Berryhill Baja Grill in Houston

First, I have to share this little blog post about fresh wasabi. It is the best thing in the world, and I got nerdily excited just looking at that lovely field of wasabi plants.

Ok, dinner:


Tonight for dinner, I had a pork tamale and fish taco combination plate from Berryhill Baja Grill. Berryhill is a large Texas chain that has one outpost in Cancun. It wasn't bad, per se, I was just not impressed. To be fair, I didn't expect to like it. I like sketchy taqueria Mexican food, particularly Jalisco-style, and American-style chains rarely fit the bill. On the good side, I was able to try a decent cross-section of the menu because they're very flexible about letting you make your own combination plates. Prices weren't too bad, and they have margaritas and Mexican beer available.

My taco was just weird. They get points for using corn tortillas rather than flour, and for providing two to keep the juices from soaking through and disintegrating the tortilla. But, well, there was mayonnaise on it. I only recently got over my aversion to mayo, and it definitely doesn't belong on a tortilla. There was also romaine lettuce on it, which I promptly yanked off. Cabbage=good. Shredded iceberg=ok. Large sheaves of romaine, no. It also contained tomatoes, which were fine. The fish had a peculiar pinkish tone, but otherwise looked like it wanted to be tilapia. The menu doesn't mention what sort of fish it was. Mystery fish, yum. At least it wasn't overcooked.

The tamales were much more innocuous: shredded pork in slightly sweet masa. The pork was a little dry, but otherwise not bad. It came with an adobo-like sauce that I wanted to like, but for the strange, musty aftertaste. Too much tamarind and lime juice, I think. It reminded me a bit of A-1 steak sauce, which is also tamarind-heavy.

The beans were not bad, just not really worth talking about. I got black ones, with a little sour cream squiggle.

On a positive note, they have free chips, salsa, limes, and escabeche. The escabeche (marinated carrots and jalapeño...I had to look it up, too) was much milder than at a taqueria, and very tasty. The chips were sad, but that probably had something to do with our off-peak dining hour. I didn't have any salsa, but it looked good.