mcdowell

Wow, what a self-indulgent thread... Love it. I offer three categories: The most expensive meal I've ever had: A $9 plate of nachos in a basement bar somewhere outside of Boston, 1991, shared with a pretty young hellcat who liked my hat. A decade later, divorced, a year's salary in legal fees, and an ill-crafted settlement behind me, turned out to be the MOST expensive meal of my life... what a ride. The second-most expensive non-expense account meal I've had was: $1400 USD for 2, with wine, at L'Espadon at Paris Ritz. Followed by a mind-numbing night at the Hemingway bar, where I'm I sure set the record for most expensive martini (I still owe my friend Frank the $300 that I was light). And still the only bar who ever required me to put on a tie. The most expensive non-expense account meal that was free: $750 for 2, with wine, in the restaurant adjoining the private Ritz Club & Casino in London a few years back. An explosion of taste, as they have chefs from a number of regions resident there. We mixed and matched, far beyond our server's comfort zone, and ate and ate, far beyond ours... The surprise of the night is that, since it was our first visit there as members (and before we even laid down our first bet), they comp'd the entire meal as a "welcome present". The second surprise of the night was the complementary Cuban Montecristo's that the "cigar girl" was bringing around. Unfortunately, they soon after banned smoking in the club. Between my companion and I, we only gambled away about $400 that night. But still came out ahead.

Oh, Yes. Absolutely necessary with Bookers. The stuff is barrel-proof and overwhelming in the wrong hands.

Sandy - can you explain this one? I have a lot of mustard (about 14 different kinds in my pantry right now, thanks to too much wine at last year's Napa Valley mustard festival - story for different thread) but don't believe I've ever seen any mixed with mayo. Is this like those strange experiments from the 80's with pre-mixed peanut butter and jelly?

I don't care for tequila with my cigars. I find the flavor of the drink completely overwhelming, even with a strong smoke. The tequila you described, though, does sound nice, and maybe with a little less edge than I'm used to. There's something to be said for rum. I read an article once that postulated that rum and cigars were made for each other given that they both hail from the same Caribbean ports -- it's unlikely that the Cubans or Dominicans were drinking brandy while enjoying their nightly smokes. Makes sense, but in my mind, it'd have to be one good rum. My favorite pairing is a nice vintage, or at least complex, Port paired with a medium bodied cigar. But more often I'm sipping a flavorful bourbon. Cigar of choice these days is Montecristo #3 (Habana -- thank god for those quarterly trips across the Ocean), but do mix it up some with trips to the humidor at the local shop. Bourbon of choice is almost always Bookers.

Here ya go, Houston's Organic Farmers Markets... of these, I've only been to the first one, in the Heights on Saturday. Surprisingly nice. (from an article at http://www.bayoucityoutdoors.com/ClubPorta...menuoptID=11318 ) Houston’s Farmers Market www.houstonfarmersmarket.org Saturday Market - 8am to noon: Located behind Onion Creek Coffee House 3106 White Oak (between Studewood and Heights Blvd.) Tuesday Market - 4pm to 7pm: south side of Rice Stadium, entrance #9, off of University Blvd www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html Midtown Farmers Market www.tafia.com/mfm.html Saturdays - 8am until Noon Located at Monica Pope's t'afia, 3701 Travis Street Bayou City Farmers Market www.urbanharvest.org Wednesday Market - 4pm-7pm Saturday Market - 8am-noon Located just north of the intersection of Richmond and Eastside, behind office building. (Eastside has a stoplight and it's in between Kirby and Buffalo Speedway) Central City Co-Op www.centralcityco-op.org Close to downtown, midtown, Montrose and all over Houston 2115 Taft St (indoors) (Between Westheimer and West Gray, East of Montrose) Every Wednesday 9 am to 6:30 pm Every Saturday 9 am to 2 pm Katy Farmers Market Saturdays - 8am until Noon Crosspoint Community Church 700 Westgreen, Katy, TX 77450 (corner of Kingsland & Westgreen) The Woodlands' Farmers Market at Market Street www.town- center.com/detail.asp? iEve=406&iType=918 Saturdays, May-September, 8am-11am Located across the street from The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Bay-Best Farmers Market www.bay-fest.com/ Saturdays (except holiday weekends) 12:00 noon - 4:00 pm Hardesty Avenue & 5th Street in Old Seabrook Fresh Foods Market at Armand Bayou Nature Center www.abnc.org Alternating Saturdays from 11:00am-2:00pm 8500 Bay Area Blvd, Pasadena, Texas

The kitchens at the Alamo (south & village) have really evolved over the past few years and have hired some very capable chefs. You have to keep in mind that the number of plates these guys are serving brings it from a 'restaurant' experience into the realm of 'event catering' very quickly -- set your expectations based on that. While I tend to stick to the pub food that can be safely eaten in the dark, occasionally I do stray into adventurous territory, and the kitchen keeps up. Didn't go to the Simpsons event, but did go to the multi-course 'interior' Mexican feast for Nacho Libre that was surprisingly good. Also understand they're about to do an 'iron chef' challenge themed to the movie Monsoon Wedding on 8/21. Should be interesting. Unfortunately I'll be in London that week doing my own themed event & will miss it.

I know there's been a lot of discussion about tipping over the years here on eG, a loaded subject that preys on all of our behavioral insecurities, but read something this morning that brings it into the context of Shaw's book-in-progress, so worth bringing up here: There's a funny column in today's NY Daily News about tipping Chinese delivery men, with a punchline about the restaurant owner ringing up the accidental cheapscape to remind him that delivery guys have families to support too. While I laughed, it does raise good underlying questions that might be well addressed in any treatise on Asian Restaurants: --> How much do you tip your hardworking delivery guys? Flat couple of bucks, or percentage of the tab? Or (my favorite choice), pay by weight of the food?? Equally intriguing, but off topic, is tipping biased by the kind of food you're ordering (eg. do you take better care of the kid from Pizza Garden than you do the guy from China Garden?)? --> Related, when surfing the Asian buffets, how do you tip your servers, who are likely only clearing plates and keeping your drinks topped off? The article, short and worth reading, is here: http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brookl..._big_tip-2.html

I'm a big fan of chilled cucumber soup, especially in the sweltering heat of Texas summer. Recipes abound, but I like the tension that a finely chopped jalepeno adds to the mix. --

There's an interesting creole/cajun place on the southwest side of town, on Brodie Lane, in a strip center about halfway between Wm Cannon and Slaughter, called Evangline Cafe. Typical po-boy and fried seafood menu, and have had soft-shell crab for the past couple of months. The gumbo is good, and they do a more than passable job on the 'classic' dishes. I was there a few nights ago and tried their catfish macque choux, and found it borderline amazing -- very nicely surprised. They have nightly live zydeco and other regional music to add a bit more flavor. It's a small place, about 15 tables, but atmosphere and food comparable to any roadside cafe you're likely to find driving down highway 90 west of New Orleans. I've never had a wait there, a hidden gem not far from Circle-C. Recommended.

The can/bottle has yellow ribbons & the splenda logo under the words "diet coke". This supplements the brand, not replacing the orginal formula. Apparently there are seven (!!) diet coke derivative products on the market.

One of my favorite Texas cookbooks is a trade paperback called Texas on the Half Shell, from 1982 and apparently now out of print. Mine's completely falling apart. Great collection of BBQ, sauces, Tex-Mex, and Texas standards.

I watched this thread in amusement, knowing that there's nothing that I wouldn't eat. Never run across anything, not in trucking around my favorite parts of this world. I've spent inordinate amounts of time cruising our borderlands, eating border food, animal parts that you'd turn your nose up at, little question. Then last night I watched a show on National Geographic Channel called Taboo. Their focus was on food (titled Delicacies), and boy did it hit a few food prejuidices that I didn't know I carried. There's a ritual in Greenland where they capture a certain type of shark and prepare it by having it rot, buried in sand for six months, continually decomposing. They do that to leech out toxins. Then they air dry it. It's called hakarl and is heavily ammoniated and smells of urine. I don't think I could eat shark that heavily smells of urine. There was another ritual in another country involving some sort of live-stock fetuses that didn't look too bad, but my girlfriend made me change the channel; bull-riding took us away.

I've done a gravlax using orange zest, sugar & tequila, packed in cilantro that's worked really well.

Not unreasonable. These burritos are the size of a baby's leg.

You'll see something like this Boiled PNUT Stand (this one found somewhere deep in South Carolina). These things are ubiquitous throughout the Carolinas and Georgia. What you can't see from the low-res scan is the four big boiling pots. Amazing little operation. *Argh! edited to move the image to someplace that allows direct linking - yahoo doesn't like it!

Enough of all this Mexican Food in Northern California talk… good or bad, at least you can find it. What I want to know is where is all the soul food?? I’m from Texas. My girl’s from Texas. Early last week we got the hankering for some okra, fried up right, with greens and cornbread, maybe some fried catfish with a cornmeal crust. Soul Food. Southern Cooking. You know what I’m talking about. Too lazy to break out the deep fryer, we did a web search for our kind of eats (searching most of the Bay Area) and came up with a few hits. Calling around yielded mostly disconnected numbers. We found two places open that we’d try over successive days. The first place that we went to was the Blue Chalk Café in Palo Alto. It looked promising. PaloAlto.net described it as: “down-home southern cooking”. Maybe that was true eat one point, but on this day the only thing “southern” on their menu was the bread pudding, and even that wasn't like mama would've made it. I ate a medium-rare thinly sliced steak on a fresh crusty roll, bathed in the most wonderful tangy blue-cheese and horseradish sauce. Good eats, no doubt, but not quite what we were looking for. Next on the list was a little place called House of Soul Food, found in an industrial area on Lafayette Street in Santa Clara, not far from the runways of San Jose Airport. This was more like it, a menu full of things like fried okra, mac & cheese, collards, black-eyed peas, fried catfish, fried chicken, fried whatever… good stuff, to be sure. It's a little mom-n-pop place, ten tables, mostly empty. My only complaint is that they didn't have fresh iced tea, just soda-fountain tea. Still, it was good, and I'll be back. So, apart from the House of Soulfood, where else can a transplanted southerner find down-home eats in the Bay Area? Please help.

Just remembered one though, El Pasa on El Camino in Mountain View. The food tastes very homestyle and it has a great comfy atmosphere. Ah! El Pasa is the Tex-Mex place I couldn't think of on El Camino (on the Los Altos/Mountainview border). Very comfy inside, and great out-back patio for warm evenings. Try their Sangria, if you haven't.

No secret, just don't skimp on the anchovies & garlic!!

I eat really good Mexican food out a couple of times per month, rotating between three restaurants in the South Bay. It occurs me that I only know the name of one, a place in Sunnyvale called Tia Juana; it's on East Duane just off Lawrence & 101 and right across from the back-side of the AMD campus. They have all of the expected the border staples, but also a nice selection of things you don't typically find at your typical South Bay tanqueria. My favorite mornings are those where I can break away from my office at about 9:15, just after they open, and sit in the empty restaurant eating spicy eggs and chorizo. No breakfast crowd at all, yet simply amazing food. Expect a bit of a lunch rush. The other places I eat Mexican/Cali-Mex/Tex-Mex are "that place on Homestead with the really good cilantro snapper"* and that "great little Tex-Mex place on El Camino in Los Altos". Sorry I can't be more specific. *edited to say that the "really good place on Homestead" is in the same shopping center as the new Trader Joe's.

I'm with you on the fish. This morning was pan-fried trout, cubed hash browns w/ onions, garlic, & fresh rosmary, and a fat biscuit with milk gravy.

I have never run across a food that I wouldn't put into my mouth, and very little of that wasn't enjoyed. There have been a few things that I have eaten where I had no idea what it was, and was probably better off for the ignorance...

One of the great gifts of God. - yes Would be intersting to plot the range of answers on a geographic scale. I'll bet southerners & Texans are disproportionately fans.

You want the Boudin Shop & Country Store, Chicken on the Bayou . Ten miles east of Lafayette, exit 115 off Interstate-10. It's cheap, mostly fried, and oh-so-delicious. You won't be sorry.

The Truck & Travel truck stop in Van Horn, Texas, just off Interstate 10 and three hundred miles from anywhere, has the best chicken fried steak in the country, bar none. If you're passing through at 3am with a jeep full of contraband, however, go for the huevos rancheros. It'll knock your socks off.

For a good Soul Food experience, give This is It on West Grey a try.