Fort Bend County Fair

I know, I know... It's been 3 weeks since I've posted anything. Our apologies. We have been incredibly busy, not to mention things in our personal lives that got in the way. But everything has seemed to calm down, and I find myself able to give you a SPECIAL EDITION of this onion ring blog.

Remember back to when we went to the Cheesecake Factory and F didn't know what a funnel cake was? Well, our awesome golfing friend M told us that the Fort Bend County Fair was going strong, so we should introduce F to the glory that is funnel cake. So I got all dolled up in a dress, jean jackets, and boots. Because I mean...no county fair is complete without boots.

So off we went down 59 South to the Fort Bend fair grounds. The drive down there was fine. It was once we got off the highway and on to the feeder roads that we had problems. It took us 45 minutes to get anywhere near the parking lots. And then, by some miracle, the parking police decided to open up an entrance right by us, so we got to skip the gigantic line and go find parking! After waiting almost an hour to even get close to the fair grounds, you have no idea how happy this made us.

By the time we entered the fair, we were pretty hungry. So off we went to get CORN DOGS! I must admit, I'm not a huge fan of hot dogs, but give me a corn dog and I'm one happy camper.



After our awesome corn dogs, we finally had our funnel cake! Now, you have to understand my relationship with funnel cakes. Back in Tulsa, OK, my hometown, we have an annual fair called MayFest. The streets of downtown Tulsa are transformed into shopping areas, food vendors, kids zone, and performance stages. It's one of the biggest events of the year, and the whole city come out to partake in the festivities. It was here that I was first introduced to funnel cakes. It was the highlight of the trip - sharing a hot, sweet, delicious funnel cake with my parents. For 15 years, this was our tradition. Since I moved down to Texas, I haven't really had funnel cakes because I haven't gone to any of the state fairs, county fairs, etc. But that was all going to change tonight, because tonight, our quest was funnel cakes.



The funnel cake was so good. I mean, what beats fried dough covered with powdered sugar? F was also just as satisfied with the treat. Best of all, three little girls sat down at our table and they, too, were enjoying the greatness of funnel cakes.

After the food, we went to see the show animals. And that's where we ran into problems. See this pig:



He tried to eat my jacket. And see this cute little goat:



He tried to eat my dress.

So we decided that we'd had enough of animals trying to eat us. So we went to wait for M by the carousal. So we waited...



And waited...



After a while, we FINALLY met up with M. And it was fun.



I especially like the random guy in the back.

My friend K also showed up. But he doesn't like taking pictures...

We decided to leave around 11:30. As we were driving back to Houston, we passed by 59 Diner. And guess what...they had onion rings! So we decided to make one last stop.

59 Diner is a really good restaurant here in Houston. They have a couple locations, but I think the best one is the one by the Fountains. They serve up good ol' American classics like meatloaf and fried chicken. And some really amazing milkshakes. :-) Yes...I could get in trouble if I ate there all the time.

Once we sat down, we went to work and ordered the ORings. We also got some breakfast items, but that's not important. (They weren't that memorable, if you ask me.) Our food came out pretty quickly. And the onion rings looked different from any other ORings we have had.



They reminded me of tempura onion rings. And they were pretty...flavorless. Thank goodness we had the ranch dipping sauce, because if we didn't have that, I would have just sent them back.

Verdict: Stick with the blue plate special.

Hope you enjoyed this special edition of the Onion Ring Blog! Stay tuned for more goodness!

Katz's Deli

I know...onion rings were Friday. And it's Monday.

The reason I didn't update was, well, I wasn't sure how to update. Plus, my weekends these days are pretty much filled with hanging out with my friend M, going to poolside bar-b-ques, and watching my Texans! Hard life, I know... But I do manage to get studying in there.

But then I was reminded today by Dr. D, the chair for my Professional Paper (essentially a thesis), that I needed to update the blog. Thanks, Dr. D., because I might not have updated until...well...Thursday.

This week's onion ring was suggested by my friend G. G is truly a long lost friend from high school. Back in the day, G and I had English and study hall back to back. So naturally, we sort of gravitated towards each other and became friends. I also thought G was pretty cool because he is from Australia. After senior year, we kind of lost touch, but thanks to the magic of grad school, I found him roaming the halls of Melcher Hall. Now, we just try to find time to hang out...which hasn't been successful...yet.

Sidebar: I went to visit Australia this past Christmas, and I fell in love. I would move Down Under in a heartbeat.

I received a text from G a few weeks back saying, "I'm just hanging out with a buddy at Katz's. They got some good onion rings, got me thinking about you and your little quest." Done.

F and I headed over to Katz's.



Parking is a little crazy, mostly because it's on two sides of Westheimer. Let me tell you, trying to cross Westheimer down in Montrose is not a pleasant experience. The building isn't much to look at, but just know it's in the middle of two curves, making it difficult to judge when cars are coming.




When we get inside, it reminds me of Kenny & Ziggy's. And when we look at the menu, I'm convinced it's a different version of the NY Jewish deli experience. I'm right. So we decide to get two of the lunch specials(half a sandwich with a side), one with fries, one with onion rings.

As we wait for the food, we look at the various NYC pictures they put around the building.



And finally our food arrives!



Onion rings!!!



Fries!

I know you can't tell from the pictures, but F really likes to order seafood. She orders the seafood dish whenever she gets a chance. And I'm like...what about the burgers??? They're important, too! But no, the Asian in her likes the fish. Today, she got a smoked salmon sandwich, and I must say, it did look tasty.

Anyway, the important part was the onion rings.

This was another reason I got delayed in the post... How to describe these onion rings...

It was odd. It was like these particular onion rings were trying to be both light and crispy as well as have a crunchy texture. So the batter was this mix of light and heavy. It's hard to describe, I'm serious. And then F was saying how we needed a scale on how to rate these, which I then said it should include expectations of onion rings and our satisfaction upon consumption... Dr. D. would have been proud.

So I don't really know how to explain these except that it seemed to have an identity complex. And that the onion itself was sweet.

Verdict: Good...just...confusing.

The fries reminded us of Christian's Tailgate. Oh Christian's, how I miss you.

The sandwiches were great. The half sandwich was like K&Z on a diet. Still big, but not so much that you can't finish it. And very satisfying. Yum.

So there's your ORing update for the week. We may or may not be going somewhere Friday, it depends on if I have to go to Galveston or not (wrapping up loose ends for my Practicum). But don't worry, we'll have an Onion Ring entry for you one way or another!

Until next time, happy eating!

Burger King

Before we begin this post, there are a few shout outs we would like to mention:

A - for asking if this blog took a day off for the Labor Day holiday!
S - for saying, "You're wearing your Whataburger Shirt" when I walked in to class this week.
M - who asks about my onion ring adventures and updates me on the best golf courses around.
T - who asked why we didn't post anything this Monday. Because apparently his brother reads the blog. Awesome!
HMC office - the place of our awesome internship, and the staff who is always eager to hear about our latest onion ring adventures.
Princess P - who helps me work out after eating all those onion rings!

Turns out we have readers after all. :-)

So I know you are all now used to Onion Ring Mondays. Unfortunately, my schedule does not allow us to do ORings on Mondays anymore. So now we have Onion Ring Fridays! Yay for the weekend. (Yes, Rebecca Black's "Friday" is running through my head now. The Glee version, aka the good version.)

So to start off our Onion Ring Friday, we were going to go to Popeye's. J, one of the girls at our office, said that they had excellent onion rings. So off we went to the Popeye's on Chimney Rock and Richmond!



However, when we went inside, we didn't see onion rings on the menu! We were so sad! And we didn't ask to see if they had it. Sad and defeated, we decided to head down Richmond to try and find another spot.

It came down to two places: Richmond Arms Pub and Burger King. I had gone to Richmond Arms Pub to watch the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid game with some friends of mine, and my friend Princess P pointed out that they had onion rings. "You guys should come here!" she said. Well, we ended up going to BK instead, so Richmond Arms, you are next on our list!



We go into BK and notice that they don't have onion rings listed on their menus, too! Impossible! I saw onion rings on their drive thru menu, they had to have onion rings. This time, we asked. Yes, they did have onion rings. Excellent. We ordered lunch and were eager to chow down.



When we got our food, we discovered why the place is called Burger King and not Onion Ring King. These onion rings are pretty forgettable. They are heaving on the batter and barely have any onion in them. Disappointing. But our sandwiches were good. It had been a while since I had been to a BK, and I was glad to have a break from McDonald's $1 menu. And I saw a sign that this BK is open 24 hours! This could be dangerous...

Verdict: bad. Don't get the onion rings.

After lunch, we had some time to kill before returning to the office, so we decided to go to Babies R Us to buy some gifts for a baby shower we're going to next weekend. They don't have Toys R Us or Babies R Us in China, so F had no idea what she was about to walk in to.

Once we were in the store, F was in heaven.

Let's just say that if I ever get pregnant and have a baby shower, I won't need to register. F will buy the entire store. And get extras for herself. I'm not even kidding. Every aisle we went down, she found something she liked. And she wanted to buy everything. I had to actually stop her from buying more than she did. One of the purchases...Elmo bath thingies that you put on the floor so you don't slip.



She decided to stick it on my car window on the drive home. He almost didn't make it because I kept rolling down the window...

And that ends this week's Onion Ring adventure. Thanks for reading, and check back next Friday for a new destination!

Cheesecake Factory

A new week, a new Onion Ring destination. Today we were going to go to Popeye's....but we decided to go to Cheesecake Factory instead (sorry, J!). So just a hop, jump, and a skip away we went to the Houston Galleria!

Sidebar: The Houston Galleria is far superior to the Dallas Galleria. I mean, our skating rink is much bigger and our stores are much better. Why is there even a debate about this?

Apparently F had already experienced Cheesecake Factory's Hand Battered Onion Rings a year ago, but she was willing to try them again. I mean, it had been an entire year since she had them. And she remembered them being like Red Robin. Excellent! Our destination was set.

As soon as the waiter gets there, we order our drinks and the Onion Rings. We are both super excited! We also order our main lunches - F got pasta, I got a soup/salad/sandwich combo. Soup of the day was a rustic lentil and bacon soup. Forest asked what a lentil was....and all I could come up with is that it was a type of bean. Not far off, right?

Anway, back to the point. The onion rings came out in a small tower, reminding us of Red Robin.



F said she could feel the heat radiating off of the tower of onions.

So they obviously were not crunchy like their RR counterparts. They sure looked good, though. So we took a bite...

Then I was taken by surprise. The batter was probably the thickest we have had thus far, and had more of a feel of a funnel cake. When I said this, F asked what a funnel cake was. I said it was a fried food that they served at state fairs and the like. She looked at me with a blank expression.

"What's a state fair?"

Insert about 20 mintues of explaining state fairs, carnivals, and the types of fried goodness each event offers.

The onion itself was thick and sweet. F asked if they put more than one onion in it. No, turns out they just made really thick slices.

Our main dishes came out. And boy was there a lot of food! F ended up taking half of her food home, and I took home my soup (it was so yummy!!!). And we were both too full to indulge in some cheesecake. Probably for the best...I mean, I can't be too stuffed with fattening foods for my afternoon workout.

Verdict: Surprisingly good!

F even liked them. Yes, F, who is the one who seems to only like breaded O Rings. I personally couldn't get past the funnel cake batter. It wasn't that it wasn't good, it was just unexpected.

So that was our Onion Ring adventure for today. Let us know if there are any spots you would like us to go try!

Kenny & Ziggy's Deli

So today was a day of firsts - first day of school, first day of my new HMC work schedule, and the first day of Onion Ring Monday. That's right, with our school schedules in full mode, F and I are only working together on Mondays and Fridays. So Onion Ring Thursday is now Onion Ring Monday. Can you think of a better way to start the week? Neither can I.

So today we decided we could do one of 2 things: go to Popeye's (suggested by our office mate J) or get sandwiches and ORings to-go from K&Z's. We decided to do the latter. (We'll do Popeye's soon, J!)

But before I go into today's adventure, this needs a background story. Get ready, it's a doozy.

So one of my first weeks into my MBA program, I was sitting in my seat waiting for class to start, minding my own business, when some random guy decided to include me in his conversation. Um...do I know you? But it's always nice to make new friends (as Giselle reminded me this weekend when I watched Enchanted for the umpteenth time), so I decided I'd humor him.

Little did I know that this random guy would become a lifesaver. I'm serious, if I hadn't met K, I don't think I could have made it through my finance classes. Our Saturday mornings were marked by having study dates at Panera Bread (I was usually still wearing my pj's), and K explaining finance concepts to me over and over and over again. Sometimes I got it, sometimes I...didn't. But he would patiently explain things to me.

Well this past spring semester, I learned he was going to Brazil for work. For 3-6 months. Um, excuse me? Who said that K, my study buddy, could just be relocated without my permission? No bueno. So a week or so after our last finance final, he jetted off to the Southern Hemisphere.

This has a point, I promise.

Back in June...July?...one of those summer months...he had to come back to H-Town to check back in with HQ. By now, he knew all about my Onion Ring adventures. So we decide to have lunch at Kenny & Ziggy's. Apparently this deli is a big hit in the Jewish community. And the Houston community. And it was on Triple D. So I mean, if Guy Fieri went there, it has to be good. I'm in. K also made it a point to order ORings. Yessssss! Let me just say that these were amazing and I knew I had to bring F here eventually. Unfortunately, I couldn't post this adventure in this blog because it wasn't with F. K was sad (sorry!). But that all changed today.

So F and I decide to place a to-go order at K&Z for their amazing onion rings. We then head to get sandwiches. Now most of the time, I'm down for my $5 foot long. But today, I needed heat - heat that comes in the form of hot peppers. And that led us to Potbelly. Mmmm, Potbelly. The office regularly orders Potbelly sandwiches with the Committee Memebers come for lunch meetings because it's quick and easy. Luckily for me, there are usually leftovers in the fridge the next day, which is a great surprise when I forgot to eat breakfast before coming in to work. :-)

So armed with our rings and sandwiches, we head to my place to chow down. And we bit into the onion rings...

If you like breaded onion rings like Red Robin, you will like K&Z. It has an extra crunch that you just can't get from battered onion rings. Sorry, Pete's, but these were really good. They were fried to perfection, and the onion itself was sweet and delicious. Honestly, they're much better when they're fresh and you eat them in the deli itself, but this experience wasn't so bad. I mean, they were still really tasty. And F liked the crunch. Yes, this mission was a success.

While we were eating, we also decided we needed to come up with some standards to judge these rings. I mean, I try to explain them as best as I can, but sometimes I wonder if the point gets through. What do you think, loyal reader(s)? What would you like to see in the descriptions of the Onion Rings?

So...

Verdict: Yum. Enough said.

When we drove back to the office, the only parking spot left was one where a huge SUV was parked on the line. So I had to squeeze in YET AGAIN. Seriously, people, learn how to park.

Yes, that about sums up today's adventure. If you have a favorite onion ring spot you'd like us to try, leave us a comment! We will go to every suggested place (seriously, we have an ongoing list!), and we love comments. *hint, hint*

Whataburger

This week, we finally got around to going to Whataburger. When we first started this quest, a long lost friend posted on my Facebook that our search would end at Whataburger. Whataburger was also listed as one of Houston's top onion ring spot. And the 3 week buildup to these onion rings really made us excited to try these!

I personally love Whataburger. It's the place I go when I feel like splurging (read: I'm tired of McDonald's dollar menu). And as a Texas institution, it's one of the best burger fast food chains here in the state. My dad would go as far as calling their burgers gourmet burgers, but don't tell that to my culinary friends... To us foodies, gourmet burgers mean big, juicy patties, exotic toppings, and big, toasty, fluffy buns. While Whataburger is not gourmet, it is definately in the upper echelon of the finer fast food burgers.

We decided to go to the Whataburger near the Galleria on Chimney Rock near Westheimer. I have gone to this location frequently since moving back to H-Town, and I've never had a problem with them. We were both excited to be here!

F also noticed that I was dressed in Whataburger colors!

We ordered 2 meals and found a table. The food came out pretty fast, which made us happy. However, they brought us two orders of fries. Not cool...we're on an Onion Ring mission! We wanted to send the fries back, but the worker insisted we keep both fries and brought us our Onion Rings. So nice!

The onion rings looked amazing. We were both super excited.



We took a bite...



And were slightly disappointed. They weren't crispy like I was hoping. Nor were they crunchy like F likes them. Plus, the batter was a little undercooked in the middle, which probably explains the non-crispiness.

So disappointing after such a big build up.

But the burger was good. Yum!
One thing I do have to say about this Whataburger location is that they have EXCELLENT customer service. But then, I'm comparing them to the Waco Whataburger. Last time I was there, I was participating in Baylor's Pigskin Revue

and dressed as a red crayon. And they asked if I was part of the carnival. Thanks...

Me in the parking lot of the Waco Whataburger.



But I digress...

Verdict: They were OK... But they are still one of my favorite burger joints!

Since we've had so many battered onion rings lately, and F keeps comparing everything to Red Robin O Rings, I know just the place to take her...

Kenny and Ziggy's.

Someburger

I know...we haven't updated in a while...

We've been busy!!!

Last week was a birthday lunch on onion ring day, so obviously we decided to take the birthday lunch. And this week...well...life got in the way. But I thought I'd update with what we had 3 weeks ago....Someburger!



Someburger is this little green shack (literally a shack) in the Heights off of Studewood and 11th. One would completely miss it if they weren't looking for it. And I actually almost missed it! Thank goodness F pointed it out or else I would have kept driving.

We had gotten rave reviews about Someburger, so we were both very excited to try this new place. We went up to the window and ordered a cheeseburger, fries, chicken nuggets, and onion rings. Yum!

Since the Houston heat is not pleasant to eat in, we eagerly headed back to the office to enjoy our meal. That joy soon disappeared... The cheeseburger was...under par. The chicken nuggets looked liked something you would get from McDonald's. The fries were...ok at best... Honestly, the onion rings were the best part of the meal, and they weren't even the best onion rings we've had.

Verdict: bleh. Don't go here for the food, except if you're in the mood for semi decent onion rings.

Disappointing, no?

The funniest part of the experience was trying to park back at the office. The only spot available was between these two big cars/SUVs who decided to park ridiculously close to the lines of my poor little parking space... Hilarity ensude...



Stay tuned. Next stop: Whataburger!