LOCAL Houston | The City Guide JANUARY 2016 | Page 14

DINE WRITE
PAUL’S KITCHEN & WORLD PEACE

Charred Portuguese Octopus

ONE NIGHT LAST MONTH I WAS SITTING AT THE BAR IN PAUL’S KITCHEN, ON ALGERIAN WAY, THAT LITTLE ELBOW STREET
OFF KIRBY, JUST NORTH OF 59. AS I GAZED AT THE MENU, CONFIDENT THIS WOULD BE A DELICIOUS EVENING, I SIPPED
A SICILIAN MANHATTAN. THIS MANLY VARIATION OF A CLASSIC FEATURES SMOKED J. OLIVER RYE WHISKEY, AMARO
ORANGE BITTERS AND THREE BRANDIED CHERRIES SPEARED AND RESTING ATOP THE ROCKS. I’M SURE MY SUBCONSCIOUS WAS PLANNING A TRIP TO SICILY, BUT I HAD NO IDEA YET OF ANY POTENTIAL GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS.

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CHEF PAUL LEWIS calls Houston home, and the surrounding Gulf Coast region
is the source for most everything he makes. What distinguishes this excellent cuisine, however, are the flavors he achieves by creatively blessing
the local foods with influences he’s picked up from afar.

Next you’ve got your Chicken & Waffles, but elevated to a new plateau.
It’s Texas quail. Moist, tender, delicately fried, savory and wonderful atop
a cornbread waffle that could headline a dessert menu all by itself. But
blessed with Serrano-infused maple syrup and Korean chili butter.

Take charred Portuguese octopus, for starters. Imagine bite-sized chunks
of fresh octopus, perfect texture, with a little chorizo, garlic and scallion
oil. That and a bottle of Pinot and I’m set. But we had only just begun.

Now I’m in trouble, taste buds perilously close to falling prisoner to this
menu.

L O C A L

| january 16