Wednesday, February 25, 2009

On Airline (Triple A and El Bolillo Panaderia)

Going to the Triple A with Houston Foodie

Triple A Restaurant, next to Canino's Market, is a time capsule, transporting you back 50 years.

On Friday, I introduced it to Houston Foodie - another blogger with deep East Texas roots. I tried to explain to HF that the best aproach to Triple A is to order one of the daily specials, which all come with 3 sides. So I ordered the special gumbo with sides of greens, pinto beans, and peach cobbler. Although all of these were good, the best were the greens and cobbler.


But HF had something else in mind. He saw that the regular menu listed chicken fried steak. The waitress warned him, "That takes 20 minutes. The specials take about 2." HF didn't care.

When the chicken fried steak arrived (before I got my daily special), it was a monster -- so big that its sides fell over the edges of the plate. As HF worked his way through the steak, he was obviously enjoying it. "Want to try a bite," he offered?

As I bit into the steak, I noticed the crispy batter with large flakes. It covered a tender, thin layer of beef. HF suggested that he could not think of a better CFS in Houston. I thought a minute. "Maybe Barebecue Inn?" Then again, maybe not.

Triple A's CFS was unexpectedly wonderful, and quite possibly Houston's best CFS. It's a shame I didn't take a photo.

Bread at El Bolillo Panaderia

After lunch, HF suggested that we walk across Airline and try El Bolillo -- a Mexican bakery in a giant new building.

I go to a lot of Mexican bakeries. I know about their deliciously sweet breakfast breads. I did not expect to be surprised by El Bolillo. But I was.

El Bolillo is a Mexican bakery on steroids. This enormous bakery has dozens of varieties of sweet breads, tortillas, pastries, cakes, and custards.

I only tried two sweet breads -- one that resembled cheesecake, and another that was like bread pudding without the pudding. Both were delicious.

Don't be surprised to hear more about El Bolillo in these pages.

5 comments:

Rubiao said...

Funny, I spend immeasurable amounts of time on Airline between Canino's, El Bolillo, Lone Star Spices, and a few restaurants, yet I've never been to Triple A. Always drive past it, never gone in. I occasionally pick up a tres leches from El Bolillo, pretty good, but I prefer the one from La Guadalupana.

Anonymous said...

Ditto what Rubiao said. Next time you're over there, make sure you check out Connie's Seafood for the best seafood cocktails in town. I recommend the big daddy cocktail that comes with shrimp, octopus and oysters. Mmmmmm.

Oh, and make sure to get some marranitos (the little pig-shaped cookies) the next time you're at El Bolillo. They make the best ones in town. :)

Houston Foodie said...

Thanks for introducing me to Triple A. It has rekindled my desire for good CFS, cholesterol level be damned. Got a tip on the Tel-Wink diner in south Houston - will check that out soon.

I am totally addicted to those cheese cake slices at Bolillo.

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