Tuesday, July 27, 2010. Texas: Another Look. The Old Pueblo. Mary Ann called the producer at WFAA-TV in Dallas to cancel our planned appearance on its daytime newsmagazine show Thursday. She was taken aback--but not surprised--that the producer seemed angry about it. Mary Ann was herself a television producer in her twenties, and understood the pique. She said that the trip to Texas was definitely off now, because we'd burned our bridges with at least that television station.
But she's still trying to save the trip somehow. This, I learned, was because she'd cut a deal with the Mansion on Turtle Creek--one of the swankiest hotels in Big D--for us to stay there one night for an unrefundable $235. Mary Ann collects hotel experiences the way I investigate restaurants. I told her to forget about it, because unless we left immediately there was no way we would do anything but drive hundred of miles, be on television (which requires two hours of waiting before one's five minutes of air time), sleep, and maybe have dinner. This is more like work than work, and the whole point of the entire trip was to take a little vacation.
I thought she agreed to just let it go, and I resumed my normal routines. But it came up again at dinner. Mary Leigh said she wouldn't be joining us, and Mary Ann said she didn't want to eat, really. So I could pick the place. I was pretty hungry, and because I've written a lot about pizza lately, it was on my mind. I suggested the Mellow Mushroom, a chain we sampled much too soon after it opened but not since. Sure, she said.
The host was already leading us to the table at the Mellow Mushroom when MA stopped dead in her tracks, wheeled around, and said that she suddenly had another idea for dinner, after all. She thought we should go across the highway to La Puebla Vieja. I threw up my hands and just went along.
La Puebla Vieja opened about eight months ago in what had been an old, worn-out restaurant on Causeway Boulevard. Its last tenant was the ill-fated North Shore edition of R&O's; before that, and more famously, it was Gallagher's. I had it figured for a teardown, but these Pueblo Vieja folks came in and spent a lot of time and money renovating the place. For months afterward, it was packed all the time. The Marys went after a couple of weeks and came back with a very bad report. So we left it alone.
It's not so busy anymore, which I interpret as time for me to take a look. The premises looked terrific, the menu sounded very interesting (there was mole poblano on the menu!), and the waitress let us know that the owners and staff were not actually Mexican but Honduran. More and more interesting.
It went downhill from there. The salsa was so mild that even after adding the muy caliente green chile sauce I requested from the kitchen, it still wasn't what I'd call spicy. The waitress came by and made guacamole right there at the table. Like the salsa, it was amazingly low on flavor. I rarely leave guacamole behind, but we weren't interested in finishing it.
The entrees were a bit better. I take any opportunity to have a dish made with mole poblano, and here it was, slathered over cubes of chicken bread. It was okay, but it gets no prizes for looks. Mary Ann had pollo pibil--a classic dish from Yucatan, not much seen around New Orleans. I had it in Cozumel on our last trip there. This was not up to that level. And not bad. But nothing special.
When a restaurant disappoints me, sometimes I get mad. Other times I write it off as a bad night. And then there are the restaurants I feel sorry for. We both felt that way about this one. I hope it keeps going long enough to come around. I'd love to have this kind of grass-roots Latin food on the North Shore.
La Puebla Vieja. Covington: 1630 N. US 190. 985-892-5606.
