Houston Eating Adventures

Last weekend my parents came to town to visit, celebrate our second anniversary, and join our (now annual) Super Bowl party. Of course, while they were here, we had to visit a few delicious Houston restaurants. My parents are definite foodies and we always try to explore some new places or introduce them to our old favorites when they visit.

Friday night we went to Oxheart for our official anniversary dinner. Oxheart consistently tops the Top 100 list, and I've been dying to go. However, they only have 30 seats in their tiny dining room and book up weeks in advance. Finally, I checked about a month ago and managed to get a reservation. And... it was fabulous!

I didn't take any pictures of the food, because I tried to enjoy. They do a 7-course prix fixe menu, and you can choose either regular or vegetarian (5 of the 7 dishes were the same, with the regular menu having a meat and fish course). The main course for the regular menu was wild boar (which everyone else loved) so I ordered the vegetarian. Each course was small, but every bite was delicious. Each element was composed, and the whole meal worked together. While we did not leave stuffed, we did leave satisfied. I would love to go back 1000 times, but my wallet would protest. As a note, while my family are avowed meat eaters, I think we all agreed that the best thing we ate was the smoked butternut squash that I had in place of the fish course. So... don't discount the vegetarian menu. Definitely worth it!

Saturday night we went to El Big Bad, a Mexican bar/restaurant in downtown. Dan and I had been there before with his parents, and another time at a pub crawl. I knew I had to take my tequila loving dad there for some infused tequila. We ordered a salsa trio and some tacos, and drank a couple margaritas. Yum! If you go here, my favorite is the hibiscus tequila, and whatever salsa has pumpkin seeds in it. And... there's also fried chicken skins. A-MA-ZING.

Sunday morning we had brunch at the HEB Niko Niko's. I know its a food counter in a grocery store, but its freaking delicious! And we rounded off the weekend with a big pile of meat from Killen's BBQ on Tuesday before they had to leave. All in all, a weekend of delicious eats. And I haven't even gotten to the Super Bowl party yet...

Houston Eats: RDG for Houston Restaurant Weeks

After the triathlon, we came home to clean up and take a quick nap before heading out to a 12:30 brunch reservation at RDG (named for it's chef-owner Robert Del Grande). It's also #35 on the Top 100 list that we've decided to follow around town. It's in the fancy Galleria area of Houston and you can tell from the decor, the prices, and the Lamborghini parked out front.

Wearing 3/4 sleeves and a maxi dress to cover my body markings!

Their HRW menu was a 3 course brunch for $35, which I decided was perfect for post-triathlon... I sure was rungry and I was not disappointed.

We started with mimosas! (bottomless for $9 and I definitely feel I drank my money's worth!)

 

First course: Cold corn soup with queso fresco and chipotle chiles in adobo for Dan

...and smoked salmon on toast with a fennel salad and some to-die-for lemony cream dressing all over everything for me. I scraped the plate clean.

Main course: A fancy version of steak and eggs (huevos rancheros style) for Dan- there was an amazing sear on that steak and the rest was spicy and delicious.

 I had the crab and potato hash with a fried egg. Two standout sauces here too- the white mustard cream sauce on the bottom, and the salsa verde on top.

 Finally, for dessert: A chocolate bread pudding for Dan, and a pecan pie for me. I love that the desserts were both individual sizes rather than slices of a larger dessert. Too cute.

So delicious. We'll definitely be back!

Houston Eats- Tokyohana for Restaurant Weeks

August 1st kicked off one of my favorite Houston traditions- Houston Restaurant Weeks. I'm sure it started as a single week once, but as long as I've lived here it has been a few weeks, and this year is up to a whole month.

What's the scoop? Restaurants sign on to offer set multi-course menus for a fixed price. Depending on the price, a specific portion of the proceeds is donated to the Houston Food Bank. Its a good opportunity to try some new restaurants while also helping a charity- let's face it, you were gonna go out for dinner a couple times this month anyways, so the donation is icing on the cake. (Sometimes, there's actual cake!)

For the first weekend of the month, I was craving some Asian food and we decided on Tokyohana- a Japanese/hibachi restaurant. The menu they offered was:
Choice of soup/salad- we chose the onion soup because its kind of the best part
Choice of appetizer: I chose the chicken gyoza, which were quite delicious.

 Choice of one of three sushi rolls:
I chose this roll with tuna, avocado, and a wasabi honey sauce.

 Dan chose the New Orleans roll with crab, cream cheese and crispy bits. (I only eat cream cheese in desserts and on bagels. Otherwise the texture creeps me out.)

 Then it was time for the main event! I ordered chicken/scallops combo, Dan had the steak/shrimp combo.

 Fire!

 And for dessert, tempura bananas with green tea or vanilla ice cream.

Yum! This weekend we're going to Melting Pot, which offers their usual four course meal (salad, cheese fondue, cooking fondue, and chocolate fondue) at about $5 cheaper than regular price. So we save $5 and get $5 donated to the food bank for each of our meals. Sweet deal!

Houston Eats- Kata Robata

Dan and I are on an adventure to eat our way across Houston. We are working on this list of the Top 100 Restaurants in Houston. Though I'm sure not exhaustive, and your mileage may vary, and whatnot, we like food and we like lists to we figured we'd give it a shot.

We've already eaten at a couple of these including our beloved Beavers (which never disappoints and I'm amazed it's all the way down at #86), Dolce Vita, and Kenny and Ziggy's (a restaurant my grandparents love so much they went there twice while in town for my wedding).  So I'm expecting some pretty good eats from the rest of the list. We tried to go in order, but number one is a small place that only seats 30 people at a time and was already booked solid for the next two months. So we started with #2: Kata Robata. In addition to sushi they have an interesting cooked food menu with meats and noodle bows and stuff. We went there on literally the hottest day of the year so far- it was 108 degrees in the city- so we opted for a bunch of cold food. (We actually ate this dinner over a month ago, but bad blogger Steph is just posting it now.)

The reviews were mostly good, except for the few old people claiming it was too loud and they would never go back. It has mostly unfinished ceiling and there was a bit of a din, but it didn't bother us. If you're big on atmosphere then maybe it would be a problem, but honestly I don't give a crap about decor or noise level or even not-great service if the food is awesome.

 And the food? Was awesome. We started with some Japanese craft beer, so that was cool. I had the white ale and Dan had Red Rice Ale. Both were tasty.

 We ordered all manner of sashimi, sushi rolls, and sushi. The white stuff here is a cauliflower puree, which I found tasteless and odd, but the kumquat slices stuck in it were a thing of beauty.

 Those red lines here are chili strings. Um, can I have these on everything please?

We finished our meal with dessert- Root beer floats with homemade beignets. The caramel dipping sauce in the foreground was good, but the blueberry dipping sauce in the back was the real star.

So what's the verdict? The dessert was incredible, the rolls were good, and I love that they had Japanese craft beer instead of just the usual boring Kirin Ichiban... but it was not particularly special considering the drive. Honestly, I think the sushi rolls are just as good at Tokyo Bowl, which is right next to JSC where we are nearly every day. Overall I'd recommend it, especially if you're already in the area, but not make any more special trips for it. If you want good sushi while visiting Houston, drive down to take the space center tour, and hit up Tokyo Bowl while you're there.

Wicked!

Wednesday night Dan and I headed into downtown for the musical Wicked.

Before the show we ate dinner at Artista, a restaurant inside the theater. It was super fancy, but also delicious!
First they brought out this complimentary platter of plantain chips with a tomato sauce, some sort of cheesy/garlic sauce that I basically wanted to eat straight with that little spoon, and chimichurri. It was delicious!

 The restaurant is known for its views of downtown...

(The restaurant looks so empty here... I didn't think to find a restaurant until Sunday and by then all the 6pm seatings were reserved so our reservation was for 5:30. Then we overcompensated for traffic and got there early. It filled up plenty though, there were no empty tables by the time we left.)

For an appetizer we ordered the hilariously named "lollichops," and you know how we love our meat-popsicles, so we had to get them. The sauce here was also amazing- a cucumber/mint/yogurt sauce. (Dan and I agreed at the end of the meal that while the food was good, the sauces were the real stars of the meal)

 We couldn't decide, so we ordered a couple dishes we both wanted, and swapped in the middle. I ordered the Shrimp and Polenta with tikka masala sauce (SO GOOD!):

 And Dan ordered the swordfish, which came with fried yucca and a blue cheese dipping sauce:

I was plenty full after that, but Dan wanted ice cream and I did drag him to a musical so I figured I should indulge him. Raspberry sorbet, coconut ice cream, and mango sorbet. All delicious!

 Before the show started I snapped a pic of the stage. Love how the Emerald City glistens green.

Wicked was fabulous and I highly recommend it.  Such a great story of friendship and girl power (and flying brooms). Maybe I'm a big sap, but I got a little teary eyed every time Elphaba sounded all hopeful about love, or life, or teaming up with the Wizard, knowing (as anyone who has seen Wizard of Oz knows) that she was going to end up the Wicked Witch.
I had read the book a long time ago, but don't remember much so I can't really comment on how closely it follows the book. I did recently just read the original Wizard of Oz book (which is free on Kindle because the copyright has run out- did you know you can get tons of old books free on kindle because of this. I also recently downloaded Little Women.) and it's interesting the differences between the book and the original movie. Amazing that such thin source material (the book is really short) has turned into a whole universe of movies, books, and shows.

And I'll leave you with my favorite song: DefyingGravity

Doesn't it just make you want to smile... and kick some ass?!

Weekend fun in Houston

Friday night Dan and I saw Iron Man 3. I liked it, but I don't think it was my favorite. He was too mopey for my liking. (Snarky Tony Stark is the best Tony Stark.)

Saturday we drove all over town doing errands, including picking up some picture frames to frame some previously unframed stuff that was cluttering up the house.

Some space prints, in the dining room.

Some more space prints, by the front door.

Says Dan: "Now we have a space house." Pretty true.

My degree and honor cord, Dan's karate belt certificate in the den.

Saturday night we went out to Dolce Vita. (I use Houston Press for all dinner recommendations in downtown... they have never let me down!) It was said to be a traditional Italian street cafe, and some of the best pizza in the city, so we decided to venture into downtown Houston and give it a try.

We had a Brussels sprout salad and fried baby artichokes to start:

And then the main event! Dan had a pepperoni pizza; I got a pizza with pears, arugula, and truffle oil on top:

It was quite delicious! The place did remind us of Rome, except for the myriad large and fancy cars driving up (nobody drove big fancy cars in Rome; just a bunch of smart cars everywhere). I don't think I saw anything like that pizza in Rome though- since I don't eat pork I basically had a plain margherita pizza or spaghetti everywhere; I was kinda dying for some salad by the end.... salad on pizza, even better!

After that we headed a couple blocks down the street to the craft beer bar Hay Merchant.  It's hard to see in the pic, but the whole back wall is just a ton of taps and beer names. It's awesome!

I ordered an amazing Hibiscus Wit, brewed right here in Houston! (Then we took a growler of it to go. No, seriously. This bar will let you take any of their many beers home in a growler.)

Excuse the cell phone pic, I was trying out my new phone! (One of our Saturday errands was to replace my sad old running-out-of-memory-constantly cell phone with a new HTC First! The camera is way better than my old phone, and it even has a flash!)

Sunday we ended up sleeping in until 11:30! Whoops! We ate leftover pizza from last night's dinner for lunch, then I headed out to the grocery.
This week's meal plan:
Sunday: Hoisin Burgers with Asian Slaw
Monday: Remember that boiled chicken I made last weekend? It's coming out of the freezer to become Curried Chicken Salad.
Wednesday: Baked Mac and Cheese and salad. (meatless night!)

And I just pulled an egg casserole out of the oven for breakfast for the week. (This + spinach and chicken sausage)
(Tuesday Dan goes to karate and doesn't get home until 9, so we usually eat leftovers or I grab some grocery sushi. Thursday is a SPARTAN happy hour celebrating our successful EVA 21 so we'll probably eat there.)
Happy week!

Also a birthday shout-out to my dad: (He doesn't read my blog, but I'm sure my mom will tell him about this!) Happy Birthday Dad!

Disneyland Half Week 14 Training

Only one week to go til the race! Let's check out the weather:

64 degrees? Wonderful!

This week I was struggling with getting back on a usual sleep schedule. In fact Thursday night was the first night I slept most of the night without the help of NyQuil. Not only that, but I felt tired, sluggish, and headache-y during "waking" hours. We had planned to get up and run Tuesday, but I got around 4 hours of sleep, spending most of the night lying awake wishing I could sleep, and just could not bring myself to get out of bed when the alarm went off, only about 2 hours after I had finally fallen asleep for real.  I usually can get myself to get up by saying that I don't need that extra hour, but that day, I really did need the extra hour.

Thursday- 6am wakeup call, 4.6 mile run
Planned for about 5 but I was missing my running buddy and just BORED. I think running might not be a good sport for me, because being alone on the road with my sneakers and my thoughts is not relaxing or therapeutic to me, but SO BORING.

Saturday- 5am wakeup call, 10ish mile run
I say "ish" because the Garmin died about a mile in. I charged it before my run Thursday and figured it had to have enough juice for a 10 mile run after only being on for about an hour. But I don't know if I accidentally left it on or if the batteries are just shot, but it was dying when I turned it on.
As usual we headed to Memorial Park for our long run, to have shade, water fountains, and bathrooms along the way. Towards the end of the 9th mile I started getting a little lightheaded so we walked extra, ate our last chews, and stopped at every water fountain along the way.  Luckily, as we finished up, we passed this happy occasion:

The Houston Area Road Runners Association had set up snacks and drinks, to kickoff the winter/spring race season (and remind me that only crazy people train through the summer for a Labor Day race when they live in Houston). We grabbed watermelon, Gatorade, beer, and a bagel to scarf down. It was like we had just run a race instead of a training run!

Yum!

Even though I felt kinda bad towards the end of the run, I think that if we had more chews it would have gone better so I'm not too apprehensive about the race next weekend. My plan is to bring enough fuel to snack at each of the 3 walk breaks and hit all the water stops I can. I also tested out my new belt pack with the camera and it went ok so I know I can carry that during the race too.

We hurried home so I could shower and turn right around to leave again, this time for a hair consultation for the wedding. Check, another thing off the wedding to-do list. Then I met Dan and his sister (who is visiting us from New Orleans) for lunch at one of our favorite spots, Beavers!

That, my friends, is Heaven on a plate.

 This coming week is a few short shakeout runs, then we leave for the race early Saturday morning. Dan's sister is with us for a couple days- she came for the weekend, but her home is about to be hit by Tropical Storm Isaac, so she's gonna stay a little longer.

Goofy goofballs get attacked by a Beaver.

Disneyland Half Week 7 Training

Halfway through our training, but summer is just getting started. I shouldn't complain, I guess, because it's been 100 degrees the last week everywhere BUT Houston. Lucky us.

Tuesday: 5:45am wakeup call, 4 mile run

Thursday: 6am wakeup call, 4 mile Tempo run
Oof. Honestly, I was not the least bit interested in getting up. The alarm went off and Dan asked "do you want to run?" "No!!!" screamed my mind. "Yes," I mumbled. Then I rationalized, while the clock ticked down. "What's the harm in skipping one run?" said the devil on my left. "You already skipped runs last week," said the angel on my right. "But I'm TIRED!" "But you won't really get anything out of 40 more minutes in bed." And so, up we got. To say that my whole attitude changed by the end of the run would be a lie. But I was not regretting that I got up and did it. So that's a start.  It was a pretty decent run too, 2 tempo miles in 11:38. Zoom! (Or something like that.)

Thursday night: Random stretching and leg exercises to work out some stiff leg kinks. Also did a few girly pushups... maybe one day I'll be able to do a real one. I hate that I have no upper body strength.


Sunday: 5:15 am 5:40am wakeup call, 6 mile run
I had one of those Saturdays where things didn't go right, so Sunday had to be awesome to make up for it. But Sunday started out just as crappy as Saturday! Alarm was set for 5:15. Fiancé thought he snoozed it but actually dismissed it. Luckily he woke up 25 minutes later and we got up. We got ready for our run and went to make breakfast- we usually have a freezer waffle with almond butter before long runs. But there were no waffles.  I found a smushed Larabar in my purse so we shared that on the drive to the park.
Ew. Lemon Larabar is a huge no-no. I like lemony things and bought it to try awhile back. The lemon flavor was fine (sometimes it can be fake and overpowering), but there was another weird flavor underneath it that was just wrong. Definitely prefer some of the other flavors I've tried.
From there the day got better. No pain in my knees this time, and the run went pretty smoothly despite the humidity. Thankfully we had overcast skies so it didn't get too hot after our late start. And we finished it off with a delicious breakfast at a nearby Jewish deli. Dan ordered Bagel Eggs Benedict- on a bagel and with smoked salmon on top. I ordered the corned beef hash.

We shared, but the portions were HUGE.  We decided to finish the eggs Benedict, since it wouldn't keep, and take a lot of hash home. Hello lunch tomorrow. For both of us!


Meal of the Week:
Actually I picked a bunch of really delicious meals this week.  I tried tempeh for the first time, and while the tempeh itself wasn't very remarkable (maybe that's the point?) the recipe was excellent. It would also probably be great with chicken- cut chicken into pieces, marinate in lemon juice, skip the water.
The Thai basil chicken was also great- spicy but not too much. So delicious! Fitnessista sangria, amazing (but really strong!). On fourth of July we slept in, had a big breakfast so had a snacky lunch:
Veggie dip (with bread, cucumber, and celery for dipping) and smoked chicken wings made by Dan, accompanied by his homemade blueberry beer!

 

But the winner was dinner that night: we made steak and potato salad. Amazing potato salad! She's right that its pretty tedious to grill all those potato slices, but it sure was delicious!

Sunday Set-up
Workouts: step back week
Tuesday: 3 miles
Thursday: 3 miles
Saturday: 4 miles
We're heading to Chicago for the weekend to visit some of Dan's family. It's been hotter there than Houston this past week, hopefully it'll cool down in time for our visit!

Meals:
Monday: Fancy burgers on the grill. Perhaps these?
Tuesday: Leftovers, grocery store sushi, or frozen something. And packing for the weekend!
Wednesday: Taco night!
Thursday: Pasta
Friday: Something from the airport, to eat on the plane. We're flying during dinner.