After the New Year started at Jay's Bay, I met up with Amanda on my way out of Houston to have lunch before returning to Louisiana and the typical daily grind. Having recently bought a house near the Space Center, Amanda lives a short drive away from Kemah where we decided to go for a sampling of Texas barbeque at T-Bone Tom's.
T-Bone Tom's in Kemah, Texas
T-Bone Tom's is a gastronomic establishment with stereotypical Texan charm. There is a giant cow on the sign out front (seen above) and a patio outside for live music and dancing. Inside the restaurant sat clusters of tables with chairs that had advertisements on the back, but somehow not in a way that screamed commercial sellout, but rather a bit of marketing genius! Amanda and I had a seat at the bar, I ordered a tall glass of Texas sweet tea, and we glanced over the menu while catching up on life.
Smoked Sausage Plate with House-Made BBQ Sauce
We began with smoked sausage plate that came with bowl of T-Bone Tom's tangy home made barbeque sauce. The sausage had a rich smoke flavor that tremendously complimented the sauce at the end of a toothpick spear.
The sausage worked up an appetite for more barbeque so I ordered the three meat plate to get a trial run at the best of their smoked meats. The plate contained brisket and spare ribs smothered in sauce and jalapeño pulled pork on the side of the other two. I also added some baked beans and potato salad for good measure and T-Bones threw in a Texas-thick slice of white bread for squeegeeing the remaining sauce off the plate.
Three Meat Plate - Brisket, Ribs, and Jalapeño Pulled Pork, Beans, and Potato Salad
The beans had a good texture and were not turned to mush consistency like some baked beans are, which I liked. The potato salad tasted fine but didn't blow me away. The brisket pulled apart and melted in my mouth just like it was supposed to. The texture was right on, but the flavor didn't do anything special for me and seemed like it wasn't smoked long enough... certainly not bad, but not the greatest ever either. The jalapeño pulled pork intrigued me and lived up to the modest expectations. The pork itself was moist and tender and pulled perfectly into stringy bite sized pieces. The jalapeño flavor added quite a kick to the pork and at times I found it a little excessive and overpowering. The actual pickled jalapeños tasted fine, but I wanted jalapeño pork, not porky jalapeños. The highlight of the meal, other than Amanda's company, was by far the ribs. The sweet sauce attempted to cover up the flavor of the pork but the zing of the rib shined through as it pulled off the bone and left my taste buds with the smack that they so desperately craved. Man, I love a good rib.
One of downtown's nicer dining establishments is Capital City Grill's Shaw Center location. There you can find lunches and dinners served up daily in a business-casual atmosphere. Their menu has a Louisiana feel to it with crab claws and gumbo as starters while serving fried seafood dishes and poboys for lunch and dinner. Capital City Grill also offers standard American upscale dining fare like gourmet steaks, pork chops, chicken breasts, and salads. Not too long ago I met my brother Eric (known to many simple as Boo!) there for lunch to check the place out. We took a couple seats at the bar, though couldn't order any booze, and started our meal out with some seafood queso.
Seafood Queso and Chips at Capital City Grill
The seafood queso proved to be every bit as interesting as it was good. The melted cheese base flourished with lump crab meat, bits of shrimp tails, and spinach. It came served piping hot with some decent, toasted tortilla chips for dipping. Judging by the way we gobbled it down, the seafood queso must have been pretty good!
For my meal I ordered the fish of the day lunch special. What I got was a grilled filet of tilapia topped with a toasted pecan glaze and served with steamed veggies and wild rice.
Grilled Tilapia with Toasted Pecan Glaze, Squash, Zucchini, and Wild Rice
As a midday fish special at a downtown grill, this meal turned out to be sensational. The grilled tilapia had a smooth texture that perfectly parted under the edge of a fork. The toasted pecan glaze gave the fish some sweet and nutty flavors that accented the dish very well. The addition of steamed squash and zucchini along with some rice made the meal not only extremely tasty, but also rather healthy. The price ended up being more that I normally spend for lunch fare, but they have cheaper options on the menu as well. All in all I left satisfied and I might not go back often, but I'd certainly be willing to return to Capital City Grill on occasion.
Jay's Bay X: Winter Games turned out to be a roaring success despite the absence of our dear friend Chetan, who happened to be frolicking around on the other side of the globe instead of living it up at Jay's Bay with his boys. We dearly missed Chetan, but his spirit stayed with us as his picture from our high school days joined us everywhere we went.
John, Tyler, and the Spirit of the Sweet Indian Prince
Most of what happens at Jay's Bay stays at, well, Jay's Bay. However, this being a food and drink blog, I thought it would only be right to feature some of the wonderful food that got cooked up over the New Year's weekend. Thursday evening brought New Year's Eve and, along with it, an amazing fish fry.
Hushpuppies in the Oil and Slap Ya Mama Battered Catfish Filets
For any of you who have never had Slap Ya Mama fish fry I suggest you try it, and soon. They make an amazing blend of corn meal and spices that adds just the right amount of flavor to season the fish without overpowering it. Tyler and Lauren helped me cut the fresh catfish filets into strips. We then dipped them in whisked eggs and milk, followed by giving them a coating them in Slap Ya Mama fish fry, before dipping them into the hot oil. The fish turned out crispy, moist, and delicious. To add to the fish we also fried up a couple batches of hushpuppies. The guys from Texas brought some jalapeño hushpuppies and I found a bag of homemade corn balls at Southside Produce back in Baton Rouge so we did a little taste test. I liked the jalapeño spice from the Texas puppies but the Louisiana spheres had more overall flavor and pizzazz. They definitely won the show so I'm glad that I found them at the local produce stand.
Jay Doing the Frying, Showing off the Feast, and some Remains of the Finished Products
New Year's Day brought on my efforts to try to watch football... and gumbo! I brought everything that I needed from the bayou to the bay so that I could make a duck, chicken, and sausage gumbo for the gang. The ducks were killed during our duck and goose hunt near Jennings, La. You can click here to see the blog post and video from the hunt.
Step one for the gumbo was to roast to the chicken and ducks for a few hours to get them cooked to the point that I could pull the meat off the bones. The night before I cooked the gumbo, Tyler helped me liberally season the birds inside and out with fresh sea salt, cracked black pepper, cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder, and thyme. We let them sit in the fridge overnight and then in the morning I covered them in foil on a roasting pan and put them in a 350 degree oven for an hour and a half to two hours. I let them cool for a while after pulling them out of the oven until the temperature lowered enough to get my hands dirty. I pulled off all the meat from the birds and placed the shredded chunks of goodness into an appropriately sized mixing bowl. All of the skin, fat, and bones from the poultry were placed into my large stock pot to be rendered down even more for the stock. I also poured a little bit of the liquefied duck and chicken grease into a sauté pan for later.
Two Ducks and a Chicken after Roasting, Stock Simmering in the Pot
While I messed with the avian proteins, Tyler graciously cut up my vegetables. He diced two medium yellow onions, two green bell peppers, and 4 stalks of celery (known as the Holy Trinity of Cajun cuisine). I also had him press six or seven cloves of garlic to mix in with everything. All the vegetables and garlic were blended together in another large mixing bowl. I took several handfuls of the vegetable medley and added them to all of the chicken and duck leftovers in my stock pot. I then added about 3 quarts of water (that's a guess) and let the stock simmer for another couple of hours while I watched football on TV. It was New Year's Day, after all, and the Tigers were playing. That's all I'll say about that!
When the football game ended I returned to my wild game in the kitchen to get the full gumbo in the pot. I turned the burner off on the stock and removed the lid to let it cool. I then heated the sauté pan that I put a little extra duck and chicken fat in and added the remaining onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic to start cooking it down. The veggies were stirred while the stock cooled until the onions started to turn clear. Fortunately there was no shortage of large bowls and pots at Jay's Bay. I poured the stock through a strainer into another pot. The strainer collected all of the bones and skin segments for me. However, it also had all of the cooked down vegetables that I placed in with the stock, and I didn't want to waste that flavor. After shaking out all of the liquid, I placed the strainer over the trash can and started picking through the solid remains. The bones and skin that I found were moved to the trash can while the rest of the tender meat that fell off the bones, as well as the soft and translucent Trinity morsels, made their way back the pot.
Back at my now empty, original stock pot, the time had come to add all of the ingredients together. I started with the freshly cooked down vegetables and garlic, then added all of the de-boned meat that I had placed in the fridge. Oh, and don't forget the two pounds of Manda Cajun sausage the John sliced up for me. All of that was covered with the stock that I had previously strained into the other pot. I added more garlic powder, onion powder, salt, black pepper, and cayenne, threw in a couple bay leaves, a few shakes of gumbo file, and several heaping tablespoons of previously made roux, stirred the pot real good, and let everything simmer for a few more hours while we sat by the fire that Chad and Ashley made outside and told stories. When the time was right the gumbo got served over some fresh Louisiana rice that I also picked up at Southside Produce (where all of my vegetables came from) and some potato salad on the side.
The finished product tasted amazing:
Jay's Bay Video: Duck, Chicken, and Sausage Gumbo and Fireworks!
Now I'd like to share a brief booze story. There was plenty of booze flowing throughout the weekend including several types of bourbon and whiskey, unique flavored vodkas, and an assortment of St. Arnold's beer out of Houston. However, for NYE, Katie and company brought a couple bottles of sparkling wine to celebrate the occasion. Having seen several celebrities open Champagne and sparkling wines with a knife or sword on TV, I thought that this would be a perfect time for me to give it a try. It took an old heavy knife out of the kitchen drawer and went out to the back porch with my buddies. Taking the back end of the blade, I struck the bottle just under the rim. Success! The cork, along with a portion of the glass from the neck of the bottle, shot off into the yard like a baseball shoots off of Albert Pujol's bat. Liquidy delight bubbled out of the opening that I created, and we were ready to toast 2010!
Jay with the Cut-Off Sparkling Wine Bottle, Bottle and Toasting Glasses Ready for Midnight
I love Jay's Bay. There aren't many annual or semi-annual trips that I look more forward to. Getting together will all my old high school buddies has never let me down, although I do wish Chetan could have been there. I'd like to give a special thank you to Chad, Ashley, John, Lauren, Tyler, and Katie for the great weekend at Jay's Bay and all your help and friendship along the way. And Johnny, if you are reading this, I'd love for you to come next summer as well! Until then, have a great 2010, and I'm sure there will be plenty more Jay's Bay trips in the future!
This map shows all of the locations where I've made blog posts about my culinary and indulgent cultural experiences. I've traveled a lot more than this, but since I've only been writing Bite and Booze since late September, 2009, it still has a long way to go. You can click on each spot to get a link directly to the blog post(s) that feature these places. Make sure to zoom in on places like Baton Rouge, Louisiana and San Francisco, California... there are a lot of posts there!
Among the numerous dining establishments available to the daytime crowd in downtown Baton Rouge exists Serop's Express. This quick and easy lunch spot features fresh Greek and Lebanese food for the business and government crowds. Sitting at the base of the Galvez parking garage right around the corner from the Main Street Market, Serop's serves garlicky chicken shawarma and tender lamb gyros along with their collection of classic European side dishes.
Serop's Express
I have a usual order when I eat at Serop's. I typically get the combination plate with both chicken and lamb. I add hummus as one side and rotate the other side item between everything else on their menu. I ask for wheat pita bread, and the meal comes with Grecian sauce. The last time I went I was trying to be slightly healthy so I get my rabbit food in with a little feta salad.
Combination Plate with Chicken Shawarma and Lamb, Hummus, and Feta Salad
The Baton Rouge community is actually known for its outstanding selection of Greek and Lebanese food. Serop's Cafe has several locations around town, with this downtown spot being an "express" lunch only joint. I'm sure that I'll get around to reviewing some other places as time goes on. The downtown Serop's Express offers good food for a nice price with quick service, but the overall quality is nothing special compared to the other great Mediterranean cuisine around the city. The chicken and lamb are sometimes a little dry from being pre-sliced for efficiency and the hummus is a little runny for my personal tastes. Still, I'll go back for the downtown convenience and the filling combo plate that is under $10!
