Cascadas Restaurante y Cantina

12126 Westheimer Rd., 77077.

This Mexican restaurant boasts fame from its cuisine alongside atmosphere. Cascadas has both indoor and outdoor dining, a tequila bar, landscaping complete with a waterfall. I had dinner here on a Friday night, well after dark. We sat outside, much to my astonishment, wasn’t that bad. The weather was a little chilly, but I had my jacket.

We sat right in front of the mini-waterfall, and it even had a sign that says, ‘do not swim’. There are palm trees in the back which really tries to bring you away from the fact that the busy street of Westheimer is a 5 feet away. The outdoor dining area supplies diners with iron patio chairs and table… I’m not too fond of sitting on those thing to begin with, I think they really should of used nicer setting for outside. I guess, thank goodness it wasn’t plastic lawn furniture. Besides that it was dark, but they had waterfall lighting up near the ‘wet’ area. Some like the dark mood setting… but for me, again, I love bright fluorescent lighting. Makes me able to tell if a place is clean or what not… Dark places are usually a hit or miss with me.

So we grubbed on some chips and salsa and margarita. I’m not a big margarita drinker so I can’t really say if they serve good ones here, but it was very sugary sweet.

The appetizers are skipped in hopes of, once again, a light dinner (Friday night people! You know what that means). I ordered the Carne Asada, mesquite grilled beef tenderloin cooked to perfection Mexican style. I was just going for meat that day and was very surprised. It was served on a hot plate and it came in two pieces, perhaps 12 oz together. One was plenty for me that night, I ended up taking the other piece home. Underneath the tenderloins we have squash, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes. The ‘Mexican style’ of this dish is a special sauce. I can be compared to the Chinese black pepper sauce, very peppery, but delicious. The tenderloins themselves were extremely tender. I am not sure what technique or spice they used, but I desperately NEED to have it! Even though I ordered my steak medium, it came out medium rare. But I ate it anyway because it was so tender. The tenderloin cut does not have a lot of fat distribution, so I wonder if they beat this piece of meat for the better part of the day…

The Carne Asada comes with rice, beans, pico de gallo, guacamole and tortilla. I didn’t get a chance to try the tortilla to tell you all if it is the good homemade kind, but I am sure it will be better than store bought at least. Not really crazy about the rice, actually it had a weird flavor… I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I didn’t like it. Everything else was the same as anywhere else.

This place has potential to be a great place for relaxing outside, next to a man made waterfall that is, sipping on margaritas… all afternoon. If you go, you definitely must try the Carne Asada, very very tender and not shabby for $16 at dinner. I, however, must go back a second time for experimental purposes. I need to try it again to make sure that it is consistent, yes.

Max’s Wine Dive

4720 Washington Avenue , 77007.

During my many online searches of hip and new places to eat at… I can across this restaurant, or dive as it is called. Think of this place as diner meets upscale wine bar. They serve diner food from macaroni and cheese, burgers, fries, to lots and lots of wine. The ingredients used for the fare are all high quality stuff. Instead of regular ground beef burgers, you get kobe beef burgers, instead of cheese steak you get osso bucco with black truffle cheese, get the idea now? True, some people might believe why make diner food gourmet? Why spend $20 for a burger? Well, I say, you got to spice life up and keep it interesting… and this place certainly is.

I wasn’t looking for a big dinner on a Friday night… never do because there is always somewhere to go afterwards, but I did want to try out this place. I went with my buddy A, and we practically stayed here for at least 2 hours just talking. It was noisy inside and we sat next to the restroom, but we still managed to have some good conversations… I think wine helps. I started out with a white wine… a Riesling, I wanted something sweet.

I stuck with the appetizer menu and ordered, guess guess, Scallops… St. Jack’s. Seared New England diver scallops dusted with sumac and cocoa, served on top a creamy butternut squash and coriander seed risotto. I think I will try to stay away from scallops for a while, because that is all that I am showcasing right now. The scallops were seared right and the risotto was good. I could taste the hint of cocoa on the scallops which was a refreshing addition and the squash risotto was very creamy with little yellow chunks, soft. No complaints, but I don’t think A was a big fan of them.

A ordered the Rib Basket, Asian inspired 100% Six Point Berkshire baby back ribs with hoisin glaze and sambal. We made a joke with the line of chili sauce across the plate, denoting that ‘that’ is what made the dish Asian. But in reality, the taste was very Asian. I liked how they took the time to stack up the ribs but… I can’t help but hope they wore gloves to do it. The ribs were not dainty; all were good size. The taste was sweet from the hoisin sauce and the sambal, which reminds me of Singapore, was toned down a lot. It wasn’t spicy at all. American tastes I guess. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of sweet stuff for entrees and I tend to not order Asian influenced anything at a none Asian restaurant… I just don’t care for it because I’m very particular on my Asian food. But I think A liked it better than the scallops… eh.

As a little side dish, we ordered the lovely presented Max and Jack’s Frites, fresh cut, skin-on Russet potato fries tossed with Max’s secret fry dust. Nothing fancy about the fries… although there was a discussion on what went in the secret fry dust. We came to a conclusion that there was definitely cinnamon and sugar of some sort giving off a hint of sweetness. It was okay and the dip was some sort of a mayonnaise concoction. I try not dipping in it too much… its like fat on fat.

This place was so packed when we got here and it took a while for us to get a seat. Plan to arrive early for happy hour… and even as we finished, there was still a lot of people. Again, the environment is loud and crowded, definitely not a romantic place, but more of a hang out. Half of your life’s secret can be shared in this place, why? Because everyone else is talking so loud and you will start talking just as much, fully knowing that with all the background noise, no one can hear you anyway.

I’d recommend this place for a fresh, hip, hangout… beware of yuppies.