May

Ballpark food makes Houston trip worth it

Diane Keaggy Young fans give a shout out to Cardinal pitcher Chris Carpenter at Minute Maid Park. Tickets at Minute Maid Park start at $7.

HOUSTON • The Cardinals won two out of three games against the Houston Astros last month at Minute Maid Park. I saw the loss. Not that I’m bitter. Really, I just love flight delays and Texas humidity. And if I can witness a ninth-inning meltdown, well, that’s just the cherry on top.

But then, during the two-hour flight home, I stopped stewing over Mitchell Boggs’ wild pitch and reflected on what makes a great trip for the traveling Cardinals fan.

Did I explore a new city? Check. Did I consume ridiculous amounts of food and alcohol? Yes and yes. Most important, did I see some good baseball? Absolutely.

My trip coincided with Lance Berkman’s first at-bat at Minute Maid since he left the Astros last summer. Berkman has long been a favorite of mine, even when he was a Cardinal killer, and I was curious whether Astros fans would cheer or boo his return. The answer: They cheered first, then booed with mounting intensity with each consecutive at-bat.

“That’s the Houston I know,” smirked one Houston-based Cardinals fan.

The score had seesawed between the two teams when Berkman put the Redbirds on top with a ninth-inning double. Then Bill Hall hit a walk-off single — one of baseball’s sweetest moments — and the Astros celebrated at home plate. Not even this diehard Cardinals fan could begrudge the division’s worst team this hard-fought and rare win.

Minute Maid Park

This is the final installment of Home & Away’s series of trips to the cities of the National League Central. We’ve sat atop a Wrigley Field rooftop in Chicago, tailgated in Milwaukee, met Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillen in Pittsburgh and devoured sausages in Cincinnati.

But not until Houston have we had the opportunity to watch our Cardinals in action. I admit, I was a bit self-conscious decked out in my Cardinals gear. Would Cardinals fans turn out for a Tuesday night game? Silly me. Cardinals fans are everywhere, and they came out in force this night. Many of us chose to sit along the third-base line, where we could cheer the Cardinals as they returned to the dugout. These tickets cost $56, but the Astros offer a range of ticket bargains (houston.astros.mlb.com). Outfield deck seats cost $7, $1 for kids. The Astros also offer a $30 ticket with unlimited nachos, hot dogs, soda and other ballpark vices.

That’s a great deal, but I recommend feasting on Minute Maid Park’s exceptional — yes, I said exceptional — ballpark originals. Clearly trading experience on the field for talent in the kitchen, the Astros recruited celebrity chef Bryan Caswell to bring his signature sliders on housemade yeast rolls to Minute Maid (our favorite was the pulled-pork slider served with Carolina-style slaw) as well as his El Real fajitas with pineapple-and-soy marinated chicken and beef served on housemade tortillas. Executive chef Jason Kohler also wowed us with his innovative creations including gourmet macaroni and cheese; the Diablo dog smothered in five-alarm chili and fresh jalapeños; and ice cream from Texas-based Blue Bell Ice Cream. My favorite dish, however, was the baked potato stuffed with tender beef brisket. By the seventh inning, I was wishing I had stashed my leftovers in my purse. The night’s only foul ball came from the All Aboard stand, which serves “signature dishes” from the opposing team’s home. That frequently means toasted ravioli when the Cardinals play, but on this night the stand inexplicably served a deep-fried pork fritter. Love pork; love fritters. But this dish tasted like baseball leather.

Back in the stands, folks were waving their Berkman posters, both for and against. As a traveling fan, I try to walk that line between insufferable zealot and gracious guest. So I refrained from gloating about the Big Puma’s stunning start for the Cardinals. Nor did I join the “Let’s go Cardinals” chant after a particularly ugly Astros inning. And when the friendly Astros fan next to me shared his happy memories of Busch Stadium, I did not ask, “So who’s the idiot who put a mountain in your center field?”

OK, I may have asked that question, but in a really nice way.

Minute Maid has many “unique” features I learned about during my afternoon tour ($9, $5 for children), not the least of which is the in-play flag pole and Tal’s Hill, the 30-degree slope in centerfield. The 41,000-capacity park, which opened in 2000, has a retractable roof that closes if the temperature rises above 85 degrees or dips below 65 degrees, i.e. almost every game, including this one. A 19th century locomotive, loaded with fake oranges (Minute Maid Park: Get it?), chugs across the stadium’s rim before every game and after every home run and win. So what did the train transport in its Enron Field days? Insert derivatives joke here.

Seeing Houston

Who am I to argue with the U.S. Census, Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau and Post-Dispatch pal and Houston native Aisha Sultan? But no way is Houston the nation’s fourth largest city. Where are the people? Certainly not downtown, which cleared out immediately after the Astros win. The Museum District, easily reachable from downtown by rail and home to the Houston Zoo, Children’s Museum and Museum of Natural Science, also seemed strangely quiet. We wanted to visit the Contemporary Art Museum, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, the Menil Collection, the Houston Center of Photography and the wacky folk-art mecca called the Orange Show. Each was closed on Tuesday. We could have visited the Space Center Houston (spacecenter.org), which includes the tram tour of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, but it’s 25 miles south of downtown and costs $21. That’s too much money and time for a short two-day trip.

Instead we visited the Museum of Fine Arts (mfah.org), which features an impressive collection of Impressionism and the Weather Museum (wxresearch.org), which feels more like a seventh-grade science project than an actual attraction. Don’t bother. But do stop for lunch at Bodegas Taco Shop (bodegastacoshop.com) in the district. Like Subway and Qdoba, Bodegas constructs its exceptional burritos, salads, nachos and tacos on an assembly line of yumminess. Pick from 11 types of salsa (I recommend tomatillo), various relishes, beans and rices (the cilantro-lime was my favorite). The Bodegas margarita also ranks as a local favorite.

We continued our search for life at the Galleria, one of the nation’s top malls. A-ha! So that’s where everyone was hiding. Home to Fendi, Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Tory Burch and other impossibly expensive boutiques not found in St. Louis, the Galleria boasts 375 shops spread across two large buildings. Bring comfy, but fashionable, shoes.

The mall claims to attract 24 million shoppers each year, and only a few seemed to be buying Gucci glasses, Kate Spade earrings and Jimmy Choo pumps. The rest could be found skating on the indoor ice rink or slumming it in Banana Republic, Apple and Claire’s.

Indulging

Houston is one of America’s top restaurant towns, boasting great steak houses (Pappas Bros. Steakhouse, pappasbros.com), international destinations (Catalan Food and Wine, catalanfoodandwine.com) and farm-fresh cooking (Feast, feasthouston.com).

Sticking downtown, we sampled another favorite, the ultra-chic Grove (thegrovehouston.com). Enclosed in glass with elegant modern décor, the restaurant and its patios offer wonderful views of the 12-acre Discovery Green park, home to concert series, outdoor movies, public art, gardens and a playground. We arrived for a 9 p.m. dinner but were turned away because business was slow. Again, where are the people? We returned for lunch and enjoyed the asparagus salad with tangy Texas goat cheese ($12) and Texas rotisserie chicken tacos ($12).

The trip’s true culinary highlight came not at a restaurant but at Anvil Bar & Refuge, the award-winning cocktail destination in the city’s artsy Montrose neighborhood. We arrived on a quiet Monday evening when the customer-bartender ratio ran 3-to-1. Let me retract that: “Bartenders” pop bottle tops; the staff here are artists, passionate about creating wildly imaginative concoctions and resurrecting the classic cocktails of the past with unique spirits and housemade bitters. It was here where I met Yao Lu, the mixologist who changed my life. My problem is that I love the idea of cocktails — the fancy glasses, the pretty garnishes — but hate how cloyingly sweet most cocktails are. So does Lu, a self-proclaimed “Campari whore,” who, in his spare time, makes his own bitters.

Every drink here started with a consultation. Lu explored my drinking history, asking me several questions about my likes and dislikes. I have seen doctors who spent less time asking questions. Eventually we agreed upon the Witchy Woman, a Lu original with Campari, white rum, orange and lime juices, Orgeat and aromatic bitters. It was, without question, the best drink I ever tasted. Until I tried the next drink: the Golden Gate Swizzle, which features my new favorite spirit Fernet, tempered by syrupy Falernum and Orgeat and mixed with lemon and two types of bitters.

Getting there

The Cardinals return to Houston June 7-9 and Sept. 26-28. Houston is about 680 miles from St. Louis, which makes it our most distant rival in the National League Central. Southwest flies nonstop to Houston Hobby. A roundtrip ticket for the June 7-9 series costs about $260. AirTran will get you there for about the same price, but you’ll have a layover. We decided not to rent a car because our hotel, the Alden, charged a $25 daily valet charge and stood only a few blocks from Minute Maid Park and the train that transports visitors to the museum district ($1.25 per trip). But cab fares to the airport ($30), the Montrose neighborhood ($15) and the Galleria ($25) added up quickly. Do the math and see what works best for your trip.

Ballpark food makes Houston trip worth it

Similar Posts:

Leave a Reply