Good morning from Texas! This year for Mother’s Day, I decided to take my mom to Houston to visit her mother’s grave (and grandpa) to repaint and touch up the letters as well as visit family. It’s been since 10th grade that I’ve last been here when grandpa passed.
That was the first thing we did yesterday morning!! Some of us (mostly retired aunties) went out to the tombstone to visit grandma and grandpa. I actually had a lot of fun repainting the letters. One of the aunties brought her portable speaker to play Vietnamese karaoke music in the background. It created a beautiful nostalgic background. This took us about 2 hours! My grandparents were smart to pick the perfect location right underneath a big tree to always provide shade for us so it wasn’t as hot as it would be in the sun.
After a morning of hard work, the uncle took us to a yummy Vietnamese restaurant in Bellairre, which is apparently the downtown of Houston where all of the Asians flock. We went to Bun Mang Vit Thanh Da. We all ordered the same thing, which all the older people loved called: Bun-Chao-Mien-Vit Hay Ga, which translates to clear vermicelli duck with special dish).
It was a combo plate so this first plate was consisted of cold, cooked duck on a cabbage lettuce plate. You pour fish sauce over it, mix it up and eat it. It was so good! Even though served cold, the duck was so tender and soft and juicy.
You also have the option to intermittently eat it with the vermicelli soup that also had a couple pieces of duck liver inside (my favorite). Or you can also put the duck in the soup itself! There are many ways to eat this dish! The soup broth tasted like chicken base but maybe it’s duck!
Of course after lunch, eating with Cookie means always getting dessert after! And that usually means boba lol. We went to this boba cafe called Magic Cup. Let’s see how Texas boba is!
I got the taro coconut milk tea with boba, less ice. The tea itself was pretty good, the boba was pretty chewy, but not sweet! 626 boba is still way better hehe.
Then uncle took us to a natural made lake near his house. He took up a hobby of photography when he retired and we did a short walk while he took pictures of us. It was fun posing and modeling for him! We couldn’t walk the whole lake because we had to go to dinner already… Tomorrow morning we will do a full round of exploring the lake! Now it’s already time for dinner. WHAT IM STILL SO FULL! It has only been two hours since we ate.
The cousins and uncles and aunts took my mother and me to Hickory Hollow to eat some basic Texan BBQ. This place gets packed fast!!! It is definitely the go-to spot for large parties and families and birthdays!
My uncle ordered the family platter, which comes with unlimited salad to start! I added blue dressing in mine cause that’s how I like it!! Yes, I am generous with my dressing and I know that’s not healthy!
This is the family platter of chicken fried steak, sliced beef and bbq pork ribs with 4 servings of baked potato with bacon bits in it. Everything was so good!!!!! And it was so fun to eat with everyone! This was the best platter for sharing!
4 jumble potatoes loaded with butter, sour cream, shredded cheese, bacon beats and green onions! Delicious!!!
My favorite of all 3 meats was the chicken fried steak! Apparently that’s what they’re famous for! The chicken looked like all dark meat inside and was just beautifully crispy on the outside! I don’t know to describe it but it was just so darn tasty! The meat was just so savory and tender and dark (dark meat is the best). And the crispy skin was just cooked to flour perfection!
Night time, some of the cousins and I went to get boba again: Tea Garden and Organics. (Let’s try another boba place to give Houston a fair shot). We went back to Bellaire because I guess, that is the place to go! At night, it was way more packed than day time! Everyone literally goes there to either drink or eat or hang out. In ONE big plaza, it is just swarmed with bars, restaurants, boba cafes and karaoke bars together! That consent is weird to me hahahaha. There were all the kinds of lives possible in one. So kids and adults and teens swarming in one place with different agendas.
Unicorn matcha green tea with boba. It was just okay! We ordered it for the gram, but it wasn’t even that pretty! And there wasn’t even ice cream in the cone! How can you serve an ice cream cone in any form without ice cream! I thought there would be matcha ice cream inside. Disappointed.
rose milk tea and honey green tea with boba. These were good! Everything was good about the teas and boba except im already spoiled with honey boba from 626 haha. Thank you cousin for the treat! 🙂 His name is Anh Dat!
Tomorrow is another full day of family gathering and more food!
