Babe's - crazy ass amounts of food

One of the highlights of our trip to Texas was going to Babe's, a local Texas chain of restaurants that is a true Texas experience. It's a family-style, old-time dinner joint complete with stuffed animals on the walls (and we're not talking teddy bears) and honky tonk signs saying "Life's too short to live in Houston." On top of the roombiance, periodically the waitresses would start doing karaoke to Shania Twain and Bonnie Raitt on the jukebox. Because the food is served family style, most people were coming in groups of nine or ten. Our own group included myself, J, J's brother and parents and J's sister and her family of four. We were lucky to come at 5:30 (when the restaurant was already 3/4 full) because when we left two hours later it was packed with mange many large parties waiting outside.

This was Texas so you know the servers were going to be nice. When they say family style, the food is served family style. All of the food is in platters in the middle of the table and plates are passed around. You get a choice of meat that includes fried chicken, chicken fried steak, fried chicken tenders, smoked chicken, catfish, and pot roast. Since the Babe's is known for their fried chicken, we al went with fried chicken. The meal started off with salad dressed in a solution of white vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper, and water. No oil. It made for a surprisingly light and refreshing salad. J's Mom said that this was the dressing she grew up with. along with the salad came feather light biscuits accompanied by butter, honey and molasses. Already we were feeling happy and sated and the main course was yet to come.

After the salad, the chicken came in big platters along with sides of Mashed Potatoes
Creamy Gravy, Green beens, and Grandma's Corn. I'd like to highlight Grandma's corn which is shaved fresh from the cob and is in a thick corn milk sauce. It was sweet and fresh at the same time. The trip was worth it just for the corn. The chicken itself was surprisingly moist and tender. Kind of like a homey version of KFC. One good thing about the chicken is that it tastes great cold the next day. Essentially everyone was served the equivalent of half a chicken which meant many many leftovers.

For dessert we have a choice of peach cobbler and banana pudding. The clear winner was banana pudding which tasted like a banana version of creme anglaise. Babe's is kind of a once a year type of place because of the insane portions but it's well worth going there once a year.