The Wifeacita and I went to Vietnam Coast for the excellent Vietnamese egg rolls plus an app of fried chicken wings and the house special Vietnam Coast chicken with veggies.
The egg rolls were great as always while the wings were just okay and the chicken was good but not memorable. It may be just egg rolls next time.
Wifeacita also got two iced coffees that I really like despite not being a coffee but the poor girl had difficulty falling asleep.
Vietnam Coast is on Hillcroft just south of Westheimer. The two step comes in as Antonio’s Flying Pizza is just next door and I got a planned upon 1/2 cheese 1/2 sausage pizza to be fed upon during the week.
It can really be a five step because in rapid order north to south is VC in an old Toddle House since 1981, Antonio’s, 1971, a new Indian restaurant, Garson Persian, 1992, and a La Michoacana meat market/taqueria.
I do remember Harlowe’s. We ran into Houston Oiler kicker Tony Fritsch there a lot, always with a lovely young lady on his arm and always at 2 am in the parking lot when the booze stopped flowing.
His Oiler career was '77 to '82 and he was amazing, kicking 20 yard field goals to his longest and they all cleared the crossbar by about a yard.
The fellas and I had season tickets back when they were affordable for a twenty year old working stiff so it was treat to run into him.
That’s funny - we used to to run into Toni at Rudy Lechner’s in Woodlake Square. He was an early investor, (I think) and we would often see him visiting with Rudy in the back booth, (the one with the phone).
His picture still hangs just inside the inner door on the left as you enter.
I passed by Harlowe’s many times but never went. I seem to remember though it was owned by the same guy who owned The Bowery downtown in the early 70s and later BIrraporetti’s??? I loved The Bowery and assumed Harlowe’s was a similar menu. I worked at the corner of Holcombe and Main and a bunch of us would fight the traffic and parking hassles all the way downtown to go to The Bowery. Two hour lunches. How did we get away with it? I was the boss and my boss took 3-4 hour lunches .
We did two hour lunches in the 70’s at the Ninfa’s on Echo Lane and I-10 back when the other locations were almost as good as the original on Navigation.
Three martini lunch, forget that it was the three Ninfarita lunch and we went back sloshed and sold stereos to the Memorial crowd. These were the powerful ones and not the headache inducing frauds now served at the “Original.”
Weekdays often found me on Navigation where the downtown lunch bunch got hammered in their own version of the two plus hour lunch.
It was a raucous party scene in a totally different time.
Well I didn’t get to start my two hours lunches until the mid-'80s so I’m clearly much much MUCH younger than you guys.
That said, my favorite two hour lunches were at Elvia’s/Nam, (Scotch and darts at the former, smoked beef stir fry at the latter), Chili’s in the Carillon Center, (close to the office, restaurant AND a bar!), Mama’s Cafe, (stopped at Bering’s just yesterday and looked lovingly across the street - true story!), Birraporetti’s on Crossview, and Atchafalaya River Cafe.
I’ve met you multiple times and you are truly a geezer’s geezer and if I could give you a negative knife and fork I would.
Part of our rotation back in the late 70’s while selling stereos to the Memorialites were Mason Jar and Ruby Red’s Steakburgers for medium rare steakburgers and peanuts with shells tossed on the floor like the next tenant Pappy’s did.
Fast forward a zillion years and the Jefe would take the crew to Hickory Hollow on Fallbrook by the horse track. The man loved the chicken fried steak there.
My place of business is just across the street from MY HEB on Bunker Hill so it was a good 2 and a half hour lunch.
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