Restaurant: Krystal

1623 FM 1960 Road West
Houston, TX 77090-3307

The winner of my personal slider battle goes to Krystal! Why? Cos their buns are the way it's supposed to be, SOFT. If you have ever had White Castle sliders before and love them, then you'll really like these. They're almost a spitting image of those famous mini-burgers. And the best part is that unlike the chunky caramelized onions over at Little Bigs, these are perfectly minced onions that have been lightly grilled. It makes the slider taste soooo much better. The meat and fries aren't as good but if you're judging the slider as a whole, Krystal takes it. I seriously wish it weren't so far! All you north-side people, consider yourself lucky! I was trying to decide what to drop off for big poppa for lunch this weekend and decided to make the extra mileage to pick up a sackful for him and his workers. The manager there looks like Marc Summers from Unwrapped!

Restaurant: Little Big's

2703 Montrose Boulevard
Houston, TX 77006-2732

It's the battle of the sliders. The runner up is Little Bigs in Montrose. Big poppa, mochi and I went for a run/walk at Memorial one Sunday and afterwards, I suggested that we go eat at Little Bigs so that we could finally try their sliders. I know. Sad huh? That's how we do it! We each ordered three sliders: the hand-breaded chicken slider no pickles add onions for me, beef slider with cheese for mochi and beef slider with no cheese for big poppa. I'm not sure how it is that I'm dating a guy that doesn't like cheese. Or mayo. Or creamy pastas. Mochi and I both had a frozen joe and big poppa had a vanilla shake. The vanilla shake was really good. I also enjoyed the frozen joe but it was maybe just too icy/slushy for me. I think I would have preferred for it to have more of a shake like texture. We also shared two orders of fries but one would have sufficed since we had so much left. I didn't even get to finish my third slider cos I was already reaching maximum capacity. The meat on the sliders were really good. Nice and thick and juicy. I normally do like caramelized onions but I felt that my chicken slider might have tasted better with onions cooked and grilled just til they're translucent rather than letting them caramelize. The worst part of the slider, which I feel normally makes or break any type of burger, was the bread/bun. It did not taste fresh. It was hard and kinda stale. I think this was the main reason why we ranked it second. The cool thing is that on Fridays and Saturdays, they close at 2am. I can totally see myself cleaning up after a night of drinking.

Musik Mundi: Metric

Rod Ryan wasn't kidding. Those Buzz Fest XXIV tix really did sell out super fast. When I first heard the line-up, I was like OMG I wanna go! The main band I wanted to see was Metric. I've already posted some of their songs from their latest album that I like but I figured Too Little Too Late from their 2005 album would be suitable for my predicament. But to be honest, I hated the whole deal with having two stages. The last time we went, we were constantly rushing back and forth from the two stages so that we could catch all the bands that we wanted. The line-up this year for the second stage isn't as good. I would probably just stay and watch all the bands on the main stage. The line-up ain't so bad. Deftones! And lots of other folks we haven't heard from in a while. And the second stage has folks that I've never heard of ever. So I do have the full song in my library. But it's a wma file. Frackin' hypster doesn't recognize it. So below is a snippet of the song.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*


Metric
Album: Live It Out (2005)
Song: Too Little Too Late

Gastron Om Nom: Seared Scallops

To feed big poppa's seared scallops craving, I decided to pick up some jumbo sea scallops to cook at home for big poppa. I bought five. They were two dollars a piece. Yikes! I think I did an okay job on the searing. I managed to get that nice brown color on them without over cooking them. For myself, I seasoned and grilled me some chicken breasts. I also bought some green beans and mushrooms and sauteed them in lots of onions and lots of garlic. We are an onion and garlic obsessed couple.

Birthday: Rocco

Big poppa's ex-coworker invited us out to celebrate his birthday at Soma Sushi. There were so many people coming out that he had the upstairs area reserved. We didn't get to spend too much time with him since he was the man of the hour but it was enough to say wassap, take some fotos, and then take some shots. The food at Soma was pretty good! The notables were the tuna tar tare, salmon and tuna sashimi and kobe sashimi. The rolls were also pretty good. I would mos def go back!

Musik Mundi: Hallelujah

I was taking off the whole make-up late one night and was unknowingly humming the music to Hallelujah. Big poppa tells me how uncanny that is cos he just heard that song on the telly. He said the song is so great that every time you listen to it, it kinda gives you chills every time you hear it. And I agree. I love the song. The originator of this classic that has been covered too many times is Leonard Cohen. I don't particularly like his version so instead, I'm sharing three I think I like that I found in my one hour of free time this weekend.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*


Song: Hallelujah
1st Version: Justin Timberlake & Matt Morris - Hope For Haiti Telethon.
2nd Version: Alexandra Burke - X Factor
3rd Version: Kate Voegele - One Tree Hill

Restaurant: Max's Wine Dive

4720 Washington Avenue
Houston, TX 77007

On Valentine's Day, big poppa and I were supposed to have a casual meal at Beaver's since I was super anxious to try it. Alas, we went at that small window when the kitchen just wasn't quite open for dinner. Boo. So being as ravenous as we were, we opted for the tried and true place in the Washington area, Max's Wine Dive. Oh-Em-Gee. Seriously. If you have not been here before then you need to get on it! This is one of my favo restaurants. There's like a million awesome things on the menu that I wish I could order every time I visit. I've been here several times since last year when we had big poppa's b-day bash and I guess I've already blogged about the place but I'm gonna do it again. I ordered their very popular famous fried egg sandwich that comes with the awesome truffled chips, and their also equally popular max and cheese. SOOOOOOO GUT! GUT! GUT! But it's a total grease fest. As much as I love fattening food, I can only eat this stuff once in a long while. Big poppa ordered one of their specials, seared scallops with pasta infused in a creamy saffron sauce. The pasta was delicious. I don't really like scallops. Haha. Surprise! Surprise! But yeah, big poppa has been on this seared scallops kick and whenever he sees it on the menu, that's what he ends up ordering. Other notables that I can rattle off at the top of my head is the fried chicken, hummus at happy hour, max and jax frites, nutella french toast at brunch, rib basket and someone ordered the cornbread before and it was pretty darn tasty considering I don't like cornbread. I sure don't like a lot of things for loving food. Hah! We have friends who always order the drunken bread. I still haven't tried that yet. Hopefully I'll get to go with them next time and just try theirs so I can still order what I normally like. Tee Hee.

I never knew they had hooks for our purses underneath the bar. Good to know!