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catches your eye. Like a cinnamon roll
with poppy seeds instead of icing, it’s flaky,
luscious and theperfect complement to the
Turkish coffee—with sugar added during
the slowbrewingprocess—that thebarista
says will “really get your day started.”
He’s right. You exit Phoenicia and jog
over to
DiscoveryGreen (
2
)
, oneofHouston’s
many unsung green triumphs. What was
nothing more than a weedy parking lot
less than 10 years ago is nowa surprisingly
varied 12-acre spacewith playgrounds, dog
runs, bike paths, performance stages, an
ice-skating rink (when it’s cold) and amist-
ing station (when it’s hot).
The sun is shooingyou indoors, however,
so you duck into the
Saint Arnold Brewing
Co. (
3
)
, Texas’ only cra brewery. For seven
bucks, you get a tour and four tokens with
which to sample the goods. A er walking
past properly Texas-scale vats, you end up
at a spacious indoor beer hall teemingwith
Houstonians drinkingbeforenoon. They’re
playing cards, singing “Happy Birthday”
and eating pizza, all inbetween sips of full-
bodied brews. Themorning beer and pizza
look good, but you’ve got other plans. So,
tossingyour unused tokens to the birthday
girl, you make for the door.
For lunch, you venture into open-air
produce market
Canino (
4
)
, where you
beeline it to the taco trucks at the back
that feed vendors and shoppers alike. The
crowdaround
TaqueriaTacambaro(
5
)
draws
you in; seconds later, you’re tucking into a
succulent sweetbreads taco. Before you
have time to wonder what you’re eating,
the taco’s gone.
On your way back south, you pass a
building with a giant metal monster out
front. You order the cabbie to turn the
car around. Coming to a stop beside the
beast, you notice it’s covered in spoons.
Also, there’s avehicleunderneath.Welcome
to the
Art Car Museum (
6
)
. This “Garage
Mahal,” as devotees call it, is at the center of
a scene inwhich cars are transformed into
whimsical rolling works of art. They’re a
bigdeal here, too: The annual parade draws
250,000 people (this year’s is onMay 12).
You’re reasonably sure that
Spoonozoid
will be the strangest thing you see today,
but you swing by
Adickes SculpturWorx
Studio (
7
)
to see if it can bematched. It can.
Lining the edge of the studio parking lot
aredozens of 18-foot-tall heads ofU.S. presi-
dents, cast inconcrete andplaster bynative
TexanDavidAdickes. The 3-tonbehemoths
MIXMASTER
Pouring it on at hip hangout
Anvil; opposite, a taste of the brunch at Hugo’s
96
APRIL 2012
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