

The line from my memory had nothing on the line we encountered when we walked up. I was pleasantly surprised, though, that they’ve set up tents on their sidewalk plus four big jugs of ice water. We got in line, sipped from our styrofoam cups, and waited. The end of the line faced the building, then it snaked around to face the other way, then the other way again, before it ran beside the building and inside.

Let me just say that I have never complained about the line at the Breakfast Klub, nor am I about to do so. I will say, however, that there’s something a little nerve wracking about asking an out-of-town guest, boyfriend or not, to stand in line in the Houston heat for food that they’ve never tried before. Obviously I didn’t have a problem with it, but would he? Thankfully, once we were finished with breakfast, he pushed his plate back and said, “Okay, that was worth it.” It wasn’t until we left that he told me, always oblivious to time, that we’d waited in line for about an hour and a half.

I know what you’re thinking. An hour and a half in line? For food? I have laundry to do! But we made some rookie mistakes. First of all, we came on a Saturday, and second of all, we didn’t come early enough to miss the after-church crowd. I would suspect that some people from the Farmers Market filtered over, too. If you want to try the food without the wait, come on a weekday. If you have a morning appointment in the Med Center, it’s a perfect post-doctor (or dentist) treat.

Pork Chop Plate

As for the food, it’s perfect for a rib-sticking breakfast. (Or lunch. They serve lunch, too!) Their signature dish is waffles and wings which is fantastic drizzled with hot syrup. My personal favorite is the fried catfish and grits, which is what I initially ordered. I wanted to have it one last time before I move to Raleigh on Wednesday. But then the Klub pulled a cruel trick on me: they brought out a plate of pork chops and walked down the line with it. I’m a sucker for suggestive marketing.

I changed my order at the register and the cashier—a model of efficiency, by the way—asked me if I wanted them grilled, fried, or one of each. I went with one of each, which I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.

It comes with two eggs, grits or potatoes, and a choice of toast or a biscuit. I took my eggs scrambled and decided to try a biscuit. There was a side of bacon on my order, too, from when I thought I was having catfish. Bacon and two pork chops is overkill I think, even for me.

The plate was heaven. Buttery grits; salty, crispy bacon. The grilled pork chop was seasoned perfectly and the crispy skin on the fried pork chop gave way to fatty goodness. The eggs were good with a little sprinkle of salt. I didn’t even get to the biscuit. Afterwards, my boyfriend and I headed home for a nap. After standing in the heat and stuffing ourselves with carbs and meat, we needed it.

Crispy Spring Rolls

There’s something appealing about interacting with your food, whether it’s cooking meat at your table at a Korean place or digging into fondue. Mongolian barbeque operates under the same principle. You get to pick out your own stuff! Whatever you want, whatever you can fit in your bowl! Your own veggies, your own meats, your own sauce! Isn’t it great! Well, not entirely. The novelty of creating my own entree wore off pretty quickly.

Mongo was not my first time at the “barbeque” rodeo, though it is the first Mongolian restaurant I’ve been to in Texas. Like other places I’ve been to, it’s set up buffet-style. You get three bowls to fill up. A silver bowl for vegetables, a smaller bowl—more of a ramekin, really—for meat, and an even smaller one for sauce. You leave the bowls with the chef and your waitress brings it to your table once it’s cooked.

I grabbed a tray and started filling up my bowl with fresh mushrooms, carrot strips with scalloped edges, scallions, raw green beans, snow peas, bean sprouts and a dash of sliced onions. So far, so good.

When I went to fill up my meat bowl, however, I ran into a problem. There were several selections of meat and seafood, all in silver buffet vats, and all raw. For some reason, raw meat never fails to inspire a vegetarian impulse in me. Maybe I’m just a big wuss, but there’s something about digging around a giant mass of chicken strips with a pair of tongs that fails to inspire hunger in me. It sticks to itself and to the tongs. It just doesn’t feel right. I manned up as best as I could, though, and filled my bowl with a mix of white meat chicken and beef. (They also had dark meat chicken, tilapia, shrimp, scallops, ham, and pork.)

The next two phases were spices and sauces. There were a couple of rows of spices with teaspoons nestled in them. I decided to stick with the KISS principle—keep it simple, stupid—and opted for a salt/pepper mix. I put it on my veggies and on my meat. At the last second, I saw lemon pepper and thought I’d throw a little bit on for good measure. I got to the sauce selection, filled my last bowl two-thirds of the way to the top with Mongolian BBQ Sauce, and slid my tray on the provided shelf.

While I was waiting for my ingredients to cook, my mother, who had ordered teriyaki salmon, was brought miso soup and a salad with ginger dressing. Ginger dressing is one of my favorite things to eat (I love the tang) so I asked the waitress if I could get a house salad. “We don’t have house salads,” she told me. Clearly they have house salads, she just didn’t know how to ring it up on our tab. Or care to figure it out. One of those weird Kafkaesque situations. With salad. Anyway, I digress.

"One Bowl" Dinner

When my food arrived, I took a bite and was knocked in the face with lemon pepper. It was all I could taste. I probably put about a teaspoon of lemon pepper in my tiny bowl of vegetables, which was clearly enough to overpower it. But I wasn’t really thinking about proportions, or about how lemon pepper was going to taste with Mongolian BBQ sauce. I was tired and hungry and throwing things in a bowl.

Herein lies the problem with Mongolian barbeque, and with Mongo in particular: you’re the chef. Some places sauce and season your veggies and meats for you, but Mongo leaves everything to their diners. All they do is cook it for you. I imagine some people—people who know how to season their food properly, perhaps?—would love Mongo. For me, however, if I’m going out to eat, I’d rather a chef make decisions about the flavors on my plate. Those crispy spring rolls were pretty delicious, though.

Chips and Salsa

When I was a child—and if you lived in the Montrose in the early 90′s, you’ll probably remember this—there was a space by the Montrose Library, what is now Kraftsmen Bakery, which could never quite settle down. At one point it was a gelato place, then a coffee place; it would close, then open again, then close again. Clearly someone needed to burn some sage in there or something. Unfortunately, there’s a place like that in Pearland. It used to be a nightclub for teens, which I can’t type with a straight face, and has been through several restaurant reincarnations as well. The latest is Emma’s Grill and Mex-Mex Bistro.

The name is a little overly long and confusing. After leaving, I had no idea why “bistro” was tacked on to the end. And yes, because I went during their first week, there were, understandably some service hiccups. But ultimately every restaurant that opens is someone’s dream, so I really wanted to give it a chance.

Tacos de Pescado

I ordered fish tacos, which came with what the menu describes as “honey chipotle tartar sauce” but reminded me a little bit more of mayo. It also was served with a lot of vegetables and cheese on the side. I was a little confused as to whether it was a salad (No dressing?) or taco fillings (Why not put it on for me?) so I just left it alone.

The tilapia was fried perfectly. Just the right amount of crispness that gave way to flaky fish. I thought they were a little bit stingy on the tartar sauce, which I realize my sauce-loving self usually thinks, but in this case, there wasn’t enough sauce for every bite of fish, and that’s a problem.

I think visiting so close to their opening was probably a mistake. I’m planning on going back at some point, and when I do, I’ll update you. In the mean time, they’ve received five positive votes on UrbanSpoon. (One from me, for the fish.) Maybe they’re on their way up! I hope so. I want good things for them.

Salsa

This was my first meal after getting off a plane at IAH on a journey that was much longer than necessary. After a successful thesis defense and presentation on human trafficking—I’m technically a college graduate now, though I don’t walk until May—things took a bad turn when I missed my plane in Fayetteville and had to spend the night in a hotel by myself where I couldn’t sleep because I was so paranoid about missing my next flight.

When I got into Houston, it was technically breakfast time, though I’d already had a banana and Nutella crepe in the Atlanta airport and I was ready for lunch. My mother and I ended up at Escalante’s, where I planned to order cheese enchiladas. Our waitress brought the specials to the table, though, and I had to have the carne asada plate.

Carne Asada Special

If you can’t find anything steak-colored on that plate, it’s because it’s hidden under cheese and egg. Had I known there was egg under there, I probably would have ordered something else. I don’t do eggs, really, unless my Nana scrambles them with Velveeta and a splash of half and half. But when I was listening to the description of the specials, I was laidover, a ridiculous term I coined once upon a time after too many plane transfers and not enough sleep. (It isn’t really jetlag if you only cross one time zone.) So I suppose the word “egg” went in one ear and out the other, and the plate just looked so good.

Cheese + Egg + Steak

Much to my shock, however, the egg was a lovely little surprise. The whole thing was a gooey mess, so it was kind of hard to tell what was what once it was in your mouth. It was just silky and cheesy and salty and chewy and really, really good.

The rest of the plate was kind of a bust. The Mexican potatoes were bland, and the avocado slices were a little sad looking. (Which shocked me, since this place makes guacamole for you, table-side, and it is always stellar.) The beans, go figure, actually tasted like beans and not a huge mouthful of fat, but were the teensiest bit overcooked for my taste. I was sufficiently full after the steak though and more than ready for a nap in the car on the way home.

Breakfast Taco

When my friend Margaret came down to Houston to help me get through my father’s funeral, she did a lot of driving. I forget where we were when it happened, but we stopped at a red light, she looked up and saw a donut place and said, “How many donut places do you have in this city?”.

I’d never realized it until she said something, but she’s right. Houston has a love affair with donuts. Shipley’s is a Houston institution, and there are little mom-and-pop places all over the place. We’re so particular about our donuts, in fact, that Krispy Kreme couldn’t last here, which is baffling to people from more Krispy-Kreme-centric places. If you don’t believe me, just ask them.

So, this year, I would like to find the ultimate glazed donut in Houston. I started my search close to (temporary) home, at Pena’s. Since glazed donuts didn’t really sound like a substantial breakfast, I ordered a breakfast taco, too.

Bacon, Cheese, and Potato Taco

It was pretty good, although how would it not be with pan-fried potatoes, cheese, and bacon? Those are three no-fail ingredients as far as I’m concerned. The tortilla was lacking a little something, however. Butter, maybe? Some kind of heat application?

Glazed Donuts

The donuts were a nice dessert. Chewy with sugar flakes falling everywhere, but, like the tortilla, still lacking a little je ne sais quoi. Not the best that Houston has to offer, I don’t think. The search continues…

My Version of BBQ Heaven

Knowing the amount of passion that Texans feel for their barbecue, I’m almost afraid to write about it. I once got into a drunken argument with someone from Austin in my tiny college town in North Carolina about which city had the better barbecue. We finally clinked glasses and drank to the fact that Texas had the best barbecue in the country and left it at that. I think what it really comes down to is what you’re brought up with, and what I was brought up with was Goode Company.

Dad in front of Goode Company, 2005

This place is my dad all over. He started coming to Goode Company when it opened in the 70′s, when he was young and hungry from working out in the Houston humidity all day. Jim Goode was a well-known name in my house, just as big as Marvin Zindler or Mama Ninfa. I never actually ordered barbeque myself, though. I ordered a baked potato all the way, which was enough to fill up my little tummy and then some. My dad would cut off little pieces of sausage or brisket and put them on top of my potato skin which I always refused to eat.

Baked Potato, "All the way"

If they serve baked potatoes in heaven, this is what they will look like. Foil-wrapped, cut open, and stuffed with obscene amounts of butter, cheese, sour cream, bacon bits, and chives. What else could you want, really? Since I was little, I’ve always mushed it all together with my fork, making crude mashed potatoes and horrifying everyone else at the long tables on the porch.

The porch is part of the experience, by the way. You have to share a table with strangers and shoo away the pigeons smart enough to know this is one of the best places in the city for a bird to hang out. Grab a Houston Press from the bin by the door and a St. Arnold root beer from the ice chest inside and you’re pretty much set.

Brisket Sandwich

The brisket is my favorite of the meats that they serve, though probably the least adventurous choice. But when it’s sliced, laid out on their homemade bun and topped with a ladle full of sauce, it’s pretty much unbeatable.

Mushroom and Black Olive Pizza

There’s a dearth of good pizza in Pearland. It’s all Pizza Hut and Domino’s. Double Daves, a tolerable chain in my opinion, closed while I was away at college. I saw Center Court when I drove by it, and thought I’d check it. It had mostly positive votes on Urbanspoon, so my mother and I decided to pick up one of their pizzas for dinner.

The place felt more like a bar than a restaurant. Big screen televisions and bartenders doubling as waitstaff, at least on the night we visited. I’m glad we took ours to go, because it didn’t appear that we would have gotten very good service.

The pizza, however, was pretty good. They have an herb mixture on the crust which gets all over your fingers (boo) but makes your last bites of crust more interesting (yay). A step up from the national chains, I’d say, though nothing worth coming to Pearland for. You’d have to be already here. And I still am.

Miso Soup

When I discovered the bento box in college it was happy times. I am an indecisive person. I hate making choices because I know that choosing something means that there are other things that you aren’t choosing and that you don’t get to experience. So a bento box is perfect for me. Lots of choices and, in the case of food, lots of flavors.

The bento boxes at Little Miyako come with house salad (ginger or miso dressing), your choice of soup (miso, hot and sour, or corn), two pieces of California maki, two mini vegetable egg rolls, rice (steamed, fried, or brown), and vegetables (tempura, steamed, or sauteed).

Oddly enough, being inundated with choices makes it easier for me to make decisions. Maybe because there’s more room for failure? Regardless, here’s what I chose:

House Salad with Ginger Dressing

I started with the miso soup and the house salad with ginger dressing. (This was a takeaway order, by the way, hence all the styrofoam.) The miso soup was average, but the dressing on the salad was divine. The tang of the ginger with the crispness of the iceberg lettuce might have been the highlight of the meal.

California Maki

The California maki was average as well. With cooked crab, avocado, and cucumber, it’s the training wheels of sushi. Once you’ve been more adventurous, it doesn’t really do it for you. I suppose it’s a nice addition to the meal though, in theory. Another couple of bites of freshness among all the fried food.

Yaki Gyu Niku Steak Bento

Of course, not all bento are full of fried food, I just happened to order that way. I went with fried rice and tempura vegetables to complement my veggie egg rolls. The egg rolls were the perfect size and very crispy. I’m sorry I can’t say the same for the vegetables. For the record, I think cooked carrots are a bad candidate for the tempura treatment.

For my entree, I went with the steak marinated in Korean barbecue sauce rather than my usual Mongolian beef. I was not impressed with the texture. It was tough, and I think a little overcooked.

I caught them on a bad night, I suppose, because I’ve definitely had better food from them before. I’d love to try bento at some other places in town, though. Any recommendations?

Artichoke alla Giudea

Once upon a time—the fall of 2008, to be exact—I lived in a castle in Italy. It was only three months, but those three months took my love for food, which had been there since I can remember, and made it blossom. It was my trip that made me think I wanted to write about food, so I suppose you could blame Italy for this blog.

Schloss Brunnenburg

Good food is everywhere in Italy. Gnocchi at the market, which they serve in little paper bowls, the toasted sandwiches they sell in the train station, the pizza you can buy on every corner. It is heaven on earth if you like to eat. Unfortunately, no Italian restaurant in Houston I knew of came close to duplicating anything I had tasted in my three months abroad.

That is until I asked about traditional Italian food on Twitter. Da Marco was recommended to me several times over, as was their $25 lunch deal. @houston_foodie mentioned that it was on his to-do list, which is how I ended up sharing a meal with him.

Within five minutes of meeting Chris, I’d already got the best food blogging tip ever, which is to squirm, manipulate, strongarm, what have you, your way into a table with good lighting. How has this not occurred to me before?

He offered me a bite of his primo, the artichoke alla giudea. The strong lemon taste in the sauce caught me a little off guard, but I loved it. (Of course, this is coming from a girl who once bought a lemon in Capri, peeled it and ate it raw, so take that with a grain of salt.)

I’ve managed to learn one sneaky trick myself, which is to check online menus for the names of dishes I forget to write down. Unfortunately, this trick didn’t work for me this time because I was seduced by the gold-framed chalkboard and its specials. I saw two things that grabbed me—apples in the salad, and pork, cooked medium for the secondo—and went for it, without really taking in the names of what I was ordering.

In general, it’s really hard to wow with a salad, but this one succeeded. The bits of bacon with the shaved parmesan made it salty, and the apple gave a crisp freshness that I’m still drooling over.

The pork was tender, probably because it hadn’t had the life cooked out of it. There was more lemon in the green beans, and the mushrooms and beans were very rich.

Warm Chocolate Ricotta and Coffee Granita

And then, for dessert, I ordered warm chocolate ricotta. When I took my first bite, it was like the heavens opened up over the table. Hands down the best dessert I’ve ever had in Houston. It was served with coffee granita, which it took Chris to identify. Ironically, Da Marco was my first encounter with the icy treat. I was either too far north to encounter it or I just had gelato tunnel vision. I wasn’t terribly impressed with it, although it was a nice pick me up for my mouth after the rich warm bites from the cute little pot.

Overall, it was a great lunch. The chef is from Northern Italy, the part that I spent the most time in, and the food was just as good if not better than what I ate there. I can’t wait to move to the Montrose so I can come by for lunch more often.