Lunch Squared . . .

Yesterday-Monday had last minute lunch hook up with Awesome Co-Worker.  She happened to be going to Whole Foods to run errands and I opted to go with.  We did food bar for lunch and ate on the nice little patio at the Whole Foods.  In Alexandria, Whole Foods was a massive part of our existence.  I'd say one of the saddest things about moving to Texas is the lack of Whole Foods in general and especially in The Woodlands.  Point being- I have missed you mightily Whole Foods.  Especially your big ass food bar!  I didn't see any of the strawberry shortcake like you used to make in Alexandria though.  Probably a good thing I didn't get to eat any though.  Hubs has asked me twice now in as many days if I am putting some weight back on.  WTF? Answer, not that it is any of your business: NO I AM NOT.  Back to the food bar:

Followed my nose to some Indian food and got a potato samosa, chicken tikka and chana masala and some naan.  Samosa was pretty good.  Not as good as the ones I pick up from the farmers market, but it did the trick.  Chicken Tikka was pretty substandard. Not much taste in the sauce or the chicken. Edible though so I ate it.  You know me. . . . chana was awe-some!  i just stirred it all together and mopped it up with the naan and was a happy camper.  As I said to ACW, "curry makes me happy."  Maybe a little too happy, but who cares.  Curry made Baby Awesome happy too so there you go.  Countdown has more or less begun for maternity leave for ACW.  Yay for her, boo for me.

Chana hiding under the naan.

Food bar I'll give a 3.5 due to the weakness of the chicken tikka, but it is recommended.  Whole Foods rarely does any of its food poorly in my experience.


On to today, Tuesday.  Ninfa Express bean and cheese burrito with guacamole and tomatoes and fresh tortillas!  when I say fresh I mean they took them right off the griddle thingy then boom! Made my food.  Sides of Mexican rice and some spicy ranchero beans.  $4.99 for all that too.  Can't eat that a lot though b/c that will for sure make me fat.  Reminds me-have to sign up for new session of the boot camp aqua torture class.  Did I mention I signed up to run a full marathon next year?  SO stupid.  I am fairly certain I will live to regret it.  Right now I am totally not into it at all.  Oh well.  I have until January.  And I will still be saying that in November.

"Hot sauccccce?"

Ninfa's burrito I'm wavering on.  It's not quite a 4, but it's better than a 3.5.  Well, whatever it is it's recommended.  Hasta luego beet-chez!

Random thoughts . . .

1) hot damn! Tate's cookies have made it to Texas! Woo hoo! If you don't know Tate's get some the next time you see them at HEB. They are from Long Island and crazy good. We used to eat them in Virginia. Again, Tate's. Buy them. GOOD.

2) Pancakes for dinner. Did a Bisquik variation per suggestion on box for the "ultimate" pancake. Hubs freaked out calling them the worst EVER. For real. No. 1 son however said they were fantastic. I'm going with Little Dude on this one. No offense Hubs.

Friday Lunch . . .

So after Wednesday night's high, Friday lunch comes along to offer a wimpering start to the weekend.  Today's bad lunch brought to you by Hearsay downtown Houston.

Large crowd today including Chungry and Ducky Momo and 3 ladies in our department.  Should have gotten the burger.  I ordered the sweet corn crab chowder.  It should have just been sweet corn and crab bisque.  Not a chowder. No chunks.  There was real crab in it though so that's something.  A little too sweet, but not awful.  If I'd known how bad my sandwich would be I would have gotten a bowl of it.

Thought I would try the tuna melt b/c the menu said it was some cranberry tuna salad that sounded different and good.  What showed up though was just a giant-ass lump of tuna with mayo.  Bun was toasted with white cheese and then there was more mayo spread on the bun.  Mayo overkill.  Zero flavor to the sandwich.  Does that look like it has anything at all in it let alone cranberries?  No.  Exactly.  I only had a few bites and stopped.  The little side of fruit was really good and fresh though.  Go figure.  Thanks for nothing Hearsay.

Seriously?

I brought the leftovers back and put them in the fridge for the 24/7 people on the other side of the floor.  Someone is bound to eat it.

Update 4/29: As confirmation of what a lame and sad sandwich this was I went across to the other kitchen to check on the sandwich.  NO ONE ATE IT over the weekend.  And let me tell you, the people that work the weekend and over-night shifts here WILL EAT ANYTHING.  I have the stories to prove it.  Once someone took my half drunk tea with straw that I'd had at lunch. God love them but they are animals when it comes to respect for food in the fridge.  If none of them ate this sandwich then it is possibly the WORST thing in the world.

Ducky Momo had his funny hat on so at least the meal was entertaining!

Chungry did give me a slice of his burger to try and it was pretty good.  Very nice fresh bun which is half the battle if you ask me. Nothing ruins a sandwich like bad bread.

Hearsay gets a 2 and I'm not planning to go back unless it's unavoidable.

Special Dinner Post

Written in the cab on the way home with a somewhat intoxicated afterglow. Dinner at Provisions with drinks at the bar with Sartorial and Twist! Did not know Twist was going to dinner until halfway through the day today.  Needless to say a wonderful surprise. Started off with some lemony vodka drink. I asked bartender to make me her personal fav vodka drink. I think she faked it b/c she was ragging on vodka being boring while she made this. Whatevs. Not bad but not as punchy as I really prefer.  Involved lemon juice, celery bitters and champagne.  Kind of flat was what I kept thinking.  Followed by red wine. God bless the bartenders at Provisions. I was completely overloaded with info when trying to pick something out and made the mistake of asking for a recommendation.  Result was Sartorial egging me on to try everything red by the glass on the menu--which was not so bad really.  Back to the info dump on the wine, and gin and pretty much anything else that came up-- words like sea foam and loamy and salt spray came up in the conversation.  Wound up with something not bad from Spain.  At the table moved to Angela pinot noir from Willamette Valley in Oregon. Kick ass.We had two bottles.  When I say "we" I mean 3 out of the 6 people at the table and perhaps myself most of all.  What can I say.  It was really really good.  So what all was there?  As noted in previous post, Veggie Tales, Sartorial, Twist, Outside Counsel and another fun surprise--Boss Lady!  It was quite the party.  Not sure in retrospect if we were all laughing or if everyone was laughing at me. Nonetheless, it was a good time!

Started with bone marrow brioche and tomato jam with goat cheese Gouda at the bar. Eaten together as a mini sandwich in the brioche; pretty damn tasty.

Bone marrow brioche

Other food: honest to god, we ate so much I'm not even sure what all we had. [see menu here] Pretzel bread with cheese. Mussels. Oysters.  Some raw sashimi tuna. Oh and a pizza with tomato and some cheese on the side (burrata with burst tomato and pizza bianca). Fan-freaking-tastic. Also had three pasta dishes. Something with crab. Something with duck. A mushroom thingy.  All good, but I liked the duck best. In my buzzed state I told some dumb story about eating gross gnocchi in Civita, Italy. (I think the point of it was to say I have not touched gnocchi since that fateful afternoon. Although we were not eating gnocchi so not sure how that came up.)  We got every dessert too!  Bonus, and benefit of eating with law firm partners! Favs of mine were the rhubarb soft serve. The beet cake and curry pineapple upside down cake were also lovely. I sucked down a cappuccino then Sartorial and I hit a cab home. Had a great convo (as I recall it) but I can't tell you about what! Those are the best dinners. Overall, evening was a Yay! I think I was just happy to be out socializing and not paying a babysitter (sorry Hubs, and no offense to my darling and brilliant offspring.  Mommy loves you!)  Outside Counsel is one I have not seen a while and it was great to visit and catch up. He is unusual in that he is a normal person and not a complete tool-which is why I left law firms.  Too many tools.  All in all, a great evening both company and food wise.

Update 4/27: Geez, forgot the BEST dish of the night: Curried mussels with cauliflower.  TO DIE FOR.  And yes, I do like curry.  Put some curry on a wad of paper and I would probably at least try it.

THE CURRIED MUSSELS

Pass & Provisions I'd give a 4, and recommended.

The fab pinot noir.  Hubs is praying I don't find this anywhere easily accessible.

It's a bone! with tomatoes.  I appreciate the macabre presentation.

I ended up with 2 wine glasses that I think was a running joke the rest of the night.

Um, thnk this was the crab pasta?

lobster roll.  it was just meh.  too much mayo but nice celery crunch.

curried pineapple upside down cake

dessert carnage

Menu b/c I couldn't recall what all the desserts were.  yeah, you can't really read this.

Yuzu sherbet with beet cake, a delight. 

The duck pasta thing

Marginal vodka cocktail.

OMG, how could I forget this!?  Ham o' Day.  Freaking phenomenal!  Melt in your mouth.  Don't eat pork?  Too bad for you!

Oysters

Carrot cake donut. I only had a little bite b/c I knew Twist was dying for this.  It's fried.  Need I say more?

Big eye tuna, raw.

That's a Bummer . . .

Well not a fun day. Babyman not feeling well so stayed home with him and went to see the Dr. This morning. That ended up taking an hour and a half for shots and some other stuff. I did manage to take a big load of stuff to Goodwill though. Yay for me!

Lunch was homemade pizza using some questionable ingredients but they passed the smell test and I'm not dead yet from eating it either. Pizza was jimmy dean pre cooked sausage and Trader Joe olive tapenade. With cheese of course. Not as disgusting as it sounds. It was actually pretty decent all things considered.

Best part of day was long afternoon nap that was sorely needed after being up with the babymeister a lot the night before.

Tomorrow having dinner with Sartorial, Veggie Tales and an outside counsel plus someone else from the office but I'm not sure who. Going some place that naturally, I have never heard of.

Yodi out.

Something New . . . .

Still busy as hell today but had time for lunch that was from somewhere other than downstairs.  Turned out that some people went to lunch without even bothering to see if I might want something or want to go.  Twist also unavailable tied up with something and working through lunch.  Bummer.

Not sure how I came up with this but wound up ordering take out online from Bombay Pizza Co.  Went there once, geez, probably 2 years ago and liked it but it seems no one else does and no one goes there anymore.  Got a paneer kati roll with mint cilantro chuntney (way better than it sounds).

SO HAPPY!  Loved my roll.  Although half way through found a hidden pocket of rogue cilantro and had to go in and do a surgical strike to remove most of it.  Mental note: when getting again ask for light or no cilantro.  Again people, A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY.  And I mean a long long way, like into next week.

Naan was good, paneer was good.  next time I'll try chicken.  Full and happy.  I had looked at desserts when ordering to see if they did mango lassis.  Sadly, no, but surprise! They have lemon bars.  I'll have one please.

Bar turned out to be pretty freaking big.  Great flavor but the consistency is a little chewier than I think it should be.  its not really like pie consistency, its pretty dense filling like someone got carried away with cornstarch or something.  And, actually now that I think about it more vs just eating it I'm starting to get a little gagged by it.  Maybe this is a one off.  I'll have to try it again.

to recap: Paneer roll, awesome! 4 microwaves and recommended.
Lemon bar, meh. could be better.  a 2.5 for now and I'll put a hold on lemon bars until I can revisit and see if they are always like this.  If so they will be NOT recommended.



Update: Accompanied Twist to Wendy's for his lunch and was rewarded with a chocolate Frosty.  How awesome is that? I ate it b/c I had only had like 2 bites of the lemon bar before it started to gross me out.  Feelin' preetty good right now.  On another subject: I can report that I have lost 44 pounds since this time last year.  Few more sessions of boot camp ought to do it.  HOOYAH!

No Big Whoop . . .

But incredibly satisfying. BLT from skyline deli in lobby. On croissant that has been smashed to hell in the panini press. Actually makes it easier to eat. Bonus: I got a whole pickle. Ate it first so no picture.

Folks often disparage skyline. I'm 50/50 on it. Some things are too high. Like I just paid $6 for a blt which is insane. It's the most basic of sandwiches. But overall it's not bad provided you don't get the baked goods or get too fancy.

3.5 and recommended.

Hella busy so lunch is at my desk. Shout out to my man DKB who just discovered me on Twitter!

Dumplings

Fresh today and they are the bomb!

Eh.

Thursday had Kobecue with Ducky Momo and New Guy. It was ok. Prices seemed high for a rice bowl so I submitted to my cheapness and just had one spicy pork taco.

The menu did not lie. It was spicy but in a good spicy way. Not in a mouth numbing way. Too much cilantro so let me say yet again to all these places that have decided cilantro is a must have garnish: a little goes a long way people. Stop acting like its lettuce and burying my food in it. So I picked about oh nearly all of it off and it was fine.

Ducky and New Guy got rice bowls. Ducky's looked pretty good. Didn't hate it but didn't love it. It was fine. I'd go back.

3 microwaves and yeah, I'll recommend it. No reason not to yet.

Backstreet's Back . . .

Work lunch today with Twist, Boss Lady, and herbivore co-worker I will dub Veggie Tales. Lunch was an interview with potential hire at Backstreet Cafe off Shepard in River Oaks. Never been there before. Now, I am in love.

Darling patio and charming sun room that opens out to patio made for very pleasant atmosphere. Day before Twist and I had done a menu breakdown both zeroing in on the jambalaya as potential lunch choice. I did, however, say that if there were any seasonal crawfish specials I would have to go that route. Indeed, today's menu included the seasonal crawfish cheesecake. How gross does that sound? Totally, right? I thought so too but my curiosity got the better of me. Even the waiter was like, "wha?" when I ordered. It came with a nice little green side salad that I sucked up. The cheesecake was really more like a quiche but not as eggy. Very light and fluffy. And very freaking AWESOME. I can't even really articulate the symphony of flavors and the execution of this dish other than to just say it was really damn good. Really. The crust was light and flaky. I ate the whole slice and wasn't too stuffed or full. Just the perfect amount. The red pepper sauce it was in was even good and I believe my distaste of red pepper has been well documented here.  It was simply, The Shit.

Twist did in fact follow through on the shrimp and ham jambalaya.  I didn't hear him raving about so will assume that it was ok but not the best until I hear otherwise from him.  Veggie Tales got the lump crab salad.  I toyed with getting that but I just kept thinking it was an actual salad and picturing lots of mayo.  Oh how wrong I was.  Behold:

crab salad

No lettuce and mayo there.  Looks pretty pretty pretty good if you ask me.  I cleaned my plate and felt so good that I decided I would be ordering dessert (by the way, I'm back at aquatic bootcamp so figure I can have dessert if I want to, especially b/c I swam about a mile last night and did umpity-ump push ups and jumping jacks).

bye-bye crawfish cheesecake

I have a pecan pie thing--Backstreet had it on the menu. Boom. Done.  Everyone else was a loser and got no dessert and I didn't offer to share.  Get your own damn pie.  You see it wasn't a slice either.  It was a cute little tart-y pecan pie.  Again- wow.  Perfect toasty pecans!  Good pecan to filling ratio and good filling.  Now, I am a purist and don't like chocolate in my pecan pie.  This did have some stray bits of chocolate so those bites were kind of a bummer, but it wasn't enough to render the whole thing bad or to be too noticeable, which I appreciate.  And, before I forget, may I give my compliments to the pastry chef at Backstreet?  Or whomever makes the pies.  This is far and away some of the best crust I have ever had the pleasure of eating.  Light and flaky, not too rich.  Nice body and set off the filling well.  My personal preference would have been to have a dollop of some vanilla cream or homemade whipped cream on the pie rather than ice cream. but then I don't like ice cream on my pie.  Don't really get it.  Those 2 items should just go separately.  Maybe that's just me.

Pecan pie

All in all I would say the lunch was a rousing success.  Food was awesome, the weather was awesome, the sun room was awesome.  I gave Twist some Wendy's coupons and think I am finally out of the doghouse with him-also awesome.  and it's Friday-awesome!  Oh, and my daughter, Precious Perfect is 3 today.  Not quite as awesome but still pretty cool.  She is my greatest joy and my greatest challenge on a daily basis.  Go listen to Sting's "All Four Seasons in One Day"  that is my kid.  God help us all.  Happy Birthday baby!

I give Backstreet Cafe a 5 and a Hellz yes! Recommended.

Brennan's. Meh.

Finally getting around to my post on dinner at Brennan's.  Super famous and longstanding Houston tradition.  I had not been yet after 3 years here though. Everyone raves about it so I was fairly pumped about going.  That and free liquor.  What's not to like?  I'm thinking because this was a banquet menu and about 200 people were being served that some of the luster was missing from the food and service.  We got seated late thanks to a late dinner speaker and from there the service just fell off a cliff.  Everything was super slow and seemed sort of disorganized.

The menu started with turtle soup.  after you get your bowl they come around with sherry and give you a splash.  I couldn't tell that it added anything.  Bottom line, I wasn't real impressed with anything I ate so I think I need to go back in a non-banquet scenario and try again.  Everyone raves about the turtle soup.  It could have been anything.  I didn't really note anything that made it unique or special.  It was just kind of average spicy soup.  Sort of had a chicken tortilla edge to it.  Next was a salad.  it was fine. Had goat cheese which I am always in favor of.  ate all of that I think.  Entree choice was either a fish Pontchartrain or a beef tenderloin.  I went with the fish.  It was a serving of rice (which I wanted more of, it was good) topped by a slab of some white fish and a fried oyster, dollop of jumbo lump crab meat and a shrimp I think.  Small shrimp and over cooked.  But the crab and oyster were good.  It was in some spicy sauce that was not bad.  Dessert was Brennan's famous bananas foster.  So- yeah I'm not really a banana person. I have a very small and particular window for criteria that has to be fulfilled to eat a banana.  We didn't gt to see them make the dessert.  It was getting late so the servers just ran around throwing bowls in front of everyone.  Mine had a lot of sauce, ice cream and bananas that were too ripe for me (black along the middle which I don't do.  like at ALL) so I ate the ice cream and that was it.  Coffee was good.  Wine was good.  Speaker, also meh. He talked for an HOUR.  We didn't finish until nearly 10 at which point my bespoke office buddy and I jumped up, thanked our host and ran, RAN out of there.

 

This *really* did not photograph well

Since I didn't eat a typical dinner at the restaurant I will reserve a rating and recommendation or not until a future date.  For a banquet, however, I will give it a 3 on food.  Setting was nice.  I liked the place the food was just super underwhelming.  Really a bummer and not worth staying out late for (and then effectively ruining my entire week b/c I never got caught up on my sleep).

Dinnertime!

Tonight, Trader Joes chicken parmigiana with linguini. Wow. Wow. Really good. Huge portions too. Two people could easily eat this. In fact I'm hoping Precious Perfect will eat this except at the moment she is stuffing her face with apple slices. Classy. I like this marinara. Not too acidic. Just good plain tomato sauce. If PP doesn't eat this I guess I know what I'm having for dinner tomorrow night.

I'm going with a 4.5 microwaves. Recommended.

Now if someone can just explain why my kid keeps calling me "Stepmudder" that would be great.

yeah, so this doesn't photograph very well but I swear it tasted good.  Even Little Dude ate some and he is one picky little shit.

Where to Begin?

So woefully behind here people and for that my apologies.  I have been working like a crazy person which means no time for blogging.  I suppose though i'm not really supposed to be blogging while I'm at work anyway.  Why don't I do it at home you ask? Because when I get home there are 3 kids a dog, a cat and Hubs to take care of.  You try using the computer with a toddler climbing all over you like a jungle gym yelling that she wants to sit on your head.  Good luck with that.

Here's the brief wrap up from last week:

Monday- Brisket House.  This time I got pulled pork.  Super delish. a 4.5.  AND smelled smokey all day.  That is a bonus or not depending on how you feel about smoke.  Almost forgot- one of the Ladies Who Lunch had been to a G.R.R. Martin thing over the weekend and I got some sweet Game of Thrones/HBO swag.  A super sweet new pen!  Yeah, it's a pen but who doesn't like a good pen?  If you don't, what is wrong with you?

Tuesday- dinner on airplane.  When the Bus class ticket is a difference of $100 from regular and the economy is all sold out anyway except for a few of those BS econ plus seats, I will get business class every time.  Why not when I will be checking a bag and buying food anyway?  By the time I do that and pay for the economy plus upgrade it's all a wash.  So anyway- some kind of a spinach stuffed pasta and smoked salmon appetizer.  The salmon tasted fine, just looked a tad anemic.  Pasta was very nice, the filling was good and fresh tasting.  Here is my question.  How come all the salads I have on planes always seem so fresh and crisp?  What is it about airplanes that magically crisps a salad?  Crispy iceberg is truly a delight.

Wed. I was at the Boston Logan Hilton.  Hotel was kind of crappy and outdated but food was surprisingly good.  No photos but kudos Hilton for a very true croissant and a nice lunch and cocktail spread.  your bartenders make a mean V&T, which I appreciate.

Anemic Salmon to the right there.  Can't seem to get the photo in the right spot.  Next up we have this lovely Fritatta to my left from Quattro at the Four Seasons.  We had some out of town guests from NYC visiting and staying at TFS so we met them for breakfast Friday morning.  They have 2 boys and widely got a private dining room for us.  They are smart.  So this was billed as a gluten free egg thingy.  I don't care about gluten free but it sounded tasty so I went for it.  Portion was ginormous AND it was in fact tasty.  My Little Dude ate all his pancakes and a fruit cup and a scrambled egg.  Babymeister had scrambled egg and Precious Perfect had a little bit of everything and some bacon.  That's my girl!  Thursday night our friends came to our abode for grilling.  Did not take pics but I grilled a massive 7 lb beef tenderloin, made burnt green beans and corn pudding.  All came out well I have to say. 

Saturday I took Little Dude to the farmers market after his fencing class and got some vegetable samosas.  I have not had these since LD was maybe 2 and his babysitter used to make them for me.  These were Nisha's and they were glorious.

That brings us to to today- Tuesday where I had a work lunch that was chicken shwarmas from Droubis Bros.  The pitas were pretty stale which was annoying and made the sandwich hard to eat but flavor was good.  Lots of garlic to the point where I really can't have a close conversation with anyone for the rest of the day.  Hubs be warned.

 

After work I have a dinner thing hosted by a law firm at Brennan's.  I will try to take pictures.  There is bound to be lots of d-baggery as well if I were just to take a wild guess. . .  I'm going with a co-worker who totally got me in trouble with Twist too so have spent the day atoning for that.  I may finally be out of the hole on that one though.  Am considering not drinking tonight to see if he starts circulating a pregnancy rumor that I then get to quash.  The co-worker that is, not Twist.