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By Root 1011 0

old grocery shelves were cut down to approximately chest high and surfaced so customers can find a convenient place to stand and scarf down lunch. Many years ago when we first discovered the place, we saw one old couple arrive with their own folding chairs, wait in line at the counter, get their burgers, find an unoccupied length of shelf space, tuck napkins into their collars, and dig in with gusto. They told us they eat lunch at Kincaid’s at least three days every week. Since then, tables and chairs have been added so people can dine more normally, but somehow this place makes us want to dine the old-time way, standing up.

Kreuz Market

619 N. Colorado St.

512–398–2361

Lockhart, TX

LD | $$

Kreuz (rhymes with bites) started as a downtown meat market over a century ago, and it was one of the places that defined Texas barbecue. A short while back, owing to a complicated family feud, it moved out of town to an immense roadside dining barn with all the charm of an airplane hangar.

But if it lacks the ambience of a good old Texas pit, there is absolutely no denying that its pit-cooked prime rib is among the most carnivorously satisfying foodstuffs on earth. Brisket, sausage, and ribs all are superb. Despite its modern facilities, Kreuz has maintained pit-cook tradition: a limited menu that is meat, bread, and condiments (plus ice cream cones at a separate counter), and tote-your-own service from a ferociously hot pit where meat is sliced to order and sold by the pound.

La Mexicana

1018 Fairview St.

713–521–0963

Houston, TX

77006 BLD | $

Sometimes we feel sorry for our friend Jim Rains. He’s got a beautiful wife, a great job, and a bucolic home, but he’s a Texan and he lives in Connecticut. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but Jim grew up eating excellent Mexican food whenever he wanted it. And in our neighborhood—and virtually the entire Northeast—it is a rarity. Well, Jim’s loss was our gain, at least on a trip we took to Houston, where he highly recommended we stop into a restaurant called La Mexicana. “It’s nothing fancy,” he warned. “It’s plain and it’s cheap—and it’s goo-ood.” We had it in our crosshairs as soon as we arrived in the Lone Star State.

It used to be a corner grocery store and now offers sit-down meals in a festively decorated dining room and bar as well as take-out meals from a cafeteria line, and all sorts of interesting pastries from the in-house bakery. When you sit down for a lunch or dinner, a waiter (outfitted in white shirt and tie) brings a basket of thin, elegant tortilla chips, still warm, along with a mild red sauce and a hotter, lime-tinged green pepper sauce. The chips are large and somewhat fragile; if you eat your way through half the basket so that only smaller, broken half-chips remain, the old basket is whisked away and a new one of full-size, warm chips takes its place.

The menu is huge, including fajitas à la Mexicana, for which the beef is stewed rather than grilled, tacos, flautas, tamales, enchiladas, and chiles relleños. We began with an order of chile con queso, which comes with a large bowl of jalapeño slices to heat it up, then went on to an all-seafood meal: fish tacos made with succulent strips of grilled (not deep-fried) mahimahi, and shrimp in a chipotle chile sauce. The tacos were light, refreshing, and hot (we asked for them that way), the fish, cabbage, tomato, and cilantro laced with little nuggets of tongue-searing pepper. They were accompanied by Mexican rice and a bowl of creamy-smooth, blue-black refritos.

For dessert, we indulged in chocolate cake topped with flan and fudge-coated coconut macaroons. And for the road, we took a bag of heart-shaped cinnamon-sugar cookies.

La Mexicana’s breakfast starts at 7:00 A.M. and the choices include all sorts of huevos rancheros, eggs scrambled with chorizo (Mexican sausage), migas (a sort of tortilla omelet), and, on Saturday and Sunday only, menudo, which is a bowl of stewed honeycomb tripe. Menudo has long been considered a sure cure for hangovers.

Little Diner

7209 7th St.

915–877–2176