Three-Day Tour of Food

The short tour began on Monday night with Rudy's BBQ. I have heard many different reviews about this place in Houston. Mainly because Rudy's is well known in Austin and San Antonio. My friends still tell me that it is better there than in Houston. I still would not know since I have not tried it there but thus far the Houston location has been pretty good. Since it was Mitch's first time to be at the restaurant, the cashier gave us a sample of the brisket and turkey. The samples were yum. Mitch went with the turkey sandwich which was smoked with oakwood. The turkey was very juicy. Adding Rudy's BBQ sauce just made everything perfect. I went with the chopped beef sandwich in other words to describe this --- a sloppy joe. That's right, a sloppy joe. We added a side of Rudy's beans and cream corn. I had been craving for this cream corn since last year. Crazy huh? The cashier was very friendly and upbeat.

Sandwich to the left is the Chopped Beef and to the right is the Turkey Sandwich. Extra bread if needed.

Rudy's beans. I have tried many beans and this one was not too salty and to me it had a little spice to it.

Cream Corn. My favorite!

Close up of my Chopped Beef Sandwich

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The next day, it was time to head on to Cypress, TX to Rockwell Tavern & Grill. I have done a review on it before but this time we are going for the King Bubba. Now Red Robin has the same concept this burger called the Royal Red Robin Burger but King Bubba just topped it. The King Bubba consisted of fried egg, smoked bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo and of course the beef patty. The patty is freshly made and hand pressed. You can see that the burger is humongous! Taking the first bite of it was like heaven. The egg yolk dripping down the burger blending in with all the other flavors was perfect. The combination of everything together was just right. Like I had said before, words cannot describe the taste of Rockwell's burgers.

King Bubba

Later on that night, we had House of Bowls. This is a Cantonese style of Chinese food. We had ordered the Beef & Egg rice and the House Special Chow Mein.

Beef & Egg Rice

House Special Chow Mein

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The last day was BBQ Pork Vietnamese Sandwich. I love going to Don's Cafe! The food and service there is great. They are known for their BBQ Pork sandwiches. The sandwiches are called Banh Mi. I did not get a picture of this sandwich so for now I found a picture that is similar to it. I will replace this picture when I get the chance to eat this sandwich again. The BBQ Pork is very juicy and they have this homemade butter which is delicious. It can be quite addicting once you start telling them to add more butter to the french bread. The sandwich consists of BBQ Pork, a slice of cucumber, a slice of jalapeno, shredded carrots that has been soaked in vinegar and cilantro.

BBQ Pork Banh Mi

Ciao Bello

4-25-10

To celebrate Erica's birthday, I decided to take her to Ciao Bello. I heard of this restuarant from a friend of mine on facebook who also loves to try different restaurants and take pictures of them. When you walk in there, the hostess will ask you if you want to sit outside or inside. At first I said inside because I thought outside was sitting outside on the patio or something but I looked over and saw that the outside was covered and it was absolutely beautiful. It reminded me of a fancy green house.

We decided to order the Calamari Piccanti to start the meal and had ordered a bottle of white wine, which was light and sweet. Erica ordered the Risotto del Giorno and I ordered a dish (I cannot remember the name of the dish) that had calamari, shrimp, tomatoes, pesto sauce and linguine pasta. Then we ordered the Potatoes Arrostiti and we finished off the dinner with Assorted Gelati (pistachio, orange and raspberry flavors).

While waiting for our dishes to arrive, they gave us chips to dip in the olive oil dip. This was different since I usually have bread instead. After awhile the waiter came out with a basket full of different types of bread. Then a waiter comes by with a huge barrel of Parmigiano-Reggiano and asked if we wanted some. Of course! The cheese was absolutely delicious. Definitely was a great topping to our entrees too. The calamari came out and it was perfectly fried and the calamari was fresh. It was not tough to chew so that was a major plus. Then came the entrees. Everything was just delicious---the flavoring and everything were all blended so well. Finally the Potatoes Arrostiti came and my goodness, who can resist the taste of truffled potatoes?! Even though we were stuffed, we had to end the dinner with a dessert. We decided to just go for something light.

Overall dinner for the night was excellent. The waiters and servants were very attentive.

The fried chips with olive dip

Parmigiano-Reggiano

Calamari Piccanti

Risotto del Giorno

Calamari, Shrimp, Tomatoes, Pesto Sauce with linguine (Cannot remember the name of the dish)

Potatoes Arrostiti

Assorted Gelati

Pho Saigon

4-23-2010

I had a craving for some Vietnamese eggrolls and since Erica and I were running an errand, we decided to stop by somewhere along the way back to work. We ended up at Pho Saigon. I have not been there before but this restuarant has been there for quite awhile. We started out ordering the Vietnamese eggrolls (cha gio) which was delicious and it came with fish sauce. There are other Vietnamese restaurants out there that make it a bit different but the overall taste is the same. Since it was hot outside, I did not want to get Pho (noodle soup) so I started to debate on which rice dish I wanted. I stuck with my usual--- the bbq pork. The food was delicious and light at the same time. The rice dish also came with soup and the soup was the same as what they used in the Pho. The utensils that they gave us was wrapped in a plastic bag. It was interesting yet the idea was not bad because I have seen some Asian restaurants that leave the utensils out in the open so who knows what dust or whatever is out there falling on top of them. It just made things seem cleaner.

BBQ Pork with soup (top right) and fish sauce (top left)

Tuna

Ever since Monday of this week, I have been eating tuna with cucumber as a dip or sandwich or tuna corn pasta. Sounds quite healthy yes? Besides that, I have been eating string cheese and/or yogurt with my tuna meal. Yesterday was an exception since the plain bagel was just calling out to me. Overall I have been eating light. Today I went to Hong Kong Cafe and ordered my usual Fish Fillet with Cream Corn (no pictures this time). The fish was lightly fried and the cream corn was not too thick so everything seemed to balance out. It was not too heavy nor too rich.

Rockwell Tavern & Grill

4-18-2010

On a pouring Sunday afternoon, I took my brother out to try Rockwell Tavern & Grill. (http://www.rockwellburgers.com/ or follow them on twitter @Rockwell_Tavern) I went with Erica the first time and had a really great experience; therefore, taking my brother there was a must. This place has the best burgers I have ever had. Instead of the typical sesame bun that most hamburger joints have, this one is on a sweet roll.

The first time Erica and I ordered fried pickles and two Instant Vintage. We were extremely stuffed! So this time I wanted to try something different but the menu was quite overwhelming for me. Lol I ended up ordering the same thing as I did last time except instead of having fries for the side--I had sweet potato fries and they were perfectly fried. My brother ordered the Swiss Goddess. My goodness just looking at the melted swiss cheese and mushrooms, made my mouth water. The Instant Vintage of course is still my favorite. It is just like a bacon cheeseburger only better tasting! Let us just say that everything was fresh and the flavoring was blended very well. Oops almost forgot, my brother and I started off with the bacon wrapped asparagus. Yum!

Bacon Wrapped Asparagus

Instant Vintage

Swiss Goddess

Cafe Pita & Homemade Dinner

4-16-2010

I had heard that Guy Fieri from "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" (www.foodnetwork.com/diners-drive-ins-dives/) was going to visit Niko Niko in Houston. I decided to check out the site to see if the video was up and stumpled upon Cafe Pita located on Westheimer.



I finally decided to give it a try after a month of finding out when to go. It was not as crowded as I thought it to be especially since it was Friday. Then again we went there a little bit after the normal lunch hour. My friend and I decided to order the fried cheese, eggplant dip and the cevap (aka cevapcici- Bosnian national dish). The cevap was what Guy Fieri was introducing on his show so of course I wanted to try this out.

The fried cheese was lightly fried and tasted like a block of mozzarella that was a bit rubbery. Does not sound too good huh? Actually, it tasted pretty good and tasted even better with their homemade marinara sauce. Next was the eggplant dip. It was like the original hummus except it was more saucy which tasted light and fresh. The bread that came with it was really fresh and fluffy.

Finally, the main entree came which was the cevap. I was reading the Houston Press and the writer Robb Walsh explained on how to eat it. Good thing I read it before going there, otherwise I would have just sat there figuring out how to hold the whole thing up. It was about 6 sausage links (to me it looked like there were 8) served on an authenic Bosnian bread. The cevap also came with a dairy spread. Based on the article, it is suppose to be fermented clotted cheese that is made in the Middle East but since it is not available here, they whipped up a similar spread made of cream cheese, butter and feta. Then you have raw onions to go with it. In order to eat the sandwich, you would need to cut it into mini sandwiches and then put the spread and raw onions on there. It was delicious.

Overall meal was satisfying and extremely filling. The only problem was that the service was slow.

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Breakfast for dinner was what we had. I made some buttermilk pancakes (not from scratch). Then my mom's friend made omelettes. The omelettes consisted of red onion, onions, green and red bell peppers, tomatoes, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, and four cheeses. Then it was topped with fresh spinach. This gave the omelette a fresh crunchy taste to it. Also, my mom's friend baked salmon topped with garlic, which was really good. Yum.

Buttermilk Pancakes

Bacon and Sausages

Baked Salmon

Omelette

New Beginning with the start of Cheesecake

4-15-2010

I have no idea why I wanted to make cheesecake but I quickly looked up a simple recipe and bought all the ingredients. As I started to mix the ingredients, I decided to ask my mom how she made hers. From there I just followed her instructions. The only thing missing to this was a mixer. What was I thinking? How could I forget the mixer?! Since I started the mix, I went ahead and mixed it by hand (That did not turn out right). Oh wells, I already started the mix so I am just going to finish it. After baking the cheesecake, the taste of it was not that bad when it came out of the oven. You can heavily taste the cream cheese. You can really taste it after it was refrigerated. Not only that, my small conventional oven baked it unevenly that half was slightly burnt. So that was my first attempt.

Tonight I am going for my second attempt and this time I have a mixer! The cheesecake came out better than the last time! This time it tasted light and fluffy and with the whipped cream--it made it taste creamy. To top it off, I added a half cut cherry. The only problem this time was that I did not fill the cupcake cup to the top so it was more whipped cream than the cheesecake. It is okay but now I know and it will be perfect the next time.

My Second Attempt Pics:

Changes

I know that I haven't written in here for so long but I have decided to start something different with this blog. Stay tune for the changes. Hope it won't be too long of a wait.