Brown Bag Deli

Let's get the bad out of the way first: Brown Bag Deli has outgrown its Westheimer location. The mirrors on the back wall don't belie the fact that this place is tiny. Though there are plenty of tables, a couple of them are literally right up against the food line, meaning that if you sit there you will likely be jostled by a purse, a tray, or even another person. Therefore, no one sits there, and there aren't enough seats. If you're a little bit claustrophobic (like I am) these sort of things are a major problem.

Now on to the good: the food at Brown Bag is fantastic. You order by filling out an order sheet printed on a brown paper bag. You check off what meat, cheese, bread, and toppings you want and hand the form to the girl behind the counter, greatly cutting down on wait-time and eliminating the need to yell your order at her. Why every restaurant doesn't have you order that way is beyond me.

I went with the roast beef on wheat bread with lettuce, mayo and tomato. Nothing fancy, but Brown Bag doesn't do fancy. The most exotic thing they offer is jalapeno-cheddar rolls. What Brown Bag does is simple sandwiches very well. My bread was still warm, slightly sweet and very soft. The roast beef was perfectly cooked, without an ounce of gristle. All of the toppings were fresh, crunchy and flavorful. This was as close to a perfect sandwich as you could get.

Houston has some great sandwich shops. I've been to Potbellies over on the Southwest Freeway, and they do a good job (for a corporate place). I've been told our Which Wich is pretty good too. But Brown Bag is different; it's a local place, with only 4 locations, all in Houston. It has a local feel. It sounds cliche, but the food at Brown Bag is made with love. That isn't something you get at Subway.

Lankford Grocery

I enjoy burgers. I've blogged about Hubcap before. I've blogged about Christian's Totem. But last weekend I went all out and had my first burger from Lankford Grocery. Lankford is the stuff of legends: rated in the top 5 by Texas Burger Guy and featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. Needless to say, I had high expectations, and I wasn't disappointed.

Let's start with the seating. One of the coolest things about Lankford is that you don't have to wait on line to order a burger or get a table. All you do is sit down and wait and the waitresses find you. I recommend eating outside, if the weather's nice. With shaded picnic tables and coolers full of coke in abundance, the outside seating at Lankford's is reminiscent of a backyard cook out.



But with better food.



I kept it simple and went with a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings. My burger was perfectly cooked, thick and very juicy. Unlike some other Houston burgers I've tried, this burger had just the right amount of salt. The toppings were all very fresh, but if I had one complaint, it would be that there was too much bacon. That's right, I said it. You can have too much bacon. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE bacon and this was quality stuff, but it overpowered the flavor of the burger and threw the balance of the other toppings off. Easy solution though: just pull off a little bit of the bacon and eat it later, maybe coupled with an onion rings.

The onion rings: normally I think of side dishes served with burgers as throw aways. I'll try them, but I don't ever expect them to compete with the burger, and I've never tried one that's been better than the burger. These rings weren't necessarily better than my burger, but they were really really good. Very crispy, very large, and a tad bit sweet, I managed to wolf down quite a few before my stomach started threatening to explode.

Service at Lankford isn't exactly fast, but the waitresses are very friendly. One word to the wise: you don't wait for your check. Just go inside and tell the man at the counter your name and that you were on the porch, and he'll give you your total. This seems counter-intuitive when everything else has been served to you at your table, but now you know.

So you might be wondering at this point, whose burgers do I like better: Hubcap, Christian's or Lankford? Hard call. The burgers at all three of these places were really good. If I were judging on food alone, I would probably say Hubcap. However, if you factor in service and atmosphere, I'm going to have to go with Lankford. As the cooler days of fall (hopefully) approach, sitting on the porch at Lankford will only become more appealing ... and the food ain't half bad either.

Blue Nile

I decided I wanted to try Ethiopian food after it was featured on a recent episode of Top Chef. A competitor from Beaumont claimed she didn't know a lot about Ethiopian food since there are no Ethiopian restaurants in Dallas or Houston. I knew that couldn't be true, so I did a little Google search and found Blue Nile.

Blue Nile is located in a store front in an area which needs, shall we say, a little revitalization. As soon as you step through the front door, however, you know you're in for a treat. The restaurant is decorated with straw baskets and Ethiopian artwork, and each table is boasts a single rose. No table has silverware, and none is offered, as you're expected to eat with your hands. The waitresses, all Ethiopian immigrants, couldn't have been more friendly or more patient with us; they made suggestions on what to order and explained how to eat it. For the first time in a long time we were completely outside of our element, and it was more than a little fun.

We ordered vegetarian sambusa as an appetizer. We were treated to a freshly fried pocket filled with a spicy lentil mash. One was enough for both of us to try, and it was a nice start to the meal.

For the main course, I ordered Yebeg Tibs, a lamb dish sauteed with onions, jalapenos, tomatoes, and a spicy sauce. Our waitress recommended it. My husband ordered the Goden Tibs, beef cubes cooked with hot pepper and onions. It all arrived on the same plate, along with a red sauce, some kind of slaw made with cabbage, and a green salad (which I believe was added for American palates, as it didn't seem to fit with anything else). Never seen Ethiopian food before?



Now you have.

Everything was served with injera, a spongy flat bread made with the extremely nutritious teff grain. Alone, injera tastes a little bit like sourdough, but it pairs well with just about anything. What you do is tear off a piece of injera and use it to scoop up and eat the various other components on the plate. And though it might not look like a lot of food for two people, it fills you up quickly.

My lamb was well prepared, and not nearly as spicy as one might imagine. However, the real standout on the plate for me was the red sauce. It tasted like something I enjoyed eating as a child, although I couldn't really place it. At the end of the meal I was using the injera just to scoop up the sauce and eat it alone.

Not only was this a very filling and tasty meal served by some very nice people, but it was cheap too -- each entree was under $15, and the sambusa was only $2.75. You probably can't do better than that for a nutritious sit-down dinner .

Laurenzo's On Washington

** Sorry -- I forgot to bring my camera today!! So no pictures! **

We went to Laurenzo's for lunch today. It's a cozy little place off the beaten path on Washington Avenue. The walls are a punchy yellow color, with leather seats and pretty Tiffany lighting. The hostess seemed like she was in desperate need of a cigarette break (my husband actually whispered to me "I'm sorry we ruined her day by showing up"), but our server was competent and friendly. Right away I felt like I was going to like this place.

The menu is pretty impressive. I noticed the Ox Tails first, but decided to pass since it seems like more of a dinner dish. Instead I chose to go with their vegetarian "burger". What arrived was a slice of portabello mushroom on a sesame seed bun, dressed with lettuce, onion, grilled green tomatoes, red pepper, and lots and lots of goat cheese. Lots. I love goat cheese, and I loved this sandwich, but it was messy -- certainly not something you would want to order on a first date or a power lunch with your boss. About halfway through I wimped out and started eating it with my knife and fork, but I still ate every bite. It reminded me of my favorite kind of pizza on a bun.

The hubs got the "famous" French Dip. He didn't say much about it, because his mouth was full. I think that's a pretty good review. He did mention that his fries could have stood to have left the deep-fryer a few minutes earlier than they evidently did, but I like my fries a little crispy, so I have no complaints.

Bottom Line: Laurenzo's is good. It's a little pricey for lunch (our two sandwiches, plus cokes and the tip, came to $45), and a little out of the way, but it's worth both the drive and the money. I'll be going back for the ox tails (and something off of their impressive drinks menu) for dinner soon, and hopefully you'll be there too.

Avalon and 59 Diner: A Tale of Two Breakfasts

I love diners. New York is full of them; every small town has at least one, and Albany has three. So far we've found two in Houston: the Avalon Diner, located just a few blocks from our house, and the 59 Diner, located a bit further away. While you might be saying, "So? A diner's a diner", a brief recap of breakfast at both shows that these two places couldn't be more different.

First, we went to Avalon. We arrived early on a Saturday, and the place was crowded. This had happened once before, and one of the waiter had asked us to share a table for four with another couple we didn't know. We passed on that. This day we got our own table, but not because anyone seated us there. Instead, the older lady behind the counter said nothing to us as we entered; no "how many", no "seat yourself", not even a grunt or a nod. So we assumed it was seat yourself, and sat down.

Our waiter was in his early teens and very busy texting on his Iphone. He might have also been busy experiencing the effects of some sort of chemical substance, since he seemed unable to remember anything. He mixed up our drinks on the short trip to the soda fountain and back. He handed us the menu, and then asked us what we wanted to order before we had a chance to open it. After we got our food, he forgot to check in even once to make sure it was right or we were happy -- even though he was waiting on the table right next to ours. Something was clearly lacking in the service.

The kicker is, the food was OK. I got the breakfast wrap with eggs, cheese, and bacon wrapped up on a flour tortilla. It wasn't spectacular, but it was certainly filling, and had the experience been different (ie: decent service, clean silverware, a hostess who spoke to you -- or at least made eye contact -- when you walked in or went up to pay your bill), it may have been worth the $7.25. It's a shame it wasn't, since it's so close to our house.

The 59 Diner is a whole 'nother animal. Some may say it's more corporate. Unlike Avalon, which has only 2 locations in the Houston area, 59 has 5. Not exactly a chain restaurant, but not a family owned place either. Normally I would deduct points for something like this, but if "corporate" means clean silverware or decent service, I'm all for it in this case. I had a classic diner breakfast: a BLT with a fried egg, and homefries. The food was about the same as at Avalon. My egg was cooked over-medium, with a little run to the yolk, and the bacon was crispy and tasty. In the end, however, diner food is diner food. I like it just about anywhere. It was the service -- or lack thereof -- which made 59 the clear winner over Avalon.

Sambuca

Sorry it's been so long, blog fans. There was an unexpected death in my family, so I had to head to NY for a few days. I'm home now, and it's time for the next installation: Sambuca. My husband and I stopped in for dinner before a show, and we were on a tight schedule. Add to that the fact that we stopped in 20 minutes before 6:30 PM, when happy hour (and the half price drinks and appetizers that come with it) ends, and you can probably understand that we were pretty anxious to get our order in quickly.

Which is why it's a shame that we sat for ten minutes without anyone saying a word to us. No hello from a waiter, no water and bread from a bus boy, not even a second glance from the hostess who seated us. Just when my husband was pulling out his cell phone to look for another restaurant, our waiter arrived.

We quickly put in an order for martinis and escargot. The drinks and appetizer were all $9 apiece, but since we got our order in and actually received our drinks several minutes before happy hour was supposed to end, we figured it didn't matter. The escargot was served with lemon and garlic butter, topped off with spinach with gouda and puff pastry. The dish never really came together for us; it seemed like it was two very good dishes (spinach dip, and snails in butter sauce) stacked on top of each other. Either would have been great on its own, but in putting them together, each lost something. Still pretty to look at though:



Dinner was less impressive. I ordered the lobster enchiladas. This is what I received:



Ugh. Where do I start? White rice? Chewy, overcooked lobster? Half of an avocado slapped unnecessarily on top? No, no, no. This meal cost $23.75. It was worth about $7. I've had better food, served quicker and for less money, at Ninfa's. My husband reported that his steak was not much better.

I don't know what possessed us to order dessert after a meal like that, but I'm glad we did. The creme brulee was actually very well done. Did it make eating at Sambuca worth it? No. But wait, it gets better...

When our waiter (finally) showed back up with our bill, the drinks and appetizers we ordered and received before the end of happy hour were full price. Apparently, at Sambuca, you have to PAY before 6:30 in order to receive the special price, or something. We didn't have time to argue. At this point, we already had to run to make our play -- which, for the record, was wonderful. So after a very full friday evening, my final message comes down to this: Go to the Hobby Center. Don't go to Sambuca. The end.