A couple of days in Houston

Houston has a special place in my traveling history. It’s not exactly a place I’ll get teary eyed and nostalgic over, but it’s an interesting city of contrasts.

First my history with Houston; It was the first foreign trip I took with work. I came to Houston for a couple of weeks in 1986. I was an innocent 17 year old send over by the MOD to work with airplanes. It was quite an experience as I was the youngest on the crew and had a lot of people to help lead me astray. And they did a fine job.

I learned I had a very solid tolerance for American “domestic” beer. I discovered I can’t line dance. I found out that Country and Western music are actually two separate genres. That you should always, always put sun screen and wear a hat when you drive a Land Rover with the top down in Houston in august.

That time I had a few days off. Through a long story, a friend who lived in England was from Houston, her father still lived in Houston and told me to call him. He took me to my first baseball game, Houston played San Francisco in the Astrodome and after three hours I had learned enough to understand the basics. Today I understand the game a little better and even get the infield-fly rule (with runners and first and second with less than two outs…), but it’s all rooted in that afternoon.

With most of my spectating experience being places like the Rec Ground watching Aldershot play and a couple of trips to a rather tatty Wembley. The Astrodome was from another world, huge, clean, seats everywhere and no puddles of piss on the floor of the gents (or the yellow ice in the winter).

As I said, the experience of watching a game in the Astrodome was so far from Wembley as to be incomparable.

This time I decide to go be a good tourist. At first first I was a little skeptical as the “Tourism Houston” website had three quotes about Houston from famous residents. First was one of the guys from ZZ Top, secondly was a world famous ice sculptor I’d never heard of and finally Toby the Red Panda from Houston Zoo about how great a place it was to live.

Not really what you’d call a promising start, but none the less I’m here and I’m going to have fun. And I did.

Houston has a number of very good museums. That burnt up a few hours today with the Fine Art Museum of Houston being the pick of the bunch that I saw, but I did not make it to the Natural History Museum. Next time maybe.

I took a drive to the San Jacinto Battle ground monument, I’d been told that if I wanted to learn a little about Texas history, that was where I needed to go. I had a very basic idea of the story of Texas gaining independence from Mexico, picked up from who knows where. I stopped in a book store last night and picked up “Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign” by Steven L Moore.

Turned out to be a fascinating read and sitting on the rather impressive monument reading about what happened here was interesting. I can recommend the book and the museum at the base of the monument is worth the effort should you be in the area.

The area is surrounded by refineries and heavy industry today and it’s difficult to imagine the mosquito infested swamp it was in 1836. But sitting there reading a well written history book in the sun is rarely going to be time wasted. Especially as it’s pissing down with rain in Seattle today and I was sitting there wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

After I’d finished with the history bit I headed back to the hotel, showered and went for dinner with some colleagues. Houston is known for a couple of things, BBQ and steak. Last night we went for BBQ at a little place locally, oh my gosh it was good. The best I’ve ever had, and there were a couple of solid contenders already on the board.

Tonight was the other, steak. We went to Mortons, a rather well known chain of steakhouses. There was the added bonus of being within walking distance of the hotel. I was not playing about: dry aged, New York prepared as the chef sees fit (medium-rare and lightly peppered).

I won’t put it up against the Kobe beef, that’s not fair. Nothing involving charred meat will compare to that experience, but it knocked the tenderloin from the Oxo Tower Grill in London into third place on the all-time meal list.

The flavour was very intense and so damn tender. I believe there were other things on the plate, but I don’t recall what exactly. One may have been green, but they weren’t important. Add some interesting conversation, a couple of glasses of whatever the red wine was the waiter recommended to go with it and it was a memorable evening.

There is one more thing I need to mention, first time I was in Houston I got taken to “James Coney Island Hotdogs” for lunch. Jack (my friends father) sat me down and put two chili-cheese dogs in front of me and told me to enjoy. And I did. There happens to be one close to JSC and went there for lunch on Thursday. While I think the saying that “you can’t ever go home again” is true, this was pretty damn good. I’m not much of a hot-dog fan, one of the infamous “King-dogs” from the Kingdome has not been forgotten, this was as good as I recall. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting there bloated and gently out-gassing, but it was a happy and contented bloat.

Saturday night I went on a recommendation to a rock club close to downtown ($6 flat cab fair in the downtown area, very good idea) and found a great music scene. All local bands. One in particular sounded a little like Death cab of a decade ago, not polished yet, but very good music. The club was packed and a lot of fun.

I’ve grown to like Houston, it’s an interesting city with a lot more going on than I’ve given it credit for in the past. There is an emerging music scene that’s not only country or Western, and a number of great bars and a downtown that people visit in the evening. Yeah it’s big and sprawling, but it’s growing on me.

The SXSW conference that takes place in Austin looks a very interesting way to spend a few days in the spring. I maybe back then.