Pat's Restaurant of New Braunfels

Pat's makes its own tomatouy salsa.  It comes with the enchilada dish.  Just enough heat to make it interesting.








Chicken Fingers:

Deep fried chicken fingers made from breast meat.  Great with cream gravy.  This is an appetizer, but can come as an entre'.

 Appetizer Platter:

Deep fried cheese, mushrooms, and jalapeno poppers.   All served with cream gravy and salsa dips.  Great way for two or three or four to start a meal.




Enchilada Plate:

Three cheese enchiladas drowning in Pat's chili sauce.  This dish is a rib sticker that will fill you for several days.



Chopped Steak Dinner:

Chopped beef steak pan fried and covered with a brown mushroom sauce.  The sides I chose were mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas.



Spaghetti & Meat Sauce:

This is Pat's mainstay dish.  They always have a pot of meat sauce on the stove.  This is my girlfriend Jewell's favorite.


Chili-Cheese Dog:

Yes, there is a hot dog under all of this.  And be ready to eat this with a fork.  Bun + hot dog + Pat's great chili + crumbled cheese.  Don't forget the onions.  This dish is a direct pass to bad breath.  Oh, but it's so goooood.

Beef Fingers Plate:

Deep fried beef fingers with cream gravy for dipping.  The sides I chose were mac-n-cheese and black-eyed peas.


Pat's is a great place for homestyle cooking with a mom-n-pop ambience to the restaurant.

Dixie Grille of Seguin

The Dixie Grille knows how to deep fry foods.  Above are their huge fried mushrooms.  This is really good stuff.  Just drop a little hot sauce in that cream gravy and go to town.

The grille is located off I-10 in Seguin Texas of Exit 607 on the south side of the highway.  This place is opened for lunch and dinner.  Normally, I do not post no-breakfast places unless they are really good, and Dixie Grille is really good.



Bacon Cheeseburger:

That cheeseburger is shouting, "EAT ME!"  Melted cheddar on a half pound of hand made burger with all of the "veggies" (tomato, lettuce, and onions).  Mayo and mustard are on the side and catsup is in the bottle.  The fries are as good as the burger.




Chicken-Fried Meats

Chicken-fried pork chops, steak, and chicken are fantastic here at Dixie Grille.  Note that the mashed potatoes are standard with these meals.  The potatoes are homemade and still have the skins, and that's the way I like them.  All plates come with homemade corn bread.  I could just eat that!

Pork Chops:

Steak:

Chicken Breasts:

Chicken Strips:

Other Specialities

Homemade foods doesn't stop with fried foods.  They stew and bake other great foods as well.  Here are two of their favorites.


Meatloaf:

The sauce on the meatloaf has this rich tomatoey taste.  And look at those green beans; beans that green don't come from a can.



Pot Roast:

You'll see the wait staff in tee-shirts that say: "Legalize Pot ... Roast".  Luckily this stuff is legal and wonderful.  The pot roast is the specialty of the house.  If you only come her once, get the pot roast.



Drink Glasses:

When you order your drink, the wait staff brings you a pitcher and they purposely don't explain.  If you are a new customer, don't call them over for glasses.  The pitcher is your glass!  The waiters and waitresses have a lot of fun with the new customers on their pitcher glasses.

This is not all that is on their menu.  They have deep fried shrimp, beer-battered cod, and homemade desserts including cobbler.  I never have enough room left for dessert.

Great Hospital Cafeteria Food in Texas

The meat biscuit is sticking its tongue at health-food radicals.  This biscuit has real pork sausage and real bacon.  Not that turkey stuff that you couldn't wring an ounce of fat out of.  This came from a Greater San Antonio area hospital cafeteria which has not succumbed to the health food craze serving inedible food for the palate.  This place does have healthy choices, but it has enough tasty food to keep the employees and customers from heading to the greasy spoon a few blocks away.

I am keeping the name of the hospital secret so the board there doesn't freak over the publicity and change the way this place serves its customers.  If you're in a hospital, there are two clues that you can get a tasty breakfast (1) real bacon and (2) eggs your way.  If the bacon is missing, and the sausage is turkey, and the eggs are only scrambled, look for a diner down the street.




Real Eggs!

Here is a plate for just around $5: eggs over easy, bacon, sausage, and two biscuits, all with a large cup of coffee.  If you can find a hospital with this kind of food, it will probably be cheap as well.  My guess is that the hospital wants the staff to say on site for their meal breaks.  And I can go with that.



Biscuits & Gravy:

Yes, you can get biscuit's and gravy here!  In a hospital!  This plate comes with bacon and sausage.  Note: usually everything in a hospital cafeteria is ala carte, but without the ala carte prices.





Hot Wings!

I was waiting for my girlfriend to come out of surgery, and the wait room was next to the cafeteria.  So you know what happened next.  By the way, there were six wings in the boat.  I had devoured half of them before taking the photo.  The truth being that I had devoured two boats previously, and decided to be polite and leave this one for another customer.  But settling my nerves with food outweighed my need to be polite.  And these wings were baked to perfection though only slightly spicy. They were so good that I could have eaten two dozen, and would have if they were available.

Jerry Mikeska's Barbecue of Columbus

Look at that rib!  So meaty!  That's one of the best items at Mikeska's Bar-B-Que.  If you know me, you would be surprised to find out what I liked the best. 

Jerry's place has been in business in Columbus since 1956 and on the I-10 location since 1987.  Mikeska's is located off I-10 west of Houston and east of San Antonio.  Take Exit 699.  It's on the north side of the road.



Brisket:

Lean with just enough fat for flavor.  This is good stuff.



Smoked Sausage:

I like the sausage.  Not greasy.  Many barbecue places have great meats except for the sausage.  This place has exceptional sausage as well.



Baby-Back Ribs:

Love their ribs.  Lean, meaty, and a great smoked taste.  Having great ribs in Texas is almost an entitlement.  And Jerry's ribs are up to the challenge.  See the one at the front of this post!  I always get a plate of whatever for the restaurant and a rack of ribs for home.  That way the Mikeska adventure continues.



Sandwiches:

Above is a chopped beef sandwich with their great barbecue sauce.  To the right is their sliced beef sandwich.  Look at all the slices.  Either one of these is a good pick-up for a road trip.  

The Plate:

You can get any of the above meats on a plate or a combo there of.  And they come with great sides: green beans, chopped greens, potato salad, corn, etc.  This plate is a half chicken, and would you believe it ... I like the chicken best of all.  This place really knows how to barbecue chicken: gently smoked, fully cooked, and still moist.  It doesn't get any better than that.

Clear Springs Restaurant of New Braunfels

Fried oysters and shrimp ... Clear Springs knows how to fry up the seafood.  And to me their speciality is their shrimp.

Clear Springs used to have five locations in Texas, but the one in San Antonio closed.  This is the one outside of New Braunfels on TX-46, between I-10 and I-35.  The other ones are in Nacogdoches, Midland, and Tyler.

Have you ever seen such an inviting entrance?  This is my favorite place for shrimp ... cooked anyway.



Appetizers

Fried Mushrooms:

Here is one of my favorite appetizers: fried mushrooms served up with this spicy sauce.  A great dish to share with someone special before one of Clear Springs great meals.

Fried Cheese Sticks:

Don't try this at home.  The only dish more difficult to prepare is deep frying a turkey.  You start this dish with breading the cheese sticks.  Next you freeze them.  Yes, freeze them or you'll have this pot of greasy goo, and you may still get that.  Then you get your oil hot.  Now comes the hard part and I have yet to master it:  deep fry the cheese just long enough to heat the center.  Too little time in the fryer, the cheese is cold; too much time, and you have that greasy-gooy mess.  My guess is there is a three second window for fried cheese which is ideal.



Entrees 


Blackened Catfish with Crawfish Ettoufee:

Here is a combination of two of my favorite entrees: blacken catfish, which Clear Springs does so well, and one of my favorite dishes ever, crawfish ettoufee.  This is an eat-it slow dish.  Savor each bite.

Shrimp-n-Catfish Platter:

Clear Springs's other speciality is their catfish.  One of the best plates they serve is the fried shrimp-n-catfish combo.  Their cooks know how to fry up seafood.




Seafood Platter:

Just take the previous dish up a few notches and add fried oysters to get their seafood platter.  And look at those hushpuppies next to the bowl of beans.  I always ask for extra hushpuppies or swap it out for salad.






Fried Shrimp with Side of Shrimp Brochette:

The shrimp brochette is shrimp grilled with jalapenos wrapped in bacon.  Need I say anything else.




Shrimp Trio!

This is the masterpiece platter: deep fried shrimp, shrimp brochette, and grilled shrimp.  There's almost a dozen shrimp on this plate!  See the tub of melted butter.  That's for the grilled shrimp.

Adobe Verde of Gruene Texas

In Gruene, Texas, one of my favorite places for fajitas is Adobe Verde.  You can get chicken, beef, and /or shrimp fajitas.  All cooked with onions and peppers. 

Half order of beef nachos with beans on the side. Usually, I only order items with fajitas in them, but this time I mistakenly ordered the nachos with the ground beef.  It was really good, but I prefer the fajita meat.

Adobe Verde is in Gruene which is on northern outskirts of New Braunfels, TX.  Gruene is a quaint town with antique and gift shops along with a multitude of restaurants.  Gruene Dance Hall, the oldest in Texas, is located there.  And that's where they filmed the Travolta dance scene in Michael.

You can get to Gruene from I-35 using several routes depending on where you exit the Interstate.  For more information go to adobeverde.com.

Fajita Quesadillas: 

You can get chicken quesadillas, beef quesadillas, or half-n-half, or a combo.  These make great little Tex-Mex sandwiches.  Fajita and cheese on between two huge flour tortillas grilled until the cheese melts.  And look at all of that neat stuff on the side to add to it.  This is an appetizer, but it does me for a meal.

Be careful how you ask when you're in a Tex-Mex restaurant.  If you want beef fajitas, then don't say beef, or you may get ground beef.  If you want half-n-half, say half-n-half, or you may get mixed.

Beef Fajita Nachos:

I had the beans on the side.  But look at those chunks of beef and look how much on each taco chip!




Chicken Fajita Nachos:

Same stuff, but with white queso (cheese) and chicken fajitas instead of beef fajitas.




Chicken Fajita Plate:

All white meat grilled quickly to retain the juices, that's Adobe's chicken fajitas.  Places come with barracho beans and rice.  I swapped the beans for refried ones.  In the upper left corner is a plate of fixens that come with every fajita plate: shredded lettuce, guacamole, sour cream, and pico de gallo.



Beef Fajita Plate:

I like the beef fajitas the best.  They go on a taco well with sour cream.  Look at those wonderful flour tortillas in the upper right corner.



Combination Plate:

Yes, they will do a combo plate.  That works when one person in the party wants chicken and the other wants beef.  You can do that with shrimp as well.


The Fixens:

Every fajita plate comes with beans, rice, and the other wonderful stuff to put on your taco.  Again I swap out the barracho beans for refried.