Yesterday was a day of sevens. I woke up around seven am, and after slowing getting around, went for a run. It was raining lightly as I headed out of the neighborhood. It was actually kind of fun to run in the rain. Distracting. Lots of other runners out there with me on the bayou. I ran all the way to the edge of the historic downtown, a few miles down, crossed over the bayou and ran back. Lots of mud since I also ran through parts of the park still under construction. The rain picked up, and the last mile or so was a torrential downpour. Back under the canopy, I wrung out my socks and tee shirt, and leaving my soaking shoes in the garage, went in for a hot shower.
Dad made waffles and we got ready to go into town. Dad had a holiday party in the Hilton in downtown, so he got us a room for the night there as well while he and Neri went to the company party up in the ballrooms. The Hilton of the Americas Lobby was quite bizarre. Apart from the cruise ship lobby architecture (too many different finishes, jangling everywhere), there was apparently some big Aggie get together, and life sized tableau of Santa and two elves made out of chocolate. Santa, for some reason, looked inexplicably like a mongolian warlord.
In SantaDu did Kublai Kahn a festive winter dome decree... Anyway, Tay picked us out a raft of places to check out for a night on the town so we struck out early. There were seven of them.
The last piece of advice that dad gave us was a warning to stay out of east Houston, so it was a bit ironic that we did end up heading directly to east Houston. The restaurant was Huyuh, a Vietnamese restaurant where we had Pho. I rated it a 7.
From there, we headed to midtown. The light rail was running, but we decided to shoot the breeze and walk it to check out the city. It ended up being a mile and a half hike, and through areas which both of us would have preferred to take the light rail through. Lots of homeless and pan-handlers. There's a distinct dead zone between the central business district and midtown. And actually, I didn't have much of a good feeling about midtown either, when the greasy spoon in the Grayhound station advertised the "best burgers in Midtown."
Finally and hallelujah we came upon the darkened and grafitti-tagged warehouse containing the bar. The Nouveau Art Bar was locked and closed, not to open until 9pm. It was around 7. Tay quickly found us another bar he was interested in nearby and we headed over there, a bit down the street.
Double Trouble traffics in both caffeine and alcohol- it's an espresso bar and cocktail bar rolled in a Tiki bar wrapper. It was part of a row of buildings which were like an island in midtown. A bohemian/hipster oasis. The shop next door sold laser cut birch placemats and leather wrapped mason jars as coffee mugs. Things on chains. Basically an indie Anthropology with more leather crafts.
Anyway, Tay and I each ordered a rum tiki drink with pineapple called FifteenHundredDollarsAndTwoWeeks, and a rye whisky drink with grapefruit they called JazzHands. We sat outside on the patio and enjoyed our drinks in the mild weather.
We hopped on the light rail to go back uptown instead of waiting for the other bar to open. It turned out to be free that day for some reason. Anyway, our next stop was La Carafe, close to Congress street. La Carafe is a narrow little bar with an upstairs and a downstairs in one of the oldest buildings in the city, built around the 1840s. Dimly lit, with an ancient wooden bar, candles, and a wall of Victorian paintings, black and white portraits, and darrageutypes, it feels somewhere between a pirate bar and western saloon. The bar is cash only- the bartender rings up sales in an ornate brass cash register which must be at least seven decades old. Oddly, it's best known as a wine bar, although they had a great selection of craft beer in bottles.
We had three beers apiece there, one of which were these great IPAs from Brooklyn called Six Points Bengali Tiger. Strong stuff, I might add. Tay noticed that they'd opened the upstairs which only happens on weekend nights after 9pm, so we went out to the small outdoor balcony and got another beer. They were out of tables, but the bartender told us we could drag some chairs out there, so we did. It was just a nice place to sit and drink and look at the lights of the city from this intimate old bar.
I was really feeling the alcohol at this point, so I just got a water at the Okra Charity House, a bar located in an old alley between two buildings which had been covered over with a glass and wood canopy to enclose it. It's actually a really cool space with a circular bar in the middle, and I'm really not doing it justice by describing it as a covered alley.
Next stop was Pastry War, which, like the last two bars, was just around the corner from each other. Pastry War is a mezcaleria. It's the bar I wish I'd gone to sober. It was a hopping, happening place with a really young clientele, a great Mezcal and Sotol and Tequila menu and poppy blue colors. We ordered the house margaritas. Behind the bar was a big sign explaining that it was their pleasure to NOT serve Jose Cuervo, 1800, Patron, or other giant label mediocre tequila. We sat on a table (the chairs were taken, nobody noticed or cared), talked, worked on our margaritas, and watched drunk people play pool.
From there, we rode the light rail back to midtown and finally got into the Nouveau Art Bar. My memory is a bit hazy, but I remember we ordered Aviators (pink! why are they all pink? It's supposed to be a blue drink!). The bar was big, and filled with Tiffany style lamps and art glass chandeliers. Actually, the overall effect was more of a lighting showroom with a bar. Sitting at the bar, I got to talking with the guy next me who was apparently on leave from the military and really wanted to buy us shots. Probably gay. We declined, finished our drinks, and headed out, done drinking for the night. I had consumed seven drinks.
The seventh stop was a taco shop I remembered from the last time I was in Houston, a small place called Tacos-a-Go-Go, which was wonderfully open at this late hour and served up incredible tacos. Ate a bunch of barbacoa tacos, Mexico City style, and wandered back to catch the light rail. No such luck. We'd missed the last one.
We could have hoofed it back the 1.7 miles to the hotel, but we were both drunk, tired, and not really excited about the prospect of crossing such dead zones. So Tay called us a cab from Yellow Cab, who refused to send us a cab until we had a building reference, even though he was standing literally in the middle of the intersection of the cross streets. We waited about 40 minutes for the taxi, and the one that picked us up, as it transpired, was not actually our cab. After we got back to the hotel, Tay got an automated call informing him that the cab had now arrived and was waiting to pick him up, over an hour after he'd called them.
Took a quick shower, downed copious amounts of water, and then crashed into boozy sleep.
It was, predictably, a rough morning for me.
Dad made waffles and we got ready to go into town. Dad had a holiday party in the Hilton in downtown, so he got us a room for the night there as well while he and Neri went to the company party up in the ballrooms. The Hilton of the Americas Lobby was quite bizarre. Apart from the cruise ship lobby architecture (too many different finishes, jangling everywhere), there was apparently some big Aggie get together, and life sized tableau of Santa and two elves made out of chocolate. Santa, for some reason, looked inexplicably like a mongolian warlord.
In SantaDu did Kublai Kahn a festive winter dome decree... Anyway, Tay picked us out a raft of places to check out for a night on the town so we struck out early. There were seven of them.
The last piece of advice that dad gave us was a warning to stay out of east Houston, so it was a bit ironic that we did end up heading directly to east Houston. The restaurant was Huyuh, a Vietnamese restaurant where we had Pho. I rated it a 7.
From there, we headed to midtown. The light rail was running, but we decided to shoot the breeze and walk it to check out the city. It ended up being a mile and a half hike, and through areas which both of us would have preferred to take the light rail through. Lots of homeless and pan-handlers. There's a distinct dead zone between the central business district and midtown. And actually, I didn't have much of a good feeling about midtown either, when the greasy spoon in the Grayhound station advertised the "best burgers in Midtown."
Finally and hallelujah we came upon the darkened and grafitti-tagged warehouse containing the bar. The Nouveau Art Bar was locked and closed, not to open until 9pm. It was around 7. Tay quickly found us another bar he was interested in nearby and we headed over there, a bit down the street.
Double Trouble traffics in both caffeine and alcohol- it's an espresso bar and cocktail bar rolled in a Tiki bar wrapper. It was part of a row of buildings which were like an island in midtown. A bohemian/hipster oasis. The shop next door sold laser cut birch placemats and leather wrapped mason jars as coffee mugs. Things on chains. Basically an indie Anthropology with more leather crafts.
Anyway, Tay and I each ordered a rum tiki drink with pineapple called FifteenHundredDollarsAndTwoWeeks, and a rye whisky drink with grapefruit they called JazzHands. We sat outside on the patio and enjoyed our drinks in the mild weather.
We hopped on the light rail to go back uptown instead of waiting for the other bar to open. It turned out to be free that day for some reason. Anyway, our next stop was La Carafe, close to Congress street. La Carafe is a narrow little bar with an upstairs and a downstairs in one of the oldest buildings in the city, built around the 1840s. Dimly lit, with an ancient wooden bar, candles, and a wall of Victorian paintings, black and white portraits, and darrageutypes, it feels somewhere between a pirate bar and western saloon. The bar is cash only- the bartender rings up sales in an ornate brass cash register which must be at least seven decades old. Oddly, it's best known as a wine bar, although they had a great selection of craft beer in bottles.
We had three beers apiece there, one of which were these great IPAs from Brooklyn called Six Points Bengali Tiger. Strong stuff, I might add. Tay noticed that they'd opened the upstairs which only happens on weekend nights after 9pm, so we went out to the small outdoor balcony and got another beer. They were out of tables, but the bartender told us we could drag some chairs out there, so we did. It was just a nice place to sit and drink and look at the lights of the city from this intimate old bar.
I was really feeling the alcohol at this point, so I just got a water at the Okra Charity House, a bar located in an old alley between two buildings which had been covered over with a glass and wood canopy to enclose it. It's actually a really cool space with a circular bar in the middle, and I'm really not doing it justice by describing it as a covered alley.
Next stop was Pastry War, which, like the last two bars, was just around the corner from each other. Pastry War is a mezcaleria. It's the bar I wish I'd gone to sober. It was a hopping, happening place with a really young clientele, a great Mezcal and Sotol and Tequila menu and poppy blue colors. We ordered the house margaritas. Behind the bar was a big sign explaining that it was their pleasure to NOT serve Jose Cuervo, 1800, Patron, or other giant label mediocre tequila. We sat on a table (the chairs were taken, nobody noticed or cared), talked, worked on our margaritas, and watched drunk people play pool.
From there, we rode the light rail back to midtown and finally got into the Nouveau Art Bar. My memory is a bit hazy, but I remember we ordered Aviators (pink! why are they all pink? It's supposed to be a blue drink!). The bar was big, and filled with Tiffany style lamps and art glass chandeliers. Actually, the overall effect was more of a lighting showroom with a bar. Sitting at the bar, I got to talking with the guy next me who was apparently on leave from the military and really wanted to buy us shots. Probably gay. We declined, finished our drinks, and headed out, done drinking for the night. I had consumed seven drinks.
The seventh stop was a taco shop I remembered from the last time I was in Houston, a small place called Tacos-a-Go-Go, which was wonderfully open at this late hour and served up incredible tacos. Ate a bunch of barbacoa tacos, Mexico City style, and wandered back to catch the light rail. No such luck. We'd missed the last one.
We could have hoofed it back the 1.7 miles to the hotel, but we were both drunk, tired, and not really excited about the prospect of crossing such dead zones. So Tay called us a cab from Yellow Cab, who refused to send us a cab until we had a building reference, even though he was standing literally in the middle of the intersection of the cross streets. We waited about 40 minutes for the taxi, and the one that picked us up, as it transpired, was not actually our cab. After we got back to the hotel, Tay got an automated call informing him that the cab had now arrived and was waiting to pick him up, over an hour after he'd called them.
Took a quick shower, downed copious amounts of water, and then crashed into boozy sleep.
It was, predictably, a rough morning for me.
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