Marathon – The Gage Hotel is a must-see in Marathon and a few years ago, we checked it off The Texas Bucket List.  During our visit we spent some time with J.P. Bryan, the man who made Marathon what it is today by rebuilding the old hotel.

“Well it’s as close to heaven as you can get and still be in Texas,” J.P. Bryan said.

For over 40 years, his passion for the town of Marathon has produced an amazing place full of stops on The Texas Bucket List. During our first meeting, he put a little seed into our head.

“The Wild Buffalo Bar,” J.P. said. “It’s a unique little bar. You have that feeling of intimacy and coziness. It’s just an attractive little place.”

We returned to check the famous bar off the list and get a meal at its restaurant, the 12 Gage.

“It’s very small, it’s iconic, it’s in some ways, I think, it’s somewhat legendary,” Carol Peterson said. “It certainly fits in that…into the Far West Texas mystique.”

Since 2003, Carol has been Mr. Bryan’s go to woman, and she keeps the wheels turning at this West Texas destination.

“I’ve really enjoyed the ride for a part of it with him,” Carol said. “It’s been most interesting.”

The White Buffalo Bar gets its name from a massive mount in the middle of the room that serves as the centerpiece of this small bar with a sizable reputation.

“We’ve had discussions a few times about expanding it, and we always come up with the same feeling,” Carol said. “It would take away from what it is. And yes, it is, it’s very iconic Texas bar.”

Since we’re at the local watering hole, a bartender named Falisha Villanueva set us up with two of the most sought-after spirits here.  First up, the brush fire which starts with a spicy chili rimmed glass.

“It’s a good, spicy drink,” Falisha said.

Vodka, fresh squeezed lime juice, and orange liquor complete the mix that is shaken up with roasted jalapeños. This libation gets The Texas Bucket List seal of approval.

“You get that tingling sensation in your lips,” Falisha said. “It’ll be with you for a while.”

Next up, we tried the J.P. Margarita named after the man himself. We also had some dinner with Head Chef Joe Rodriguez.

“I’d say the hardest thing is sourcing products,” Joe said.

Apparently with two drinks, you get two meals. We got started with some game meat: Axis deer with a side of veggies.

“We’re gonna give it some grill marks and then finish it in the oven,” Joe said.

The deer gets finished off in the oven and another game meat gets added: Quail.

“It’s a cornbread-stuffed quail,” Joe said.

After a few minutes, we were game for some game.

“My expectation was totally surpassed,” Roger Tannery said.

If you’ve never had Texas quail, you’re missing out.

“It has just such a big reputation of great consistency,” Liz Rogers said.

The beautifully cooked axis deer was medium rare inside with the diamond grill marks all around it.

“We really have a great reputation for our food here,” Carol said.

It’s worth running a marathon for to say the least.

“A wonderful place to visit and a place you’d wanna come back to,” Judy Tannery said.

If you’re looking for food that is well worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List, come in to the 12 Gage Restaurant and White Buffalo Bar in Marathon, Texas.

“The staff is friendly, and the food is great and the place is beautiful,” Liz said. “It deserves its reputation.”

Carthage – Southwest of Carthage and sort of between Clayton and Gary sits a shack literally in the backwoods. There’s not a whole lot on FM1970 to see but when you get a whiff of what’s cooking near the shores of Lake Murvaul, you’ll haul on over to see that smell is coming from Chuck’s Country Smoke House.

“People from East Texas will drive a long way to get good barbecue, I guarantee you,” patron Calvin Harris said.

Chuck Terrell has some Cajun lineage but grew up around east Texas. When it came to opening a restaurant, he had high hopes for his barbecue.

“I thought this is what could survive and thrive in this location,” Chuck said. “We’re out here.”

After he built, people started to flock to his restaurant. Not bad for the former pharmaceutical salesman who also used to close deals on copy machines.

“Yeah, who needs a copy machine, yeah,” Chuck said. “That’s pretty much what it was like.”

After years of grinding it out in the sales world, Chuck was ready for a change of pace, so he moved to out to his family’s homestead.

“Just kind of got it in my head that I wanted to try my own thing,” Chuck said. “First it was a gym, in high school, then in college it was a bar, and then after that that’s where the restaurant stuff came in.”

Chuck didn’t know how to cook barbecue prior to owning his place. He started from square one and refurbished this old shed on the property piece by piece.  While he rebuilt what was to be his restaurant, he practiced making barbecue.

“This is not the way to do it, but there was a smoker already here,” Chuck said. “While I was remodeling the building I was smoking, learning how to smoke, basically. Pulled off some rubber tires in the beginning. Yeah, that was pretty rough. Thinking, maybe I shouldn’t have left that job.”

He researched the craft of creating delicious brisket the way everyone researches just about anything nowadays.

“YouTubing,” Chuck said.“Yeah, yeah. Watching YouTube.”

Surprisingly, it worked. Now, people come from every corner of Panola Country for a piece of his perfectly cooked provisions.

“Man I tell you what, it’s like a legendary shrine,” Len Arnold said.

Chuck’s is known for a few things, and he wanted to showcase them all. He started off with a serious sandwich called the Susie Q.

“Everything up there has to do as this someone out here, but that’s like their little concoction,” Chuck said. “That’s Susie. Susie Cohan. Yeah, yeah. She was the first one that came in and like asked for it very specifically that way. It’s boudin, brisket and sausage chopped up on one of those jalapeno sourdough buns.”

The Susie Q isn’t their only unique dish. They also have a frito pie by the name of the Frito Bomb.

“It’s pretty much like a Frito pie, but just like a barbecue Frito pie,” Chuck said. “That’s kind of how we describe it.”

Chuck got to chopping a combination of brisket, sausage and boudin.

“Get that, get a good mix,” Chuck said. “Chopping up all this meat.”

All of that goodness simply goes on a bun. As for the Frito Bomb, it’s a combination brisket and sausage placed over corn chips with beans, melted cheese and barbeque sauce. Here we are with a twofer at Chuck’s County Smoke House: the Susie Q and the Frito Bomb.

“My favorite’s Susie Q,” Calvin said. “Best barbecue sandwich you’ll ever eat, by far.”

The sausage and boudin compliment each other very well, and the brisket gives it a nice flavor.

“It is finer than frog hair split four ways,” Len said.

As for the Frito Bomb, well, it’s well worth a trip to the woods.

“I’ve had the Frito Bomb, which is amazing,” Stacy Jones said. “It is the bomb. Very unique.”

You can never beat the crunchiness those corn chips provide. You throw that barbecue on there, the sauce, the cheese, the beans, and it’s just texture town with a whole lot of flavor.

“My daddy cooked barbecue,” Len said. “I worked for some men around town that cooked barbecue. Now I try this and I’ve never put anything like it in my mouth, man. It’s awesome.”

If you’re looking for some excellent East Texas barbecue, then Chuck’s Country Smokehouse is well worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“The barbecue is top notch,” Chuck said. “I mean, I can say that very confidentially. I know the time and effort that I put into it, and I’m not going to put anything out that’s sub par, so it’s good stuff.”

 

San Marcos – San Marcos is home to Texas State University and all of those students like to eat.  Downtown is the best destination for some unique dining and that includes the Root Cellar Café.

“Like the old building it’s nice,” Alec Young said. “It’ s like, I don’t want to say authentic, but it’s authentic.”

Beth James is the General Manager here, and she’s worked here her entire college career. The founders of this fine establishment have found a way of keeping this college grad around to run the business that’s been around since 2005.  The food might have played a roll.

“Everything is a from-scratch kitchen, so we make everything fresh,” Beth said. “I describe it as a twist on Texas food. It’s just amping up good traditional meals.”

All of the food you’ll find here has roots in the Lone Star State.

“Most of our stuff that we get is either from Texas farm or local, and we support them and we always say that we started from the roots,” Beth said. “There’s this really cool board over here that actually has all the local farms in Texas that we support.”

While you eat your amazing meal you might feel inclined to discuss the design of your dish. Because down in the dining room, you won’t find any distractions.

“We don’t believe in having TVs in our restaurant because this is a place that you’re supposed to come and commune with the people around you,” Beth said. “So our goal is to make sure people are actually talking when they go to lunch or dinner, and having a good experience.”

Well we’re focused and hungry, and that’s a good thing because we’re in line for some good southern cooking with their cheesy shrimp and grits goodness.

“That was a big southern dish that we could bring that we knew we had the right twist on that people would like it, and they don’t have it pretty much anywhere else in town,” Beth said.

“It’s a southern thing,” Daniel Becnel said.

Chef Daniel gave us the lowdown on these incredibly gooey grits.

“When we put the chorizo, and the garlic, and the cheddar in there, it all comes together really well,” Daniel said. “I think it’s kind of something you don’t find around here. Everybody kind of wants to do real boring grits.”

Just like the wedding at Cana, you want to save to good wine for last.  Cook with what you’ve got.

“Nothing flames up like a little Cardboureux,” I joked.  

The house-made cornbread is grilled, and cheese gets added to the grits.

We don’t call ’em cheddar grits for nothin’,” Daniel said.

Well, here you’ll find southern food with a little kick.

“The chef knows what he’s doin’,” Duane Davide said.

If you’re looking for a hidden gem that’s pretty much hidden underneath a building, The Root Cellar in San Marcos, Texas is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List.

“It’s on the bucket list you know…for a reason,” Alec said.

Houston – On the southwest side of the Third Ward and just a few exits from Downtown Houston, you’ll find a fine restaurant dedicated to flavorful foul that fills up rather fast called The Turkey Leg.

Nakia Price and her husband Lynn started the turkey business back in 2015.  The former University of Houston basketball player was working for a litigation firm when her and her husband decided to start selling food in their family’s parking lot across from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

“It was literally something that just happened,” Nakia said. “We started during rodeo season. We were shuttling people into the rodeo and we just had a barbecue pit on the lot. It was just something that happened.”

Now if you’ve ever been to a rodeo, you know the smell that these dreamy drumsticks can give off.

“It’s a great turkey leg, it’s not your average turkey leg,” Nakia said. “Literally these turkey legs fall off the bone. “

Nakia’s smoking hot turkey legs involve a secret seasoning that Lynn wasn’t too sure about.

“So he thought that we shouldn’t season the turkey legs and I told him that we should,” Nakia said. “So he was actually recording me seasoning the turkey legs and people started coming and they were like, ‘We want the turkey leg with the seasoning on it.’ And he kind of looked at me and I looked at him and and it took off.”

As if the incredible flavor of the food wasn’t enough,  Lynn took turkey to the next level by taking the perfectly seasoned provisions and piling things on top of it.

“He was like, ‘You know what slim?,’” Nakia said. “He calls me slim, ‘I think that we should put dirty rice in the turkey leg.’ And I kind of looked at him and was like, ‘Dirty rice?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, let’s just do it and see what happens.’ And there it happened and then after that came our number one seller, which is the shrimp Alfredo stuffed turkey leg.”

You heard that right, shrimp Alfredo stuffed turkey leg. It doesn’t stop there. You’ve got legs stuffed with dirty rice, Hennessy glazed, and Cajun crawfish mac and cheese.  

“It’s euphoric,” Letitia said. “You know what I mean? It’s just like you fill a guilty pleasure, which always makes you feel good, but it’s worth it.”

Turkey Leg Hut has a constant line of people waiting to get their hands on a turkey leg.

“On our busiest days we sell about 2,800 turkey legs a day,” Nakia said. “Yeah. On our non busy days, like during the week, which is maybe a Tuesday or a Wednesday, we still sell about 2000 turkey legs. It’s surreal. Never did I imagine when we started out that that would be the outcome. That people literally lined up to taste what we’ve created. “

It didn’t take long after trying one out to realize no one could ever quit this food cold turkey.

“All the different varieties of turkey legs,” Letitia said. “The lemon pepper, the Alfredo, the shrimp, the dirty rice. I mean, you can’t beat it.”

It’s the best of both worlds. Texas turkey and Gulf shrimp in the middle of Houston makes the Turkey Leg Hut well worth a stop on the Texas bucket list.

“To have this place to be so successful and so good, it only boost up the morale in the whole community,” Letitia said. “It really does.”

South Padre Island – When it comes to snacking on South Padre Island, there are all sorts of savory selections. But there’s a small restaurant sitting right on Padre Boulevard has built a big following thanks to a sought-after meal, ceviche and it’s simply known as Ceviche Ceviche.

“The hardest thing [about having a Cerviche restaurant] would be all the prep work,” owner Carlos Alaniz said.

Carlos Alaniz and his wife Alana are local high school sweethearts who have been married since 2006.  They built this business together and both credit each other for their ceviche success.

“She runs everything,” Carlos said. “She’s the heart of the whole business, really, you know. She’s a machine. She does it all day long. We go from 5:30 in the morning, we go all the way to 10 o’clock at night.”

Considering that the only cooking done here is more of a chemical process, called denaturation, the prepping is pivotal in the pursuit of perfection.

“Ceviche, technically, would be the process of curing the fish in lime, and salt, and whatever herbs and spices you want to put into it,” Carlos said. “As opposed to the fish being completely raw, as you would in like sushi or like sashimi style, you would see the fish looks cooked, and the shrimp looks cooked too. It’s completely opaque, so it looks like you boiled it, except we have a curing process that we follow, that we go through to make our ceviche. Since we got so many limes and we’ve got so much citrus down here, it was so easy for us to have a curing process to make our fish and shrimp that way. “

While the typical form of ceviche is the most popular, at Ceviche Ceviche you’ll find all sorts of ingredients to put with your selection of mahi mahi and shrimp.

“You’d be surprised as to how good like … everybody comes in with the same attitude, you know, ‘I’m used to the classic. I’m used to the pico on it,’ but we tell them, ‘Hey, you know, put a little bit of mango, or put strawberries on there, put some celery, or green onion. Pineapple in there. Melon,’”Carlos said. “Cantaloupes is one of my favorite ingredients to put in the ceviche.”

Fresh, delicious, and amazing, Cerviche Cerviche in South Padre Island is well worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“We don’t want anybody to kick the bucket, right,” Carlos said. “We’re all about the good vibes. We’re just a fraction of what it is to come to the island.”

Amarillo – While Amarillo may be associated with the only color its creative name comes from, all you have to do is visit this Panhandle city to see that it’s full of flashy, vibrant, and inventive artisans. Chef Scott Buchanan at Yellow Cite Street Food is a great example.

“We call it punk-rock street food because we try to take our food, and just take it, as much attitude and flair as we can and push the envelope of flavor as far as we can and it works out good,” Buchanan said.

Scott grew up in Amarillo, but he did what most free spirits in the Lone Star State get the calling to do, He moved to Austin.

“I was living there during the kind of golden age of Austin, but then when all of California started moving there, then I got out,” Scott said.

Amarillo called him home in 2007 and he brought the skills he learned in the capital city with him.

“Amarillo’s been on the verge of cool for a long time,” Scott said. “You know? There’s kind of a cool underground scene here, but just hasn’t really popped. And it’s been on the precipice for a couple years now, and we felt like we could be somebody that’s gonna start a wave of bringing things back here instead of just taking skills, and leaving town.”

Scott met Rin, another Amarilloan, who also had an out-of-town adventure.

“She had just moved back from the Houston area so it was kind of kismet a little bit,” Scott said.

Together, they created Yellow City Street Food, got married, and had three kids.  

“Oh, it’s crazy, it’s awesome,” Scott said. “A lot of people I know would think it’d be the worst thing ever to work with their wife that many hours in a day…but we really kind of get strength from each other. We vibe off each other really well, and she really pushes me to be the best person I can be, especially the best chef I can be. “

At Yellow City Street Foods, it’s about wowing the palate with peculiar provisions that pop, and it’s proved to please the population.

“I’m basically a hick from the sticks, and the little town I grew up in … Mexican food, or burgers,” Ricky Dean said. “We came to Amarillo and it’s like an awakening.”

All of this got started when Scott and Rin made tacos to sell at local bars. The response to those tacos was so terrific, it turned into a trade. We decided to take a bite out of what took them to next level and throw in some monster fries.

“We’re gonna do a little trio taco, some of our best sellers,” Scott said. “We’re gonna do our famous fish taco, our Korean style Bulgogi steak, and then our diablo shrimp.”

Oh, I’m excited to try this Yellow City Food Truck staple.

“This is our take on street food, and over here in Amarillo it doesn’t get any better,” Scott said.

Throw together the monster fries and we’re free to eat.

“The fish tacos are my favorite,” Lisa Campbell said.

I would say there’s definitely nothing fishy going on around here, this is great.

“We just love it,” Mary Dean said.

The fish has got an incredible flavor, very crunchy, good flavor profile, mixes together well with all those toppings inside of that tortilla. That is definitely different from any other tortilla I’ve tried before, almost like a pita bread but holds it all together well. It’s nice when you can keep a big taco all together. These flavors are all over the map, kind of like our show, you never know what you’ll get.

“I could eat their Remoulade Sauce with a spoon, it’s so good,” Lisa said.

For a flavorful stop here in Amarillo, the Yellow City Street Food is well worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“People just go out to eat and don’t really have high expectations of what the food is gonna be when it comes out, and so we set out to change that,” Scott said. “We want people to come in here and be changed when they leave here. “

Webster – Near the Johnson Space Center in the city of Webster located near the  entrance to NASA, Mike Antonini has been making his superior sub sandwiches since 1990 at Antonini’s Subs.

“I’ve been all over the United States and I’ll tell you what, this the best sub I’ve ever had,” customer Frank Harrigan said.

Originally from a foreign place called Delaware, Mike moved to Texas in early 70’s to attend school at St. Edward’s in Austin.

“You know the signs they have now that say, keep Austin weird?” Mike said. “Well back then you didn’t need a sign cause it was.”

Mike played Rugby, met a Texas girl, settled down and moved to Houston in the mid 80’s. The only problem was that he couldn’t find a good sandwich. He opened up his first sub shop in 1984 and served up the sort of thing you could only find in the far away land known as the Northeast.

“We have our cheese steaks and meatballs, which we make homemade,” Mike said. “Sausage and peppers. And then cold cuts, subs our own roast beef we make. We make our own tuna and our Italian, which is probably number one. And just go from there.”

Now I must admit, this is nothing new on my bucket list. I’m very familiar with this little sandwich shop because I’ve been coming here since my high school days. So why do we keep coming back here year after year?

“It’s not my personality,” Mike said. “I don’t know why.”

Mike simply is a no-nonsense sort of guy.

“One lady told me she says, years and years ago, she says, ‘you know you’re nothing but an ignorant Yankee,’” Mike said. “I said, ‘well thank you.’”

His pragmatic way of putting things can even be seen on the sign.

“At three hundred dollars a letter, back then subs was about it,” Mike said. “I can’t imagine at putting Antonini’s up there at three hundred a letter. So for forty-five dollars we put Antonini’s in the window. “

Mike let his sandwiches do the talking for him. That tactic has brought in sub seekers and even people who travel to the stars.

“it’s something special that words really can’t describe,” Michael Joseph said.

Michael is Mike’s son. Mike is passing the torch to his only boy. So far, Michael has already opened up locations in Texas City and Kemah, but the original location still has a place in his heart.

“Pretty cool to be able to do these simple thirteen different sandwiches for over 30 years now and people still loving them,” Michael said. “Something to be said for that I think.”

I couldn’t wait another longer to get the lowdown on the large hero that’s been knocking out hunger with some serious flavor.

“We’re gonna make our signature sandwich, our Italian submarine oggi,” Michael said. “Some people call them subs, some people call them hoagies, so you know, we don’t discriminate.”

Michael Joseph begins with the bread.

“Italian roll,” Michael said. “Baked fresh every morning from the Colosseum Bakery. That’s genoa salami. Capocollo. It’s a hot peppered ham. Aged. Some Capocollo has black pepper rings around it. Some has the red pepper around it. Just all dependent on your taste and how much you wanna spend. Next thing you have your lettuce and you go down the line, your tomatoes, onions, pickles. These are the cherry peppers that everybody talks about. Normally just a- Some people heavy, some people say load it up. It just all depends. A little goes a long way, so if there’s a little bit in each bite. That’s the point in the sandwich. We want every bite to be all the ingredients and all those. To have it all. We’re already halfway there. You have to pack it all in so it will stay in place.”

Now I see why I’ve been addicted to this sandwich all these years.  For twenty years I’ve been eating these, and I’m so excited to eat it once again.

“Plenty of food and just the quality of it and it’s very authentic to the northeast,” Elizabeth Gonzales said.

When you have astronauts in here to eat a sandwich before they go off into space, you know it’s out of this world.

“It’s unlike any other place I’ve been to, so, you got to come here,”  long time customer Subrata Saha said.

If you’re every just visiting NASA or here in the Clear Lake area, Antoninis’ Subs on Highway 3 in Webster, Texas, is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List.

“Life is full of uncertainties, eat dessert first,” Frank said. “Followed by a sub.”

Zapata – In the far reaches of South Texas, smack dab between Laredo and Rio Grande City, you’ll find Zapata. Falcon Lake is big draw to these parts, but so is one of the oldest eateries in this area.

This week, we’re in Zapata to try out some chicken fried steak at El Paraiso.

“We eat it all the time,” Jamie Gonzalez said. “So when other people come over and they’ve had it for the first time, ‘Oh, can’t believe this.’”

Being by the border, we automatically assumed El Paraiso would be the place for Tex-Mex. We met up with the owner to see what kind of comida would cure our hunger.  Instead, we met a lovely lady from a long way away. Wendy wound up in Zapata in 1992 after wanting to get away from the nasty northern winters.

“Oh, I love it here,” Wendy said. “ I’m not from big city. I’m from very small, back forty kind of city up there.”

Zapata simply seemed to call to her, and when she arrived she took a job as a waitress at the original El Paraiso. She worked for Hortencia Medina, the woman who started it all.

“In ’56, she opened up her own restaurant,” Wendy said.  “I think it was only like 100, 150 square feet. It was real small. She was a pillar of the community. She helped anybody and everybody.”

That woman ended up being Wendy’s mother-in-law after she fell in love with Juan, the bosses son. Juan passed away unexpectedly in November of 2016, leaving Wendy the weight of carrying on the restaurant with a long tradition.

“Wendy had to take over, and that was very tough,” Jamie said. “It was very tough for her. The success of the business has proven that she did a good job. She’s a very hard worker.”

 

We found  out first-hand that sitting still wasn’t something Wendy enjoys. So, we figured it was about time to savor the specialty at El Paraiso.

“Chicken fried steak,” Wendy said. “That was Hortencia. She’s the one that started that.”

We’re not just eating some home cooking, we’re getting the whole enchilada…and then some.  The El Paraiso special. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. The first thing you get with this plate is the amazing amount of cheese just covered all over that chicken fried steak along with the guacamole and the taco. The enchilada is hidden somewhere in there. You just don’t know what to expect.

 

“Mouth-watering,” Juoaqin said. “It’s delicious. And if you add it to your fries, it’s even better. If you’re down this way, might as well come down and enjoy a good chicken fried steak.”

Wendy will never feel comfortable with being called the boss, but having the best chicken fried steak on the border is a title she’ll happily share with her El Paraiso team. If you’re looking for an incredible Mexican food restaurant that happens to have one heck of a chicken fried steak, El Paraiso in Zapata is well-worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“So we’re a team, my waitresses and I,” Wendy said. “And my cooks, and my dishwashers. Without them, it’s nothing.”