Restaurant Review: Cedar Creek

This afternoon we decided to lunch at the newest restau/bar offering from the owners of Onion Creek and Dry Creek - Cedar Creek. Currently it is undergoing a "soft opening," so there will likely be an evolution.

The parking is fabulous compared to the other two of the Creek cafes, as are the deck space and overall seating capacity. The beer selection is almost identical to that of Onion Creek - lots of good draft options, including microbrews. The decor was what delighted me though. The tables and chairs must have been from a warehouse storing tables and chairs from now-defunct restaurants and VFW halls and Masons' lodges from the 70s. My favorite table was the one from Monterey House mexican restaurants (closed in the mid-1980s after being purchased by ShowBiz Pizza Place, though there is apparently still one left in Beaumont.) The table was a brown plastic laminate four top with red rectangles bearing the Monterey House logo at each corner, making a set of perma-placemats for its diners. Awesome.

Monterey House, along with Ninfa's on Navigation, was the Tex-Mex restaurant of my early childhood. Reportedly at two years old I would order my own dinner ("Tacos al Carbon, please!") at Ninfa's. So the other decorating treasure, spotted on Cedar Creek's walls, was the giant portrait of Mama Ninfa Laurenzo that beamed down at me while I ate. Sadly, the food there is a far cry from even the franchisified Ninfa's fare.

We should stop ordering jalapeno poppers at restaurants. All jalapeno poppers come from the same place - Sysco - and they are always served too hot-out-of-the-fryer. They never taste good. We need to stop setting ourselves up for hot pepper disappointment.

I ordered the pulled pork sandwich. The meat was fine. The sauce was fine. The bread was nasty. I think bread either needs to be Sunbeam/Wonderbread super-processed or else really lovingly hand-kneading and baked. When restaurants try for something in between, it pretty much always tastes like cardboard.

We usually don't complain about the service at restaurants, but the busboy was bringing the second round of drinks. Like I said - I'm hoping for better things as the opening, um, hardens.