One Day in Houston: BBQ, Tacos, & Things to Do!

We have a lot of delicious things we are about to devour. And I just saw a guy in a scream mask. I don't know what's happening. Howdy from Houston, Texas. If you know anything about us, you know that we're from Texas, but if you take it back a little further, I was born and raised here in Houston. So I'm a proud Texan, even prouder Houstonian. So I am excited today to show you guys around my hometown. So today we're going to be visiting some of our favorite spots in Houston, as well as some new spots. And first up is the Gerald D. Hines Water Wall. This water wall is probably one of the most popular things to come see in Houston. It makes for a really incredible photo spot. It is 64 feet tall and it recirculates 11,000 gallons of water per minute. That is wild. So I read that the park opens up at 8 a.m. So I think that means that the water turns on at 8 a.m. So don't show up any earlier than that because it'll just be a wall, a waterless wall. We got about four hours of sleep last night so that we could get up way before the crack of dawn so we could rush here to Houston. So obviously some coffee is much needed. So we're at Retrospect Coffee Bar and what makes this place super unique is that it is a Houston historical landmark because it was one of the first gas stations, but it was also the first gas station in the town to offer travelers not only gas but also a cold drink. So they called this concept a Kelvinator after the refrigerator Kelvinator. They spent three years renovating this spot into the coffee shop and it's very very tiny on the inside, but they have an awesome patio on the front as well as one in the back. And since it's winter and it's cold by Texas standards, maybe not by the whole U.S., they have a big tent covering the back patio with heaters and everything so you stay nice and toasty. So you obviously can't come to Houston without trying some Texas barbecue. So we are at our favorite spot in Houston, The Pit Room, and to be honest it's our favorite because we haven't tried a whole bunch of other places and we just keep coming back here because we love it so much. And coming into today we have a lot of food places lined up and we were going to come here and just get a couple things, but check out this massive platter we have here. We have a lot of delicious things we are about to devour. First up we have the brisket and brisket is king in Texas barbecue and we love brisket so much that we named our van brisket. And we like to get our brisket moist. I am sorry if you hate the word moist, but that is just our favorite way to get our brisket. It just means it's fattier and juicier. And then we also got this jalapeno cheddar sausage. And a lot of barbecue places get their sausage from another provider and they smoke it themselves, but The Pit Room actually makes their sausage themselves. So everything's made in-house. We're very excited to try it. I don't know if we've had it before, but apparently it's very, very good. And then, oh my gosh, I don't even know how to show this. I'll hold it all together. We got this bad boy. This is a beef rib and a lot of barbecue places only do these on Saturdays and they run out pretty fast. So we made sure to get here early, but oh my gosh, look at this. He cut it and then he put it on our plate and it's like falling off. It's going to be so good. I think I'm most excited for the beef rib just because it's really expensive. I think it was like $22 just for that. But it's a lot of meat. It's a special treat for us because we typically don't have the chance to get beef ribs. So we're going to enjoy every single dollar of that. So another reason why I love this place is because they offer tortillas and these tortillas are extra special because they use the brisket fat in the tortillas. So you throw a slice of brisket on there. They have their own salsa and man, it's delectable. Also, if you didn't notice on our tray here, we have some chips and queso and I think it's a rule that if you see it on the menu, you have to get it. If you think our platter of barbecue is crazy, they actually have these like large shareable platters. They're $90 to $100 or so. They have a couple different options and you basically get everything on the menu. We did that the first or second time we came here. We shared it with Adam's cousin and her husband and I think we ate most of it though to be honest because we're pigs. But it is a great option if you're coming with a group and you want to try everything. To be honest, we probably would have ordered that just for ourselves but we want to save our money for other spots today. So as you can see, you can just like pull it straight off the bone there. This thing is the best thing on the menu I think. It just like melts in your mouth. It's like, it's like butter but you can just see like lots of meat in there. You can see like the bark on the outside with like the nice seasoning they put. And then you have to, I didn't do this on the last one, but you gotta dip it, dip it real good. We are stuffed. I think we need to go walk this off a little bit. Oh my gosh, we always forget how little barbecue you need to eat to feel super full because it's just like so fatty and rich. At this rate, I don't know how we're gonna eat more today but we'll find room I guess. So we've been walking around Buffalo Bayou Park. It's a 160 acre park. It's a lot of fun to walk around because there's lots of trails you can pick from. You walk along the bayou and you get great skyline views of the downtown. So a few fun facts about Houston. It is the largest city in the state of Texas and it's the fourth most populous city in the in the United States. In a recent survey, I don't know how accurate it is, it says that Houston is the most culturally diverse city in the United States. It's named after Sam Houston who was the president of the Republic of Texas way back in the 1800s. It's known for NASA so they call it the space city, big oil industry, and of course how could I forget my Houston Astros world champions. I'm even rocking a special outfit for the day. So we're not that hungry after that barbecue. It's still having an effect on us but we hear this place Taqueria Taco Nazo is some of the best tacos in Houston so you know you got to try it. A couple things to know about this taco truck is that it's cash only so make sure you have some cash on you. The tacos are between two dollars and 250 depending on which type you get so it's not very expensive but you definitely need some cash. They also have crazy hours. They're open from 9 a.m to either midnight or 2 30 in the morning depending on the day so if you wake up and you're super hungry for tacos they got your back. If you're out all night and you're hungry for tacos they've also got your back. That's my kind of place. You also might want to brush up on your Spanish skills. Nothing crazy just like maybe how to order something and some numbers that might be a little helpful. This place is legit. Yeah yeah also though come prepared there's nowhere to sit there's nowhere really to stand and eat. I mean let's just hold it in your hands but lucky for us we always have our dining room with us. Okay so we figured out they give you your onion and your cilantro on the side and your limes as you see there so you don't even have to ask for it on the side it just comes like this and then we ordered two extra salsas and she asked me if wanted red or green. I said both but she said something to me in Spanish about this green one and I didn't quite catch it but it kind of makes me nervous because I think it's going to be really spicy and then these are like pico looking ones. So I got two tacos. I got one that's trompo meat All right boom booyah and then we got barbacoa. Heck yeah. Oh it's steaming. It's steaming it smells so good Look at these beauties oh my gosh it smells oh my gosh it smells so good Oh it steamed up the lens. So I got two quesadillas which are just tacos with cheese on them so they're not what you think of typically when you think of a quesadilla but I love melted cheese on my tacos so I was very excited to get these. I got the trompo meat which I typically call like pastor meat or I call the the trompo is the spinning thing that I call spit normally but I guess they call it a trompo so in case you're here and you're not sure what that is that is what it is and oh my lanta this looks like a cheesy paradise. I might have made a mistake we're not getting the cheese. Oh man when in doubt get the cheese always. I might have to steal a bite I don't know what to tell people tacos is the perfect food this barbacoa meat is delicious it's soft you can tell it's just got a lot of good seasoning in it but then you put the salsa on it the cilantro the onion and you wrap it in the tortilla like it just how do you beat that it's it's so good it's like a hug it's like a warm hug seriously like you know they say coffee is a hug and a mug this is I'm gonna warm blanket of a tortilla and a tortilla yeah yeah yeah yeah is the green spicy or is the red spicy the red I don't I think the red might be spicier yeah I mean it's a little spicy but I purposely didn't put a whole lot because I was kind of nervous but let me let me just I'm going in going in here we go no it's hot but it's not bad that's good this is two seconds later from the previous clip the red one's pretty hot like you get that burn on your lip here like where the salsa touched it it's pretty hot I think Adam said it all that's incredible and the cheese takes it to the next level so I'm sure Adams are really good but I'm stealing a bite don't you worry the cheese the cheese is great Mexico City ones what do you think yeah no these are legit these are so good so recently when we've been hanging out with some of our friends that do watch our vlogs they usually ask us a question like do you guys really like the food as much as you like show on the vlogs are you liars yeah are you just doing it for the for the youtube but we honestly like do a good amount of research beforehand so the place is gonna have good reviews and it's usually food that we know we're gonna like so yeah we're like setting ourselves up for success we don't just like walk down the street and pick a random place to eat we do a lot of thoughtful research to try to pick the best spots because not only do we want to have a good experience there but we want to give you guys the best recommendations we possibly can and we would be honest if we didn't like it we would totally tell you and I will say we are pretty easy to please we just really like food so I don't know not everything we eat is like the best thing we've ever had in our lives but 99% of the time we truly so we rode over to what's called a graffiti park yeah I think that's its official name it's just building a couple buildings with a bunch of graffiti and paintings on it but man there is a lot going on over here oh my gosh there are a million quinceaneras happening in photo shoots there are guys doing donuts and like beamers like really crazy donuts and I just saw a guy in a scream mask I don't know what's happening here it's a little bizarre but it's really cool to check out yeah it's a little weird it turns out the scream mask is for a music video that's being filmed right now oh man this is entertaining for our last stop of our Houston adventure we came to so as we mentioned earlier Houston's one of the most culturally diverse cities in the United States and it actually has one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the United States so we thought while we were here today we had to get some Vietnamese food so we wanted to come to this place especially because we heard they had a really great banh mi sandwich the history lesson behind a banh mi sandwich is when the French occupied Vietnam they took a French baguette and they married it with local meats and produce Vietnamese meats and produce and made a sandwich came up with a great sandwich I've never really had one before and it smells smells so good they have like a seasoning on the meat and I'm ready to try it it's torturing us here we go bread's nice and firm but it looks like soft not kind of on the inside I'm guessing that's how a baguette should be so like I said it's got fried pork there and I think they season it with a soy sauce something else there is a garlic aioli on the bun there you can see the carrots there's jalapenos in there there's cilantro there's cucumber oh yeah here we go the meat is like sweet but a little bit spicy it kind of tastes like chicken teriyaki kind of a deal but pork but then you've got the fresh veggies in there so they add like a nice crunch jalapeno add some extra spice the cilantro is yeah it's like just a fresh taste there and then they've got that garlic aioli along the bottom and they just like brings it all together and then the the baguette is just like I said it's crispy on the outside and soft on the inside it's this is an awesome sandwich they had quite a few options of types you could get but we believe this is the most traditional type so that's what we tried but they had a lot of other tasty options they had soup they had different drinks and a bunch of things it's a fast casual kind of place you order at the counter and then they just bring you your order when it's ready and it's pretty affordable I think this was like six something yeah pretty cheap not too shabby makes up for the barbecue earlier different varieties of these two they have like pork belly um a couple of they put some cold cuts on pate and stuff yeah you add an egg the possibilities are endless excellent we had a fun day exploring houston we hope you had a great time following along with us for both of us when we visit here we're normally visiting family so we don't always get to get out on the town and explore like we did today so it was really fun to get out there and eat some good food and do some fun stuff so we are spending the next few days here for the holidays and then we're headed to san antonio texas to visit some friends and we'll be filming a vlog there so that's where you'll see us next we did want to mention that we filmed an austin vlog like eight months ago or so a while back austin's where we both live that's where we met so austin is our is our kind of our home yeah um so if you need any ideas of things to do in austin go check that out we also have a blog post but we will see you guys in san antonio cannot believe how close they flew to the drone that was sick howdy from houston texas i don't know why sorry it spilled again two logs in a row now what the heck like trick yeah if you think our sorry i just tried the jalapeno sausage with this habanero mustard and the spice just got me i'll be driving south to waco