Thursday, August 22, 2013

Favorite food forensics

I regret not having the time to do a better job of this investigation, but I was already late to a business meeting this afternoon when I happened to catch sight of this sign out of the corner of my eye:
A brand spankin' new temporary vinyl sign tacked to some oriented strand board.  But Clear Lake it ain't - those are Dow Chemical's frac columns visible in the background. 
This is the establishment to which the sign belonged, at 103 W. Plantation Drive in Clute, at the corner of Plantation and Main, essentially, near where El Torro (never been there) and Brian's BBQ (it's excellent!!) are also located. 
The reason why this might be noteworthy is as follows.  If you remember back to March of this year, I wrote a post titled "Tragedy on El Dorado Boulevard". 
And by tragedy, I wasn't referring to the loss of the sign, but rather the well-known eatery (Korean BBQ) that went with it. 
At the time, Houston food critic Alison Cook had a Twitter thread going which included the following comment:
Clute... Freeport... it's all the same to just about everyone who doesn't live there. 
How many Korean restaurants could there possibly be in that area?  A Korean restaurant named alternately "Seafood Joy" and "Seafood by Joy" has been at this address for a few years now, but look at this yelp I found while trolling for information on it.
They reportedly shut down for a few months and then re-opened, which is strongly suggestive of a change of ownership or operatorship.
I had time to stop in just very briefly.  I asked an Asian gentleman behind the counter, "Is it Mia?" referring to the former proprietor of the El Dorado location.  He said little, but gave me a knowing smile.  I continued, "From Clear Lake?" An even wider knowing smile. 
He gave me a copy of the lunch menu to take with me, and it was also brand spankin' new, just like the vinyl sign outside.  Note the all-important Bi Bim Bap.  It's very different from this previous published menu for the place
I told the man that I would return as soon possible to have a meal there, so that I can confirm or deny whether the food is as heavenly as it was at the El Dorado location.  The only question at this point is, will @AlisonCook beat me to it?
:-)

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