Hell, I guess not! It's good cheap Cajun eats in SW Austin. A friend and I, with his two ancient great-uncles, used to go gigging for flounder with a Colman lamp at night around San Luis Pass at that tip of the Island, bake some potatoes in the coals of a fire and cook up our catch for an early lunch. That was good eating. Gigging for flounder was a trip. Sometimes you'd scare up a stingray, or have to dodge a creepy looking hole in the sand while wading. Pitch black except for the light from your lamp and a million stars overhead. Those two old guys were from Germany, were in the German Navy during WWI, and barely spoke any English, but damn, did they know what they were doing. Great memories from the 1950's.
Hah! I have a 7 inch scar across my calf courtesy of a stingray while I was wadefishing on the 3rd sandbar at San Luis.
Those things are bad news. I had an advantage wading at night. With a good eye, you could usually make them out, although it could be hard. The water was calm, of course, which helped. I came damn close to stepping on one a couple of times. He would sense me when I was really close, like inches away and hadn't spotted it, and the ray would suddenly shoot off in a cloud of sand and scare the living daylights out of me. I had absolutely no interest in trying to gig one. In fact, I worried that I might do it accidentally and get hurt. My friend's old uncles, well, the one that spoke a little English, said to watch out for them. Good advice! Sure, we've been to Cypress Grill and hit it every once in a while and we have one of their "membership" cards, or whatever they call them. It's real good. Haven't been to Shoal Creek in a few years. Good reminder! I wish there was a really good Chinese place in SW Austin. I've run across OK over the years, but not really good.
I ever tell you about the time the shark ate my stringer? That was attached to my waist? As I'm fishing? Fun times on the sandbar!!!
Jesus H. Christ. Don't you love Galveston? I miss what's missing now, a lot, but still love the place.
We had a river house on the Trinity River around Dayton/Liberty. It was in the middle of no where and the only threat of law enforcement was the occasional game warden. Great memories of dropping acid with friends, water skiing and riding dirt bikes all day, then gigging some flounder after dark and cooking them up in a cast iron skillet. ahhh good times
Only restaurant I saw noticeably decline was El Real, and they're gone now. Houston is still a great place to dine out.