Sushi Choo Choo

Finally, Houston (or it's metroplex) is cool enough to have the conveyor belt sushi (回転寿司, kaiten-zushi). This concept is not new, it's so not new that it's been around for more than 10 years.

I first heard about it from my mom who had it in Hong Kong. I didn't personally had a try until 2003 in Pasadena, CA. I've heard of it, and know how it works, but never experienced it. It's just fun to see your food going around.
If you don't know how this work, it goes like this: you get seated in a sushi bar type seating. There's a thin little conveyor belt going around and carrying food. You grab whatever you like, and at the end of the meal, the server tally up the colored plates, which associate to different pricing, and that's how you pay your bill.

We heard about Sushi Choo Choo from a friend who went. This is the 2nd conveyor sushi place that I've heard of in Houston, the first one was Sushi Sara (which I can't find a website for). I'm kinda sad to know that after this concept has been around for 10 years, it finally made it to the 4th largest city in the country to have it. For crying out loud, Dallas had it before we did. Mind you, there isn't one inside the loop, where the yuppies would totally embrace this concept.
Speaking of concept, I must say, this isn't a traditional set up. The traditional set up is really have an island where the conveyor belt goes in circle, and the sushi chef make the sushi in the center of the island, and customers sitting around can watch them make sushi, enjoy the freshly made product and place order right there.

This place has a U-shaped conveyor belt, and I understand this place has space and they can take up as much space as they like. However, they set their kitchen to the back, as an open kitchen, and has a normal sushi bar set up (to one side), and the little opening is where they load up the plates. That takes away part of the fun. You can still order any specialty items, but it's with your server as opposed to your sushi chef.

This place also try to please too many people at the same time. They have Teppanyaki, as well as skewers with lamb meat, as well as sushi. And the sushi isn't the best thing ever. Now, given that this is in Jersey Village, the population big on sushi is not great, which also explains why on the conveyor belt next to your sushi, you see cheese sticks. BUT! It's all over the place. I would say I'm going there for the novelty and that's it. There's better sushi places out there.

In Japan, we went to couple of places like that, and it's pretty much a self-served environment. You have your cups, tea powder, hot water, chopsticks, wasabi, ginger, all within your reach. The server is really there to keep you honest. The ones in LA, does a little bit more serving, but still focus on serving good sushi. Aside from the novelty factor, I'm not too sure what else this place has to offer.

Sushi Choo Choo
www.sushichoochoo.net
(Jersey Village area)
12149 FM 1960 Rd W,
Houston, TX
(281) 955-2888

Hungry's

One of my favorite places in the Village, is Hungry's. Mind you, when I first moved here, it was a dinky little walk up place, and it has a patio all the way around. They had those fake astro turf as their carpet. Worn out, and they have lawn chairs and fold out chairs with these wobbly tables.

Fast forward over time, they done up the place, changed up the decor, still has a bar, shaped like the old one where you walk up and place your order. Except now it divde the guests from the kitchen. The place is totally up-marketed and the food grew up too.

It used to be known for gyros and some pastas, now, the menu had expanded to more healthy choices and cater to more taste buds. One item I'm still mad that they took off the menu, is the Mediterranean Salad, it's really nothing more than gyro meat on top of a bed of lettuce, but it's the most full filling salad, I've ever had, and the dressing, ooh the dressing. *drool*

This visit, I ordered my usual Raspberry Lemonade, not as good as the ones at Epicure Cafe, but it is refreshing in a hot summer day. I got the Mediterranean Salmon, I changed the sides to sweet potato and grilled veggies. It sounded mega healthy, I can assured you that it's not. Between the sugar drink and the oil, urm... yeah.

I will say that I find it weird that the special of Sizzling Ginger Honey Salmon is somehow $1 more than the regular Ginger Honey Glazed Salmon. I will say that I don't normally get sick from eating there. I did this time, I'm not sure if it's me or the salmon, and maybe this is a fluke, I did get sick this time. Doesn't necessary deter me from returning.

Hungry's Cafe (2 locations)
2356 Rice Boulevard
Houston, TX 77005
Get Directions
(713) 523-8652
http://hungryscafe.com/

Cova

Since this is a short week, we'll do the short week thing too... :P

Last night, we invited some friends to go to Cova (Washington) with us. I got a Groupon that's about to be expired, might as well get drunk w/ good company.

They do have a very open typed decor due to the high ceiling, and brilliant that they are, the sun doesn't touch any part of the restaurant until after 6:30p and there's enough shade at the front door to devoid any sunlight to the wine bottles. After a glass of wine, some good tasting cheese, we all liked the coffee lavender cheddar, it was time to order some food.

I ordered the petit osso busco, the risotto was a tad drier than I like. The braised lamb looked good, but when mixed in with the mushroom typed thing was good. It does fall off the bone, but it wasn't as full of flavor as it looked.
On another occasion, we went to Cova (Kirby), which is tiny by comparison, not because the square footage was small, just how the place was laid out doesn't give you that open feeling as the Washington location does. They do have a wine room in the back and seemingly alot more wine for sell, but not alot in terms of seating.

The food also seems limited than before. I remembered the first time I went there, there was a wide arrange of food to go with the wine. Seems like they trimmed down quite a bit.

I had the house cured salmon. The cured salmon and capers went very well together. The creme fraiche, not so much. I'm sure under some culinary something or another, those flavor goes together, but it just didn't for me or my palette.

I went ahead and ordered a side of Goat Cheese Mash(ed potato). The lovely thing about the mash is that it's not too over-empowered by the goat cheese. It's ever so subtle and you can't really tell it's there, but you can definitely taste a hint. I love that.

Overall, I would say that their food wasn't as good as I remembered it. They used to have a better menu to go with the wine they have to offer. All of their server are friendly, and I can definitely appreciate that.

Sign up for their newsletter, they have specials, classes, and wine dinner announced thru that venue. Tuesday night is their Surf & Turf Night, $17.99 for a 10oz steak, diced potatoes, doused with olive oil. Unfortunately, it came with 2 little shrimp... I guess that's the surf part.

Cova Wine
http://www.covawines.com/index.php

600 Kirby Drive
Houston, Texas 77005
Phone 713-838-0700

5555 Washington Avenue
Houston, Texas 77007
Phone 713-868-3366

Linky link

We, surprisingly, didn't get too much eating out for you to review... BUT! Several friends went blueberry picking over the weekend and here's a few links, to inspire then to use up the blueberries, and hopefully that inspire you too:

To help get rid of bluebuerries that you picked, here's a recipe for blueberry mojitos.

To get rid of more blueberries, try this trifle recipe. Looks good and I'm sure it tastes good too.

Yummy blueberry scones w/ lemon glaze.

This one has nothing to do w/ blueberries, but just wrong in many ways.

Landry's

On Sundays, we are usually around Fondren part of town. So, in a hurry, we decided to grab a quick bite at Landry's Seafood.

I know there's alot of feelings about them. Some people compare them to the evil empire, I just think they are a long links of restaurants. To me, they are no different than Pappas, or Carrabas type chain. I do think it's strange for a chain to buy a Las Vegas hotel and try to play the odds against Steve Wynn, but I digress.

If you're not familiar, every summer, Landry's does a Chef Signature Series where every Tuesday it features one of their chefs in one of their upscale restaurants for a 4-5 course prix fixe menu that is not the usual menu items. There are a set ticket price and seating is limited, but it's worth trying out different off-menu items. Again I digress.

Quick bite at Landry's, I got a lobster bisque and some asparagus on the side. Let's just say the experience was so-so. Since we were in a hurry, we opt-ed to sit at the bar. Now, if you're their Signature Member, you can get reserved seating (and get points for your visit).

Back to the food, the soup was heavier than I'm used to, you can taste the little chunks of the lobster, not as easily identified as the lobster bisque at Pappadeux. But over all it's not bad. The asparagus however, I can't speak much about that. It just looked over steamed, and when you tried to cut it up it's all stringy. I probably won't recommend the side of asparagus to anyone, maybe mixed veggies next time.

Landry's Seafood
8816 Westheimer
Houston, TX 77063
Phone: (713) 975-7873

Azuma - Sugarland

To be honest, I haven't properly sit down for dinner at Azuma for a long while. Since they have a location across the street from work, if I do end up going there, it's usually to go. Plus, they know this crowd aside from date night, people don't ask for the delicate, neat appetizers. We are either too busy getting drunk during Happy Hour, or just having a quick bite before a show.


So when friends suggested to go to Azuma in Sugarland, that was definitely an experience. First of all, we don't usually hang out down in that part of town. The other is that, the decor looks interesting and definitely worth checking out just for that.

We ordered the beef appetizer, which is cool because you are given a very hot rock or maybe it's an iron. And you cook your meat on top. Our server advised that it's best to put them in the shape of a triangle and then put the butter inside the triangle, so when it melts, it will disburst into all directions.

I think the grade of the beef cooked in butter really made the taste. Of course, having the sight and sound right in front of you helps enhance the experience too.
I just ordered some nigiri just for tastes. I was really there for the lobster roll, which has tempura lobster which was the real main attraction for me. It's not crispy in the middle, you can taste the meat, but not too strong. I'm a sucker for any lobster roll anyway.
Our server was super attentive. He noticed that David uses gluten free soy sauce and automatically offer more. And every presentation, even though it's just sushi, he made sure from the time it was delivered to the time the plate leaves the table nothing is missed. I definitely appreciate that.

Azuma - Sugarland
15830 Southwest Freeway
Suite 100
Sugarland, TX 77478
281-313-0518

Phillipe

So our friends C&L came back from South of France and totally missed it. One night they suggest get together and check out this hip spot. Mind you, out of the four of us, none of us are hip enough to go to a hip joint like Philippe. Don't get me wrong, not that we're hip, that's just not our usual go-to spots.

The decor of the restaurant is definitely catered to the yuppie crowd, wait, I think I'm in that category. Food wasn't as grand as I made it up to be in my head, but the presentation was flawless.

For appetizer, we shared the froi gras, and it was not gamey or liver-y. It tasted like a very freshly made pate'.
For entree, I had gotten the Strewn Lamb. It was very filling and the couscouse was delicatable. Apparently, there's pumpkin taste in there, but I didn't tasted that. I did taste the apricot and dates in the couscous.

For dessert, the photo above is the Grand Marnier crepe souffle. Since I know how to make it, the mystery was out for me.
For my dessert, it was an off the menu item. That is a lavender creme brulee with fried banana. It just looked like a deconstructed creme brulee. It does have a scoop of ice cream on top. And a cookie at the bottom with foam on the side. The banana was likely crisped, nothing too fancy or heavy.

Overall, the service was nice and as expected. The crowd is mixed even though the decor indicated that this is to cater to the hip crowd. I think if you enjoy good food, you will enjoy it here. The price overall is not outrageous for the food you get. I wouldn't mind if they give me less food, sounds crazy, but true. Good cuisine.

Philippe's Restaurant
1800 Post Oak Blvd.
Houston, TX 77056
713-439-1000
Reservations strongly recommended