ramen quest - strike 1

nippon
4464 montrose nr. richmond

see original ramen quest post

i set myself up for disappointment. i should have known that i couldn't have expected a great ramen to come out of a sushi restaurant. it takes HOURS of simmering pork bones to make a proper ramen soup base. and just like i can't expect an exceptional bowl of pho at mai's, the same rules should apply for a sushi restaurant.

ramen is listed simply as "japanese ramen" on their menu. when ordered, our server asked me if i wanted miso, soy sauce, or tonkatsu. i chose the soy sauce (shoyu) version that i enjoyed so much at santouka.

when the bowl arrived at the table, i was pleasantly surprised. the broth did look a little milky like santouka's version and i saw tiny, tiny dots of grease swimming on top. this made me hopeful. my first bite was overwhelmed by the flavor of bamboo shoots. so i took them out and mixed it all up a bit. i found half a boiled egg in there and lots of chashu pork. the pork looked soft and fatty. there was also plenty of nori, green onions, and bean sprouts on top. mixing didn't help much. there just wasn't enough flavor and complexity in the broth. the noodles weren't toothy enough. the only redeeming item in my bowl was the chashu. it was tender and buttery and there was plenty of it. at santouka, i only had a small slice of chashu but i ordered the small bowl there.

michael, who read my ramen quest posting and called me b/c he wanted to come, ordered the nabeyaki udon. the broth was light with a slight smoky flavor and the noodles were gummy as expected. it came with a tempura shrimp floating on top of the bowl. i forgot to tell them to bring it on the side. we started out with a wonderful soft shell crab appetizer w/ ponzu dipping sauce. the crab was huge and so a few bites were a bit roe-y. is that a word?

ramen quest

when i was in L.A. over memorial weekend, i drove a total of 3 hours to/from santa monica for ramen -- REAL ramen, not the shit that's 10 for a $1 at fiesta. the destination was santouka in the mitsuwa market, a japanese grocery store and food court. was the trip worth it? UH HUH. i'm still finding myself daydreaming about these bowls of heaven. the photo on the left is the visual menu at santouka. it's basically just a window full of fake really shiny bowls of food. (click on the photo to enlarge it.)

i couldn't decide between the shoyu (soy sauce) and shiyo (salt) ramens so i got small orders of both. the shoyu ramen (left photo) was smokier, but it was a tad greasy. the shio ramen broth (right photo) was more delicate and flavorful. the noodles were terrific and firm. the pork chashu was velvety, melt in your mouth. it's hard to say which one i liked better. they were different and both equally sensational.


my question is: does ramen even half as good exist in houston?

i have 2 leads. the first is yorimichi japanese kitchen next door to daido japanese grocery on westheimer & wilcrest. today i found out on this blog that nippon serves ramen too, although i'm a little concerned because the blogger mentioned bean sprouts in theirs. nippon is a short drive away. i may try to make it there for lunch.

you know what my life is missing? a japanese friend. there is so much to explore in the world of japanese cuisine and i really need someone to lead the way. please spread the word that i'm recruiting. i'm totally serious.

and i think it's time to watch tampopo again.

update: see ramen quest strike 1

max's wine dive

max's wine dive
4720 washington ave @ shepherd

first of all, if you've never been here, this place is much more restaurant than wine bar and it certainly isn't a dive. max’s offers gourmet comfort food, decent wine prices, and a kitchen that closes late. it has a loud, energetic atmosphere, great for dinner with the girls on a tuesday or saturday night. if i didn’t worry about calories, i would eat here twice a week. but i've still been here at least a dozen times.

last night was my third visit since the departure of chef jonathan jones who left for the executive chef position at the new americas in the woodlands. the menu hasn't changed too much and i hadn't really noticed a drop in the quality of the food until last night. later on in the evening, i learned that max's has gone through three chefs since JJ left and a friend of mine was just recently hired there. we went in last night hoping he would be there. he was not.

i rave and rave about the fried chicken. in fact, i have probably ordered it the last 4 times i was here. it's wonderfully flavored and always moist inside. but last night i realized that i'm in love the composition of the whole dish -- crispy fried chicken, creamy marscapone mash, bitter collard greens, and sweet, smokey chipotle honey. texas toast is garnish b/c when i finally get around to it, it's always cold. last night the chicken was fine, maybe a little more greasy than usual, but the mashed potatoes were bland and the collard greens were undercooked & fibrous.

btw, i checked the description of the mashed potatoes on the menu online and it no longer says they have marscapone in them. cost cutting? come on, this IS an $18 plate of FRIED CHICKEN.

onto other people's food, michael got the softshell crab special. it was served as an open-faced sandwich and was dressed with a tasty aioli. he gave me a generous portion. i enjoyed the dish immensely. paul got the fried egg sandwich which i have had before. it is a monstrously messy affair. max's describes it as "Three pan fried eggs, drizzled with truffle oil and maldon sea salt, topped with three slabs of applewood smoked bacon and Veldehuizen gruyere, organic bibb lettuce, hot house tomato, and garlic black truffle aioli. All sandwiched between two pieces of artisan sourdough and served with hand-cut chips." unfortunately, this dish is anticlimatic for me. i end up with lots of runny yolk, good bacon flavors, but not enough truffle. what a tease!

lea got the caesar salad and truffled mac & cheese. i do like how the romaine lettuce leaves are served whole the way cardini conceptualized the dish. the leaves are supposed to be picked up and eaten with your hands. the huge white anchovies are a nice touch. the mac & cheese is rich and creamy, but not to die for. i prefer the truffled mac at oceanaire to this version.

steve had the yankee pot roast made with locally sourced kobe beef cheeks. i had a small bite and for cheek meat (my favorite), it wasn't very memorable. dimitre had the kobe burger topped with brie (photo above).

i'll give this place another go when i know there's a different guy in the kitchen. btw, if you are industry, they'll give you 15% off your bill. last night, they discounted our wine too.

new blog in town

a lot of you may know me from posting on chowhound or eGullet. i've been known to post on a couple other sites too. my handle is neverfull. i can't believe how much time i spend posting restaurant reviews or comments and answering questions about all things food-related in houston. THAT is how food obsessed i really am. as a fun project i decided to scour the net looking for all the more extensive restaurant reviews i've written and find a common home for them. so that is how my blog was born.

all the reviews before this post are cut-paste-and-reformats from other sites. some of them have been supplemented with additional fuzzy photos. some stuff may be rereads to you, but everything from here out will be new material.

after aggregating all my foodie spew, i realize that i haven't written reviews on some of my favorite houston dining spots -- catalan, dolce vita, da marco, reef, tampico, himalaya, vic & anthony's all come to mind. i've eaten at these places on multiple occasions and look forward to writing something up for you guys. AND NOW i have legitimate reasons for going back to all these fine places in the near future.

please enjoy!

shabu shabby

shabu house
9889 bellaire blvd #31
dun huang shopping center

i went to shabu house friday night with 3 friends. it's a small restaurant that has a giant horseshoe shaped bar custom made to hold an individual hot pot and burner for each seat. the bar was full when we arrived and we were sat in one of the few tables in the restaurant. the tables seemed have been put there as an afterthought to the original design of the restaurant. the restaurant was packed at 8:30.

i was looking forward to my first shabu shabu experience. shabu shabu or japanese hot pot literally means "swish, swish" in japanese which refers to the swishing sound chopsticks make when dipping and moving raw items around in hot broth . first of all, i was disappointed to find that the restaurant is run by chinese people, but i should have known. somehow i was expecting an authentic japanese experience.

here, everyone gets their own individual hot pot and burner. everyone is required to order 1 shabu setup (no splitting). the choices were beef, more beef, seafood, beef & seafood (double food), veggie, and veggie deluxe. the cost was $11.99 to $18.99 per plate/person although veggie might be a little cheaper. the beef looked like thinly sliced ribeye, a heavily marbled meat. each person also got a plate of assorted veggies, bean thread noodles, and other goodies such as fish balls, rice cake, tofu, taro root, and bean curd skin, as well as 2 dipping sauces which were quite good: sesame & soy sauce/ponzu.

i decided i won't be back based on the following reasons:

1. i prefer family style hot pot. the communal effort is fun.
2. you are required to order too much food. i couldn't finish half my plate of beef.
3. the broth is almost tasteless when it comes to the table.
4. the seafood was almost all frozen. i didn't need to know with certainty that the seafood i was about to eat wasn't fresh.
5. there is a lack of meat variety. a pork, chicken, and lamb option would be nice.
6. value. the hot pots at tan tan are $22.95 - 25.95 and feed 3 to 4 easily.

i think i'm on a bit of a hot pot tangent right now. i look forward to trying sinh sinh's version soon. i also know that lucky pot, sichuan cuisine, and fu fu cafe serve it as well.

beaver's got nuts

beaver's
2310 decatur st. near washington ave

11/30/07 review

i made it to beaver's for lunch today. it's been a really long time since my first visit. i'm attempting to eat healthy this week (detoxing from last weekend's binge) so i came to try beaver's nut burger. i doubt it was lo-cal, but it was delicious. the menu describes it as "a protein bomb with Texas brown rice, cashews, walnuts, herbs, cheddar cheese & spices." it was a tad greasy and the patty fell apart quite easily. it was served with a miso-mustard on the side, which i had to remind them to bring. the sauce was wonderfully flavorful and creamy. i wondered if there was mayo in it, but the kitchen confirmed the absence of any. i asked for a side salad instead of the chips it came with. the chips came to the table anyway (annoying b/c then i had to restrain myself from eating them) and the side salad came in a little dish that the sides normally come in. the simple salad was dressed with vinaigrette. they charged me a $2 substitution charge, which normally i wouldn't mind, but i didn't even touch it b/c it was tasteless and boring.

the three guys with me all ordered the sloppy pork sandwich. the guys all enjoyed their sandwiches which came with a side of coleslaw. the slaw brought back some unpleasant memories of my previous visit and i noticed it went untouched for the most part. 2 of them also got sides of mac and cheese. one of my friends claimed it was the best mac & cheese in town, so i had to try it. it is very strange looking. orrechiette pasta in cheese sauce topped with chunky cooked tomatoes and croutons. it was pretty good.


one of my friends also ordered the sweet potato fries to start with. they came to the table glistening with grease. they looked soggy. it was easy to pass on them. they were served with the same miso-mustard that my nut burger was served with. guy friend looked like he enjoyed it anyway.

service was pretty terrible even though the restaurant was slow and our server was very chatty. but the food was much better than my first visit. btw, i confirmed that they only serve ribs at lunch on thursdays. i'll be back again soon with some houston chowhounds next week. i'll try to bring back some photos of actual bar-be-que.

chowhound feast at feast

feast
219 westheimer rd b/w taft and bagby

(copy of write-up from CH board, photos courtesy of anonymouseater)

On Sunday, 6/1/2008, 16 members of Houston Chowhounds (HoustonCH) attended an 9+ course dinner at Feast, a new restaurant in the Montrose area which serves "rustic european fare." This was our first official HoustonCH event. I contacted the restaurant in advance and they agreed to serve us the 8 course tasting menu that they offer every Wednesday night for $40pp. I made plans directly with one of Feast's two chefs, Richard Knight, and also told him that we were a group of foodies so he had carte blanche to go 'crazy' with the menu which he was very excited about.

Chef Knight greeted our huge table which was setup in their back room. He explained each course in great detail including preparation techniques and set the stage for the impressive dishes that followed.

On our menu:

1. salmon bisque w/ fennel pollen & fennel blossoms
2. cured pork liver with mandarin orange sections and blackberries (off-menu)
3. date and fresh peach salad with roasted carrots and walnuts
4. pork cheeks over dandelion salad w/ toasted bread & caperberries
5. housemade sweetbreads, fois gras, and pork confit terrine (off-menu)
6. ruby trout stuffed with saffron rice over buttered leeks
7. roasted pork leg w/crispy skin served w/applesauce and bubble squeak (off-menu)
8. lemon sorbet
9. chocolate mousse cake
10. spotted dick

we were a happy and stuffed group leaving the restaurant. kudos to the chef and staff! the chef came back around for a Q&A with the table. it's just priceless being able to have open dialogue with the chef. the hospitality was warm and friendly, the service was smooth and efficient which is a hard thing to accomplish with a group this large.

i know a few people took photos. anonymouseater's photos are already up on his blog. i'm hoping misha's will pop up on his blog soon.

here are some of my comments:

"the terrine was served with some sort of chutney. i thought it was tomato and onion based (i didn't taste fruit) but i'm not sure. i would have preferred something sweeter (like a quince jam) or something with bite (like a french country mustard) to balance all the fat in the terrine. that dish disappointed me the most as it sounded so fabulous. i am a big fan of all the components (sweetbreads, fois gras, & pork confit), but i didn't like what happened when it was all put together. it was just too fatty (words that rarely come out of my mouth) and the fois gras tasted like liver, which in my experience, never does unless you overcook it. "

"i thought [the ruby trout] it was executed perfectly! the saffron rice and the leeks sauteed in butter danced beautifully with the fish."

"the cured pork liver, although not my favorite course of the meal, was actually one that i appreciated the most. as the chef described how the liver was cured, it was apparent that a whole lot of love and time that went into getting that dish onto our plates. i was genuinely impressed with what he did with 'carte blanche' and i loved being able to try something new. i agree that addition of fruit made the gummy textured liver more palatable. i did notice that 4 or 5 of us finished the whole plate."

"the pork cheek salad croutons looked deceivingly like chunks of pork cheek. unfortunately, my plate arrived with only had one small piece of pork and 10 croutons. i was one of the last people served at my table, i think i got the end of the salad too, b/c my greens were overly dressed in balsamic vinegar.i agree. the terrine tasting was huge. i also understand that the terrine dish he used was traditional size (wide). a normal portion of terrine off the menu would have been sliced slightly thicker and easily serves 2-3 people. he sliced the terrine very thin for us, but in order of us to get a good cross-section of all the elements, we need a complete piece. btw, there was a lot of fois gras in my piece of terrine. very generous!"