Houston, day 2

Today was another awesome day in Houston.  This morning, Julie made French toast for everyone while Trav and I played the Wii.  I totally whooped him at curling and figure skating.  We then went to the pool and hung out for a few hours in the water and thoroughly enjoyed the hot weather.  For dinner, we went out for sushi at “Uni Sushi”, in downtown “The Woodlands”, the community where Emily and Katie live.  We had a few rolls and some tuna sashimi.

After dinner we went to the “Hubbel & Hudson” grocery store.  One nice thing about larger cities is the variety of things offered in grocery stores, and the availability of “boutique” stores like this one.  The inside was packed with all sorts of specialty foods and was fun to walk through

In addition to the main store area, they have a second floor dedicated to a cooking classroom.  There was a “date night” class going on that had a “Rio de Janiero” theme tonight.

We grabbed some after dinner treats and headed down to a nice area by a man-made river area and hung out for a little while

Part of the treats we got were some specialty sodas that I hadn’t had a chance to try yet.  So, here’s a mini-taste test of the selection we grabbed.

The first one I tried was the Fentiman’s “Curiosity Cola”.  This one intrigued me because it was pretty expensive ($3), and because it is a “fermented soda”, it actually had a small alcohol content (<1%).  This one was easily the best of the bunch, with a really nice, sweet cola flavor, reminiscent of Boylan’s, but a little less fizzy and easier to drink.  I would drink one of these every day, if it was available.  It also had a really cool shaped bottle.

While we watched TV (Wipeout again) tonight, I divvied up the others for people to try.  Fitz’s Cream Soda was up next, and it was a pretty weak offering.  It wasn’t very creamy and had kind of a weak taste that definitely wasn’t appealing.  I would not recommend this one.

The “oogave Watermelon Cream” went over better, and Julie actually liked this one.  Normally Julie doesn’t like any of the weird sodas that I pick out for us to try, but she didn’t mind this one.  It was definitely not my favorite, as it was very pink (girly), and didn’t taste all that great.

The “Kutztown Red Cream Soda” was pretty standard red cream soda.  It wasn’t disappointing, but it didn’t really stand out as above average at all.

Overall, you can’t go wrong with the Fentiman’s, and the Kutztown one wasn’t bad either, but I would personally avoid the other two.