Before moving to Houston, I'd probably been to a nail salon and valet parked but they certainly weren’t regular things. But they are now. As is Sunday brunch.
But brunch wasn’t new. When I lived in Austin we used to do the Sunday brunch thing at the Four Seasons where they set up omelet and carvery and pastry stations in the lobby lounge and the servers were opera students from the University of Texas music school. They’d stop in the middle of pouring your mimosa and rush to the piano to belt out a song.
It was great if it was an aria or a Broadway show tune, but the Disney songs were painful earworms. We used to pay the staff NOT to sing them. You’d be surprised at how many families wanted to hear songs from animated movies. Hopefully they aren’t doing this anymore or patrons would be screaming from repeated singing of that song from Frozen.
Did you know this juice is a natural way of lowering high blood pressure? So drink up the pomegranate mimosas and margaritas, they’re healthy.
And while I’ve yet to find singing waiters in Houston, the city certainly has its fill of brunch choices and it seems like every restaurant around is doing brunch these days. And all the menus look so good I wish there was a week full of Sundays so I could try them all.
But, if we could combine a lot of items from the different menus on one table, this is what it might look like:
Trenza in West Ave has just entered the Sunday brunch game and they are bringing it. For the perfect brunch buffet I’d definitely take their chorizo and black bean tostadas, with chard tomatillo sauce and poached egg. That’s a meal in itself.
But let’s add to that the crab cake Benedict from Tony Mandola’s new brunch menu and some of Nara’s sushi from its new Sunday brunch menu. And let’s get that whole roasted pig from the brunch buffet at the Cordúa’s Américas and Churrascos because it’s just not a Sunday party without a pig. Especially one with crispy skin and succulent white meat underneath. And if we’re being pigs here, how about the shrimp, crab and lobster frittata from Backstreet Cafe’s menu?
And while we’re at it, let’s bring the whole dessert table from Hugo’s Sunday brunch with delicious Mexican pastries from chef Ruben Ortega over to our make believe restaurant. As long as it’s the season let’s include some of Hugo’s squash blossom-stuffed enchiladas, too.
Drinks should be at least one spicy Bloody Mary, maybe the one from Haven that contains the restaurant's own pickled okra as a garnishment and comes in a canning jar. But I’m also partial to anything with pomegranate juice it these days. Did you know this juice is a natural way of lowering high blood pressure? So drink up the pomegranate mimosas and margaritas, they’re healthy.
And we’ll need some entertainment. Mariachis are good, as are the blues musicians at Danton’s Gulf Coast Seafood Sunday blues brunch. But I’ll go with the gospel singers at the monthly House of Blues Sunday gospel brunches.
So there ya go, possibly the perfect Sunday brunch from around town. But since we can’t get all that in one Sunday, you’ll just have to hit all the restaurants one at a time. That should take care of the rest of your weekends for the summer.
Bison michelada at Americas and Churrascos.
