Texas Bucket List

Texas Bucket List

Simmons Bank

The Texas Bucket List – Henderson & Kane General Store in Houston

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Houston⁠—In the historic 6th ward of Houston, you’ll find this neighborhood store attracting all sorts of customers.  That includes furry friends just looking for someone to throw them a bone.

“The bulldog is a sight to see, man, he’s a big guy,” said Michael Martin.

“You’ll see him and he’ll just stop and he won’t move until he gets a treat,”  explained Veronica Avila, one of the owners of Henderson & Kane.

Veronica, her brother Jesse and her husband John started this small business in 2018 and have already cooked up quite the reputation.

“It’s pretty tremendous barbecue,” said Joe Bailey Jr.

“Some of the best brisket if you’ve ever had it,” claimed Scott McLemore.

Breakfast tacos, barbecue and baked goods. It’s the trifecta. “For sure, and coffee,” added Veronica.

Being in the food industry was not Veronica and John’s main goal in life. Veronica was an architect for 15 years, and John did accounting, but when they followed their family lineage in food making, destiny had another destination for the couple.

“I think that I knew when we met that it was going to end in all of this one way or another,” she said.

“We both do come from families that are more involved with food a long time ago and I think that the passion and the love that was in that industry was not necessarily in accounting or architecture,” John added.

Veronica’s grandparents owned a restaurant in El Paso and John’s owned a tamale and BBQ joint in Bryan.

“When I walk in, and I smell the brisket, in my mind, I’m not smelling brisket but I’m smelling my grandfather’s old place in Bryan, Texas. To me, that’s good for the soul,” John explained.

Well I was ready for a sample and Veronica suggested something sizable.

“We call our five meat plate the Pitmaster… because it does give you a little bit of all of our smoked meats and quite a few of our sides,” she said.

So here we are at the Henderson and Kane General Store with a barbecue platter that is not very general, it is particular with smoked meats: brisket, pulled pork, ribs, sausage, turkey and all sorts of sides. We’re going to start with the brisket because that’s usually the star of the show, but it might not be here. They all might be stars. Smells amazing, looks amazing, cooked amazing, smoked amazing. How many more amazing can there be? Tastes amazing.

“I’ve eaten enough barbecue in my life to concern a cardiologist a few times and this place is incredible,” Scott said, “I’ll ignore what my cardiologist says if he tells me not to eat here.”

“Out of one to ten, it’s like eleven, twelve,” Michael commented.

“There’s Texas barbecue and then there’s really great Texas barbecue” Scott added, “and they got it nailed.”

Well, if you’re a little piggy that needs to go to the market for some bodacious barbecue and you happen to be in Houston, Henderson and Kane is well worth a stop on the Texas bucket list.

“We’re proud in Texas” said John, “anytime there is anything to be proud of, we love letting the world know and Texas barbecue is definitely one of those things which is the best in the world.”

The Texas Bucket List – Larry Bruce Gardens in Kennard

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Kennard — In between Crockett and Lufkin, you’ll find yourself surrounded by trees as tall as the tales of Texas in the Davy Crockett National Forest. Down one of the long roads in the rural part of the state, you never know what you’ll come across, but on County Road 4600, you’ll find a clearing with a curious garden run by Larry Bruce.

“It’s been quite a journey,” said Larry, “and it just started out with us saying, hey, we better learn how to grow some tomatoes back here.”

Larry is a former landscaper and his wife, Sarah, a former interior decorator.  Together they run Larry Bruce Gardens on a piece of land that’s been in his family since 1866, despite being fenced in by a national forest.

“Somehow by the grace of God, my ancestors were able to hold onto the land and work it and make enough money. They were loggers mostly, and farmers. They had to raise their own food of course, but enough to pay their taxes and hold on to the property. It’s just really amazing.”

Since 1992, they have been a part of this place creating a unique farm to table restaurant that draws in a crowd.

“It’s just really been amazing how people will come out here in the middle of nowhere,” Larry expressed, “but they like our food.”

“We schedule our work around it,” explained Gary Dial, “we might get up at four o’clock in the morning, so we’ll be able to come. Might work until 11 o’clock at night just so we’d be able to come…We’re committed to coming out here.”

“Just unforgettable,” commented Beverly High, “there is no place like it on planet earth.”

“People have said, how did you have this vision? Well, when it started out, I didn’t have this vision. I was just taking one step at a time,” said Larry.

It all started with a kitchen and a garden and over the years Larry has expanded his capacity for growing greens and seating starving sightseers.

“It doesn’t matter how many people are out here,” he explained, “it just feels like a big family gathering.”

Known for their Sunday buffet of pickled okra, smoked brisket, and fresh vegetables, this gathering is about more than just good food, it’s also about good music. With his daughter, April, and son-in-law, Lloyd, Larry is known for not only providing a great meal but also great entertainment.

“He’ll be busing tables and then they’ll be doing a song and he just runs up there, gets his fiddle and starts fiddling and start singing along,” commented Beverly, “They make beautiful music together, really.”

This soulful combination of country music and down-home cooking wouldn’t be complete without a little bit of the Lord in your life. Before it all gets started, Larry, an ordained minister, holds a small gathering for the reading of the word.

Is it a restaurant? Is it a church? Is it a garden? Is it a canning facility? “Yes. All of the above,” said Larry, “and Bed and breakfast.”

No matter if your trying to fill your soul or fill your stomach, it all starts with the small miracle of being able to grow your own food and that’s what Larry’s garden is all about.

“You can’t get any fresher than that,” he says, “people love it and the way we prepare it is hopefully in our family traditional type seasonings and that sort of thing. It reminds people of growing up and going back home.”

Corn, tomoatoes, peaches, peppers, and zucchini are a few of the things grown here but the okra is legendary.

“We have so many fans of our pickled okra, we just have to grow a lot of okra every year. But it goes in some of our other dishes as well,” explained Larry.

Without a doubt, the freshness and flavor of the food in undeniable, but so is the feeling you get at this farm surrounded by a forest.  Fulfillment in so many ways that you really start to understand the words of Paul Harvey’s “So God Made A Farmer”—because this farmer is going above and beyond.

“We always pray for everybody to have a wonderful experience,” said Larry,  “when they come through the gates and we believe our prayers are being answered.”

“We could go to Lufkin or Crockett or wherever but we’re going to come here. Every Sunday,” commented Gary, “wouldn’t miss it for nothing.”

“We came to fellowship and we stayed for the buffet,” Beverly added, “It is the best food in Texas and probably even beyond.”

 

The Texas Bucket List – Naegelin’s Bakery in New Braunfels

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New Braunfels – As a new day arrives in New Braunfels, there’s some new folks who found a not-so-new bakery in the middle of downtown. The smell of warm baked bread and morning snacks has radiated from this really old building for a really long time, but it wouldn’t be possible without a baker or two.

“Well, it’s a lot of early morning hours,” Ross Granzin said.

Ross has been working at Naegelin’s Bakery since he was 16, and the four decades he’s been here only accounts for a quarter of this business’ history.

“It’s been here 148 years in this same place,” Ross said.

Founded by Edouard Naegelin in 1868, the business was built on modest means.

“He came with what they said was just fifty cents in his pocket, one bag of flour,” Ross said. “He started his bakery here.”

Ross’s father bought the bakery back in 1980 from Clinton Frank, Edouard’s grandson.

“I think he stayed for 8 months just trying to show us the ropes and everything that we needed to know,” Ross said. “I learned a lot from him, I’m glad I got that experience with him.”

Being a baker, Ross gets here really early, usually around four in the morning.

“I live about 20 minutes away and I get about 25 minutes til,” Luke said. “Like I said, we don’t talk much in the first hour.”

His team rolls, twists, slices, and glazes everything before the first roster realizes it’s the morning.

“I got about nine bakers back there and they get goin,” Luke said. “We get it out fast. That’s what we’ve always prided ourselves about, there’s not a whole lot of full line bakeries anymore and make the older style stuff that we still make.”

It’s not just strudel, sweet buns, bread, and bear claws that Naeglin’s is known for, they also make hamburger buns for local restaurants and even tortillas.

“I have a lot Spanish ladies that always say to me, man, I haven’t made in tortillas anymore cause I like y’alls so much,” Luke said. “I said ‘Really?’”

Toast is probably frowned upon here, but this is the toast of the town and perhaps even worth toasting to.

“Growing up in New Braunfels, I would come here on Saturday mornings when they were just getting the donuts and the baked goods out of the oven,” Ron Perry said. “I remember that smell. It’s like nothing else in this world.”

Ron has many memories of mornings here baked in his brain.

“I’d save up my money throughout the week, I’d come in and I’d get the donut holes, they were three cents each, I’d get as many as I could afford at a bag full and I’d sit out there on the curb and just scarf them down,” Ron said. “That was living the life.”

Ron served in the Navy for 31 years, so he’s seen the world. The first place he visited when he got home was this bakery.

“It was great, it was great cause so much has changed,” Ron said. “When I left in the Navy, it was population about 14,000. Now we’re right about 70-80,000 is what I hear. So much has changed and grown. Business and friends have moved on and disappeared. It’s nice to have some things that were there and still here. That really make New Braunfels unique in what it is, it’s such a special place.”

He’s not the only one with special memories of this place.

“This is my childhood,” Patricia Perez said. “This is my adulthood. This is my kid’s childhood. My parents visit here. They were born and raised here as well so, Naeglin’s means a lot to us.”

If you’re looking for some fresh dough and Texas history, Naegelin’s Bakery in New Braunfels is a can’t miss stop on the Texas Bucket List.

 

“Proud of that,” Patricia said. “There’s heritage here. It goes long and it goes deep. It’s really rich. I’m very proud to have them here.”

The Texas Bucket List – Hullabaloo Diner in College Station

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College Station – When it comes to life in Aggieland, Texas A&M is a hot topic in this part of Texas.  So is the cuisine in College Station thanks to a booming population in Bryan/College Station. Fortunately, the food at Hullabaloo is a hot spot for college kids and the fine folks who frolic around Brazos Country.

Rich Risbon, his wife Sydney, his daughter-in-law Natalie and his pet parrot Turkey lead the charge at this little diner. We’ve been coming here for a long time considering we’ve been shooting our show here since 2013. The best part of shooting our show at Hullabaloo’s is getting a chance to grub on some great food.  Since 2005, they’ve been serving up delicious diner food from the diner car they found on the internet.

“On eBay, yes,” Rich said. “I don’t remember, it wasn’t much though. It cost ten times that to get it here.”

After shipping it down from New York, the diner got an overdue overhaul.

“Stools are all original,” Rich said. “We left the original counter top which, you know, being up in New York area everybody’s wearing coats. So you can see all the sleeve marks on the countertop, but it survived.Some of the same tile work on the wall. We ended up taking some off, some of the wall over there to fix spots over here, and patch it with a checkerboard over there to make it work, cause you can’t match that same color anymore, you know.”

You’ll find all sorts of offerings from homemade pie, ridiculously sized reubens and pork rinds with a punch. Being from Philly, Rich knew the menu had to include one more thing: Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches.

“It is the place to get a Philly,” Rich said. “Even our rolls come from Philadelphia, so we actually get the meat from Philadelphia, too. You’re getting the Amoroso roll, which is baked in Philadelphia. And you’re getting the Philly meat straight from Philadelphia. So it’s a Philly steak sandwich original, you know, just a few thousand miles away.”

Food from a far away place known as the Northeast might have been a hard sell at first, but it didn’t take long for folks to take notice.

“Probably Food Network showing up,” Rich said. “We ended up being on a second one which was fine. They came here and this is the second place they ever filmed.”

If it’s good enough for a guy named Guy, I’m looking forward to getting a taste. We’re going to try a new offering, and it sound like something we can refuse.

“We have a Roman Sausage sandwich, and we have a Philly Cheesesteak and just a year or two ago Rich started, like, combining them out of, you know, boredom,” Sydney said. “We’re always looking for things to do and, like, new things to eat cause we see that they, you know, change stuff all the time.”

Sydney got started with the sausage.

“So we get to slice it to get the meat out of the casing,” Sydney said. “That we’re going to stick under a weight to help it cook a little quicker.”

After some more cooking, it was time to step into the ring.

“Spice with a little kick,” Alicia Jordal said.

The Philly Roman Combo, an incredible stop at the Hullabaloo Diner in College Station. Even the Mayor of Flavortown approves and it’s well worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“One of the best I’ve had,” Heath said. “Sausage has got a bit of a kick to it, but not too bad.”

 

The Texas Bucket List – Murdoch’s Backyard Pub in Cypress

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Cypress – The suburbs of the Space City continue to reach for the stars, and the city of Cypress is right there skyrocketing in population with the rest of Houston. If you’re looking for a stop that provides some serene scenery away from the hustle and bustle, Murdoch’s Backyard Pub is a peaceful pit stop.

“It is hands down my favorite restaurant,” said Trammell Stewart. “I love this place.”

Rick Franke helped get Murdoch’s get off the ground, but the driving force behind this easygoing eatery is his daughter Sarah.

“There hasn’t been anything she’s made that I haven’t liked and that’s kind of a phenomenal thing,” Rick said.

This family effort includes his wife Gwen, and the namesake of this special place is their loveable lab named Murdoch.

“Excuse me just a second,” Rick said. “He just bit through his collar.”

Murdoch simply wanted to frolic among the flowers because that’s what brings out all sorts of smaller things.

“The fact that the dog can come out here and run with all the kids and the other dogs,” Karen Monroe said. “We love that.”

There’s a lot of four-legged friends around here.

“We do have a lot of four-legged friends, lizards, frogs, toads and cats,” Rick said.

The food is a big draw too because everything is made from scratch.

“She makes everything here,” Rick said. “So the mustard, the ketchup, the pickles, mayo, Kimchi, a Sauerkraut, all made here. Sarah makes all the sausages here in house. I think if you find the right ingredients, which she seems to have that talent to do, you can make just about anything.”

Since I had no idea which way to steer our sausage soiree, Sarah did our selecting. She got the grind and got us three different links.

“This one is the two Gs,” Sarah said. “Which stands for garlic and green onion. This one’s the Constantine named after an old friend of mine and it’s a Greek style sausage. It’s got lots of citrus flavors and we put some Pheta and some Kalamata olives in it.”

While the big ol’ bangers boiled up, we got our extras underway starting with Love Bites.

“It’s a big clove of garlic wrapped in bacon and then roasted in the oven,” Sarah said.

The sausages get scored and sit on a flat top while we find some toppings.

“There’s two things I loved,” Jon Gant said. “Bacon and garlic and it was a match made in heaven.”

Apparently, some of those four legged friends also think the food is fantastic.

“Sarah is just not your short order of a cook or somebody that can do fries and things,” Jerry Mutchler said. “She’s an absolute chef.”

It’s easy to see why the sausages are the fixtures of Murdoch’s Backyard Pub along with an incredible assortment of unique flavors you wouldn’t expect to find in a backyard. These flavors are well worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“We’re beyond normal,” Sarah said. “We’re not like anywhere else. It’s an interesting adventure.”

The Texas Bucket List – Pinchers Boil’n Pot in El Campo

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El Campo – While El Campo is not extremely close to Cajun country, you’ll find colorful cafe here dedicated to the cuisine that includes crustaceans. Pinchers Boil’n Pot Restaurant is a unique place to pull some tails.

“Welcome to Texas,” Coy Radley said.

Mudbugs, mountain lobsters, crayfish, or crawfish, whatever you call these crazy looking crawdads one thing is for sure: They are delicious.

“Dam good place to come and eat,” Remington Morton said.

Craig Radley and his wife Debbie opened up this escapade in El Campo back when people liked to party in 1999.

“You know, I was a struggling farmer looking for a way to make a living and I tried several different things, got into real estate, and found a crawfish farm and, after a few years, then we decided to open a restaurant just to market crawfish,” Craig said.

We’ve all heard the term putting the cart before the horse, but buying the farm before the business worked out well for Craig and his family is a unique spin.  Now, this entrepreneur might just have the only farm to table crawfish restaurant in the country!

“I never envisioned myself being in the restaurant business,” Craig said. “We were just trying to make a living. My Dad made a bet with me when we opened. He was angry because I was venturing out away from the farm and doing something risky and so he bet me 2:1 odds that I’d be broke in 6 months. He didn’t ask me any questions so we rented the building for 6 months and were supplying our own products so I wasn’t going broke in the first 6 months. So he paid up the day before with a check and on the memo column it said, ‘for a good bad debt.’”

Craig’s son Coy is usually holding down the fort at the family restaurant.

“It is full working with him,” Coy said. “I was promised a couple more golf days, but we will get around to that as soon as crawfish season is over. I don’t see him much. If you want to find him you’ve got to go to the farm. You’ve got to go hop on a crawfish boat.”

Coy makes it out to the farm too.

“I’m one million percent proud,” Coy said. “Nobody this age works as hard as this man does.”

Fortunately Craig’s taken to crawfish farming like a mudbug in the mud. Once he’s tidied up the traps, he brings the batch back to the restaurant to be purged.

“Every day we catch them on a boat,” Craig said. “We don’t put them in bags on the boat. We drop them in boxes, and then we bring them here and drop them in the water overnight and pull them out the next morning. That’s one advantage to waiting until April to start trapping. They’ve been able to grow all season.”

Once cleaned it’s on to the pot. Then, they’re seasoned and soaked before being savored.  

“”That is a big one,” Coy said. “Doesn’t get much fresher.”

Of course that begs the question, what do you do with the heads?

“We come and suck the head at Pinchers,” Remington said.

No matter how you eat them, they truly are a Texan treat. These little lobsters raised in the Lone Star State can be found at Pitchers Boil’n Pot making it a tasty stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“I remember worrying, when we first opened up, there was a pipeline coming through and a lot of Cajuns coming through, and they would tell me right off the bat when they walked through the door, ‘We’re Cajun. We are going to tell you right away whether we like it or not,’” Craig said. “It made me nervous as hell, but I haven’t had a complaint from them yet.”

The Texas Bucket List – Luke Brown’s Watermelon Farm in Balmorhea

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Balmorhea – The wide expanses of West Texas contain majestic landscapes with mountains, dirt and dust.  Despite the dry climate, life has found a way to flourish in this part of the state and the growing conditions are so good, you just never know what you’ll find blooming near Balmorhea.

“I guess we’re proving a point that you can grow watermelons in the desert,” Luke Brown said.

Luke Brown is a fourthh generation watermelon farmer.

“Everybody in Texas has their own story about a watermelon, and this is mine,” Luke said.

Since 2010, he’s made melon magic on these 800 acres right off of Interstate 10.

“It’s a long ways to get anything,” Luke said. “Midland Odessa is over a hundred miles. Fort Stockton’s 50 miles. Pecos is 40 miles and when you get to those two places, you still don’t have a lot options.”

Despite the long drive, Luke loves growing the great gourds in the parched part of our state. Technically, watermelons were first found in the deserts of Africa, and the climate here is just about the same sort of circumstances.

“They do very well in the arid climate because of the cool nights,” Luke said. “No humidity, low disease pressure, low pest pressure. This is a long growing season. We’re not so far north that we run out of heat days like today, you get this nice breeze. It’s very nice farming watermelons out here.”

When it came marketing his massive melons, Luke needed something that made his large juicy fruit stick out, so he made a very unique sticker.

“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” Luke said.

It’s not just his picture that pulls in the attention, his contact info actually creates a crazy amount of correspondence.

“I have an email address on the sticker,” Luke said. “I have received thousands of emails from people all over the state, all over the country, Canada, even a few from England. I don’t know how they got over there.”

Growing up in a family of watermelon farmers, Luke has been surrounded by this sort of lifestyle his whole life. It was no wonder that when he found love, he was looking in the sweetest spot: The Annual Watermelon Convention.

“I’ve been attending those watermelon conventions,” Luke said. “I attended my first one in 2007 and I was 12 and those girls were pretty then.”

Luke didn’t settle for just any good-looking Texas lady, he earned a blue ribbon when he married the Watermelon Queen. We’ve established Luke did a great job picking a wife, but can he pick the perfect watermelon?

“That is a question that is difficult for even I to answer,” Luke said. “Size doesn’t make ripeness. Exterior color doesn’t exactly make ripeness. It’s a combination of looking at this field and knowing which watermelon showing is ripe. That being said, for those of you in the store, if it’s cut and put in a bin, it should be ripe.”

Turns out giving it a smack might help too.

“That hollow kind of a good..that means you’re getting a uniform vibration, reverberation back out of the melon,” Luke said. “The interior quality is all intact. It hasn’t been dropped. It hasn’t been bruised and it hasn’t been allowed to just sit and get hot.”

The best part of being in a watermelon field in far West Texas is that you’ve got your pick of the litter.

“The perfect watermelon to me is sweet, crisp, firm texture,” Luke said.

For Luke, growing watermelon is his way of life.  A Texas tradition that means more to him than a sweet simple snack on a summer afternoon made for a great stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“This is freedom, waking up, figuring out what needs to be done and then making that happen,” Luke said. “It’s something I don’t take light heartedly or for granted. I’m thankful every day that I wake up and have had this opportunity to be here. And, I’ve been blessed with the family that I have and all I aspire to do is when I have children of my own grandchildren, my own, that I can instill the same values and work ethic that I believe I possess.”

The Texas Bucket List – The Longhorn Cattle Company in San Benito

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San Benito – San Benito is just a few miles from the sand of South Padre and the border of Mexico, and along the busy highway between Harligen and Brownsville sits a spot called the Longhorn Cattle Company.

“Everything’s bigger in Texas,” Lisa Turner said.

Lisa and Bill Turner have owned this eatery since the eighties, and they do things a bit different here. That includes serving tea in pitchers!

“Everybody has a different take on it,” Bill said. “We have some people they think we are supposed to give them a glass to pour it in.”

Lisa’s father started this business back in 1985, but he handed the reigns to Lisa and Bill back when they first got married.

“Got married and a month later we were down here and took over,” Lisa said.

As if a barbecue joint down in the valley didn’t stick out enough, the Longhorn Cattle Company added a few things to really have horns up  on the competition: Actual longhorns.

“You don’t expect it in a place like this,” Gary Hackler said. “You don’t see that at all, anywhere. These are like petting animals from the petting zoo.”

Then there’s the beans, served to everyone who enters. It sure makes the ride home mighty interesting.

“When you come into the Longhorn Cattle Company, you get pinto bean soup set in front of you before you ever see a menu,” Bill said. “Kinda like when you go into a good Mexican food restaurant you get chips and salsa set in front of you. Something to satisfy you ’cause when you walk into a restaurant, you came in there ’cause you’re hungry.”

Then there’s the baked potatoes that are so big they’ve become legendary.

“It was humongous and could not even…one person could not eat it,” Monica Chance said. “It took two to finish it.”

Ruben has been building these bad boys since 1992, and it’s not complicated. Chopped brisket, queso, and butter make these baked potatoes a masterpiece.  

“It’s a phenomenon,” Bill said. “People just really love a good, a nicely cooked potato with chopped brisket in it and real sour cream and real butter, put some barbecue sauce on there and they’re all over it.”

For a Texas size potato with barbecue that’s good enough for the cows to come home, the Longhorn Cattle Company in San Benito, Texas, is well-worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“You only live once so you might as well come see it and enjoy it before you kick the bucket,” Monica said.

The Texas Bucket List – Texan Cafe and Pie Shop in Hutto

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Hutto – If you head northeast of Austin and turn off of Highway 79, you’ll find the happy town of Hutto. It’s known for Hippos and a hole in the wall that has one heck of reputation.

“You get a real feel of the town when you come in here,” Michele Ventresca said.

Warren Smith is the proprietor here, and he purchased the Texas Cafe and Pie Shop in 2018 after he retired.

“My wife asked me what we were going to do and we bought the Texan Café, “ Warren said.

The format Army Captain wasn’t ready to call it a career.

“Obviously, in the military you serve,” Warren said. “So I’m a service kind of guy.”

He did what any rationally retired person would do and bought his favorite restaurant.

“We were customers here for 10 years,” Warren said. “When I was hunting for something to do, I was going to buy a business, this just all fell into place and we were blessed with the opportunity to buy it and it’s been a blessing ever since. In my prior career, I was a business guy. So I know books and how to make money.”

Fortunately, making money at the ol’ Texan Café is easy as pie.

“Probably one of the best pies I’ve had,” Juan Jimenez said.

The list of pies they have here goes on and on, and everyone has their favorite.

“I like the Chocolate Fudge or the Strawberry Cream Cheese,” Jennifer Huff said.

Jennifer is a nice as pie, and she makes all pastries in these parts.

“They’ll stop me and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, you make such wonderful pie. I love your pie. You make them right,’” Jennifer said. “Always brings a smile to my face. I like bringing a smile to other people’s faces.”

We pulled up to the counter for some pie, and Jennifer’s daughter, Vanessa Huff, took us on a pie flight.

“So this is our coconut cream pie,” Vanessa said. “This is our top seller. Something unique that we don’t always have is our Strawberry Cheesecake. These ones we can make anywhere to 30 cheesecakes so they’re on rotation. She keeps a rotation of them. This one is really good. It’s our top fruit cheesecake.”

If you’re ever hungry in Hutto, remember the Texan Café for a quick meal and the perfect piece of pie.

“Eat pie every day,” Michele said. “Maybe it’ll make your life better.”

The Texas Bucket List – Brasserie 1895 in Friendswood

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Friendswood – In a part of Texas known for Tex-Mex and barbecue, there is a fancy fine establishment in Friendswood that feels a bit different than the rest. Brasserie 1895 is a can’t miss spot that infuses some fun flavors.

“We have a lot of people, foodies if you will, that come for the adventure,” Kris Jacob said.

Owner and Chef Kris is originally from Poteet. His wife works with him at this uniquely named  restaurant. They got 1895 from the year Friendswood was established, but Brassiere is a European thing.

“When you go to a brasserie in Europe, they don’t have suburbs, they have neighborhoods and each neighborhood has their own brasserie,” Kris said. “It’s the place you go to hangout, the bar, a lot of them make their own beer, cocktails and just simple food. But it’s really just a hangout.”

To complete the European feel, Christian Echterbille, also known as Chef Bill from Belgium, fits the bill.

“A lot of people ask me why Texas,” Chef Bill said. “So I tell them, ‘Why not?’”

These two have been at each other’s side since the mid 90’s when Kris went to culinary school.

“Everything that he did, he just changed my perspective of cooking, and I think at that point that’s when I fell in love with cooking,” Kris said. “I saw what he could do and I said, ‘I gotta know how to do that.’”

“Yeah, begins as a student, finish as my boss,” Chef Bill said.

With the assortment of incredible cooking knowledge, we couldn’t wait to taste their burger and chicken fried steak.

“We use a lot of different products that you may not be comfortable with, but when you actually taste them prepared correctly it’s great,” Kris said.

First, Kris prepared the burger. A simple beef patty is cooked with salt and pepper and topped with some unique cheeses.

“So we have Gruyère in here, we have some brie,” Kris said. “We’re gonna do a thing called gratine.”

Once the burger is cooked, it is topped with the cheese mix. Then a house-made onion raisin jam is added. With that, the creation is complete.

“They’re plumped up with Cognac,” Kris said.

On to the chicken fried steak which starts with beef cutlets marinated in buttermilk for three days.

“Then we go into what I call a cowdust,” Kris said. “On to the green beans, and the full foie gras gravy.”

Potato puree and the pieces of steak get stout side of foi gras gravy.

“The sauce, gravy if you will, is actually a white wine reduction, with a chicken stock reduction, with a heavy cream reduction, and then we finish it with foie gras and truffle,” Kris said.

Apparently, putting on the fancy sauce was the only way Chef Bill would allow something like Chicken Fried Steak on the menu.

“If you ask Bill to do a chicken fried steak he’d probably tell you, ‘Dude, we’re not doing chicken fried steak,’ Kris said.

Well, thankfully we are.

“You can eat it and it tastes great and the ingredients are really high end,” Doug Wrinkle said.

Having never tried foi gras before I was a bit surprised when it came to tasting.

“Normally, there’s no guy around here that’s gonna say, ‘Yeah man, sure dude, I’m up for the foie gras gravy,’” Kris said. “But once they taste it, it’s gold.”

With flavors from across the pond and a little bit of home cookin’ all mixed together, Brasserie 1895 in Friendswood, Texas is definitely well-worth a stop on the Texas Bucket List.

“It might be the best meal you’ve ever had,” Doug said.