I have a lot of thoughts on the Great Taste of the Heights event tonight, most extremely positive. I twittered throughout the whole thing, and instead of me taking several days to summarize, here it all is in all its tweety glory. My problem with Twitter is its lack of narrative. The 140 character is its appeal, but it lends itself to being snarky, and unfortunately I'm sometimes guilty of this behavior.
17:04 Off to the Heights feedy thingy.
17:37 Just arrived at All Saints, $25 to get in gets you a sample of ten restaurants (out of 20+) and one drink. Not bad.
17:39 The scantily clad waitresses at Brick House are on the beverages. Beer: miller lite and bud light. Wine: "red" or "white." Ummmm... great...
17:41 I think the skies are about to open and these outdoor tables with no tents are not gonna work.
17:48 Waltrip Jazz Band in pre concert warmup sounds like Sun Ra. I'm digging, but I'm thinking the cacophony free jazz is unintentional.
18:14 Max's wine dive first: fried gator with cream gravy. Interestin take on CFS I imagine. Great gravy.
18:20 Rainbow Lodge serving duck gumbo. Not bad, not great. Overly salty imho. Like the wild rice.
18:26 Bedford is serving a thai risotto with pomegranates. Best dish so far, and bonus points for the chef actually being here.
18:27 Pom a nice flavor/texture balance to the risotto.
18:35 Soma serving a seafood salad. Liked the pinwheel beet condiment.
18:40 OH: are you still Catholic???
18:43 Waltrip Jazz Band playing stormy weather. That's pretty funny.
18:44 Kojak's has a decent gyro in a cup. What's a food festival without gyros? That would be downright un-Houstonian.
18:46 Me: "I'm always confused about your hours." Kojak: "yeah I know it's confusing." Ummm fix that maybe?
18:51 Passing on Pink's, shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who follows me.
19:02 Hickory Hollow sausage was decent, brisket just awful and the chef boyardee sauce didn't help.
19:14 Pizzitola's bbq waaaaaay better than hickory hollow. Ribs don't have the same pepper punch from last week, but still great.
19:16 Shade has an asian chicken wonton. Love how they have no fear of fresh cabbage, something I failed to mention in my review.
19:23 Forgot to mention carter & cooley muffaletta. Eh. That probably explains why I forgot it.
19:24 Dry Creek bacon blue slider too dry to eat. Tossed it, but not before snagging the bacon. Priorities, I'm sure you understand.
19:29 Cakes from Dacapo's very good. Wanted to save room because of Jodie E's good review. Italian cream cake the better one. Wish I had espresso.
19:31 We have four more dishes left but no room. Thinking tamales to go.
20:05 In the drink line, I think someone said something incredibly inappropriate about the waittresses. Dude, church parking lot!
20:06 Well, that's it. We ran out of steam and have four tamales for tomorrow. Surprisingly large turnout.
I thought Bedford's risotto dish was the class of the event. My wife liked the alligator the best. I probably would go with Bedford, Shade, and Max's as 1,2,3. I really liked Soma's dish, but it was a little over the top, especially with the truffle ponzu sauce, which I thought was unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteDrinks were a major downer. They were all absolutely awful and I really expected more from Brick House considering that it's such a beer-centric restaurant.
Did you get four tamales from the Houston tamale company? I was standing in the middle of the tent and I remember seeing a guy away from Houston tamale company with a plate of four tamales and I wondered how they did that.
ReplyDeleteYes tshu I agree with all your comments. Bedford 1, then Soma 2. I don't know about Max's wine dive #3, I wasn't too impressed. Yes, and Bedford does get bonus points for Robert Gadsby actually being there.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was me with the tamales. I figured tamales would be the best choice for eating later.
ReplyDeletejust heard the results..
ReplyDelete#1 was bedford, #2 was pizzitollas, and #3 was last year champ- max's wine dive
I have no problem with those.
ReplyDelete