Restaurants Offer Tantalizing Variety of Cuisines
Published Oct 07, 2008
Water Street Seafood Co. has been serving lobster and other tantalizing dishes for a quarter century.
When in Corpus Christi, consider trying the fried shrimp topped with Creole tartar sauce at Water Street Seafood Co.
“We offer a number of Gulf Coast-oriented dishes that incorporate the flavors of Texas, Mexico and Louisiana – all in one concept,” says owner Brad Lomax. “We have been in the dining business for 25 years and focus on the very best seafood. Water Street Seafood Co. is just blocks from the downtown docks in Corpus Christi, so our fish is always the absolute freshest and never frozen. In fact, we cut every piece on site just before serving it to our customers.”
Menu highlights include grilled mahi-mahi, mesquite salmon, sautéed tilapia and wasabi tuna.
Besides Water Street Seafood, Lomax owns the nearby Water Street Oyster Bar that features dishes such as yellowfin tuna, crawfish etouffee, grilled swordfish and blackened flounder.
“I am also the owner of The Executive Surf Club and Agua Java, with all four eateries on the 300 block of Water Street,” he says. “Half of all our business is tourist-related, so I strive to give every customer a pleasant feel of Coastal Bend in each meal we serve. I realize that we are only as good as our last meal – and my entire staff believes that as well.”
Dallas Cowboys Connections
Another locally owned dining hotspot in the Coastal Bend region is Joe Cotten’s Barbecue in Robstown. The restaurant features four kinds of mesquite-cooked meat, and meals have been enjoyed by Presidents Lyndon Johnson, George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush as well as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.
There’s also a Cowboys connection to Hu-Dat restaurants in Fulton, Ingleside and Corpus Christi (two locations), which serve Vietnamese dishes including crab rangoon, sesame chicken, marinated beef with honey sauce and spring rolls.
The highly acclaimed eateries are owned by Ho and Tam Nguyen and named for their two sons, Hung and Dat, with Dat being a former linebacker for the Cowboys.
Serving Firehouse Portions
Meanwhile, Firehouse Grill & Bake Shop in Corpus Christi is owned by a former firefighter, J.D. Johnson. Co-owners include his son, J.D. Johnson III, who is still a firefighter.
“We provide customers with portions worthy of firehouse eating, with seasoned, home-cooked meals such as chicken-fried steaks, enchiladas, meatloaf with brown gravy, hand-breaded catfish, tortilla soup, yeast rolls and things like that,” says J.D. Johnson III. “We opened in early 2008 and already have a following, with many people stopping in for more than one meal every day.”
The bakery part of the business features pecan pie, lemon meringue pie, peach cobbler, banana pudding and cinnamon rolls. Johnson says these desserts are always a perfect way to top off an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet on weekends.
“Firehouse cooking has been a specialty for more than 100 years,” Johnson says. “Now the public can taste how well this food has always been prepared.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
Photo by Jesse Knish
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