 |
| La Grange Bar Watermelon Fresca |
"...Zindler helped to put the Chicken Ranch whorehouse on the outskirts of La Grange Texas out of business."
La Grange Bar - Fresh Pineapple, Memories of Whorehouses
In my neighborhood in Montrose, it’s especially easy to walk to bars and restaurants. I could walk to Poison Girl blindfolded if I had to.
This is the path I walked last Friday night to La Grange Bar:
North for five blocks on Dunlavy Street, then east on Westheimer Street. After turning east, I slowed my pace to step
over a man in a sleeping bag, and to admire the stylish people going into One
Fifth Restaurant, which occupies the building which used to be the upscale,
over-priced Mark’s American Cuisine. I had a memory of hosting one of Donnie’s birthday dinners at Mark’s. We walked. Bypassing One Fifth, I ran across Westheimer Street to Ralph Street where I proceeded
north for a few feet and entered La Grange Bar.
In my neighborhood in Montrose, it’s especially easy to walk to bars and restaurants. I could walk to Poison Girl blindfolded if I had to.
The first thing I saw in La Grange Bar was a portrait of the
investigative journalist Marvin Zindler, although the portrayal failed to
capture the freak Zindler ultimately became from heavy make-up, white hair rug, and multiple plastic
surgeries.
Zindler's portrait however was entirely appropriate. Years before he reported on unsanitary restaurants during the televised Action 13 News Rat and Roach Report, Zindler helped to put the
Chicken Ranch whorehouse on the outskirts of La Grange Texas out of business. With Marvin carrying on in front of the camera
about illegal activities, the law enforcement officials who protected the
brothel capitulated, and in August 1973 forced it to close its doors, ending
many years of commercial enterprise. But
not before ZZ Top recorded a tribute to the nice girls in the Fayette County
establishment. Gibbons' amped-up guitar kicked
ass. A-how-how-how-how.
August 1973? Up comes
a vision of my seventeen year old hippie self, at the time I was completing my
first semester at the university in south Louisiana, with hair practically to
my butt, dressed in a halter top and cut-off jeans and leather platform shoes we
called “clogs” in those days, books carried in a green backpack.
 |
| La Grange Bar Craft Cocktails |
After admiring Marvin’s portrait and the orange leather chairs in La Grange’s front bar, I passed through an adjoining room, then entered La Grange’s patio where I saw the carp pond inherited from the building’s previous occupant, the gay bar EJ’s, known for weekly amateur strip nights and drag shows and hanky-panky in the bathroom. At the patio bar, a courteous young man named Caleb made me a gin and tonic, which I carried over to some couches where I joined friends who had just been served another round of Classic Margaritas and Gringo Burgers with fries. Fire pits placed near tables and couches made La Grange’s patio warm and cozy on a chilly January evening, and overhead strings of lights added ambience, undisturbed by abundant flat screen TVs, probably because the place is so large.
 |
| La Grange Bar Patio |
La Grange admirably preserved their 1930s building. Equally impressive is the bar’s practice of using
fresh fruit in cocktails, for example fresh pineapple. Not sure why details such as freshly squeezed
pineapple get me excited. It might be
because I was a cocktail waitress when I was in school, and witnessed meticulous
twisting of lemon peels and squeezing of lime wedges. It might be because of the finesse with which Donnie
rubs orange and cherries inside my chilled cocktail glass before he pours my
Old Fashioned from the cocktail shaker.
Standards. At a very young age I learned they were
important. From my Uncle Mac I learned one
should drink Bordeaux only in crystal stemware, and that a tumbler of scotch
requires very few ice cubes. From my great-aunt
Jo came introduction to the Vieux Carré cocktail, an elegant
mix of good rye, Pierre Ferrand 1840 cognac, sweet vermouth,
Benedictine, Peychaud’s and lemon twist, best served with a few raw oysters, and
nobody gave a damn that I was too young to be in the Carousel Bar. And I understand why the Gret Stet’s Huey
Long hauled a Nawlins bartender to Manhattan to show those Yankees how to correctly
mix his Ramos Gin Fizz.
It's imperative that hooch be properly attended to.
I wanted to know more about La Grange’s dickering with fruit,
so the next day I called the bar to ask a few questions, and guess who answered
the phone. My buddy Caleb.
Tell me please Caleb, how do you squeeze the watermelon that
you mix with tequila to make a Watermelon Fresca, do you use a blender or do
you use a hand held tool, like a muddler?
We don’t make Watermelon Frescas right now, Caleb told me, because fresh
watermelons are not in season. Yeah, but
when you do make Watermelon Frescas, how do you squeeze the fruit. According to Caleb, La Grange smashes the
watermelon with a hand held hand tool. How
bout the fresh pineapple you mix with tequila to make a Carlos Danger. How do you squeeze the pineapple? Same.
Another question. How
many of your customers know the considerable history behind Marvin Zindler’s
portrait? Caleb said that based on the
consistency with which he hears “Sliiiiime in the ice machine” and other informed
comments, he believes practically all of his customers know about Marvin’s Zindler’s
unclean restaurant reports.
Yeah but, how many of your customers know Marvin’s connection to the
whorehouse in La Grange Texas? Would you say
most of them? “Oh no, I don’t think their
knowledge goes back THAT far.”
 |
| La Grange Bar Filet and Shrimp - Steak Night |
 |
| La Grange Bar Oysters |
La Grange Bar
2517 Ralph Street, Houston Texas 77006
832 962-4745
http://lagrangehouston.com/
(Selected Articles on BOUDINANDBOURBON.COM)
Bar Boheme - Houston Bars - Drag Brunch - Architectural Preservation
https://www.boudinandbourbon.com/2020/05/bar-boheme-houston-bars-drag-brunch.html
Billeaud's Too, Calvin Trillin, and Jacking with Cajun Boudin
https://www.boudinandbourbon.com/2020/04/billeauds-too-calvin-trillin-and.html
Martha Stewart Visits Lucullus Antiques - Patrick Dunne - New Orleans
Jimmy Domengeaux Chats about His Louisiana Wetlands Photography Exhibition – Interview
Consciousness Screwing with Us: Rice University’s 2023 Archives of the Impossible Conference
Garland Fielder Weighs In on Architectural Design and the Creative Process
A Talk with Angie Dumas About Her Blog "Da'Stylish Foodie" - Interview
Eating Garlic Beef at Mai's Vietnamese Restaurant - Mai's Immigrant Story
Discovering S.P.Q.R. and Miraculous Oil at the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere
Visiting Azienda Agricola Casamonti in the Chianti Classico - Wine and Cinta Senese Pigs
My Visit to the Houston Farmers Market
Visiting ShyKatz Cafe on Galveston Island, Historical Architecture
Eating Oysters at Topwater Grill in San Leon at Galveston Bay
A Tribute to Legendary Wildcatter Jim Bob Moffett
A Talk with Food Guru George Graham about Acadianatable.com - Graham’s New Cookbook “Fresh From Louisiana: The Soul of Cajun and Creole Home Cooking” - Interview
Ryan Baptiste - The Light Beyond The Blight - Redbud Gallery - Echoes of New Orleans
https://www.boudinandbourbon.com/2020/06/ryan-baptiste-light-beyond-blight.htmlhttps://www.boudinandbourbon.com/2020/05/bar-boheme-houston-bars-drag-brunch.html
https://www.boudinandbourbon.com/2020/04/billeauds-too-calvin-trillin-and.html
Martha Stewart Visits Lucullus Antiques - Patrick Dunne - New Orleans
Jimmy Domengeaux Chats about His Louisiana Wetlands Photography Exhibition – Interview
https://www.boudinandbourbon.com/2019/10/jimmy-domengeaux-chats-about-his.html
Avesta Persian Grill's Pomegranate Walnut Stew, Cyrus the Great, Tajikistan
Long Live Irma Thomas - Essay
Notes on van Gogh’s Irises, Walter Annenberg, Louisiana Politics - Essay
A Closer Look at Christy Karll’s Painting “Swerve” – Interview
A Closer Look - Beef Empanadas with Olives - Seco’s Latin Cuisine - Essay
Giacomo Restaurant's Foradori, Rotaliano, Trentino 2015" - Red wine produced by Elisabetta Foradori in Trentino Italy - A Closer Look
https://www.boudinandbourbon.com/2018/06/giacomo-restaurants-teroldego-foradori.html
