Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [230]
In addition to cheesey macaroni casserole and rice casseroles, there are more vegetables than most Yankees see in a year: purple-hulled peas, fried green tomatoes, red beans, turnip greens cooked with chunks of ham, buttered cauliflower, sauced broccoli, pickled beets, etc., etc. Main-course highlights include fried chicken that is stupendously crunchy and big slabs of sweet ham sliced to order. There also are roast beef and gravy, turkey with all the fixin’s, and fried and broiled fish. Among the multitude of pies, we like Karo-coconut and chess pies. Excellent pie alternatives include hot fruit cobbler with a savory crust and traditional banana pudding made with meringue and vanilla wafers.
Bryce’s has been a Texarkana landmark since it opened downtown in 1931. Now in modern quarters with easy access from the interstate, it remains a piece of living culinary history. They don’t make restaurants like this any more. Among amenities are a smartly uniformed dining room staff (to help old folks and invalids with their trays, and to bus tables) and servers who address men as “sir” and ladies as “ma’am.” For travelers in a big hurry, Bryce’s even offers drive-through service.
Capt’n Benny’s
8506 S. Main St.
713–666–5469
Houston, TX
LD | $$
First, the bad news: this literally ship-shaped little building is generally so crowded that unless you are an offensive lineman, you may have trouble getting from the door to a place inside where you can eat. Bankers and bus drivers crowd together sliding fat, glistening, just-opened oysters down the hatch and freshening their palates with cold beer. Longtime fans know also that Benny’s fried catfish is the best in town—snowy-white, sweet, and moist with a positively elegant crust, and the boiled shrimp and spicy gumbo are not to be missed.
Note: There are a few other Benny’s around town, but this is the flagship.
Cattlemen’s Fort Worth Steak House
2458 N. Main St.
817–624–3945
Fort Worth, TX
LD | $$$
Full-body black-and-white portraits of monumental Herefords, Anguses, and Brahmans decorate the walls at Cattlemen’s Fort Worth Steak House, located in the historic stockyards district since 1947. At the back of the main dining area, known as the Branding Room, raw steaks are displayed on a bed of ice in front of a charcoal fire where beef sputters on a grate. Before placing a dinner order, many customers stroll back toward the open broiler to admire the specimens on ice and compare and contrast rib eye and T-bone, demure filet mignon and ample porterhouse, K.C. sirloin strip, and pound-plus Texas strip.
Texas sirloin is the steak-lover’s choice, a bulging block of aged, heavy beef with a charred crust and robust opulence that is a pleasure simply to slice, and sheer ecstasy to savor. Sweet dinner rolls make a handy utensil for sopping up juices that puddle onto the plate. Start with a plate of lamb fries—nuggets of quivery organ meat sheathed in fragile crust, get the zesty house dressing on your salad, plop a heap of sour cream into your baked potato, and accompany the big feed with frozen margaritas, longneck beers, or even a bottle of Texas’s own Llano Escatado cabernet sauvignon. It’s a one fine cowtown supper.
City Café
19 N. Main St.
512–281–3663
Elgin, TX
BLD | $
The City Café is an ancient building on a raised-sidewalk street with a big awning out front for shade. It has been remodeled in recent years, but its brick walls resonate with a century of history. First a drugstore, then a bakery and barber shop before it became a café in 1910, it used to be the place in town to which cowboys rode in from cattle-punching for a cool beer late in the day.
History aside, we treasure this place for its chicken-fried steak, one of the best in Texas. Gnarled and crusty, golden brown with a brittle crust and a lush ribbon of tender meat inside, it is a beautiful thing. It comes sided by chunky peppered