Culinary tour: one day tour in Houston, Texas

 

However I planned about a week's stay in Houston, Texas, we had hardly any time to really enjoy what the place has to offer. For one, we were there for a wedding. And second, we were dependent on someone to bring us any where.

Although the weather is hot, every thing seems nice and quiet, all places are a bit far from each other. Time seems to pass by faster than anywhere else, since travelling from one place to another is about one hour.

And finally the day before our departure, we got a culinary tour from our friend Steven, who is now sous chef. One advantage of touring with a chef is that you're assured of great food. And to top it off, he likes to try new things too.

So, our first stop was: Blacksmith

It is a café downtown, where we went for a cup of coffee. The place is small, but the service was excellent. From the cashier to the counter, I was given a big smile and it kinda felt as if they care. Their niche is that they have their own coffee beans and you can have your coffee and pastries, but also buy packages of coffee beans to enjoy it at home.

It's always a delight to have a cup of hot cappuccino to start the day, but receiving one with hearts on it warms not only your body and wake up your mind, but also warms up your heart. If you drink yours without sugar, the artwork should remain until the last drop. But I need sugar in mine, so I had to stir my coffee.

The coffee itself tasted totally different from what I'm used to. I've tried instant Coffees, Senseo & Nespresso Coffee and this was nothing like any that I've tried. It has an aftertaste of malt sugar or maltose syrup, what most Chinese use for the moon cakes.

We got there around 8:30 and it was already quite busy with people all over chitchatting and busying on their laptops. A stereotypical scene you would imagine of a coffee house.

According to this site, it is the best coffee house in Houston, Texas.

After my cup coffee, it was time for some breakfast. Our next stop was: Fat Bao.

For their menu, please check it out here.

Fat Bao is small in size and it opens around 11 am. It is an Asian fusion restaurant. The Bao is known as Chinese, some of the items are Japanese and some are Korean; all brought to you in their designed creations.
 
Our chef ordered the Fat fries, Fat Cauli & 3 different types of Bao. And since he knows we like it spicy, he also got some habanero sauce for us. However it could be spicier, but it was nice to know that there was at least something with that kind of heat.
 
The Fat fries are like loaded fries, but with Asian ingredients like cilantro, onion and bulgogi ( we chose for bulgogi). The Fat Cauli is deep-fried cauliflower with a curry twist. And then there's the Bao's. They all have a very rich flavor flavor and was surely worth our visit. We gulped these down with Japanese beer. Mine was very light and had a lychee aftertaste. I know it was probably not even noon, but hey,... I'm on vacay and 'it's 5 o'clock somewhere'.


However we only took some appetizers and small snacks, we were kinda full, so our next stop was 'The flying saucer' - a bar downtown. Probably we were not the only ones who were thinking 'happy hour', 'cause the place was quite busy for noon/afternoon. The place is decorated with saucers on the wall and at the bar, you can see all the different kinds of tap beer you can choose from and the bottled beers you can also try.

For beer lovers, this is surely a place to be. But one annoying thing for such a place, is to choose the beer you'd like to drink. To accommodate the guests, you're allowed to get a sample of the beer you'd like to taste. We try the special of the day, but it's not really something for any of us. And since they also have beer flights, we chose those. Beer flights are beer samplers. You get 5 different beers with each a small text about the beer. Since we're in Texas, I chose the Texas flight, the guys chose the Belgian flight. I did not like mine though. Most were either too acidic or too bitter. The guys did enjoy their Belgian flight though.


After we told the other guys about this place, we went to another branch at night. I had enough of the flights and just chose for the well-known Belgian Duvel.

 

 

The beer was really easy to drink, was not too light, but not too bitter either. I now understand why it's the favorite beer for most people.

 

 

Like I said, time passes by so fast in Houston. Before we knew it, it was already nearly 5 o'clock. It was time for our next tasting place: Arandas Taqueria. Since we seemed to be on a beer tasting tour too, we also ordered the Michelada. It has such a distinct flavor. You receive a cooled, salt-rimmed glass with what I believe is freshly squeezed lime and tomato juice already in it and you have to pour down the Modelo (Mexican lager beer) in it. It tasted salty, sour and different, but unfortunately not my kind of beer. Maybe because of my high expectations for Mexican food, the experience was a bit less than expected . It lacked spiciness and the flavor fullness.

 

We had planned to go to Taste of Texas to end the Houston tour, but our plans were unpleasantly disturbed by an invitation (apologies for the inviter, but we really wanted to try some Texan steak). We went for some Chinese instead.

But to end this tour with something worth remembering for, I'd also like to mention that Texas is the place to be for Vietnamese food. I went for Vietnamese twice. Once, we had some authentic Vietnamese snacks. And before we went to the airport, we went to a shop that only sells the Vietnamese Pho. There are only 2 sizes: small and large. So, since we were not that hungry we thought, a small should be do-able. Well....the size of the soup was so huge. No wonder they say 'Everything's bigger in Texas!'.