Archive for the 'houston' Category

04
Oct

Bice evicted from Galleria, Gigi’s lives on

By Misha 2 Comments
Categories: houston, restaurants and thai

Spending some time at the Fox Sports Grill (against my will) I noticed that Bice was only a couple of feet away. I have been to Galleria III dozens of times since Bice opened a couple of years ago and never realized where the restaurant was actually located.

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For about a year now, I have been planning a lunch visit, but the few reviews of it convinced me that I need to be a bit more dressed up than I usually am at work. I work for a software company. Putting on slacks is considered on occupational hazard. The few times I was appropriately dressed, I found the lure of Brennan’s or Da Marco too much to ignore.

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No regrets there, but still. I waited too long. Bice was closed. Letter in the window advising the owners they can get their keys back if they pay a ripe sum of $164,731.37 (seriously, how do you fall this far behind on rent?).

Continue reading ‘Bice evicted from Galleria, Gigi’s lives on’

01
Oct

Myung Dong back on the map

By Misha 0 Comments
Categories: houston, korean and restaurants

Myung Dong might be the most carefully camouflaged restaurant in Houston. There is no listing for it in any of the food guides for Houston. Even Google isn’t aware it exists. The only reference I found to it was from an Alison Cook review - from 1994.

Although there is a small English sign on the shopping center marquee it fades almost completely into the background. The convex shape of the building and the odd glow given off by the green plastic that drapes the windows make the structure look like a decommissioned a B-movie spacecraft. It certainly doesn’t look like a restaurant.

I went in anyway, convinced that only people intent on keeping great food from n00bs would go through this much trouble to hide it. My original destination was the La Roca next door, which serves up some of the best pupusas on what may be the best stretch of pupuserias in Houston. Korean food in this neighborhood? Not so much.

Step inside Muyng Dong and you may wonder if you have been transported to North Korea. Few people know what North Korea really looks like, but I have been to more than a few Soviet institutional spaces to easily suspend disbelief. Naked fluorescent light fixtures. Brown window treatments. Formica tables. Surplus cafeteria  chairs.

The food I had at my one and only visit, however, was quite good.

Normally I’d eat bibimbap at the restaurant because the best part comes from the crisped bits of rice at the bottom of the bowl. Myung Dong packaged the rice, meat, vegetables, sauces and a perfectly fried egg separately that I was able to use my favorite cast iron pan to get the exact consistency I want at home. The red tinted rice was a bit more flavorful than typical white rice, so I think my next bibimpab order will be at in the dining room to see how it tastes when it doesn’t have to travel.

 

The typical sides that come with the Korean meal seemed quite a step above most restaurants as well and seemed more like foods you’d find in a Korean home. The kimchee was excellent, but my favorite were the tiny little dried fish, which look like seaweed salad, but have a great briny fishy taste.

 

The seafood pancake, often a flat crepe-like affair, had the consistency and volume of a very moist and doughy cornbread. I could have done without the imitation crab, but other than that it was the best part of the meal.

30
Sep

Beefing with Tenacity

By Misha 1 Comment
Categories: chefs, houston and tasting menu

Power back on. No longer living like a nomad. Reservations made for the Albert Roux dinner at Voice (awesome). And I am going to Minneapolis next week, which means I get to visit Heartland for some good Midwestern eating (suspenseful). More important, there is finally enough juice in this city do some proper supper clubbing (thrilling).

Maybe I am having mild withdrawals, but the menu this Thursday looks very, very nice. Past dinners have been summer appropriate - light ingredients and light preparations. The shopping list for this one, however, is pure bovinity - just in time for fall.

supper club & georgia’s grass-fed beef

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thursday october 2, 2008

  • cured grass-fed beef, coleslaw cream, crackling & potatoes flavored with beef fat
  • jarred coddled farm eggs, lardo, white toast, bacon bouillon & salad burnet
  • caramelized calf’s liver, baby onions, georgia’s honey & hibiscus flowers
  • charred rib cap, malabar spinach, quince membrillo & smoky salt
  • whole roasted free range chicken laced with black truffles, flowering herbs & lots of butter
  • roasted ribeye of beef, smoked red wine & buttermilk madelines
  • broken pound cake, goat’s milk caramel & foamed raw goat’s milk rice pudding

Contact Randy to reserve a spot. Meanwhile, amuse yourself with a few shots from the dinner on August 6th at the Modern B&B (which is a gorgeous space, BTW). A few choice dishes from that night:

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The cured rainbow runner served with macerated citron & fresh cayenne chili was the first time I had come across this uncommon fish, also known as rainbow yellowtail, Spanish jack and Hawaiian salmon. Apparently it was the first for Randy as well, who got by contraband that very morning from Bryan Caswell. Bryan takes his fish pretty seriously and was equally geeked up about it - rainbow runner made an appearance as a special at Reef that night as well, I hear. Either because it was extremely fresh or just because it was a new to me, but the texture and flavor of this fish were superb - as buttery and clean as highest grade Aji with more delicate flesh. Very, very nice.

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Without a doubt, the highlight of the night was the shellfish course - gulf shrimp, cauliflower-sesame tapenade & aromatic bubbles. The shrimp was served whole and seemed completely raw, but in fact was carefully disassembled into sections, some of which were barely cooked or cured, and re-assembled again into the shell for the final presentation. The cauliflower-sesame tapenade added a really nice texture to the dish, tasting almost like reconstituted corn meal with none of the corn taste.

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Most controversial course - grapefruit confit, mangosteen & lavender, which Randy poached something like 24-25 times to get to almost candied consistency. People who enjoy grapefruit loved this one. I have hated grapefruit all my life and had real trouble with the bitterness, but what struck me was how concentrated the essence of grapefruit was in this dish without sacrificing much of the texture. Love it or hate it, it was a very interesting thing to at least try to eat.

28
Sep

Why is this man licking his lutjanus campechanus?

By Misha 0 Comments
Categories: chefs, houston and openings

Driving by the the space that once housed Greenberries and Antone’s Market I noticed the location is about to get new life, this time as Ruggles Green.

The banner on the building reads like a mish mash of pizza, sandwiches, salads and other “fast gourmet” snoozers. Not that I don’t want a place to grab some pseudo upscale fast food when I am on the go (actually I don’t), but because this is the 87th time Ruggles tries to develop a mass market concept that can be easily franchised. None of them work.

This time won’t be any different. Ruggles Green will face the same fate as Antone’s Market. Why go there when Whole Foods is right across the street? Legacy Restaurants would have been better off handing the space over to Alex Padilla, so he can finally put the batter back on the chile rellenos at Ninfa’s on Navigation and do something productive with his culinary talents.

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Bruce Molzan wooing a red snapper

If you aren’t already titillated by this Ruggles Green news, consider going to the Ruggles web site anyway. The Bruce Molzan  Next Food Network Star audition video is priceless in all sorts of ways and should put to rest all doubts about how he feels about overfishing. Enjoy.

03
Sep

Tenacity Supper Club (July 10th)

By Misha 3 Comments
Categories: chefs and houston

I’ve been eating well this summer. Maybe a little better than well. Come to think of it, this has been a spectacular year for food. Chicago, Sydney, San Francisco (mostly outside of SF, really), Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels. You’d think that coming back home to Houston after all this would be a bit depressing. Instead, no matter where I end up lately I keep thinking that I am missing yet another gem of a dish at the Tenacity dinner.

Tomorrow I am getting on the plane to Boston and will miss yet another supper club and this one hurts more than usual - the menu this Thursday looks especially great. If you have not been to one of these yet, do yourself a favor and go. I won’t promise that everything you eat will blow you away. Sometimes you might even wonder just what the hell Randy was thinking (don’t tell him that - he is very sensitive), but odds are there will be at least one or two dishes that you’ll think about for a long, long time.

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This happened to me most recently at Alinea, where I was served an excellent smoked cobia dish presented in a bowl with a smoldering splinter of wood that slowly gave off a scent of smoke. It was a very dramatic presentation and the dish really worked. What was I thinking while I was eating it, though? That the smoked cobia I had at a recent Tenacity dinner nailed the flavors much more effectively.

Served with an intense brown butter sauce, that somehow involved no actual butter and really spiked the smokiness of the fish, the cobia was easily the crowd favorite that night. For me, it tied for gold with the warm terrine of wild boars head. Table side pyrotechnics aside, the scrappy supper club in Houston beat out the top table in the country and this is why I hate missing the Tenacity dinners.

 

 

Here’s the rest of the menu that night:

thursday july 10, 3008
barely cooked gulf shrimp & tartare, sprouting radish, kyuri & baby lemongrass
amberjack, leche de tigre,  gelled tomato, rhubarb, yuzu kosho & red veined sorrel
chilled 3rd coast shellfish nage, octopus, neri uni, crunchy pig ear & celery pistou
best parts of the pig, shimeji mushrooms, courgette, marigold & foamed hollandaise
cobia smoked with apple-wood & broiled, red malabar spinach & creamy brown butter
guava smoothie & a sense of coconut déjà vu
corn pudding’, whipped agave nectar, papaya, caramelized dairy & poppy

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