Keep Houston Weird: Dry Creek Café

On an evening visit, I asked the drop-dead gorgeous waitress if she recommended the meat loaf or the pork chops.

"I'm a vegetarian," the willowy young brunette responded.

So I asked the other waitress, a cute woman with lank jet-black hair, which of the two dishes she liked better.

"I don't know, I'm a vegan," she said dismissively.

I was filled with a warm sense of nostalgia for my former hometown. When I reviewed restaurants for the Austin Chronicle, I was once forced to file a police report after a local vegan group left a death threat on my answering machine. Those were the good old days.

I ordered the pork chops, but I asked if they could be cooked just until they turned pink, rather than well-done. The vegetarian waitress went to the kitchen, came back and said, "They're already cooked."

They weren't bad, for well-done pork chops. There were two of them. They were sliced too thin, but they had a spicy rub on the outside. They sat in a watery pool of sweet glaze. The mashed potatoes served on the side were wonderful, and the chopped asparagus was pleasantly crunchy.

My dining companion, Jay Francis, ordered the meat loaf. What he got looked more like large meatballs in spaghetti sauce. He said it tasted like bottled spaghetti sauce, at that. I sampled a couple of bites. I actually liked the Italian-style meat loaf okay. A side of pasta might have been a better accompaniment than the mashed potatoes, but that's a lot to ask of a burger joint. What I really liked was our tab, which came to almost exactly 20 bucks, including my bottomless cup of herb tea.

Jay Francis wasn't impressed. "You can get the best meat loaf in town for the same price," he told me. I, of course, challenged him on that. And the next thing I knew, we were sitting at Beaver's, Monica Pope's new icehouse near Washington and Sawyer, eating meat loaf.

As we sampled Beaver's big cube of airy meat loaf, Francis speculated that they beat the meat mixture with eggs or something to make it fluffy. It was spectacular, transcendent meat loaf with wonderful mushroom sauce served over the top. And it was listed on the menu for ten bucks, a dollar more than Dry Creek's spaghetti sauce version. I agreed with Francis that it was the best meat loaf I've had in ­Houston.

"Beaver's barbecue isn't there yet, though," I said as I gnawed on a big tough pork rib that tasted like it had been cooked with diesel fuel. Word is that they're on their second barbecue pit boss, and they've switched from oak and alder to mesquite and cherry wood. The brisket had an aroma reminiscent of burnt rubber.

Despite the bad barbecue, Beaver's was very busy on a Tuesday night. I think their innovative cocktails are a big part of the attraction. But I also think Beaver's Icehouse is growing in popularity for the same reason that Dry Creek Café and all those restaurants in Austin are packed all the time. The social scene is way more interesting than the food.
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It wouldn't take much work to improve the food at Dry Creek Café. How hard would it be to get some fresh, never-been-frozen meat and some buns that didn't fall apart in your hands? Wouldn't it be great if a cool hangout like Dry Creek Café served fresh-made spicy burgers like the ones at Tornado Burgers?

But if the food was great, would it still feel like an Austin hipster hangout?