Fantastic Tex-Mex Food

The great thing about Texas being so close to Mexico, is the FANTASTIC Tex-Mex food we had. Everything was unbelieveably delicious compared to what we call "Mexican" food here. Mexican Food in Australia tastes like it came out of a jar/can/packet compared to what we had in Texas. Let me start off with Breakfast.

I'm not a cereal and toast person for breakfast. So the fact there are breakfast tacos everywhere was fantastic news to me!!! We were lucky enough to be staying and working right ontop of a fantastic Mexican restaurant AND food court. This meant we had plenty of time to try out every variety of breakfast taco they had!

Sausage, egg and cheese

Chorizo, egg and cheese

Potato, bacon, egg and cheese

Huevos ranchero wraps

Sausage, egg and cheese sandwich

All breakfast tacos, wraps and sandwiches is served with a little tub of fresh spicy salsa. The best thing to kick start your morning!

The Mexican restaurant directly below our office was Don Patron. We loved their breakfast, so we decided to try their lunch as well.

Complimentary Tortilla chips, salsa and tomatillo salsa

I love how every Mexican place you go into, the minute you sit down, they plonk a huge basket of tortilla chips infront of you. Don Patron provides 2 types of salsa. Your standard red tomato pico de gallo salsa and a green Tomatillo version. Both extremely good! I would've been happy just eating this for lunch! Actually.....there was a day where all I ate was this for lunch and dinner. (Long story)

Tortilla Soup

This bowl was massive. You can easily fit a head into the bowl. By the time my friend was full, the soup level had dropped by 2cms....

I ordered the special of the day. 1/2 pound sizzling fajita platter with charbroiled shrimp.and tortillas. What I didn't realise was that 1/2 pound was JUST THE MEAT. Not the whole dish in total! This thing was hugeeeeee! How huge? Here's a size comparison!

Red Glass is about the size of a Large Maccas coke. The plate to the left is a FULL MAIN MEAL. Compare that to my plate! Luckily I managed to palm most of this off to my friends. And even then, we only got through half of it!

Here's what my friend ordered.

Veggie Chilli Con Queso

HAHAHA Man I want to laugh just thinking about it! My friend assumed that a veggie chilli con queso was veggies, cheese in a tortilla wrap. Not a bowl of pure melted cheese lightly sprinkled with something that looked like vegetables...

Soooooo cheesey!!

Also very......oily......

I think this took my friend a week to digest.....

Despite the huge portions of food, we went back to Don Patron shortly after that. But this time we were prepared!

Another 1/2 pound sizzling fajita mixed platter

We ordered this to share amongst the 3 of us. They looked at us like we were aliens when we only ordered this one dish. But yet, the 3 of us was stuffed to the brim by the time we finished this!!! Anyway, we weren't here for the food.....

Margarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrita!!!

Chips to go with our JUG of margarita

Don Patron Shot

Yes.....that is a shot. And yes.....it is in a tumbler. Texas size remember?

Speaking of Texas size......how about a Texas size margarita??

Size comparison

Weeeeee! Mini fishbowl size margaritas! This was at Cyclone Anaya's Kitchen. We deliberately went there for their fishbowl margaritas!

More tortilla chips!

Botanas Mixtas

Grilled shrimp sautéed in a lemon garlic sauce, beef quesadillas served with guacamole, sour cream and pico de gallo and chicken breast strips with spicy barbeque dipping sauce.

Crispy beef taco, homemade tamale, beef enchilada,guacamole, Mexican rice and beans

Lobster Enchiladas

Two lobster filled enchiladas with white Mexican cheese topped with special chardonnay cream sauce and roasted pine nuts. Served with Mexican rice and beans.

Carolina's mixed grill

Beef fajitas, baby back ribs and three camarones a la parrilla served with shredded cheese, guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, Mexican rice, beans and tortillas. When this was put infront of me, my jaw dropped. And that was before I realised an entire STEAK under my rack of ribs! Luckily, 2 of my friends decided to share the Lobster Enchiladas, so I was able to palm of heaps of food to them.

The meal came with either refried beans or charred beans. I opted to try the charred beans.


This was really nice. Almost like a light baked bean soup with extra herbs in it. This beats refried beans any day!

Despite finishing an entire fishbowl margarita, our local friend insisted on making us try some high end liquor. He just couldn't live with watching us drink cheap liquor!

Patron shot

This is actually tequila. After the last xmas, the smell of tequila actually makes me gag. This, however, was amazingly smooth. It doesn't taste anything like tequila!

Belvedere shot

I've never been able to drink Vodka straight. Even if I take it like a shot it makes me feel quesy. This shot however, was smooth and velvety. I could be drinking this all night! Except one Texas size shot is about 2.5 normal shots. Which means.....I effectively had 5 shots of spirits AND a fishbowl margarita....

Of course, I can be quite a slow learner. Which is why we went to El Patio when we found out about the BLUE margaritas!!!

Mahi Mahi fish tacos

I was so glad I got this. It was the smallest meal out of everything we ordered! hahaha AND it tasted great. I wish they had deep fried the fish for a bit of extra crunch though!

Mixed fajita/enchilada platter of some sort

Chicken fried chicken

Rack of baby back ribs

Huge return post about...HUGE food

Wow...has it really been THAT long since I posted? It only seemed like yesterday when I flew to Texas. I guess the time there really screwed with my sense of time hey?

Well, its great to be back in Sydney. It was a lot of hard work, long hours but also great fun. I meet some lovely local, made new friends, ate heaps of new food and definetly got a bit of a culture shock. I mean, I've been to America before, but you don't notice certain things when you're on holidays. Its the day to day things that really amuse me. All the sterotypes you see on TV, its not an exaggeration!

Anyway, let me start with the food first! Since we're in Texas, I thought I'd start with some HUGE food. I mean, everything is bigger in Texas right? Well, this includes the food as well!

The one thing you will NOT find in Sydney, is a Texas baked potato. All these food court places that does baked potatoes, dressed with some butter, cheese, a bit of meat and veggies and maybe a dollop of sour cream. That's not a baked potato. THIS is a damn baked potato!

Baked potato with chopped beef brisket

This was ordered from Pappas, one of many BBQ houses in Houston. There's a condiments bar where you help yourself to extra condiments. I opened the box and knew immediately that I'll need something sour to cut through the massive amounts of MEAT on my potato. I helped myself to some sweet relish and pickled carrot salad. Oh, I did chuck some fake bacon and shallots ontop for fun!

Cheesey...

But wait you say, what's so special about that potato besides the meat? Well....see you can spot what I am talking about....

Mexican chicken baked potato from Jason's Deli

Baked potato with Texas chilli

Still don't see it? Let me give you a better size comparison.


The Texas baked potatoes are about THE SIZE OF MY HEAD. The potato I got from Pappas was so incredibly heavy, I actually had to carry it with both hands as I was either going to drop the box or the box will break under its own weight. I was lucky I was working late that night. It took me a good 4 hours to finish eating...

A full size fork can fit entirely into the potato....

The other Texas thing I quickly realised (besides huge potatoes), is that there is meat in EVERYTHING.

Bean Salad...

....where I found chunks of bacon in it!

With all the meat and huge portions, I opted for a healthy dinner where I picked up a salad from Jason's Deli. The order was placed in a brown paper bag, which I did not open until I got back to my desk. Only then did I realise why it was so heavy...

There is enough chopped ham, turkey and cheese in my salad to make 3 sandwiches in sydney. Again, this salad took me 3-4 hours to eat.

Knowing what type of salad was available at Jason's Deli, the next night I decided to go to Pappas and grab a salad there. There was only a side salad or a Chef's salad. I didn't know what the Chef's salad was, but based on the price, it was a main meal salad. Excellent, I shall have that for my healthy dinner!


I was......speechless. Why was there a farm sitting on my salad???? 1 whole Chorizo sausage. 2 thick slabs of beef brisket. 2 HUNKS of ham and a FISTFUL of cheese was sitting on my salad. I could make 3 ham and cheese sandwiches with just that! This salad took me alot longer to eat. Probably 5 hours. But that's cos I spent a heap of time picking the cheese out.

Despite knowing the portion sizes at Pappas, a few of us non-Texans decided to go to Pappas for lunch. I was told they do a pretty decent pulled pork sandwich, which was something I just HAD to try! I ordered my pulled pork sandwich which comes with a side of fries. I've also heard great things about chilli cheese fries. So I asked them to change my fries to chilli cheese fries. I knew something was wrong when they took my fries, covered in chilli......over to a pot and then proceeded to LADEL LIQUID YELLOW GOO onto my fries. I assume that's the cheese. And I assume that kilo of fries was my side dish.....


Errrrrr.......I think its chilli cheese fries with a SIDE of pulled pork sandwich.... *cough*



My friend decided to order the BBQ Cheese fries as I had ordered the chilli cheese fries. We thought we can try each other's food. Except what came out practically gave us a heart attack. We assumed BBQ cheese fries meant bbq sauce and cheese on fries. WRONG. Its BBQ MEAT on fries.


In this case, chopped beef brisket. Which was exactly what she had ordered on her baked potato. The scary thing? There was more beef on the fries then there were on the potato......if that's possible.


We ended up taking ALL the fries home and proceeded to eat it over the next 3 days.

Liquid cheesey goodness...

I had a chat with one of the locals in Houston, and mentioned that I was on a quest to try all the typical American food. Such as Meatloaf, Egg Rolls, soul food etc. I was out wondering one day and found a food court where one of the stalls was selling diner food. I immediately ordered myself a serve of meatloaf. And since I get 2 sides, I picked potato and gravy with Mac and Cheese. I also get to choose a bread roll, so I went for the corn bread. THIS was what I got....


Oh...my...god. The meatloaf, was about as a thick as a book. Plus a chunk had broken off another slab, so they threw that into my container as well. This was all on a bed of rice. That's ALOT of meat.....didn't help I had a whole container of starch! The corn bread was quite nice but very different from what I am used to. This is a much denser and creamier version. I would've liked it a lot more if I didn't have enough food to feed 3 people! I barely got through half of this and chucked the rest in the bin.

Every now and then, when we're working late, they would order food in for us. This time, it was a fusion of chinese and thai. But what really caught my eye was the HUGEEEEEEEE Egg roll! Look at the size of the monster!


I had an interesting convo with one of the guys over American vs Australian terms. I used to always wonder why people were obsessed over egg rolls when ordering Chinese? And why were they eating it at the beginning of a meal? Cos...egg rolls is a chinese dessert! It usually comes in a tin box and is extremely messy to eat! It was only a few years ago that I realised an Egg Roll was actually our Spring Roll! We were discussing the differences and this is the translation

US vs. Aussie
Egg Roll = Spring Roll
Spring Roll = Viet Summer Roll / Rice Paper Roll (Not Deep Fried)
Viet Spring Roll = Viet Spring Roll (Deep fried)

Anyway, after consuming all the huge portions of meat and cheese, I decided to hit the hotel gym to work some of it off. After the gym, I popped into Jason's Deli to grab a sandwich. Because, you know.....sandwiches are quite healthy. *Cough*

Hot pastrami and corned beef sandwich

In my haste, I didn't read the sandwich description properly. I assumed it would be a hot pastrami and corned beef SALAD sandwich! Not 1/2 kg of meat!

Size comparison

Despite how scary it looks, this sandwich was absolutely DELICIOUS. I've never liked corned beef or pastrami in Australia. And I dislike it even more when you compare the cold, tasteless watery imitation to the luciously moist fresh versions you get in America!

Stay tuned for more scary but delicious American Food!