Houston.

Let’s just get one thing out of the way first: Downtown Houston is something of a disaster, at least over by Minute Maid Park. That area is particularly decrepit, with abandoned buildings ringing the stadium. I walked across the street from my hotel to the ballpark, but didn’t feel safe walking anywhere else in that part of town. I drove up to Market Square in search of a restaurant that turned out to be closed for dinner (it’s only open three hours a day, 11-2 – great business model), and that area is also ringed by abandoned buildings, not to mention the ultimate feel-good establishment, the bail bondsman, which I passed on the way there.

Azuma is a high-end sushi joint in the Market Square area, and by high-end, I mean that only one person who worked in the place spoke Japanese, and the restaurant was more about ambiance and selling booze than it was about the fish. But unlike most of the other restaurants I saw in a walk around Market Square, it was open, had customers, and didn’t look like a front for the Lithuanian mob or something. (Most ominous was the “Irish pub” that had one customer, a cop, sitting out front. In fact, the sheer number of cops I saw around Market Square made me wonder what the hell goes on around there that requires that many cops in a two-square-block radius.)

Anyway, Azuma’s food didn’t live up to its ambiance. I went with an “Asian mixed greens salad,” which was a mesclun salad with asparagus added, and enough dressing to drown a rhinoceros. Once I was done spattering dressing all over Market Square – you try eating vinegar soup with a pair of chopsticks – I turned to the sushi. The spicy tuna rolls didn’t contain mayo (bonus points), but the tuna itself was fishy, and the chefs hadn’t removed the blood-line portion of the fish. It was also too spicy for my tastes, but that did have the benefit of making me forget that it tasted fishy. The salmon was better and was clearly fresh, but didn’t have much taste of its own, lacking that slight sweetness that good sake should have. I also tried a fish called escolar, which had a good smooth texture but tasted something like Styrofoam peanuts. Add in one serving of unagi and the total came to over $30.

Friday morning I headed to a restaurant featured on The Hungry Detective, a Food Network show aimed at finding “off the beaten path” restaurants and a new addition to my Save-Until-I-Delete list on the Tivo. The Breakfast Klub is just what the name says – a breakfast joint that serves up eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles (with fried chicken wings, the house specialty), and what I have to say is the best breakfast biscuit I have ever had. The thing was pillow-soft, almost like cotton candy, with a tremendous butter flavor and just a hint of a buttermilk tang. Seriously, a box of those vs. a box of Krispy Kremes … wars have started over dilemmas like that. (I’ll take one box of each, thanks.) I went back the next day to try the waffle, but was disappointed; although it was made on a Belgian-style griddle, it was a traditional batter, so the finished product was dense and a bit dry, and I was surprised that it wasn’t sweet. The eggs were good the first day but divine the second, cooked but not overcooked and still moist when they reached the table. I’d also take the country sausage (a little tough, but with outstanding flavor) over the bacon (nothing special). But the biscuits – seriously, I’d beat you to death with a butter knife over the last one.

The other pleasant surprise of the trip was, of all things, the restaurant in my hotel, the Inn at the Ballpark. Because the hotel and its Ballpark Café (okay, no points for the name) are right across the street from Minute Maid, it made a perfect spot for me to jump over, grab lunch, and get back during the one-hour breaks between games. And it turns out that the food there is very good, especially because they’re clearly using fresh ingredients for everything they make. At my first visit, I went for the default option, the grilled chicken sandwich (served with roasted red peppers on focaccia), and was amazed to find that unlike most grilled chicken breasts, this one wasn’t cooked within an inch of its life. It had a perfect brown sear on the outside, and the inside was fully-cooked but still moist. The shrimp BLT – I ordered the fried shrimp sandwich (which sounded like a makeshift po’ boy), but the waitress screwed up my order) – was also delicious, with shrimp that were also cooked properly, as well as sliced avocado and bacon. The restaurant makes its own potato chips, and I’d bet that the French fries were cut on-site as well.

The kicker for me was the Sunday breakfast, which is usually a disaster at good restaurants. I ordered off the menu – if you’ve read Kitchen Confidential, you know why – and went for the yogurt/fruit plate. I ended up with a 10″ plate full of fresh fruit, a dish of yogurt, and a blueberry muffin that had just been made. The waiter thought I was done with the dish with the last bite of the muffin on it, and I nearly broke his wrist to keep him from taking it. But what impressed me the most was the fact that the executive chef, Oscar Mejia, came out and manned the omelette station himself. I told him how much I’d enjoyed the food over the past few days, and he gave all the credit to the people who work for him in the kitchen.

One last note on Houston – while flying out of IAH, I grabbed a chopped beef sandwich at Harlon’s BBQ, the only non-fast-food chain dinner option I could find, and for a quick airport meal, it was pretty good; the meat wasn’t dry and didn’t taste or look like it had been sitting for hours. Out in the world I’d demand better, but by the low standards of airport cuisine, this was pretty good.