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.

Food 101

4969 Roswell Road, Suite 200, 30342.

I made a quick trip to Atlanta, Georgia two weekends ago for a quick visit with the relatives. Of course when there, I wanted to eat out at something fresh and new, for the sake of this blog! Anyhow, my cousin made a reservation to a restaurant called Food 101, online… it was quite nice to receive a dinner reservation confirmation by email unsuspectingly, I must say. Kudos to you cuz for using opentable.com!

It was located at the end of a shopping strip. As you can see, Altanta was snowing that day. The reservation was for 6:30pm and the restaurant was just starting up so there wasn’t a lot of people around.

The table setting was nice and all was well, we had light conversation through the bread and butter.

For the first appetizer, I decided to get the Kobe Beef Tartare. I’ve never had tartare before, or so that I can remember… so this was a good opportunity as any to get it, especially since it will be made with ‘kobe’ beef. Basically a steak tartare is just raw meat combined with an egg, spices, and lemon juice. Horseradish aioli was served on the side to try and counter the mental phobia of bacteria lurking in raw meat. This dish was very tasty. There was no raw off flavoring you might get with non-fresh meat, and the spices complimented the meat well. The BBQ potato chips were freshly made and tasted quite delish as well.

The second appetizer dish was the PEI mussels chosen by my lovely cousin. The mussels are soaked in a roasted tomato broth and toasted ciabatta bread is provided on the side. The mussels tasted fresh, plump, and juicy. We ate it all, and didn’t even waste the bread.

For my main course I had the George Bank Scallops. I love big scallops. The scallops were seared, maybe a little tad bit too much, but it didn’t deflect the flavor of the fresh scallops at all. What came underneath the lusciousness, was a mushroom asparagus risotto. I don’t remember having risotto, but this risotto reminds me of oatmeal. Is it a taboo for me to call risotto oatmeal? Well, that was the closest thing I could think of. It was more like plump oatmeal, very tasty though mixed with mushroom and asparagus.

My cousin had the buttermilk fried chicken. Fried chicken done in upscale restaurant is just different. You can tell that lots of attention was given to the selection of the pieces, the thorough-ness of the batter coating, and the time they took to fry each piece. The fried chicken, more like chicken tenders, came out extremely juicy and not greasy. With a little brown gravy on the side makes it just right. The Idaho potatoes were whipped. At first taste, it was so light, reminded me of potato flakes, a different stance to the usual heavy mashed version.

Overall, this restaurant is definitely worth a second trip. I would try out some of their other southern fares while there. The prices might be a little high, but compared to other restaurants of the same caliber, it was expected. If you are ever in the hood, give it a go.

Kelley’s Country Cookin’

2933 E. Broadway St. 77581,

On 9/14/07:

Have been joying over the idea of getting to eat CFS again… (thats chicken fried steak for you all) and this time at a place I have not been before. I’ve heard many talks about how large the portion size is at Kelley’s, so I decided it was time to check it out for myself.

Upon entering the establishment, I started to notice the crowd. It was mainly Caucasian, senior citizens. I could tell that it was very family oriented, with children and middle aged couples all over the place, definitely not an ‘it’ place for teenagers to hangout. Didn’t matter to me … but sometimes I felt like they were all staring at me… blah.

I ordered the chicken fried steak special, it was $6.99 and came with a dinner salad, regular sized chicken fried steak with white gravy, french fries or mashed potatoes, and Texas toast or corn bread. The CFS was good size, I didn’t finish it all, but I could have… if I did, I would not feel well. Anyhow, the taste was okay… I know of a better place for CFS, but the catch at Kelley’s is ‘bang for the buck’, definitely lots of food for the amount they charge. It was simple country cooking really… not too special. I would probably go here again, if I was in the area and I needed something to sober me up, or if I was just plain mad hungry.

My buddy ordered the CFS breakfast special, $8.99. It came with a ‘Texas’ sized CFS with gravy, hash brown, 3 eggs, and biscuit or toast. When they say Texas size, they mean it… the whole plate was the CFS and nothing else! It was huge. 3 eggs alone is a big deal considering 1 egg = 90 calories. And the hash… it seems like they used a whole Idaho potato for the hash and we are not talking about a weak sized potato too, must be those king size ones. The depressing part was that the big-as-your-face biscuit is only served between a specific time and we could not order that… instead there was toast, but the toast was not Texas sized like all the other things they had… it should have been for kicks.

Overall, its a simple place for country cooking. They serve lots of breakfast items, I was quite amazed at the menu, it was pretty long, with regular fares like steak, pot roast, chicken dumplings, etc. It’s similar to IHOP and Waffle House… but cheaper and with bigger portions. Go for the experience, that’s what I have to say.

Mom’s Country Deli

7918 Pinemont Dr., 77040

Went to this mom/pop shop for lunch today, since lately been on a country food craze… oops… just realized yet again I forgot the store front… pai seh. Its nothing spectacular.

As you enter the shop you are infront of the ordering line, menu is on the walls which you can take your sweet time to read or just go on right ahead and order from the counters. Its glass buffet style counters so you can see what you want before you order (cafeteria-isque). It was a tough one for me, I could have easily gone for the usual CFS like I normally do at other restaurants (btw, it was my first time here) or try out something different. They had pot roast, meat loaf, cat fish, chicken and dumplings, as well as the usual fair of sandwiches and burgers. I initially wanted chicken pot pie, but they didn’t have any, so I went with the chicken and dumplings.

The chicken and dumplings came in a bowl and 2 sides. I ordered the mashed potato and mac n cheese. I suppose it was a carb day for me and how I loaded up. 1 meat + 2 sides = $6.77. After you pay, you can go to the condiments bar and grab rolls and cornbread. I got a jalapeno cornbread and it was very good. The chicken and dumpling didn’t really please me that much… I hate to say it, but I like the flavor of Dinty Moore better… but the quality was of course better than canned, it had big chunks of chicken and big balls of dumpling, its just that the flavor is not what I thought I was looking for. I like grainy or really really cheesy mac n cheese, but theirs did not have the right texture for me. I don’t like it liquidy and runny… clumpy is better. Honestly, I think I make a much better mac n cheese casserole (just wait till I do again). The mash potato was pretty good, I was happy. But then again, I can make a good mash potato too… the white biscuit gravy was tasty, now that I cannot do.

My coworker had the meatloaf, and it was fantabulous. I wished I had ordered that instead.

My other coworker had cfs, and I tasted it, pretty good, but I need the whole portion to really judge it. And let me say, I ate lots and lots of cfs lately, so I deem myself qualified to judge whats good.

Texas Roadhouse

13345 FM 1960 Rd., 77065

So, like always I am behind… this should be dated 2/11/07. Anyhow, Texas Roadhouse (big chain) is much like the other Roadhouses with offerings of steak and bbq and country food, mmm. As you enter the restaurant you will know how Texan the place actually is by the placement of peanut shells all over the floor and a huge barrel of roasted peanuts greeting customers at the door and and decor of course. Yes, the peanuts were delish, I probably ate a whole bag full waiting for seats. It was a Sunday around noon, there were lots of families (probably off from Church), the wait was around 20mins.

One cool thing is that the hostess showing us to our seats carries a basket of soft rolls to the seat with us. It’s so convient, we can eat right when we sit down, and also, a small tin bucket of peanuts also awaits us at the table. The service here is quite like no other… it was awesome, the attention our server gave us was amazing… we must of had 4 baskets of rolls brought to us one after the other. The great part about the rolls is that they come with a sweet whipped butter, probably consisting of cinnamon and brown sugar, it was different and enjoyable.

Now… for my lunch I ordered the country fried sirlion steak (because I am still on the CFS obsession right now, trying to find the best in town) with sides of Texas house chili and steamed veggies (~$10). The chili was pretty good and hot on a cold day. The cfs was different because it was sirlion they used and not the usual cubed steak, I could tell the difference. The meat was thicker and better tasting. But, I don’t think their batter lives up to some others. It was just okay though, not crunchy, and very very oily. I had to use my napkin to dab off excess oil because I felt like it was swimming in it. The white gravy was very very thick and I prefer something in the middle. The steamed veggies, like the post before, was probably marinated in butter oil before steaming… tsk tsk.

My friends had ribs, ribs, and some steak. The ribs were pretty dang good, I think I would come here next time for the ribs. It has the usual thick red bbq sauce and fall of the bone pork meat…. kinda like Tony Romas (yum!). The steak was okay, cannot compare to TLC. Loaded baked potatoes are always welcoming…

All in all, the food was decent, but the service was way above par. I think if I was craving ribs, I would definitely go back, otherwise, maybe not so much.