Hugo's

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Cuizine Magazine: Houston's only free publication dedicated to ...

NAM E

ZIP

CUISINE ANY CUISINE

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FEATURE ANY FEATURE

NEIGHBORHOOD ANY NEIGHBORHOOD

PRICE ANY

find it!

Hugo's TTR W ine Cafe

1602 W estheimer Rd @ Mandell Houston , TX 77006 RESTAURANT REVIEW

17 Restaurant - Alden Hotel Arturo's Uptown Italiano

HUGO'S: CELEBRATION OF ABUNDANCE BY M. MARTIN

Ashiana Indian Restaurant Backstreet Cafe Bistro Moderne - Hotel Derek Bistro Toulouse Boom Boom Room Brennan's of Houston Coco's Crepes & Coffee Cova W ine Bar

Like a lot of Americans, I have a serious love/hate relationship with buffets. On the one hand, there are definitely times—by way of skipped meals or serious drinking or both—when a big meal just really hits the spot. On the other hand, those big meals get to be a bad habit sometimes…and as anyone who has ever suffered though being 'treated' by well-meaning relatives at a place like Golden Corral can tell you, quality and quantity don't typically keep company. Usually, if you care about the quality of the food, you aren't going to be plating it yourself from a steam table.

D'Amico's Italian Market Cafe El Pueblito Place Farrago W orld Cuisine Field of Green's Hugo's Kirin One Japanese Sushi Buffet Kubo's Sushi Bar and Grill laidback manor (closed) Last Concert Cafe Marine's Empanadas & Bakery Max's W ine Dive Niko Niko's Oporto Cafe and W ine Bar Pico's Mex-Mex Restaurant Rouge New American Cuisine

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A happy exception to this rule is the Sunday brunch at Hugo's Restaurant (1600 Westheimer, 713-524-7744). Named for Executive

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Saffron Moroccan Cuisine Tacos A Go-Go Tart Cafe Te House of Tea The Lodge at Bayou Bend TTR W ine Cafe Zula

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Chef Hugo Ortega, Hugo's features authentic Mexican cuisine served with the same attention to quality that distinguishes Mr. Ortega's other kitchen at the deliciously romantic Backstreet Cafe (which also serves brunch and has also been reviewed in these pages). In this instance, a large and well-trained kitchen staff has taken the brunch buffet to new and delectable heights. Given the proximity to our home and the loveliness of the weather, Mrs. Martin and I had opted to walk to Hugo's. Our reservation had been for 11:00 AM, at the very start of their brunch service. This turned out to be a fortunate thing. I began my dining experience by taking two or three items at a time from the serving line in small quantity, and taking the time to savor them. As other diners began to arrive, however, and the congestion at the serving line reached rush hour proportions, I had to abandon this approach and simply load as many samples as the plate would hold. For my first few samples, I started out at the salad end of the serving line with ensalada de nopales, coctel de pulpo, and calabacitas de huitaloche—AKA 'cactus salad', 'octopus cocktail', and 'zucchini with corn fungus'. Lastly, I decided to try some marinaded pepper. The ensalada nopales consisted of marinated strips of cactus flesh, served with thinly-sliced white onion and crumbly white Mexican cheese. It was refreshingly light and flavorful. The coctel de pulpo was surprisingly tender (octopus tends to be a bit rubbery under even the best of circumstances), and set off nicely by a tomato and citrus dressing/marinade. The calabacitas were a bit of a departure for me, as I was not terribly familiar with huitaloche. Sometimes called 'corn smut', it's a fungus that grows on ears of corn, causing the kernels to enlarge and take on flavor that (no surprise) is reminiscent of mushrooms. The dish had an earthy, somewhat bland taste—but a very interesting presentation. The marinaded peppers were highly similar to the peppers frequently served as a table condiment at tacquerias, complete with slices of pickled carrot and pickled onion—but instead of small and likewise pickled jalapeños, the pepper component consisted of large and succulently marinaded red peppers, with no small amount of peppery bite. By the time I made it back from the serving line, Mrs. Martin had ordered our first round of cocktails. Hugo's serves your standard Mimosa, as well as two in-house variations. The "Mimosa de Guava y Mora" substitutes the usual orange juice with a crushed blueberry mixture that has been infused with guava nectar. The "Mimosa Sangre de Mango" takes a similar approach with a mixture of fresh mango juice, cranberry nectar, and blood orange bitters. The first drink has rich, rosy color, and a fruity taste much sweeter and richer than one would normally expect from a mimosa. The second, the Mimosa Sangre de Mango, was my favorite of the two. It was drier, and had a complex and refreshing blend of flavors. Definitely an improvement over a standard-issue mimosa.

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On my next trip to the serving line, I made my way a little further down, sampling the quesadillas, the corn pudding, the paella, and the tamales. The quesadillas were made from both blue and white corn tortillas, and stuffed with a combination of queso blanco and mushroom. The corn pudding was an almost flan-like rich custard with a golden-brown crust and deliciously tender kernels of corn. With lingering fire in my mouth from the marinaded peppers, this was the first thing on my plate I wanted to try. It put out the fire, leaving the lingering taste of pepper intact…quite nice. The paella was good, but the most outstanding thing about it had to be the presentation, with tender grilled fish fillets crowded next a dense array of steamed assorted shellfish. The tamales came in two varities —pork, in the corn husk Texans are most used to seeing, and fish, in a banana leaf wrapper. Both the banana leafs and the corn husks were expertly wrapped and tied with a little bow made from the leaf material itself—not unheard of, but an extraordinary grace note under these circumstances... given the number of tamales the kitchen was called upon to produce. By the time I was ready to sample some dishes from yet further down the buffet line, I had to abandon the idea of plating a few items at a time. There was a line out into the parking lot of people waiting to be seated, and an equivalent number of people queued up at the serving line. The musicians had also assembled on a gallery over the bar, seranading us with a pleasant combination of marachi standards and Mexican pop tunes—a good thing, because by then it was getting a bit noisy. This time around, I decide to try the two egg dishes on the line—egg poached in tomato, and migas—as well as the other marinaded seafood offerings, as well as an intriguing chile relleno served with pomegranate, as well as some intriguing little meatballs served in a green chili sauce. When I wound up with a little room left on the plate, I also tried the pulled pork and the brisket. Let's start with the egg dishes, since a brunch menu isn't complete without them. If you are going to do a Mexican-themed brunch, then Migas are probably inevitable. Scrambled eggs and tortilla chips have never been one of my favorite breakfast foods, so I may not be the best judge of them in this context. They were good, but unremarkable. The eggs poached in tomatoes, on the other hand, were very noteworthy-a savory tomato stew, really, in which poached eggs floated like incredibly rich dumplings. If Hugo's ever decides to abandon the buffet format, they should certainly retain this dish—perhaps served over some Mexican equivalent of an English muffin. The marinaded seafood dishes did not differ greatly in execution from the octopus cocktail I had already tried—all of them were basically variations on a theme of ceviche. I recall being pleased by the inclusion of sliced green olives in the mixed seafood ceviche (crab and

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shrimp and ???) and likewise pleased with the size and quality of the shrimp in the shrimp cocktail. As a barbecue aficionado, I could hardly not sample the brisket and pulled pork. These may be slightly odd buffet items in a restaurant that mainly prides itself on regional Mexican cuisine, but they are not at all out of line in a place that expects to serve Texans or southerners in general. The pork was delicious—tender and greasy as hell, it could have easily come straight from a roadside stand in Alabama. It was a little bland for my taste, but authentic southern pulled pork usually is. It worked perfectly with the other buffet items. The brisket was also very much in the southern style, very similar to the way one finds it served in family restaurants in small East Texas towns, where the cooks proudly proclaim "you don't needs no teef to eat mah beef". I personally prefer brisket in a more western style, but I understand that not everyone can take the time to slow cook sides of beef in mesquite smoke for twelve hours. Compared to other non-BBQ restaurant brisket I've had in the past. Hugo's brisket was more than acceptable. The chile relleno offering, on the other hand, was definitely a standout item that deserves mention in detailed. The placecard on the buffet line described it as "chiles en nogada-- poblano stuffed with pulled pork, apples, pears, plaintains and raisins". What this description fails to include is a lavish while cream sauce and a garnish of pomegranates, both of which served as outstanding complements to both the fruit and the wonderfully tender pulled pork. The poblano pepper itself was cooked to an appropriate degree of tenderness on no more. All in all, one of the more interesting things we tasted. At this point in the meal, Mrs. Martin decided that it was time for more cocktails, and I decided that it was time for dessert. The dessert serving line was located on the other side of the dining room-- a little smaller than the main course line, but no less abundant. I returned to my table with servings of tres leches cake, coconut tart and chocolate mousse, exquisite little squares of lime cheesecake and flan, and a single churro for good measure. Awaiting my return were the house sangria, a blackberry mojito, and drink new to me—something called a 'pomegranate paloma'. The dessert items I tried ranged from merely excellent to outstanding. When I had earlier compared the corn pudding on the entree line to flan, I had not yet tried flan as practiced at Hugo's. The sweet, rich, little square I sampled had a flavor and a texture that literally melted in my mouth. The lime cheesecake was unapologetically tart, surmounted with an intensely piquant garnish of lime gelatin, earthily grounded with a traditional graham cracker crust. The coconut tart had a rewardingly more robust texture, with the coconut more coarsely ground than usual for dessert offerings and nicely toasted.

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The tres leches cake was, to me, the high point of the dessert menu. Mrs. Martin found herself wishing it had been a bit more generously soaked in milk, I had no such problem. The cake itself had a firm and somewhat granular texture that held up to being doused in sweetened milk. A more moist dessert would not have held up to the rigors of buffet service. The chocolate mousse was an outstanding example of the common dessert classic, liberally topped with fresh shavings of dark chocolate. Our last few cocktails paired with dessert to varying degrees of success. Most successful was the sangria and the chocolate mousse, which might as well have been made for each other (no surprise, given how frequently chocolate is paired with fortified dessert wines). The blackberry mojito served as a nice palate cleanser, the blackberry muddle and the clear rum aroma breaking through the sweetness. The Pomengranante paloma is described on the drink menu as "one of the ultimate Mexican cocktails"-- an accolade I can easily believe. A key ingredient in Hugo's version is a house-made soda flavored with fresh pomegranate, raspberries, and ginger simple syrup (more traditionally, the recipe calls for grapefruit soda and fresh lime), blended with tequila. It is a very satisfying cocktail with a flavor that nicely balances between sweetness and dryness. I look forward to trying it again after the temperature and humidity in Houston have crept back up to their typically unbearable levels. I suspect the paloma will be even more refreshing under those circumstances. Let me emphasize that there were still at least half a dozen items on the line that I didn't have room for, in my plate or my stomach. Imagine one of those hideous strip-mall Chinese buffets that serve a dozen different pork dishes out of a dozen different #10 cans from Sysco, with matching dozens of beef and chicken variations. Now, imagine instead that the culinary profusion consists of real food—authentic dishes, most of them regional specialties from around Mexico, lovingly handcrafted by an expert kitchen staff. Finally, imagine the entire thing taking place in a reclaimed 1920's commercial building in Montrose. I think it only fitting that we visited Hugo's the weekend before Thanksgiving, and just as appropriate that Hugo's will not be open on that archetypic day of feasting. There's no need, really. Thanksgiving occurs with weekly regularity at Hugo's—a damn' site closer than Grandma's House, and with a considerably more interesting menu. Sunday brunch at Hugo's is very much a celebration of abundance. I left feeling like (and probably looking like) one of Fernando Botero's exuberant paintings of joyously large peasants, frequently caught in the act of enjoying food, drink, or each other just a little to excess. Sometimes, excess is good—and the artful excess of Sunday Brunch at Hugo's is a thanksgiving that—thankfully-- can arrive fifty times a year (that is, if you don't mind looking like a Botero painting).

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