Roadhouses (Tillman’s and otherwise)**

Simply put, Tillman’s Roadhouse is the shit. Awesome atmosphere. Awesome food. Awesome wait staff. Before I get in to the stories/food details, let me just list what all our lardass table ate.

They bring you out truffled popcorn and peanuts to start (A-MAZE-ING) then Todd sent us over two starters:

1) Trio of Fries: parmesean black pepper Kennebec fries, chili dusted purple Peruvian fries, and smoked salt scented sweet potato fries, served with homemade spicy ketchup and horseradish pickle mayo (of course I decided it wasn’t mayo, it was aioli, so I tried it).

2) Fried housemade bread and butter pickle cup with spicy brown butter

Then, we ordered, and all went really, really light......

1) Me: Chicken fried hanger steak with garlic whipped potatoes; bacon braised green beans and charred poblano gravy.

2) Crawford: Grilled PGA beef ribeye with truffled goat cheese tator tots. (Not as good as everyone elses…Should’ve ordered the Venison Frito Pie idiot.)

3) Dad: Chipotle BBQ smoked pork ribs with white cheddar mac-n-cheese. (They were amazing and he gave me a bite and tricked me in to eating a piece that was only fat…I wasn’t upset)

4) Megan: Off the Hook special (WEAK ORDER): Some striped sea bass with veggies. Almost made her leave the table. (Don’t go to dinner with our family and order non red-meat or pork. It’s just mean). Actually, its prob against her religion or something in her culture to eat meat.

5) Lauren: The Landy Burger—sirloin foie gras burger with Madiera aiolo, arugula, goats milk gouda cheese on a house baked Kaiser bun and goat cheese tator tots. (I think she ordered it saying “I’ll have the lady burger thinking she was sounding skinny”—sorry La, fail.)

6) Josh: same as me

7) Me again: Side of white cheddar mac-n-cheese (STOP JUDGING IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY)

So—we dove in, and ordered our 3rd and 4th bottles of wine, and everyone was in awe. The chicken fried steak was the most fat, delicious thing I have ever eaten (and I have eaten a lot of fat, delicious things), and I quickly scarfed down my mashed potatoes before anyone got a chance to try them. Seriously, it was 5 of my favorite nouns/adjectives on a plate: BACON, potatoes, FRIED, steak and GARLIC. Oh, and my number 1 favorite thing: gravy. Sweet Jesus I just sounded like that fat girl Nikki Blonsky (Tracy Turnblad) from Hairspray (and now the “star” of the ABC Family original series, Huge). Sidenote: Nikki Blonsky is Hungry and Mad

       Everyone enjoyed their meals—how could you not, the main ingredients were butter and red meat…seriously, my dream come true. Once we all were drunk on red meat and wine, we decided that we would be kidding ourselves if we didn’t order dessert…Little did I know, my starving sidekick Lauren had already ordered the Tableside S’mores and the Cookie tower…Please listen to these descriptions, they don’t even do the desserts justice..
S’mores Tableside: Orange, maple and coffee marshmallows, cinnamon grahams, dark chocolate bark.. (The bring you your own tableside fire and skewers and you get to do it yourself! Legit, and lots of fire.

And then Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip cookie tower with banana ice cream, chocolate icing, and chocolate sauce.
After we finished, the worlds most uncomfortable/akward/sexually inappropriate convo took place. Let’s just say my dad and boyfriend are going into business together and leave it at that. If you weren’t there then ask someone, it was amazing. **


GO TO TILLMAN’S. It is delicious. Don’t eat all day then go, and have zero shame. They also have games to play while you wait…

Solid food blogging group...
(minus the ending "Roadhouse convo and exiting problems)

Why is it called Mexotopia? There are no waterslides or roller coasters. FAIL.

           When we pulled up to Ricardo Avila’s new restaurant, “Mexotopia,” I had a good feeling. There in the car in front of ours, was Mr. and Mrs. Fatty McButterpants unloading their fupa’s and trekking towards the door. Any place that these fatty’s go must be worth trying. Only problem was that it was pouring and Megan was able to dash past them (natural born athlete, number 23, HP Scots Soccer), and I got stuck between their combined wide loads. So, 20 minutes later I was soaking wet and ready for a marg. 

 We were greeted by Ricardo himself, who was very friendly and handed me a stack of 4 bar napkins  (ya, Ricky, cause that’s going to be enough to towel my 120 square feet of body mass). They told us which table to sit at and we had chips and salsa within seconds. Their salsa tastes kind of like Mattito’s but better—spicier and saltier. We ordered queso (duh) and it tasted exactly like the queso that I blogged about when I reviewed Avila's so I’m not going to write about it again. So we ordered, I got Tricolor Enchiladas (one chicken w/ tomatillo, one sour cream chicken and one soft cheese taco) and Megan got Brisket Gorditas. 

The margaritas were on special for HH so we got the house marg at $5. It came and the first sip was rough—a little strong but the ice melted and made it better. While we were waiting I asked for a house margarita, but frozen and the dude looked at me like I was smoking crack. “Uh, we don had de froden ones” and it took all my will power not to say “Well, do you have a blender in the back? Do you have the same ingredients as what was in my glass? Then just throw it in there Pedro, geez.” I kept quiet and declined the second marg because Mr. and Mrs. Fatsh*t were sitting directly in my eye line and I was afraid if I was rude to the waiter who was refreshing their chip bowl every 6 seconds, they might eat me.

             

   Our food came pretty quickly and looked good. The sour cream sauce was actually really light and delish. Megan liked her brisket gorditas, but “really wishes they would have taken some of the meat fat juices and mixed it with salsa so I could have some gravy.” My friends are dainty. Besides the lack of meat-fat gravy, our only complaint was the rice and beans. I’m pretty sure that Duke sold the secret recipe for Bush’s beans because that’s what we were eating—tasted like Bush’s Grillen’ Beans—not really what I was looking for in mexi-beans. The rice was bland lost its flavor after a few chews, much like Strawberry Splash Bubblicious. 

                All in all, decent, but I would choose Mico over it any day. The name of this restaurant promised more than it delivered. I figured I'd black out or at least get to ride some cool rides. I also got stuck behind the Fatsons on the way back to the car. In the rain. And they were carrying their leftover dessert.(I bet this restaurant would be a hit in Houston).

                

Here's where Ricardo and his team must have learned the secret recipe. Shit, secret's out dude...