Need pie for Thanksgiving? Try Royers!

The Scene of this Blog:

Royer's Round Top Cafe

Round Top, TX

Home to down home country folks, a couple Ohioan tourists, and some fantastic pie!

Set scene: Roadside cafe in downtown Round Top, TX- population 81

Their motto is "Dive into the PIE box for an out of the box experience!"

Their shirts say "Remember the Alamode!"

Their pie is DELICIOUS!

I went to Round Top cafe after a visit to the Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham, TX. It was only about a 25 minute drive, but seemed way out of the way. I had read about this place in a Dallas Morning News article about roadtrips, and it seemed like a great place to go, so I thought it'd be worth the inconvenient drive.

When we pulled up, upon seeing the cafe, the exact words out of my husbands mouth were, "Where the heck did you take us to? This is it?" Little did he know, that in about 15 minutes, we'd have some of the best pie we've ever tried in our bellies- and quail, stuffed giant jalapenos, and rolls ontop of that! When we walked in the door, this is the view we were greeted with:

Pies, pies everywhere! Cherry, Strawberry Rhubarb, Apple, Chocolate chip, Pecan, Butterscotch, Buttermilk, Pumpkin, Cinnamon, Key Lime Buttermilk, and Coconut Chess.. all there for us to smell and savor!

We sat down and ordered pie immediately- a slice of Apple, and a slice of Strawberry Rhubarb- both with ice cream, of course, because they charge you 50 cents extra if you don't get them a la mode! As we waited for our pies to come out, we sat and looked around this quirky cafe. The walls were adorned with signs, old tshirts, pictures of local and national celebrities, Christmas lights, napkins... anything you could think of!

We sat and chatted with the waiter wearing overalls (who I think was the owner) and talked to him about my food blog. He, in turn, started bringing out free samples of everything under the sun! Grilled quail (first time I'd ever tried it.. very good!), HUGE jalapenos stuffed with crab meat, cream cheese, jalapeno, and a plethora of other things, bread with homemade jelly, and then our pies. The fabulous, down home service here was wonderful.. almost refreshing. You don't see many places anymore where you can sit and learn about the business from the server, and really get to know them. By the time we left I felt like I belonged in Round Top, and was born to eat this pie!

As we paid the bill and got up to leave, the server brought out a box and handed it to me. He said, "On the house. Please enjoy, and y'all come back." It was a large cherry pie, straight out of the oven, just for me. Free.

This place has my heart, and will always have my business.

So, if you're ever deep in the heart of Texas, somewhere between Houston, College Station, and Austin, stop by Royers Round Top cafe. They also ship their famous pies all over the US- just order at http://www.royersroundtopcafe.com/

The Best Burger in Texas

Please bare with me as I try to get caught up on all of the posts I've been meaning to write for awhile now.. So many new foodie experiences, and not enough time to write!!

Recently, the Texas Monthly Magazine published an article about the Top 50 Burgers in Texas. The writers of the magazine drove over 12,000 miles, ate at more than 250 restaurants, and finally came up with The #1 Burger in Texas.... which just happens to be in my own city- Dallas, TX! Now, this is quite a huge honor to have, especially in the great (LARGE) state of Texas, so of course I'd have to verify it for myself. So, I made a reservation for brunch to try the burger, and made a date with our friends. It was FABULOUS!

This is the excerpt from the magazine description:

"No. 1 Classic Cheeseburger$12 (Fries are included in this price.) The Grape, Dallas
Not to take the Lord’s name in vain, but if ever there were a burger that could sitteth at the right hand of the Almighty, this would be the one. We sweareth. This is a celestial sandwich in every tiny detail. The meat, ground in-house, is ten ounces of high-quality chuck-eye (renowned for having the best fat-to-lean ratio). The peppered bacon is cured on-site. The slightly sweet bun hails from a local bakery. Are you getting the picture? Are your salivary glands in Pavlovian mode? Let us rave on: The lettuce is Texas hydroponic Bibb, just the tender inner leaves; the Lemley tomato has achieved ideal ripeness. White cheddar cheese oozes across the meat patty, melding irresistibly with the Dijonnaise blend that has been swiped across the amply buttered, crisply toasted bread. Is there a drawback? Just one: Unless your mouth is the size of Julia Roberts’s, you’ll need to press this tower down to a manageable height before attempting to stuff your face. The Grape’s creation does not attempt any radical maneuvers, but in its simple perfection it achieves the pinnacle of burgerdom: It makes you wonder why you would ever eat anything else. That it’s offered only during Sunday brunch makes it even more desirable. Granted, some curmudgeons might balk at eating a burger in a wine bistro on Sunday morning, but they’d be missing the very best burger in Texas. 2808 Greenville Ave., 214-828-1981. PS"

The article is SO true. The Dijonnaise sauce that's on the sandwich couldn't be more balanced. The sharp white cheddar cheese that is melted ontop adds just the right amount of flavor, and the toasted buttery bun? Well, it's perfection. The bacon was crisped and hot, adding a small amount of flavory grease, and the lettuce and tomato were fresh. What about the twice fried fries, you ask? They were flavorful, crunchy, and delicious with Heinz ketchup!

My only wish for this classic burger is that the pickles would've been different. They tasted fresh and homemade, but were spicy instead of being a dill or bread and butter pickle. I like the taste of normal pickles, and usually add extras onto my burger, but with these I didn't eat too many of them.

Here are some pictures of the burger. The first one is the burger as presented to me, and the other is my burger after I built it. It WAS huge, and I couldn't finish it..

I can definitely see why it was called The Best Burger in Texas!!!

Cocos Frios- A taste of the tropics

Hola! I just returned from one of the more fabulous trips I've taken in my life with a lot of new foodie experiences to chat about. I was in Mexico for a week, and I was determined not to eat tacos, burritos, quesadillas, chimichangas, or enchiladas. Instead, I ate octopus, conch filets, squid, and had ribs prepared ways I'd never seen them, but the one experience that stood out among the rest was the Cocos Frios.

I consider myself to be somewhat of a mixed drink connoisseur, which means that I've had my fair share of drinks out of coconuts. Miami vice, pina colada, strawberry daquiri, Bahama mama, and some sort of dirty monkey type thing, but none more interesting that the one I'm about to describe. I'd always thought that "coconut milk" came from the inside of coconuts, but the coconut milk we see here in stores is a mix of sugar and the meat of a coconut sieved through a cheese cloth. What comes from the inside of coconuts is actually a clear liquid called coconut water. It tastes a little bit like coconuts, a little bit like fruit, and a little bit like dirty water. It's best when served chilled, making the name Cocos Frios (cold coconuts).

We had rented a Jeep for the day to explore the other side of the island, and pulled up on a sign that said Coco Frios. One of my goals for that day was to drink out of either a coconut or a pineapple (both of which I accomplished, by the way!), so we pulled over to get our drink out of the coconut. The first thing I saw was a scary man with a machete! Ahhh.. but, he was just cutting the tops off of the coconuts so we could drink out of them :)

We pay the $3.00 for the two coconuts, and begin watching him cut into ours. He handed us ours, with a little hole on the top and a straw inserted into the opening, and we began to drink up! Right as we took our first sip, my husband looked at me and said, "I wonder if Tom Hanks on Castaway was serious about the coconut water.. he said they're a GREAT laxative." I was like oh, great.... this should be an interesting day if that's true! Here we are enjoying our first Cocos Frios foodie experience. Couldn't have picked a better background!

Anyway, the coconut water was pretty good, and very refreshing. After we finished, the "Machete Guy" cut our coconuts in half and let us eat the underdeveloped flesh inside. It was a little too slimy and gooey for me, so I didn't eat a lot, but I did try it. I've gotta say, I like the hard, sweetened coconut a lot better, but apparently that comes from very old coconuts.

To wrap up our drinking experience, after we tried the Cocos Frios we hit up Playa Bonita, where I drank a Bahama Mama from a Pineapple, and it was AWESOME.

The next stop was, funny enough, called Coconuts, where we ate lunch for the day. My husband had conch filets, and they were really interesting tasting, but I prefer to have my conch diced, chopped, and fried into Conch Fritters :) Here are the conch filets:

The squid and octopus weren't really worth writing about, but obviously everything above was. Great trip, great food, and great experiences! So, next time you guys are out, go out of your comfort zone and try something you normally wouldn't. It's fun!