Tex-a-whaaaat?
BBQ + Sushi = ???
Tex Wasabi opened its doors to the public last Friday after a disastrous fire amongst other problems (read: location, strange food combo, etc). After wanting to go for quite some time to check out Guy Fieri’s brainchild, we finally went. (We, as in myself and my boyfriend Dan). What I experienced that evening was what made me want to start a blog because I was so put off by the entire experience.
Lets talk about ambiance. First off, it has a terrible location on Arden between Bell and How. It looks like the ghetto. A very large, poorly designed logo welcomes you to the parking lot which is quite small and borders a housing project of some kind. But that’s the least of the problems. Once you walk in through the double doors, you are not quite sure what to think. It felt like you walked into a strange Chevy’s meets Tahoe Joe’s affect. There are not any Japanese influences in the decor except for the Sapporo, Kirin and shoji inspired candle votives on the table. You see the sushi bar on one side, the regular bar on the other. Note: It is pretty LOUD in there although it wasn’t necessarily THAT full. This could be to the acoustics or the fact that they have music blaring as well as have news, sports and misc Chinese movies playing.
Chinese.
This brings me to another point of confusion: If the menu boasts to have Texas BBQ and California Style Sushi, why the Chinese stuff at all? Don’t get me wrong, I love Chinese food and all of its glory between the Americanized lunch specials to the oh so yummy chicken feet that you can get at yam cha. So again, what gives?
The food itself was mediocre. I ordered the BBQ & Sushi combo which gave you a 1/4 rack of BBQ ribs, wing and thigh of BBQ chicken, two sides, plus your choice of either the California Roll or the Jackass Roll. Yes, the Jackass Roll. Since I am not partial to California Rolls to begin with since they are generally made poorly and cheaply, I ordered the Jackass Roll. Apparently, the Jackass Roll comes off of their “Gringo Sushi” menu which I have to say, weird for me, but great for those people who hate sushi but want to attempt to make nice. It was bbq pork inside of a roll! It was….interesting. It was made better after a touch of soy sauce and wasabi to give it the Japanese essence that it was missing. The two sides I ordered were coleslaw and the seasoned fries.
Seasoned fries are generally quite glorious for me since they’re chock full of spices and pepper. The fries that I ended up with appeared that they have been purchased at the neighboring Micky D’s and dumped on my plate. They were cold and hard pretty quickly. I asked our delightful server, Sunni, if that they were indeed, seasoned fries. Her response? “The first time I tried them, I thought they were from McDonald’s!” To which I replied, “ME TOO!” Anytime you can connect with your server that way, I say its a good thing. She insisted that I should try something else and I asked her what her favorite was. She replied that the beans were actually her favorite. They were quite tasty. In fact, out of everything that we tried, it was probably the tastiest. The coleslaw wasn’t bad either since it wasn’t weighed down with tons of mayo.
Dan had this unagi roll business that wasn’t that great either. The funny thing was that we ended up switching rolls because we preferred each others.
The wait for the food, the crappy fries, and the moody hostesses weren’t what made me so mad. What made me so mad was Guy himself. We were anxious to see if he was going to show up and shake hands with his customers since it was opening night. Well, I’m not the kind of crazy fan who’s…well, a fanatic. I’m more of the whole, “I’m going to make eye contact, smile and show you that I know who you are and YOU know that I KNOW who you are. The end.” Guy made a round to various tables and returned to the kitchen. Then he came out again and did some more. The entire time he was out and about schmoozing, he NEVER CAME TO OUR TABLE. There were two of us, sitting at a six person table yet we never got to get our personal meet and greet and tell him how crappy his fries are. (It would have been nice and constructive, not mean and pissy).
In the end, the food wasn’t great, it was over priced, and Guy, you’ve lost a fan and a patron.
Welcome to Me So Hungie
“The Truth Never Tasted So Good”–Homer Simpson
The TV King of Gluttony was the inspiration of the title of this blog. There is an episode of the Simpsons where Homer goes on a hunger strike to prevent the minor league Isotopes from leaving Springfield. After twelve days of starving, he gets in front of the mike and says, “Me so hungie,” in a very pittiful way. A very appropos statement considering that its hard for me to go twelve hours without eating.
After many thoughts of starting a food blog, it finally happened.
What changed my mind?
Very simple, a not so great dinning experience (which you will read later on). This food experience was not what it was supposed to be. After being angered by the incident, my ever so faithful food partner in crime, Dan, decided to set up this blog for me. (Thanks Babe!)
This blog is meant for all food purposes; eating experiences, different food profiles, cooking successes/disasters, and anything amusing that is related to food.
Happy reading!