A Culinary Tour of Houston
By: Smith Schwartz |
Just imagine Erik’s eyes are open…
We met lots of fun folks at SXSW, but only one invited us to spend the weekend at his house.
Not only did Aziz, Sania and their littles have us down to Houston for the weekend, they really went out of their way to show us around town. We were there a mere 29 hours and made it to all of the following:
Vietnamese noodles for lunch Rice University Menil Museum Drove around Wes Anderson’s/Rushmoore neighborhood Saw the inside and grounds of The Galleria Dinner at Ninfa’s on Navigation, the birthplace of the fajita Spec’s, the largest liquor store ever Had evening coffee in their super comfy backyard Aziz and the kids brought us sprinkly donuts in the morning Lunch at the Ragin Cajun Apres-lunch buffalo burgers at Bubba’s Texas Burger Shack The Orange Show The Beer Can House Bayou Bend (Home of Ima Hogg) Johnny Dang’s Grillz Dinner in Chinatown for some famous chicken corn soup
Oh yeah, we slept a little bit too. That’s an impressive 29 hours, no?
As you can see, our biggest emphasis was on the food. Houston is an amazing food town, and we certainly made a big dent in the few hours we were there. One of our favorites was The Ragin Cajun, a New Orleans transplant to Houston after Hurricane Katrina.
After a couple of months in Argentina, we were so excited to see a shelf full of hot sauce.
Directly after we stuffed our bellies with crawfish, shrimp and hushpuppies, we went for burgers. We were so full that we had to have them split it into quarters.
The craziest thing about Bubba’s is that it’s in the center of a spaghetti junction, surrounded by highways. Back when Houston decided to build all those highways, he dug in the spurred heels of his cowboy boots and refused to sell his long-standing restaurant. As you can see, Bubba fought the law and well, he won. He’s got the same address he’s always had, just with a very different view.