4. Strip-Mall Cheese Enchiladas Runny cheese enchiladas are surprisingly hard to find once you leave Houston. Even the offerings in Austin and Dallas seem more coagulated. And don't get me started on Los Angeles's complete failure in this department, which they try to compensate for by giving you a radish on your plate. As if a radish would tip the scales for anyone.
The Tex-Mex restaurants sprinkled in strip-malls across Houston - like so many chopped onions atop chile con carne - know just the right amount of goop to fire the pleasure centers in your brain. In Northwest Houston I always wind up at Don Jose, Two Amigos or Los Caporales. Combo plate number four, please.
3. Chicken-Fried Steak Texas truly is the border between the South and the West, because once you manifest your destiny any further, all good CFS options dry up in the dust. Which is a real shame, especially for a dish that's not very difficult to make.
Beat the meat. Drizzle with milk. Spice, flour and fry. Done.
What's so difficult about that, everywhere else but the South? You could argue the best CFS is outside the city, in small towns along the Chicken-Fried Steak Belt, but Houston still holds its own. I'm glancing your way, Hickory Hollow and Kelley's Country Cooking.
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