Xanadu

Lovely excursion today with Ducky Momo, Twist, and Chungry today for diner food.  Avalon Diner looks new on the outside but with an old soul like someone scooped out an old diner and took the interior to a strip mall. And chungry says that is pretty much the deal.   And there you go. 

Twist and I both opted for frito pie. The other two had some version of breakfast with hash browns.   The side of bacon was kind of pricey at $3.25 leading DM to spend a bit of time haggling with Chungry over sharing bacon.  

Chili was nice. Much better than canned. Although I eat that too on frito pie. Could have used more Fritos.   The bowl was too much for me sonTwist and Chungry ate my leftovers with hash browns. 

Had to make a phone call during lunch and was pleased to be able to use an old phone booth as refuge. Noticed several of the staff using said phone booth as resting spot as well. 

Biggest drawback for me is location. Avalon is on Westheimer. I hate driving Westheimer.  Half of it is under construction. It's just never pleasant to drive. 

Avalon Diner gets a 3.5 and recommended. I need to try more good. Oh. Wait! Almost forgot. Avalon makes killer homemade lemon and limeade. I had a limeade. Came in a big silver mixer like a shake. Very tasty. They also have excellent crushed ice.  This will sound stupid but it was like hand crushed. It was awesome. 

Return of the Mighty Wing.

I have to admit when Twist told me McDs  was putting Mighty Wings back out I was pretty excited. That's right suckers. The Mighty Wing is not new.  I fondly recall noshing on these at a McD in Switzerland   Let me tell you they were GOOD. No lie. Twist was a baby the first go round so he's been chomping at the bit to try these but hasn't found a McD near him yet that has them. I promised to cruise the one by my house and see if they were in. They were!!

Behold 

Spicy. Bold. Delicious. 

That says it all. Even better, it is accurate. They were spicy. A little too much for me but not fatal. Crispy and juicy.  Delicious? Yes. Yes they were. I'm not sure what sauce these come with but ranch would be good.  I was in the drive thru and didn't feel like quizzing the order dude on it and he didn't offer anything helpful.  Plus I got cheated out of the fries with my meal.  Booo. 

If you don't like spice I wouldn't bother with these. I'd also only order these during peak meal times. Lots of potential for these to be dried out and nasty if not made fresh and just sitting around waiting to get served. 

Azuma zoom zoom . . .

So our group had a new paralegal start last week resulting in welcome lunch at Azuma. Usually I just get sushi there but thought after 3 years I should try something else.  So rice bowl with name I can't recall it is! Fried pork cutlet and veggies with soft poached egg on top. Huge portion. Pretty damn tasty. Success!  

What little I know of Japanese food I think this tasted pretty authentic. While I'm talking about Japan, Hubs and I have hatched a plan to go to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics! Already excited. Stay tuned. 

I've never had a bad meal at Azuma. 4 microwaves and I recommend it. 

I Give Up . . .

I am getting so far behind on this blog it is embarrassing.  Doing a long recap post to get everything up to date.

Last week I had surgery on my sinuses and nose.  Kind of sucked The first day I was a big baby about it to the point where I was emailing sad pictures of myself to my Moms for sympathy (while totally high on painkilelrs.  I even texted a pic to Twist).  Normally I am not so much a big baby, but my head felt like it had been scraped out and stuffed into my nose.  Wednesday I think all I had was a milkshake.  Milkshakes are my preferred remedy for about any medical situation.  Vanilla.  Thursday Awesome Coworker came over with Awesome Baby and brought lunch.  How nice was that?  You see, there is a reason I code named her Awesome.  A collection of salads from Whole Foods.  Thai coleslaw (spicy), Kale salad (sweet and delish), um, something else I don't recall that was also tasty and mixed fruit.  Since I found out I am allergic to canteloupe I am off the mixed melons for the most part.  I subbed in a Hawaiian roll which ACW sadly, could not have b/c she is dairy free for baby.  A sacrifice I am not sure I would be willing to make for my kids.  Sorry Kiddos.  It's true, you rank beneath dairy.  Cheese at the very least if I had to choose.  Baby was adorbs and bonus for me, I got to do some holding, some feeding and some snuggling to sleep.  Ahhhhh.  No.3 son is out of the snuggle phase.  :(  He's moved on to constant movement, screeching and taunting phase.  But he is still cute.

Anyhoo- it was so so so so nice to hang out with both.  I hope they will come back!  Mostly b/c I think I owe her money for lunch.  I did get to keep the kale afterall.  I thought the kids would love it so I gave everyone like 2 bites on their plates at dinner.  I got one outright no way, but the other two ate it--i thought.  After dinner I found partially chewed and discarded kale at various spots on the floor.  Honestly though, it tasted really good and wasn't bitter or anything.  I'm not sure what the dealio was.

I dont think I have a picture of the salads.  I'll post and go look.

Um what was next? Friday I don't even remember happening.  I did drag myself out to see Elysium with Hubs.  Pretty good.    Love Matt Damon.  Especially love that he is just as believable in drama as he is in action stuff.  He has turned out to be a pretty good action hero person.  Plus he has a normal wife and like 4 daughters.  How can you not love that?

Oh wait-- Tuesday before my surgery I went with the ladies here to Tacos a Go Go.  Me plus 3 other gals that I don't yet have names for.  I should eat with them more.  They are a riot.  Did a breakfast taco- egg with tomatoes, cheese and refried beans on corn tortilla AND, a Mexican Coke.  i.e. Coke with real sugar in it.  soo good.  and cheap.

Labor Day weekend didn't have any food worth mentioning.  And now today- I blew an opportunity t have Ducky Momo and Chungry bring me Treebeards so I ended up having to get a box from Starbucks.  All they had was crackers and cheese.  I like crackers and cheese so that is ok.  the green apple it came with was horrible though.

Take Two . . .

Ok- so I wound up going to Benjy's a second time a few days after my inaugural visit.  Orchestrated a work lunch for my group and our VP.  My group includes Boss Lady, New Cubed and Veggie Tales.  Aside: Veggie Tales is having twins in December!  Holy shit.  I can't even wrap my mind around that. I don't think I have the mental skills to deal with 2 kids at the same time who are on the same level of need.  However, b/c it's babies I am super excited for her.  If anyone can conquer twins it is Veggie.

So- went with special, Lamb stew.  had gnocchi in it which we know I usually don't dig, but this was not so gag inducing.  I ate about half of them and then picked out everything else.  Meat was tender, the gravy was really nice.  I can't remember at all what the wait-dude said went into it.  No one did dessert, thus that portion of the menu remains untested.

I can say though that Benjy's is very much on top of filling the water and tea.  And, I never thought I would say this, so much so it is in fact very annoying.  If you use sugar forget it.  The minute you get the balance right the guy swoops in and fills your glass.  At one point I was forced to do a very aggressive hand-over-the-glass manuever to keep away the refill.  It was so frequent my iced tea never once got even as far as half full.  It was like two sips, refill.  4 sips, refill.  My next strategy was just to act like i was drinking my tea everytime the guy came around.  While on the one hand I greatly admire and appreciate the attention to the refill, on the other hand this was totally nutso refilling.  I felt like the refill dude should have just been eating with us he was at our table so often.

Pic is not the best.  I mean its stew so really, how nice can it look? Ultimately chili and stew look like bowls of mud at best.  Do not let it fool you.  It was the shizz.  I'll just put this out there, I like lamb.  For the most part no one can cook it worth a damn other than a lamb chop.  I mean how hard is it to cook one of those?  However, anything else seems to befuddle the majority of kitchens.  Perhaps it is the quality as well.  Whatever the constributing factors were here, the results were very nice indeed, and I thank you for that Benjy's.

4 out of 5.  I shall return.