TEJAS-BELGIAN

I hate to admit it. I mean I really, really hate to admit it, but maybe those dang i-phones do come in handy once in a while. Maybe.

Ya see, I was in Houston with my hubby this weekend, having one of our Adventure Saturdays. We'd been down in The Heights, checking out the big remodel that just got completed at Buchanan's Native Plants - the nursery where I was the merchandiser for 6 years. By the time I finished catching up with all my old buddies, we were pretty hungry, so

John whips out his phone. I didn't realize they all had GPS features built into them these days. John was able to tell it he was in the mood for a burger, and since it knew exactly where we were, it coughed up a list of nearby burger joints. One was over on Washington Ave., a street well known for all the cool eateries that have been popping up there, and was named The Broken Spoke Cafe. Since The Broken Spoke in Austin is an old favorite dance hall from our college days, we took that as a sign and headed on over.

So, answer me this: how often do you walk into a Texas burger joint - especially one called The Broken Spoke - and find not only burgers, but also Croques Monsieur, stacks of freshly baked baguettes, an extensive list of fine beers, moules (mussels) served about six different ways, and desserts like Fraises Melba (vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries, whipped cream, and a rich Belgian chocolate sauce? Not often my friends. Not frickin' often. I came this close to picking up that little silver pitcher, and using my tongue to scrape the last of the chocolate sauce out from it. It was that good. Only, as I was reachin' for the pitcher, John was reachin' for the camera, and I really didn't want a photo of my chocolate-dipped nose appearing on this blog. It mighta been worth it, though.