It’s high time a food and drink roundup made an appearance. And there are quite a few links this week.
Alison Cook loved her visits to Mary’z Mediterranean Cuisine, a restaurant that seems to take love of garlic to yummy extremes. She also does a smaller checking in at Gravitas on Taft.
Dai Huynh checked in with Houston Community College’s Pastry Chef Eddy Van Damme, whose cookbook On Baking: A Textbook of Baking and Pastry Fundamentals beat out 4,000 entries from 60 countries to win the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards’ best cookbook for professionals.
Peggy Grodinsky goes Hoffmanesque with her short review of Starbucks’ new 500-calorie Green Tea Frappuccino.
Ken Hoffman gorged on Long John Silver’s new Popcorn Shrimp that…actually seems to contain…shrimp.
Gracie Ochoa checked out Bond Lounge and found it to be “like New York’s boutique-style nightspots.” Again, that’s not necessarily a selling point to this sometime bH contributor.
Eliza Barclay examined the booming local market for premium tequilas.
And finally, Robb Walsh had a steak at Taste of Texas and ends his review with these few paragraphs:
Taste of Texas long ago slipped into the second tier. And I say this regardless of my political opinions. Edd Hendee, the restaurant’s owner, vents his hatred for Muslims, liberals and immigrants five days a week on his talk-radio show. “They must have failed Bomb Making 101 down at the mosque,” he recently quipped about the London terrorists whose bomb didn’t go off.
Hendee took over the show when the previous self-righteous far-rightist, Jon Matthews, was arrested for exposing his genitals to an 11-year-old child. Hendee reportedly encouraged listeners to bring letters of sympathy to Taste of Texas so he could deliver them to his fellow conservative. Houston Press columnist Richard Connelly called the restaurant “Dittohead Central, the gathering place for Rush Limbaugh fans and light rail foes” (Hair Balls, May 13, 2004). Hendee is a close friend of Tom DeLay, who is also a student in Hendee’s Bible study class at Second Baptist.
Hey, I’m not a big fan of Tilman Fertitta’s worldview either. But I give him credit for running some great steak houses. Regardless of his politics, Fertitta is keeping an eye on national restaurant trends and knows what’s selling at the butcher shop. Hendee, on the other hand, is running a restaurant that’s ludicrously out of date.
I’m often chided by readers to leave the politics out of my reviews. But I don’t see how you can leave politics out of a discussion of Taste of Texas — it’s become the restaurant’s main attraction. Showing support for Tom DeLay, Edd Hendee and the conservative agenda seems to be the real reason that so many people stand in line to get into this mediocre steak house.
Sadly, up until these last few paragraphs, the review wasn’t that far off the mark. I hope this isn’t a new trend for Mr. Walsh: panning a restaurant, panning the owner’s personal political views, assuming and panning the customers’ political views, and then tying the restaurant’s failures to said views and stands. Let’s see, how would this work? It might be difficult to find out the political views of, say, for example, the owners of certain family chain restaurants in town, which also serve mediocre food at exorbitant prices and pack the crowds in like sardines every day of the week, but maybe with a little research…oh. Wait. Mr. Hendee is a bit more outspoken than that. Oh. Now I understand. But does that REALLY have ANYTHING to do with the quality of the restaurant, the food, the service, or the customers?
Regardless, it’s still all World Class!! Even when we include far-rightists, er, conservatives, in the steakhouse business. Enjoy!!
