Katz's

Like most people in Houston I always drive by Katz's, read their sign that says "Katz's Never Kloses", and just laugh and laugh and laugh because AUSTIN, our lame-o cousin to the northwest, used to have a Katz's and it KLOSED. Man what a bunch of chumps, I bet they were rethinking their business slogan real hard as they shuttered their doors.

Look I really like Katz's, and it's not just because they serve breakfast food 24 hours a day. I mean I do like that they serve breakfast food 24 hours a day, but I'll be honest I've never had their breakfast food, I just stick to their New York Jew Food.* I don't know if you guys know this, but I have this speech defect where any time I try to do an accent, after about three or four words it just kind of turns into a really racist sounding Indian accent. British, Polish, Irish, Jamaican... all turns to Indian. There is, however, one exception: My New York accent is, at least in my mind, spot on. I think it's all in the attitude, really - whenever I practice my New York accent, I like to put myself in the mind of a New Yorkian. I'm grouchy because I don't have a rent controlled apartment, all the taxi drivers are trying to take me for a ride (that's supposed to be a pun, but I didn't really know how to spruce it up for you), and nothing is ever good enough for me. Also my favorite food is cheesecake. (Just kidding really how I do it is I pretend I'm Fran Dresher but I just woke up after eating an entire tobacco field that's soaked in whiskey.) So I feel this real closeness to people from New York, like I could be one of them. I love their Jewish Food. The thing is I found this exception - it's this schlock called matzo, have you had it? I had pnuemonia last week (I just like to throw this out so you guys will think I'm a survivor) and I thought hey, they best way to get over this would be some nice soup. Maybe I'll have some soup as one of the sides that comes with my New York Jew Meatloaf (everything there is kosher, they have beef bacon at Katz's, did you know that? I didn't get around to trying it this time but beef and bacon are my two favorite meats.) Anyways they had this matzo soup, I didn't know what that was so I asked Thomas and he said it was like cornmeal, but as a rule of thumb I like to second guess everything Thomas tells me even though he's usually right. Not always though, don't get a big head Thomas. So I asked the waitress, hey, what's matzo, is it like cornmeal? And she said no, it's made out of matzo. As this is the most useless response she could've given me, I assumed she said "mozzarella", because that would have been descriptive and informative instead of just restating my question as an answer. I could have figured out it was made of matzo, I can read, I made it out of elementary school without being held back even once. Mozzarella, though, that sounded good and I wanted it. I'll cut to the chase: do you know what matzo is? It's made out of cornmeal, or something equally disgusting, I'll give Thomas the point for that! It's like some kind of gross, soggy, unfried hush puppy, floating in chicken stock. It's awful. -76 If the waitress had just said that, I would have ordered the onion rings instead.

That's really the only bad thing about Katz's, though. Except for their Cheesecake Shake which I didn't try because I hate cheesecake and if I had it in a shake it would ruin shakes for me for the rest of my life. That's a risk I can't afford to make, I think you understand. Here's the best part: they give free elevator rides to anybody who wants one! +192 You can just get on their elevator and ride it up and down and up and down and they don't even care. You know how I know? Because they have a sign about it, right on their hostess stand! Free elevator rides, just ask, it says! This is the kind of participative dining that I like. It feels like it could be in Branson, Missouri, that's how fun and participative it is. Better than dinner and a show, it's dinner and a theme park ride. Except unlike an elevator in New York, this one never smells like a homeless person urinated in it! It's wonderful. It's a great restaurant.

Anyways I give Katz's a solid two thumbs up and recommend it to anybody who wants to ride an elevator. Just be careful what you order, contrary to popular belief not EVERYTHING on the menu is one hundred percent delicious. Any questions or comments, feel free to email at arbitrarycriticism@live.com!

*Thomas says it's mean to call it New York Jew Food. I just want to clarify that I love the Jews and especially love their potato cakes; I'm not sure if this is the equivalent of me saying "it's OK, I have a gay roommate, I'm allowed to say those glasses make you look really queer" or not but I watched every episode of "State of Grace", focusing on inter-religious relationships and I. Read. The Torah.

Mission Burrito

I mistakenly went in to Mission Burrito last Thursday thinking that it was a chain restaurant and I thus wouldn't have to blog about it. I was tired, stressed, recovering from pnuemonia. I didn't want to have to do any work. I wanted to sit around, take an off week, eat food and think only of how things tasted. Unfortunately, guys, the only Mission Burritos in the entire world are here in Houston, and it is my job - nay, my DUTY (heh heh heh duty) - to report to you guys about it. It's a tough life, being an amateur blogger, but I do it for you guys. I do it all for you guys.

My trip to Mission Burrito started out pretty great, guys, I'll be honest. I'd only come in because it was Thursday and Thursday is my usual day for eating in restaurants, but there on the wall, a sign - Thursday nights are college night! Bring in your student ID and get a burrito - any burrito you want - and a drink for only seven dollars! I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I'M in college. AND I have a student ID! And I like things that only cost seven dollars for me, when they would usually cost more money for another person! +7 I went to Mission Burrito with my boyfriend and he never picked up his student ID because he thinks he doesn't need one ("I've never been asked to provide my student ID by anyone on campus, Catherine. Ever. I don't need one!") but I think that this is proof that I'm right! Everybody needs a student ID, whether they are in college or not. It's not just about Mission Burrito, either. Plenty of other places provide a student discount as well. For one thing, if you go to the River Oaks movie theater, a normal ticket will cost you $10 (and then the air conditioning isn't even on that cold, I mean come on guys, what do they think I'm paying for? A movie? No, I'm paying to sit in the dark in air conditioning for a couple hours because it's hot as Hades in Houston and it's already October, and all I'm saying is I'm moving somewhere cold first chance that I get.) If you have a student ID? That same ticket is only $7! That's three dollars in savings! That's a lot of money, that's how much my favorite scratch off costs. It's called bonus word and what happens is it looks like it's a crossword puzzle, but all the words are already filled in and then you scratch off letters and if the letters you have in the scratch off panel match the letters in the crossword well enough to form three or more of the printed words, you win three dollars, up to $35000! I'll admit at first I thought it was silly of people to do a scratch off more than once but this one is so fun and takes so long to figure out which words you have that it's probably worth three dollars worth of fun. Even if you don't get to do it in a dark, air conditioned room. I mean you can but I usually do them in my car. Anyway I lost my train of thought already but yeah I like student discounts.

MORE good things: look I think we can all agree that the best part of going to a Mexican restaurant is the free chips and salsa to eat while you drink your margaritas and wait for your food. The thing is at Chipotle and Freebird's they don't give you free chips and salsa because I've never ordered a margarita there and the only time you're waiting for your food is when you're ordering your food because you make it in front of you so you don't NEED chips and salsa so they always charge you for them! Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but I love chips and salsa almost as much as I love my fish Melvin. Actually maybe more, I never had to change chips and salsa's tank, and I have to change Melvin's every single week. How is he getting dirty?? He lives in a giant bathtub!!! But at Mission Burrito, they have a chips and salsa bar and you can just go and get as many chips and salsas as you want! +11! Most of their salsas are pretty gross, I'll preach it real to you, but they have a black bean dip that I wouldn't mind gorging myself on again. I just appreciate that finally there is a burrito place who trusts me to make decisions about my own chips and salsa consumption.

The best thing about Mission Burrito I guess I really discovered at Chipotle a couple weeks ago. Have you guys tried these things called burrito bowls? They have them at Mission Burrito! It's just like a regular burrito, but instead of being wrapped up in a tortilla, it's just chilling in a plastic bowl and you eat all the ingredients with a fork. +28 Oh man that's real good news for me, I'm usually really good at eating a burrito for the first half and then as I get closer and closer to the end it starts to fall apart and next thing I know I have rice in my hair and my hands are dripping in salsa and there's cilantro in the seat next to me. But if you get a burrito bowl, there's none of the ups and downs! You're just a straight plateau of competency! It's really good. I actually mastered the use of a fork a couple years ago, and it feels really good to be able to telegraph those skills in social situations. Thanks, Mission Burrito.

That's everything I got. Everyone make sure you head on over to FUHA to check out the video I filmed last week. I look pretty cute in it, you can email your compliments to arbitrarycriticism@live.com.

Happy Endings

Look guys I was going to stop reviewing food trucks for a while, but I got an invitation from FUHA to review this joint with them, and I'm never going to turn down free publicity guys I'm just not. If you guys are interested in watching the clip from our trip to Happy Endings, and you absolutely should be, I look gorgeous in it and (spoiler alert) there's the cutest black puppy in the world filmed AND HIS EARS ARE SO BIG!, the film should be available on their website Monday. I'll remind you again, don't worry. (Because of the puppy. Not because I'm in it. There's nothing I love more than a puppy who's ears are too big for it's face. +7)

Look the thing is if it wasn't for this whole film thing I would not have given you a lovely review of Happy Endings. I'm so tired of food trucks, you know why? Because there is NO air conditioning. I just have to stand out in the heat waiting in line for food, and worse than that, since a food truck is a mobile restaurant rather than a regular restaurant, you can't exactly drive up to it! You have to park somewhere separately, in a separate parking lot, and then actually walk all the way to the food truck. You know I read on twitter that that Annise Parker girl said something about how NYC can suck Houston's butt because we're not going to cut down on how much soda we can have at one time here, we're going to focus on creating initiatives where Houstonians have the power to lower their calories and increase their exercise without removing any freedoms. Or something, it was in 160 characters. My point is, I have the perfect answer! You want to make people skinnier? Make there be more food trucks! People just wander around in the heat in search of food. It's some kind of sick game if you ask me. -6 (Dear Mayor Parker: That was all satire. You should make there be more food trucks because this is a good thing, not a sarcastic good thing.)

Here's why Happy Endings is the best restaurant in Houston though, mobile or otherwise. So, like I said, I was hanging out, saying clever, witty things to a camera, and Andre, one of the gents over at FUHA, says, OK, now we're going to get footage of you and me ordering at Happy Endings. I say sure, that's fine, I have plenty of experience ordering things in a restaurant, I'll have no problem taking care of this small task for you Andre. I step up to the window, tell them what I want, then Andre tells her what he wants without waiting for me to pay, and I think, wow, that's nice. This slightly-better-funded-food-segment-than-my-food-segment is going to buy me lunch today! I'm glad I managed to get out of bed! BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED! You know what happened instead? The girl just said, OK great, we're going to throw in some egg rolls for you guys too, and then stepped inside! She didn't charge us a dime! +1832! Pro tip: we should all go legit and get a camera and start shooting restaurant reviews, stat. LEGIT restaurant reviews. If anybody's down email me, nobody has ever given me a free meal in a restaurant just for being a critic! Almost a full year of restaurant reviews, a full year next month, and this is the first time!!! I'm so in love with Happy Endings and I'm so in love with FUHA. You guys should all go and watch all of their restaurant reviews and just think of how many free meals they've gotten (I hear through the grapevine that it's actually like four only but that's still four more than I ever had so they can stop their whining, you know?) A free hot dog and free eggrolls. I love it.

Did I mention, actually, that Happy Endings serves hot dogs? They do. They are Asian inspired hot dogs. I love this idea for a concept, if there's one thing I really like it's fusion food. I like it because as a white person, I'm never going to be able to open up a really good ethnic food restaurant of my own, and I absolutely love ethnic food. +18 Mexicans? I love Mexicans, their food, their pinatas, their drugs. (I'm just kidding about the last one guys though I did see the picture of meth in the Houston Chronicle last week and it was yellow, did you guys know this about meth? I don't know about you but I have a strict no yellow drug policy. No thanks Mexican drug cartels.) I love Greek food, I just read two books in a row about ancient Greece and I'm now very well informed about at least two topics related to Greece. Also I went to Greek Festival to demonstrate my love for Greek food, but I think I demonstrated it a little too well and now I'm going on a diet. My point is: here's my idea for fusion: Greek-Mexican fusion! I'm not sure yet how it's going to work but I want to go ahead and put my  idea on the interwebs so if anyone else comes up with this idea before I can get my recipes together, I have proof that I thought of it first and I'll be able to sue them for all they are worth. Which, if they have just started a restaurant, will probably no longer be a lot.

Anyway. Those are my thoughts. I'll keep you posted on FUHA, but, another spoiler, I'm wearing a grey sweatshirt. It's going to be HOT.

Chuy's

I want to start out by describing to you the long term love affair that I've had with Chuy's. The first time I ever entered a Chuy's was in Austin, Texas; I was visiting my brother and in order for us to find a table more smoothly, we put our names down for several different Tex-Mex restaurants and then ate in the one who called us first. It was not, unfortunately, Chuy's. At the time I was working at a pizza restaurant in Waco called Rosati's; the man who hired me, Danny Brown, left shortly after started work and became an opening manager for Chuy's. I assume he left Rosati's because of his severe regret at his last hiring decision, and knew that it was something he'd regret the rest of his life. Thanks to his belief in my success, I'm currently working in my third pizza job. He came to Houston a little before I did, and my freshman year I was required to tour a restaurant and interview it's GM and write a paper. As he was the only person I knew in this big city, I called him and can now tell you that 25% of Chuy's food revenue comes from alcohol, and 33% of their refrigerator space is filled with more liquor than I have ever seen before. Had ever seen before. (Then I turned 21 and started frequenting the Spec's on Louisiana; truly, mine eyes have been opened.) The first time I ever ATE at a Chuy's was in Waco, at a birthday party; the circle was complete. After all the teasing, the putting of my name on the waiting list, the touring of the kitchen, the watching of the preparation of the refried beans (they had an Asian lady making their refried beans; I know, it was weird), I'd finally eaten their food. I loved it.

This past Thursday, however, I went to eat at the Chuy's in River Oaks and I have to admit to you guys that it wasn't the best experience of my life. The problem, of course, was the reason I was there: my professor had assigned the class the task of writing a restaurant review. -9000 Dr. Titz was asking me to review a restaurant, any restaurant of my choice. At first I was excited. As you guys know, I'm an expert at writing restaurant reviews. But then I started looking at the assignment criteria. He didn't ask a single thing about the decor! Nothing about the cute signs they have by the patio about how you can't bring your dogs inside. Nothing about the security guard posted in the parking lot, who smiled and nodded at me and looked very serious in his uniform. It was all supposed to be based on "procedural and convivial factors." Are you kidding me? I haven't considered the procedural or convivial factors of ANY restaurant since I started this blog! And you know something? They weren't great! Our server spilled Thomas's queso on the floor next to our table, narrowly missing my leopard print pumps, and barely even seemed to notice. He never brought me the additional salsa that I requested. After our dishes were removed from the table, he didn't even ask if we wanted dessert, he just dropped the check! He never even smiled at me once! Guuuuys! It was awful. But really it was awful because I never even would have noticed this sort of thing if I hadn't been required to by my assignment. No salsa? Who cares, I probably didn't need the carbs and definitely didn't need the sodium associated with the half shaker of salt I would have added. The queso spilled? No biggie, my shoes were spared, and it's not like they were my new nude pumps with the pink roses on them. And I never eat the salsa in restaurants anyway! Basically this whole assignment just ruined my life, is what I'm trying to say to you.

I'm going to try and rally for you, though. I'm going to try to express to you what a happy place Chuy's normally is.

The important thing about Chuy's is that it is the only thing on earth who's love for Elvis rivals my grandmother's. You open the front door to Chuy's, the very first thing you are confronted with is a shrine to Elvis himself. All Chuy's have certain different aspects of their decor, the one I toured has a ceiling completely covered in baskets, which was wacky and fun, though I can't help but believe spider infested, but they all have this one element, the Elvis shrine. +18 The one on River Oaks features a really creepy Elvis head, which I love; just imagine if you were a burglar, trying to get into Chuy's in the night. The whole store would be dark and you'd finally jimmy the lock and get through the front door and there, floating before you, the disembodied head of Elvis. +23! it's the best anti-burglary system ever installed and I'm thinking of putting one in my apartment, just to be safe, not that I have any valuables at all, just to let you know, potential burglars.

To let all of you who were worried about my missing salsa incident know, they actually have a salsa bar inside one of their multiple dining rooms. This is good because in case your server forgets about you, you can take care of yourself, but also because they have queso inside the salsa bar!! +81! Everybody charges extra for queso, but apparently not Chuy's! They just leave it hanging around for anybody to have that wants it! But it's even better than that, everyone. This salsa bar? Is located in the trunk of half of a powder blue Cadillac. +30 It's even better than having a good server, honestly. Why didn't Dr. Titz's review form have a question about this??

And finally, I want to share with you my favorite feature of the dining room I was seated in: a TV, playing the image of a fire crackling in a brick hearth. (The brick hearth was around the TV, just to clarify; the TV only showed the image of the fire.) Instantly the restaurant seemed warmer and more "convivial", to steal a phrase from Dr. Titz! It transformed a routine assignment completion date into an actual romantic evening! Thanks, Chuy's, for your help!

Look guys I know there's a moral in here somewhere but I'm not going to spoon feed it to you. All I'm saying is maybe Dr. Titz should spend a little more time reading my blog and a little less time coming up with mean homework assignments.

Bernie's Burger Bus

Bernie's Burger Bus is one of those wonderful food trucks that park outside the UC at UH in order to feed the bellies of starving college kids. It's honestly the best deal in the universe guys not only do you get to eat good food but you get to be park of a trendy new counterculture which is why people go to college in the first place. Eating at food trucks means you're going against the man (details available here) +34

It's not all sparkles and roses at Bernie's Burger Bus though; I have a real problem with a their truck design. Guys. It's an old school bus. And here are the names of their menu items: The Substitute, The Principal, The Bully, Detention, Study Hall, Home Room, The Preschoolers, The Kindergarteners, Recess, Field Trip, and Extracurricular Activities. Let's take a look at that list guys: how many of those things can you actually find on a school bus? Three! I'll maybe count "Field Trip" as a fourth because you take school buses to go on field trips. The Substitute? Have any of you ever seen a substitute teacher ever ride the school bus? No. They drive their own cars. If I ever saw one of my substitutes riding the school bus with me, I'd automatically have no respect for them; I can only imagine how dangerous that kind of mistake would be in an inner city school. Is that what you're supporting, Bernie's Burger Bus? Student against teacher violence? Come on. But the menu item that makes me the most unhappy is, of course, the Detention. I mean these guys obviously never had to ride the bus when they were younger! If you have detention, then you don't ride the bus! Your mom has to come pick you up and then you get lectured the whole way about what a bad kid you are (I'm just improvising guys I only had detention once and it was in fifth grade because I never remembered to bring a pen to class. I didn't really get any kind of lecture about that.) Also, this burger costs $17. (Don't be offended by the price though, instead of using hamburger buns, my understanding is that they use two grilled cheese sandwiches for the bun so there's no way you aren't getting your money's worth.) What I'm offended about is the fact that people who get detention don't have enough afternoon time to get real jobs; they're in detention. They can't afford to pay $17 a burger. Who is Bernie's Burger Bus appealing to? Who? WHO? Certainly not us good kids who didn't get detention and rode the bus home every day and then did our afternoon babysitting gigs. I'd pay $17 for a National Honor Society burger, maybe. Or for a Advanced Placement burger. University Interscholastic League burger. Smart kids burger. Hmph. -18

Here's the thing though is that a whole portion of their menu is just dedicated to different kinds of french fries. I was always a lover of french fries (I like to tell Thomas that I'm not hungry and then eat all of his french fries) but ever since coming back from Canada and experiencing poutine for the first time, I've been a lover of stuff ON french fries as well. At Bernie's they have fries that come with truffle oil and scallions on them. Look I don't really know what truffle oil is, but if you look for it at HEB it's ridiculously expensive and there's nothing I love more than eating expensive things. Especially on french fries. And scallions? Ugh they go on everything. Most folks call them green onions, but they're really scallions. They're just the perfect amount of crunch and sharpness to add to literally anything, I eat them on my breakfast cereal (I just made that up, I just didn't want you guys to catch me saying literally when I really meant figuratively.) +8 Bernie's really does know how to make some fries, even though they list them under "extracurriculars," which everyone knows also keep you from riding the bus.

Come check them out, they actually have three buses circulating around Houston, but the best is obviously available here at the University of Houston. Let me know what you think at arbitrarycriticism@live.com!

Golden Cafe

Alright I'll go ahead and spoil the surprise: I've never actually been to Golden Cafe. But last Monday I ordered delivery from their location and let me tell you, my mind was blown.

When I was younger like all good American families we ate pizza all the time, or, you know, an average amount of time, I guess you could say. But my dad never had it delivered, we always went and picked it up. "We're Martin's," he never actually said to me. "We go pick up our own food." Look I didn't even really know what delivery was; I was only exposed to this world when I started working in my first pizza restaurant and met an actual delivery driver for the first time. "You just go to peoples houses, and, like, drop off their pizzas for them?" I asked, my eyes open in shock and wonder. "Why don't they just come pick it up for themselves?" Nobody had an answer. Five years and three pizza restaurants in, and still no answer. These delivery drivers, too, they're a bunch of real nice guys. Once one of them brought me a McFlurry. A delivery driver who shall remain nameless, Jacob, used to go out on deliveries and bring back coffees to everyone who had to be awake before noon doing the hard work of making other people pizzas that they then didn't even have to drive away from their house to pick up on their own. Once he lent me the fourth volume of Batman: the Animated Series, too. You know what I'm saying? These delivery drivers aren't so bad. I wouldn't discount them if I were you.

But I never actually ordered delivery on my own until this past Monday. It seemed like something only rich people who lived in West U did. But then I remembered that my zip code too, actually, is in West U, and some of the people who's orders I take on the phone sound like they too are in college. They are ordering deliveries. Why shouldn't I be allowed to? Why shouldn't I? I informed Thomas of this dream of mine, hoping against hope that he wouldn't laugh at me, wouldn't tell me that sure, we could order delivery together, once we moved up into the next tax bracket and started wearing ties to work and having other people shine our shoes in the airport. But he didn't! He didn't laugh! He took my by the hand, showed me the Golden Cafe brochure, helped me calculate to the minimum delivery, even offered to eat half the food I selected. He called it in (I was too nervous, too unsure) and in twenty minutes there was a knock at the door. Money changed hands, and a bag of hot steamy rice was pressed into my arms. I had won. I had food that other people had made, brought to me with absolutely no effort on my part at all. +19842 Another chapter in my life has truly been opened. Emboldened by my success, last night I ordered a sandwich from Jimmy Johns, who will deliver JUST ONE SANDWICH, with NO DELIVERY CHARGE. Maybe some of you know, from my bedroom door, it's actually a few paces shorter to walk to the front door to let in the delivery guy than to the refrigerator. I never have to even make my own sandwiches again! I never have to leave my apartment! You know what I read on the internet? Rice Epicurean delivers groceries! I can get Taylor Swift's new album (in stores October 22) off of iTunes! My new life goal is to quit all my jobs, find something to do over the internet, and then become a shut in, leaving my home only a few hours a day, to go to the movies and maybe ice skating from time to time to keep my bones from atrophying. I'll take vitamin D pills. I'll get those little hand squeezers that have rubber balls in them that work on your grip strength. Gosh I love America.

The reason I needed delivery though guys is because I don't know if you know this, but Major Crimes, TNT's spin-off of the Closer, comes on Monday nights. I'm in class during it's original air time, but I get my man to tape it for me and feed me food that I usually make only a nominal attempt to help prepare. This Monday, obviously, my only real work was to open the door for the delivery guy. Still, are you guys following this show? Are you watching it? I was a little bit leery of the Closer continuing without Kyra Sedgewick, but like all of her fans, I didn't want the show to end! I couldn't give it up! And I have to say, I'm not disappointed. Following Rusty's struggle through the discovery of his birth father and his great strides through his trust issues is really touching. Coupled with the Google Chrome commercial they show every episode, I find myself getting very emotional. +76 Its very good you should all watch it. Make sure you order delivery while you do so you don't have to waste any time preparing dinner, it's very important that you don't miss a minute!

Sparkle's Hamburger Spot

My downtown friend Jack (I just wanted to name drop so you guys would know I have downtown friends and am very cool, urban, and trendy) recommended Sparkle's Hamburger Spot to me a couple weeks ago and guys I'll be honest I was a little skeptical. I was skeptical because he told me that they were the best burgers downtown, and I recently found out that Fuddrucker's has a Tunnel location, which means it's impossible for someone else to have the best burgers downtown. Still, it was worth checking out and I'll go ahead and ruin the surprise and let you know that Sparkle's Hamburger Spot is really freaking good.

The thing is their location is at 1515 Dowling and it's basically a shack. I mean if I hadn't specifically been looking for them I never would have stopped in, it looks like the sort of place you'd get mugged in. Don't be fooled, you can't actually go in, it's a walk-up window, so at the very worst you'd be mugged directly outside it. +8 That's OK, though: the costs they've cut by spending no money on the outside of their building are passed directly on to you, the consumer: you can get a hamburger there for four and a half dollars. Even Carl's Jr will charge you $6, guys: this is a bargain! +16! The patties on those things are approximately the size of a small solar system, though they will charge you a dollar for a cup of Kool-Aid (no I'm not joking they have Kool-Aid on their menu) which those of you who's parents saved Kool-Aid points when you were younger know is approximately the cost of six gallons of Kool-Aid.

I feel like there is so much to tell you about this place, it's impossible to even know where to go from here.

There's this fenced in bit next to the restaurant and the door to it was open when Thomas and I got there, so we slipped in; here's the thing, there's a sign that says "Please do not let the dog out, no matter what it tells you". There was no dog anywhere to be seen, just some pigeon that kept walking around and trying to eat my shoes!!! What do you think he said, the dog? "I was charged of a crime of which I'm innocent, this is unlawful incarceration?" "I think I left the iron on in my doghouse, if you'll just let me out I'll be right back I just need to check?" "I'll get rid of that pesky pigeon if you open the door?" "You can have free Kool-Aid if you let me out?" It's impossible to know, I don't even speak dog! -4 I'm just very worried about this dog guys, it's kind of a rough neighborhood and if he strays too far from downtown it just gets rougher!

And then the whole area was covered in Astroturf. I could actually only come up with two reasons for why this would be: 1. They really love the Astros, which is really silly to me sorry guys I haven't yet integrated into Houston culture THAT well I guess or 2. They were hoping to lure the dog into staying by pretending like he was hanging out in Discovery Green instead of the parking lot of a burger joint. (Though seriously what kind of dog DOESN'T prefer hamburgers to grass? Look I have limited experience with dogs I only have five of them but I think I know a thing or two.) Either way I just think it's a poor choice because the Astros suck and the dog is gone. Still it's sweet that they tried so I'm giving them a +11; it's only fair because I also give George W. Bush a +11 for trying.

Additionally. You know where I found out the address of this place after my downtown friend Jack tipped me off? Yelp. Here's the thing guys, I'm not too sure on Yelp. For one thing, it seems like it's just Arbitrary Criticism but it's a lot of different people incoherently complaining/incoherently praising restaurants instead of one person, me, Catherine Martin. I don't like that, obviously. If everybody could do this I wouldn't get paid so much (I'm just kidding guys I haven't made a dime off of this). More than that though, I read on the internet that once Yelp emailed all these restaurants and was like, "Hey, if you guys give us money, we'll take down all these negative things people have been saying about you." This was on the internet, so it must be true. Here's what else is now on the internet: Yelp! is the mafia of the interwebs! They're extorting restaurants! They're all a bunch of mobsters! I've been watching Goodfellas for the last three days (it's a long movie, guys!) so I know what I'm talking about! First step extorting restaurants, second step having a gun pointed at you by your wife, third step I don't know, I haven't finished watching it yet, plus I wouldn't spoil it for you guys anyway. -17 But I guess they have good information about addresses, and there was this gem: "Sometimes the girl who answer the phone is on her period so dont get offended." Love. It.

Anyways that's all I got for you guys if you see a dog running loose on the streets around Dowling Street don't call animal control call Sparkle's first.