The stories I meant to write
Critic can almost taste all the dishes she thought she’d get a chance to review
Regrets, I have a few. More than a few, if you must know.
They’re listed on a computer file titled “To Do, 2020.” That list, compiled in fits and starts during the Before Times, looks blissfully ignorant now. It never once occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to work my way through it.
So I’m working my way through the cavalcade of restaurants I meant to visit now, strictly in my head, which applies to much of my life in selfisolation. I imagine. I speculate. I worry. I wonder. I hope.
I repent at leisure, too. If only I had made it out to El Kourmet, the Venezuelan burger joint in Katy. There I could have added a smoked pork chop to the standard burger fixings of ham, queso a mano (the fresh Venezuelan white cheese), egg, lettuce, tomatoes and “potato stix.” Not to mention mayo, ketchup and “Kourmet sauce.”
Maybe I will get to eat that
baroque-sounding burger pile yet. Maybe I won’t.
Driving down South Wayside toward the Gulf Freeway on my neighborhood gerbil trail, I feel a stab of regret that’s almost physical when I pass the sign announcing the new Doña Tere tamale restaurant that never got past the “Hiring Now” stage before the pandemic brought its progress to a halt.
I had been so excited to see Doña Tere’s “Coming Soon” banner so close to my house. I had liked the big Oaxacan-style tamales from the Gulf Freeway location of this family-owned mini-chain, and I couldn’t wait to sample the huaraches, breakfast plates and (drumroll, please) tamal torta. Now I wonder if it’ll manage to open at all.
I fret, too, about other operators whose scheduled openings came at the worst possible time. Bill Floyd finally managed to open the doors to his much delayed Porta’Vino BYOB the first week in March. Now the website displays aluminum trays of takeout.
Rosie Cannonball, one of the best new restaurants of 2019, was due to open a small upstairs tasting-menu spot in March, where chef Felipe Riccio and super-somm June Rodil could really work out. All that’s on pause. So is my dream of doing a piece on the talented Shawn Gawle, the Rosie C. pastry chef whose striking, simple desserts and baking know-how have so impressed me — from pizza crusts, to unusual flatbreads, to the trembly Portuguese pastel de nata tarts sold at the restaurant’s adjoining Montrose Cheese & Wine shop.
I feel like I’d only begun to count the ways I loved downtown’s Bravery Chef Hall, one of 2019’s most exciting additions to our food scene. I planned to review Ben McPherson’s BOH Pasta & Pizza, where I’ve enjoyed some terrific dishes; and Felix Florez’s Cherry Block, where chef Jess Timmons and crew put out gutsy and creative regional fare using Florez’s local Black Hill Meats.
Yes, I know the Bravery folks have put together a tight curbside takeout operation. But part of my joy was sitting with a swirl of my fellow citizens in that big, lively space, grabbing a glass of wine here and a morsel of industry gossip there.
Sometimes I find myself wondering what will become of the plans for a khachapuri business floated by Ryan Grimes, one of the young kitchen staffers for Christine Ha’s Blind Goat kiosk at Bravery. He had test-trial photos, and the cheese-filled Georgian pastry boats looked so enticing. I wanted them to happen so much I could almost taste it.
I pined for the Hong Kong dim sum purveyor Tim Ho Wan to open in Katy this spring, having fallen in love with the supernal barbecue pork buns during a brief Hong Kong stopover a few years back. I was eager to try out Gatlin BBQ’s new breakfast service since I’m such a fan of Greg Gatlin and Michelle Wallace’s ingenious tweaks on the barbecue genre.
And dang it, I could kick myself for postponing review visits to Brett’s BBQ in Katy because I have tasted his weekly special brisket enchiladas, and they are magnificent; to say nothing of arranging a serious, bring-your-red-wines dinner way out at chef Ara Malekian’s Harlem Road BBQ, on the Richmond frontier. I sampled Malekian’s stupendous smoked lamb chops and duck during a podcast taping there back in January, and I dawdled too long before going back for a BYOB feast with the Houston Chronicle’s BBQ columnist, Chris Reid.
I wish I’d squeezed in a meal at David Guerrero’s new Alma, the more upscale South American spot that replaces his casual East End Andes Cafe, where his lease expired. I was crestfallen when Andes shuttered, but Alma offered a fresh opportunity to enjoy the Ecuadoran chef ’s vivid dishes.
If only I’d gotten a look at Phat Eatery Malaysian Street Food’s double-the-size expansion in Katy’s Asian Town Center, and another chance to chase those little dried anchovies, ikan bilis, around my nasi lemak platter. If only I’d had a chance to visit Lit Chicken when it opened at Finn Hall in early March, so I could reacquaint myself with the joys of James Haywood and Ross Coleman’s modern Houston soul cookery, which I loved so dearly at the late, great Kitchen 713. They had barely gotten started at Finn Hall when the hammer dropped.
Wish I hadn’t put off a full review of MAD, the high-style, visually dazzling tapas restaurant from the BCN folks, either. When I visited early, there were elements I loved, and the experience was exciting, but the kitchen still seemed too wobbly to me. BCN, the Spanish mothership in Montrose, started out the same way before chef Luis Roger smoothed it out into one of the city’s very best restaurants. As an experiment, I figured I’d give MAD a chance to find its footing. Now I’m mourning that decision as one of a hundred missed opportunities. Such as: a review of Handies Douzo, the small, minimalist handroll place I liked so much when I visited in January; plus a chance to get acquainted with two other spots in Houston’s new handroll wave — Hando and Hatsuyuki. I’ve always loved the elegant simplicity of handrolls, with their toasted seaweed wrappers, and I was looking forward to seeing the style take root here.
I was supposed to check out Duck & Bao, a new Peking duck place in Katy, with friends who really liked it. I dreamed of spending more time at Koffeteria, the sleek EaDo bakery and coffee shop where pastry chef Vanarin Kuch presides, using his Cambodian roots and modern savvy to come up with gorgeous, interesting ideas. It’s one of those bakeries I can review as a restaurant, I told myself as I perched at the counter, in awe at the colors and textures and flavors set before me.
Koffeteria seemed right on the cusp of wider recognition, which makes the current situation triply galling. I feel the same way about the gifted Vanessa Lomeli, whose scrappy, idiosyncratic Gulf Freeway Mexican joint was just about to be featured on “Restaurant Impossible,” the Food Network makeover show. When I visited in February, I was much taken with the freshness of the redesign, with its plant-filled window shelves and equipale chairs. Lomeli and her partner, Ben Downing, didn’t know when the show would air, but they were hoping it would bring in a whole new set of customers. Now, their brave new incarnation is in limbo, which grieves me.
Burger sorrows vex me, too. Tejas Burgers in Tomball, from the Tejas Chocolate & Barbecue team, impressed me so much I wanted to go back and consume the entire menu — especially the Caesar-salad burger that brothers Scott and Greg Moore enjoyed as a family treat growing up in Oklahoma, where their mom cribbed the idea from a favorite restaurant. I’m mad at myself for not making the time, and the drive, to try Just GRK’s hamburger version, with cucumber relish, Greek cheese and garlic sauce — plus chef Chris Nikolas’ peerless french fries and his tzatziki dep. I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll still be there when I can roam free again.
I desperately want Jim Buchanan to be turning out smart 21st-century barbecue at Dozier’s in Fulshear should that day come. I never made it down to his now closed barbecue joint in Galveston, where he was doing interesting dishes that changed by the week, because I thought I had all the time in the world. Turns out I didn’t.
If I ever get the chance, next time I won’t put it off when my friend Jerry suggests we lunch at a curious little bandbox of a restaurant, Cafe Poêtes, that’s right by his studio. When my friend Carl suggests we meet at a new favorite, Wanna Bao, I’ll ink it in promptly. When my editor and I laugh about documenting our longstanding dispute over composed nachos versus pile nachos, I’ll say, ‘When do we start?’ ”