From the ashes will rise a new Hivemind.

[Dannyalcatraz]

Actually, I think its tex mex is actually quite good- you happened to hit a few spots on the below average list. Even if I can't find the cards I'm looking for, you might want to ask a local next time. Not necessarily some dude on the street, but perhaps your hotel's concierge. They're paid to make good recommendations for all kinds of services. I'd be surprised if one couldn't point you towards a nice place near your hotel. Especially if you tell them you're trying to avoid the Riverwalk. (Don't get me wrong, there are some decent places on the Riverwalk...just not the Tex-Mex places.)

Anyway, like I mentioned before as Chef Ramsay often points out you can use cheap meats to make fantastic food...if you know what you're doing.

Heck, at one point in time, flank steak- the kind originally used for beef fajitas- was considered to be low quality. Its fatty and tough and requires real knowledge and prepwork...but the rewards, as you know, are well worth it, because, properly prepared, flank steak is flavorful.

The problem I've heard of recently (courtesy of the Dallas Morning News), though, is that fajitas (and fajita-meat variants of certain recipes) have become so popular that many restaurants can't find enough flank steak to supply their demand. This was part of their impetus to try things like sirloin fajitas.

This experiment turned into a success: the demand for flank steak has risen so much that its often nearly as expensive as other cuts like sirloin, and with less prep work required for sirloin, it costs no more (and sometimes less) than traditional fajitas.

 

[Jdvn1]

Two of the three places were local-recommended. Pericos was a party location chosen by locals, and Mi Tierra was said to be "good though not as good as Geunther's" (didn't have time to make it out to Geunther's). The lady at the hotel recommended another Tex-Mex place on the Riverwalk, though I didn't have time to go there.

My experience is that local recommendations are often not good. You have to know that the local really knows food.

I don't disagree with you about cheap meats, though. There's an amazing restaurant in Houston called Feast, which specializes in cheap meats.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yowtch! You really did get let down!

Hey...you said you were a bit of a foodie...so am I to a certain extent. D'ya cook?

One of my favorite "cheap meat" dishes is something I call "Stoup." Its thicker than soup but thinner than stew, hence the name.

I use something like "7 steak" or a chuck roast- whatever big hunk of beef that is cheap and in stock, and sear it in butter or olive oil. I add onions (sauteed), LOTS of garlic, chopped carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. I add beef stock (home-made or a low-sodium commercial one) and- no joke- low sodium V8: makes a great broth! Seasonings include paprika, ground black pepper, a touch of cayenne pepper, loads of parsley, and so forth.

And I cook it forEVER. After a few hours, the beef starts to break up into some nice chunks, and after that point, I thicken the broth a bit.

I do something similar with pork, FWIW.

 

[Jdvn1]

I do cook, though I generally have to make the time for it. I also like to watch cooking videos and shows or read cooking articles or read other foodie blogs with some frequency. James Beard awards came out recently, which is always interesting to follow.

When I slow cook big meat hunks, I tend to do something more akin to an oven roast. Get a good rub, wrap the meat in foil, and cook low 'n slow. 12ish hours, but you can do it in much less too. Your stoup sounds pretty good, though! I definitely believe that V8 makes for a good broth, and I love the creative shortcut.

I've been making fried rice a lot recently, though. I bought a thing of chinese sausage and I don't know what else to do with it! If you've never tried chinese sausage, it's really flavorful stuff.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Chinese sausage, huh? I'll keep my eyes open. There's a restaurant in my neighborhood called Uncle Tai's- it used to be located at the Dallas Galleria, but the owner/chef didn't like it there.

And he's a real cool guy. He may be able to hook me up.

I definitely believe that V8 makes for a good broth, and I love the creative shortcut.

I owe 2 others for that idea.

One was a woman who lived with us while her luck was down. She sometimes used it to make a soup of her own, made largely with canned veggies.

The other was Emeril. I was watching him and a guest chef on one of his shows make something with "creme fresh" when the guest mentioned that if you don't have that ingredient, melt some vanilla ice cream- its essentially the same!

Between seeing it in real life and having that lesson reinforced by a top chef, I've kept my mind open on that since then.

In fact, because of those two, I made a similar decision with another recipe.

I was making a Beef Stroganoff. The meat was seared and I was starting to add veggies, when I realized that both my onions and my sour cream were bad.

I turned down my fire and asked my Mom to watch the pot while I ran to the grocery. Just after I got my keys and wallet, I took a quick look in the 'fridge to see if I needed anything else...and saw a big, unopened container of French Onion dip from a party the weekend before.

French Onion dip = Onion + sour cream + other flavorings...

I saved myself a trip to the grocery and I don't know how much time by using that dip...and NOBODY knew. The Stroganoff was perfectly fine.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Y'know...I do so much talking about food and posting recipes, I should probably start some kind of database here.

For me and the other cooks of ENWorld.

The Snackroyummycon? De Vittles Mysteriis?

 

[Jdvn1]

French Onion Dip... that's brave of you. I'd be afraid of the other seasonings (especially the extra salt) in there.

If you start something for EN World cooks, you have to have to make sure that barbecue talk gets separated by region.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Sorry- Taco Bell, Taco Bueno, and most of the other fast-food mexican restaurants simply don't have booze...at least, not in Texas.

How does taco bell even quality as mexican food ? It's wanna be mexican at best.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Its not, but some people don't know any better.

 

[Jdvn1]

Chinese sausage, huh? I'll keep my eyes open. There's a restaurant in my neighborhood called Uncle Tai's- it used to be located at the Dallas Galleria, but the owner/chef didn't like it there.

I've only seen it in Chinese grocery stores.

When I went to the Chinese grocery store to get chinese sausage (I originally bought it for a Lunar New Year dinner thing I was co-cooking), I asked someone who worked there where I could find the chinese sausage. "Aisle 6, I was told."

At aisle 6, I looked and look around... no sausage in sight. I saw oyster sauce, duck sauce, soy sauce... so I asked again. Again, I was told aisle 6. So, I looked again, thinking I had just missed it at one end or something...

Then it struck me. They thought I said Chinese sauces.

I laughed to myself, and went back to another worker to ask for the Chinese sausage. "No, not sauces," I had to clarify. "Sausage." The guy finally understood--his reaction, "Why do you want Chinese sausage?" He looked genuinely confused as to why a non-Chinese person would want such an ingredient.

The New Year dinner went great. We started off with an appetizer of home-made steamed shrimp dumplings (dim sum style, one of my favorites), home-made egg drop soup, home-made kung pao chicken, home-made fried rice (traditional style, made with little to no soy sauce), and we even ended it with home-made green tea ice cream. Finding the right type of green tea powder for the ice cream was really tough, too! It took two or three trips to different grocery stores.