Galveston
This entry was posted on 5/21/2007 11:59 AM and is filed under Out of Town Destinations.
We headed to Galveston on a recent weekend for Galveston Uncorked. With souvenir wine glasses in hand, we strolled through the Strand area, stopping at various retail establishments for wine tastings. A fun event, even though the quality of the wine was less than stellar. We did have occasion to eat at a few places, the latter two of which were very good suggestions from Janet, our Galveston Editor --
Benno's -- lunched at this very casual, Seawall seafood joint where you order at the counter various fried and Cajun style seafood offerings at reasonable prices; we enjoyed the fried seafood platter (shrimp, oysters, fish, and crab balls) and the fried stuffed shrimp (mini missiles of crab stuffing and shrimp); the hush puppies were a particularly good version; absolutely no dress code
Luigi's -- dined at this bustling, upscale (at least for Galveston) Italian restaurant on the Strand; the calamari was chewy, but we very much enjoyed our entrees -- mushroom lasagna (gooey and rich, in a bechamel sauce, loaded with various varieties of mushrooms) and grilled shrimp and scallops served on a bed of sautéed spinach; service was a little shaky -- we waited at the door for awhile before one of 3 hostesses appeared, and our waiter felt the need to brag to us about selling to another table the bottle of wine he had tried to convince us to buy (did we care? and, if the half carafe of Chianti that he recommended is any indication of his wine expertise, we're glad we passed); toward the end of the evening, the singing owner let loose with a couple booming operatic refrains
Mosquito Cafe -- had breakfast at this casual cafe on 14th street; we had to stand in line awhile, but it was worth it; while we waited for our food, we munched on a delicious sundried tomato and blue cheese scone; then moved on to generous servings of a standard breakfast (scrambled eggs and bacon) and a vegetable omelet (roasted tomatos and creamed spinach); the owner was particularly friendly and accommodating, stopping by each table to make sure everything was o'kay
