Weekend Trip to Houston

This past weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday we packed up the car and headed down to Houston. It was about a 3-hour drive, but was nice. I like the scenery on Route 290: lots of green and many cows and goats. And driving past Kickapoo Rd. always elicits a chuckle or two. Bay had his new CocoPad to play with also. CocoPad is the Japanese Leapfrog book. We took a different route to the dim-sum restaurant that we usually go to, and it was much faster. Actually, we got lost and asked for directions, but it was still faster. It involves taking the tollway (and paying $2).

Dim-sum at Ocean Palace was yummy as usual. In addition to the regular siu-mai and har-gow, we got clams in black bean sauce, chow mein, juk, and other delicicacies. After stuffing ourselves, we walked around the attached mini-mall. It’s always interesting to see all the Vietnamese cafes and boutiques. We eventually ended up at the Hong Kong Supermarket which is huge! Bay had a lot of fun because in the back they have a big seafood section with live fish/crabs/crawfish. He even saw live eels swimming around. After Mariko bought some groceries and gifts, we got some bubble-tea and headed back to the car so we could go to our next destination which was…

Daido Japanese market. It’s a small market, but I heard it’s the only true Japanese market in the city. We didn’t actually buy anything there, but I had wanted to get a can-coffee for the drive back. I forgot, though. Oh well. After that we drove down Westheimer Blvd. to go to the Crate & Barrel. Westheimer is a monster of a street. There are so many restaurants and stores all along the sides in strip malls. We saw about five Japanese restaurants in about three miles. On the way, Bay fell asleep so when we parked at Crate & Barrel, I stayed in the car with him while Mariko shopped solo.

Next on our list of places to go was IKEA. They have a lot of cool stuff there, not the best quality, but good prices. We bought a few things and Bay had tons of fun rolling around on all the beds. By the time we left there, it was about 5:30 and we figured we should get something to eat before hitting the road back home.

We decided to go back to Westheimer and try one of the Japanese restaurants. The first one we passed was called Sasaki, but it was closed, so we stopped at the second one, Kaneyama. It was very nice inside, but we didn’t see any asian people eating there, so we were wondering how authentic it would be. I ordered oyako-don and Mariko ordered udon. They tasted just ok. My oyakodon was kind of dry, it seemed they used chicken breast and not the thigh. And there was zucchini in it too… Mariko said her udon wasn’t great either. But the sushi rolls we ordered were very tasty. I don’t think we will go back there, but it filled us up, at least. Bay was very popular with the waitresses there. They liked to hold him and play with him. One of them even gave him some Pocky!

The drive home was interesting because there were so many insects flying around. You could actually hear them smacking into the windshield. When we got home, the rear-view mirrors were caked with gnats. And there were a few big wasps stuck on the grille. It’s really pretty gross-looking.

Anyways, we had a great time and look forward to going down there again. I actually want to see the Dodgers play the Astros next time…