Escalante's

Oh my gosh guys I can't believe I've never heard of this place Escalante's before. I mean everybody knows how much I love Tex Mex and other white remakes of cultural phenomena. But seriously this is the best Tex Mex place in the world! I didn't even TRY the fish tacos, and I know they're better than everybody's fish tacos! They're located at 4053 Westheimer! They have five locations total! When I was looking for my first job in Houston, Melissa and I both interviewed here for hostess and waitress jobs respectively and we didn't get a call back, so you know the service is great and they have high expectations!

I'm going to spend a whole paragraph with you discussing their recipes. I'm referring to it in this way because I'm tired of apologizing for talking about food. I like to spell apologize with a z because it makes me feel more European. I don't actually remember what I ordered but you'll never guess what came on my plate - bacon wrapped shrimp. Bacon wrapped shrimp, you say! How could anything get better than that? Well I'll tell you! Do you know what they brought for me to dip my bacon wrapped shrimp in? BUTTER! A saucer of butter to dip my bacon wrapped shrimp in! +92! We're a whole day later here and I'm still in awe of how wonderful the whole experience was. I mean really! And none of that even sounds like Mexican food, it's just freaking awesome. And the salsa! I hate to make my father, but Escalantes has the best salsa ever. I don't know what they put in it, like crack or something. We had a really excellent waiter, his name was Pierce, and I loved the salsa so much he brought out an extra for us. But I mean really! All I could do was keep dipping chips in and out and in and out over and over it was seriously like ten whole minutes before I could even take a break from stuffing my face to look at the menu -78 it was so awfully good just thinking about this place is making me hungry again and I am currently in the process of eating my dinner how does that even work. But yeah distractingly good I'd honestly bathe in it I have no shame.

You guys know how safe I feel in booths and they have regular booths at Escalante's but they also had something better. You know how in some restaurants if you have a really big party they have those C shaped booths which seat like 8 and every single person except the two on the end gets people to cuddle with, instead of having like four open uncuddled sides? What if you don't have 8 people in your party? You never get seated in that booth. But Escalante's solves this problem! They have U shaped booths so you can fit the same number of people as in a regular booth, but there are more cuddle angles! Melissa and I got to sit directly next to each other and it didn't even look weird! It was a complete Steve Jobs re-imagining I mean who knew that booths could get EVEN BETTER? Escalante's knew! +12

I like a restaurant where I can feel comfortable, but I'll admit I was a bit worried when I rolled up to Escalante's. For one thing it's out of the hipster part of Westheimer and into the part where the trees are wrapped with Christmas lights all year round. Now that I've articulated that I sincerely wonder that I ever considered this the ritzy part of the street. I'm just saying the only people I know who keep there trees wrapped in Christmas lights all year round are ashamed enough that they don't turn them on. -14 Anyway so they have valet parking and that's something that freaks me out. Speaking of job interviews the only time I ever valeted my car was at Hotel Zaza and I didn't realize they open your door for you and I was really freaked out when I was rifling through my purse and then suddenly there was this face looming in my window. I'm just a self parking kind of girl I guess. And I was really nervous because I was wearing a Pink's Pizza T-shirt because I can wear them ironically now instead of in a sad, I haven't changed clothes since getting off work three days ago kind of way and my pants had a hole in them from slipping at the Grand Canyon and I hadn't brushed my hair in about 21 years but everybody should know that it's not even an uptight joint! I mean why were we even worried they serve Tex Mex there after all but I like a classy joint where I can still be Catherine Martin +19.

Anyway the last thing we need to discuss is the wall hangings. So on one wall they have these pictures of Mayan women doing something or another and there are NAKED BUTTS on the wall! Utter nudity can you believe it?? I mean there were people under the age of 17 there and I know that I've never seen a naked butt before I actually had to have Melissa explain to me what it was before I could even get properly offended. -16 for sure guys come on! They also had other Mayan style art on the wall and it made me feel like I was inside The Emperor's New Groove so that was kind of nice and friendly +2 you'll notice I didn't give them enough points back to make up for the pornographic material they were serving to the minor population.

But my point is Escalante's is now my second favorite restaurant after Fuddrucker's so everybody should check it out! I'll warn you now that they're more expensive than you're thinking but before you leave in a huff, remember: sometimes people charge a lot because their food is ACTUALLY WORTH IT. Anyway be sure to go and don't look at the pictures and then email me at arbitrarycriticism@live.com!