As promised, we had a fun-filled day and half in Galveston,TX and thoroughly enjoyed it! Galveston got a lot of slack in the late 80′s and early 90′s for being such a crummy little town but I spent many a day here in my youth and always enjoyed it; in fact every time I come back I’m always reminded of the great fishing and crabbing trips as I make the familiar ride up the big bridge into town. About a year ago my parents acquired a great piece of historic property that they’ve been fixing up for us to stay in. The house has some great history to it albeit it’s very creepy and ominous feel to it. According to our historian neighbor who I’ve only met once, the house was built in the late 1800′s or early 1900′s I believe and once owned by a civil war vet.
Pretty exciting stuff until you remember spending most of your childhood watching creepy ghost stories and often times watch A Haunting to freak yourself out. You’ll never catch me sleeping here alone that’s for sure. There is quite a bit of nostalgia in the home though with it’s mediocre electricity and plumbing; too many lights causes power outages and the too much toilet paper causes flooding. hahah We didn’t spend too much time at the house though as we got here late Thursday afternoon, dropped our stuff and hit the seawall.
We had RSP’s daughter and her bff with us (both teenagers) so it was quite the challenge finding something to entertain them with. RSP and I *totally showing my age moment here* are pretty happy with driving around and taking in the scene but to the girls that’s boring so our game plan was to walk the seawall and beach for a bit, work up an appetite and then grab dinner at one of the local restaurants followed by an evening re-walking the seawall to work off all the fried food.
We had a few rules in mind when deciding on a place to eat:
Rule 1. the restaurant had to be local – no chain restaurants allowed though they’ve been popping up like wildfires as of late.
Rule 2. it had to be on the cheap – no question there.
Rule 3. The girls had to like it – picky 14 yr old eaters, go figure.
This lead us to The Spot which has been on the seawall for as long as I can remember and upon walking up to the restaurant we noticed it was crowded which made us like our choice even more. Where The Spot is also lies a bar and night club however we only came for dinner. The Spot has a very island-ish feel to it with palm tree decorations, wood floors and stairs, sand brought in from the beaches and locals. The restaurant is an order then sit type place with mostly burgers, fried seafood, some salads and a kiddie menu. And the entire menu is posted above the kitchen and register. Between the 4 of us, we ordered one Kid Dog meal ($4.69), one Garden Salad with Chicken ( $5.99 plus $1.99 for added chicken), Hot Wings ($8.99) and a Fried Gulf Shrimp Platter (15.49) with two sodas and a water the meal came out to a whopping $45.00! I felt like that was 15 dollars more than usual but since it’s on the seawall and attracts lots of tourists I guess I can’t say I’m that surprised.
Garden Salad with grilled chicken and ranch dressing.
The garden salad ($5.99 plus $1.99 for added chicken) was actually pretty good, again my bad habits took over and we ate into the salad before taking a photo however, the garden salad came with a HEAPING pile of grilled chicken. Chopped up I’m guessing they gave us about one and a half to almost two pieces of chicken breast. The salad was your basic every day garden variety bag salad however he chicken was excellent. Very up to par in my book. The chicken was moist, seasoned to perfection and after the chopped up the chicken they recooked it for that extra crunch when you bite into the salad. Unlike most restaurants, this chicken salad had plenty of chicken for every bite of salad you took.
Regular hot and Lemon pepper wings with a side of ranch
The Spot offers wings ($8.99 for 10 with two sauces) on their menu as an appetizer but we got it with our meal. Since we love wings home cooked or otherwise, we had to try it. Sadly though, these wings weren’t the best we’d ever had. Much like Wing Stop, these wings were over cooked, crispy to the point of cutting the insides of your mouth and most importantly small. Look, I’m an animal lover as much as the next person, but when it comes to cows, ducks, or chicken – beef (no pun intended) those suckers up! When I bite into a juicy burger I want to taste meat and the same goes for chicken wings, I want my meat not some scraggly bone and crisped tendons on the edge! Needless to say, not my favorite. I’ll give them points for the wing sauce, it was your normal every day run of the mill hot sauce, can’t complain.
Fried shrimp, waffle fries and cole slaw
Our other main dish was the shrimp platter ($15.49). Also the usual you’d find for a shrimp platter. When I complained a bit about the pricing (expensive) and lack of flavor, RSP said “What did you expect”? I swear, his logic sometimes… But he’s right, it’s a touristy spot aimed at keeping things traditional, simple and modest.
Overall it wasn’t a totally bad experience, I’m disappointed we didn’t order any burgers; they have buffet style add your own toppings in the middle of restaurant. Also because it was so crowded we had to eat inside the restaurant instead of being able to sit on the outside overlooking the gulf and Pleasure Pier.
Speaking of the new Pleasure Pier, some photo highlights.
Pleasure Pier Entry
Pleasure Pier Carousel
Sign Nostalgia
We walked over to the Pleasure Pier after dinner to work off the semi-heavy dinner we had. The girls loved it, since it wasn’t super crowded they got to ride the rides 2-3 times. The biggest upset about Pleasure Pier, pricing. $26.99 for an all day pass for anyone 48 inches or taller and $10 dollars just to experience the pier itself, sans rides. Growing up and fishing off the old Flagship Hotel pier, the only word I can think of is bewilderment. I’m still shocked that they were able to build the behemoth that is today’s Pleasure Pier in such little time. Check out the photos I took on yelp.com if you’re not willing to fork over the $10 bucks (don’t be cheap) and my full review plus infinitely better pictures of the pier on RSP’s page.
mmm, lemon pepper wing sounds awesome! come check out our food/lifestyle blog – doing a short giveaway for all cookie/momofuku lovers!
[...] and I am the better writer, we collaborated on our Galveston 2012 mini vacation which can be found here, and here along with this post. Though, the post I wrote on RSP’s page is about our first [...]