Shade, Houston TX

Traveling for work can be a grind, but it’s always a little less dreary when you can work a nice meal in. Earlier this week I was in Houston and with the help of the iPhone Yelp app, I found a lovely restaurant called Shade. The menu was what you might call new-Southern, with plenty of good options. It reminded me of Watershed in Atlanta and made me realize that we could use some more southern influence in Austin. It had been a while since I’d eaten a fried green tomato. There was even a bacon, lettuce and fried green tomato sandwich on the menu, which is not the sort of thing I can easily pass up. A deviled egg on the side was the clincher.

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Avalon Diner, Houston TX

Originally, our plan was to have breakfast in Houston, but it didn’t work out that way. Breakfast became lunch, and this was to prove a theme of the trip. Of course, the nice thing about driving is that when plans change, it’s no big deal. So we had burgers at the Avalon Diner in Houston instead of eggs.

We read about the Avalon in Jane and Michael Stern’s Roadfood. And while the burgers, onion rings and milkshake were all pretty solid, it wasn’t exactly our idea of “road food.” It was really a neighborhood diner (and a bit out of our way). It turns out that Roadfood’s idea of road food encompasses not only highway fare, but also meals in “city neighborhoods.”

Can you see the heat in these photos? It was absolutely unbearable out there.

Eliza puts in the order. The service was a bit surly, which we liked.

Jaxon cooled off with a little beverage.

Onion rings: excellent and plentiful.

Prepare for insulin shock.

This is probably the most awesome photo ever taken of me. Thanks, babe.

And finally, Jaxon settles into the journey. Everyone was feeling good except for Ben, who needed a nap about 20 minutes after hitting the road. The chocolate shake was a bad decision.

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