CertifiedFoodie is a food enthusiast in Houston. She's a fearless adventurer whose palate will bravely taste absolutely anything (!) once. A motto which have led to profuse tongue-scrubbings, cussing, and back-to-back food poisoning. When not eating and/or traveling, she's a loving wife and mom and a career woman involved in healthcare.
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For the last few days, my beloved city has been inundated with rain. Rivers have flooded and neighboring cities have been evacuated. The lingering fear that my neck of the woods would be next is real and we watch with angst as the creek behind us rose steadily. Luckily, we dodged this watery bullet and woke up one morning with the sun actually shining.
D wanted to go out for lunch. Beans was going to Skyzone with friends in the afternoon and wanted some money for the arcades. I had the most exciting plan: I was going to do laundry, mow the lawn and pull up weeds. So I decided to delegate my chores to Beans in exchange for arcade money, then D and I can go out for lunch. Brilliant!
D wanted to try State Fare Kitchen and Bar. I’ve never heard of it but the address sounded familiar. It’s because it used to be Pour Society. D wanted to try it because it was supposed to have 40 kinds of beer in draft. He further enticed my by saying that it had awesome mac, n cheese, roasted oyster, various burgers…..D, hold it right there. You had me by mac n cheese. Let’s go.
No kidding about the “facelift”. Instead of the dingy look of Pour Society, it now looks bright and airy. The bar is like 50 feet long with solid marble counter tops. I could live here.I had red sangria from draft and D can’t decide between Belgian Tripel and Medium Saison, so he tasted both. Note the rope wall on background. Lovely.Jalapeño-Onion Dip with Home-Made Chips for appetizerD had his usual filet mignon. Seriously…this man and his steak…no wordsThe mac n cheese to end all mac n cheese — the Mac Daddy! It has short ribs and roasted shallots. It can’t get better than this. The ultimate Southern Comfort Food.
They boast of their dessert menu because its made by the chef of Petite Sweets, pastry chef Susan Molzan.
Double Chocolate Cake. Double yum.D couldn’t get enough of the draft beers so he ordered another on to pair with the cake,Milk chocolate stout. Sounds about right.
What an awesome way to welcome good weather. Houston has never been famous for lovely weather conditions, always hot and muggy. But hey, I’ll take hot and muggy over rain and flood any day…
As we walked out, saw my G parked next to another white G and found it amusing so I took a pic and posted it on FB. I spoke to its owner and he was amused too. You don’t see a lot of G’s, much less parked next to each other. But apparently, someone took offense of that and said something snarky on my post. A hater! I’ve made it ya’ll!!! In these days of social media, you haven’t made it till you have a hater. Hahaha!!!
How you can hate someone about to devour 8000 calories of pasta and cheese AND alcoholic sugary-drink, I will never know.
My family and I spent a glorious vacation in America’s Last Frontier—Alaska! This was a long planned vacation for for me and my sister’s family, plus Mom. I had a patient from Alaska who told me to NEVER eat salmon over there. I was puzzled. Why? Don’t they have the best salmon in the world? And that is exactly the reason, she said. Once you’ve tasted Alaskan salmon, you will never like salmon from anywhere else again…. Ugh!
Naturally, I Googled all our restaurant itineraries. I’ve always marveled how I ate during travel before the advent of internet. Do I keep walking till I get so hungry and just follow my nose? I do remember having great eating adventures back then so I must say my nose was pretty darn good…
Word of warning, this is kinda lengthy because it features two cities in Alaska that we had absolutely amazing eating experience: Anchorage and Ketchikan. Not that Juneau and Skagway don’t have amazing eats. We actually had too short a stay and there were just just so many things to do and see. Now, if this were a travel blog, you would need half a day to finish reading all this.
We were staying in Anchorage for two days before embarking on to the cruise, not nearly enough to go to Denali National Park. But my sister and her family are hikers, so they have no problem killing those two days hiking around; there were so many interesting trails, or so I was told. I, on the other hand, am on vacation. These Prada sneakers ain’t made for hiking. Luckily I came across this Beer Tour. BigSwig Tour. Now this is my kind of hike!
I love in-your-face business names.
The website was catchy and oh-so-true
Naturally, I booked a tour. This is a treat for the hubby. He loves these craft beers.
As promised in the website, the tours are as much about the history of Alaskan beers, the masters who brew them and the locals who drink them, as they are about tasting the beers themselves. First stop was at Midnight Sun Brewery and Co. Anchorage’s oldest brewery, Midnight Sun has medaled at both the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup. Tastes like victory.
Tour guide explains how beers are made and the different kind of grains they make it withAnd here is a variety of craft beers according to grade. Yup, chugged them all.After all the drinks, I’ve totally forgotten what these are. But they were good, I’m sure of that
Second stop is at King’s Street Brewery. This is a fairly new brewery but are really good at their craft. It’s one of the few Alaskan beers that you can get outside of Alaska.
Pretty serious, huh? I wasn’t as valiant as the previous tasting, and yup, I was getting tipsy so I didn’t chug all theseThey had a pretty interesting beer keg that we got to try too.
Last stop was Chilkoot Charlie’s. It’s impossible to talk Alaskan beer history without visiting world famous Chilkoot Charlie’s. This is Anchorage’s premier “night spot”. In a nutshell, it’s a beer garden with 7 nights a week of entertainment. It’s a huge venue divided into several areas so at any given time, there would be 5-7 bands simultaneously playing. One can go from one area to another at a whim.
This is the front, which is deceivingly small. But it goes all the way to the back, occupying more than a block.Each area had a full bar that showcases local beers
In a way, I was kinda glad that we dropped in early and there wasn’t any “action” yet. Not only are my ears too old for loud music, I was getting a bad headache from the beer I had. Beer always does that to me. Wine, I can drink till the cows come home. Beer tells my head it’s time to go home.
We decided to grab dinner before my head explodes so we headed towards Glacier Brewhouse. At that point, I would have been happy never to see beer for the rest of my life.
No such luck. It’s not called a brewhouse for nothing. They did have some soda, so that’s what i hadFor appetizers, we had Bering Sea King Crab Cakes…and Bering Sea King Crab Legs.Throwing caution to the wind, Alaskan Alder Grilled Sockeye Salmon. And yes, it was absolutely delicious!It comes in different sides and veggies. There are no words to describe the moistness and flakiness of this fish
And with that we called it a day in Anchorage, Alaska. tomorrow we will be heading towards some Nature Park my sister has planned. Food-for- the-eyes kind of thing. That’s her specialty.
Ketchikan is another harbor city in Alaska. It’s very quaint but filled with amusing little corners. Cities like that usually have hole-in-the-wall restaurants that are amazing.
After seeing some ancient tottempoles and shopping at Creek Street, we were cold and hungry. My sister is still very energetic for more shopping so we split and I followed my nose to some comfort food. It led me to Annabelle’s Keg and Chowder House.
It has an extensive bar, and lucky for us, despite its strategic location being so near the ports, it wasn’t at all busy.
I had their Three Chowder Sampler — Clam, Smoked Salmon and Seafood. That was all I needed to warm up my body!!!D had his usual Beer Sampler.
To sum up my Alaskan Food Experience, its beer, beer and more beer. And some amazing salmon here and there. Oh and crab legs. Just when you think that’s a lot of seafood, wait till I feature my cruise dining experience. As soon as I gather up my pics, you will want to book reservations right away! Alaskan Cruises are known for having the best food among all cruises.
In between all the drinking and eating are the happy smiles. A great reminder why we work hard—so that we vacation hard too!
