Dining Out
One Man Shows
Two owner-chefs singlehandedly put out some of the best food around.
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Robert Tapley's story begins in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where his father has been a violinist with the Boston Symphony for 55 years. While his father fiddled, his mother collected international recipes and skills from wives of the symphony members and experimented at the family table. She used wire whisks and crepe pans to entertain little Robert, probably influencing him to ask Santa for a Mouli grater along with his cap pistol when he was a toddler. At eleven he cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner single-handedly. Robert continued to cook into his marriage, his hitch in the Air Force at Wichita Falls and his entry into Texas A&M in 1955 as a student in animal husbandry. The outlook for an animal husband without an animal or a place to put one looked pretty bleak, so Robert eased into physics and garnered a B.S., a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, an M.S. and three children.
With no monies available for further study and an incidental talent for target archery, he got a job as a research scientist for the Bear Archery Company where he rose to plant manager after labor struggles and lots of bow designs. Somehow, archery was not his quiver, so he was easily lured back to A&M to teach. His philosophy of physical science course was the first philosophy course offered on campus. Unfortunately, he was caught in the publish-or-perish hassle of the early 1960's and school emphasis seemed to be on the printed word instead of the seated student. Right in the middle of his investigation into molecular spectroscopy (freezing matrix on windows at liquid helum temperatures). Robert Tapley resigned from not teaching.
Faced with the mundane problem or earning a living, he capitalized on his talent and ability to cook. With 20 years of dinner parties under his belt, he made the day of a real estate agent by buying the albatross of Bryan, the dying Texan Drive-In.
Robert's wife Diana hopped cars for two weeks before she got fed up and curb service came to a screeching halt. For the next few months they kept the same short order menu, striving to upgrade the quality or what was offered even in the face of "soup, salad, two vegetables, potatoes, choice of six meats—including, steak—and dessert for $1.00" (tip not included but usually excluded). A typical slow day during this period saw the Tapleys slinging gourmet hash from 11 A.M. to midnight for a gross of $32.
Perseverance brought customers though not necessarily profit. But even with a dedicated quarter-pound-of-ground-round following, the sly Tapley's were able to begin The Texan's metamorphosis by scratching a lettuce with glob of mayonnaise here and adding a heart of palm there. Eventually, backed by a growing coterie, the Tapleys confined their efforts to dinner hours and their own menu, an eight-page parchment folder describing an international array of dishes that are the result of two generations of cooking interest.
Each entree on the menu has three prices: a la carte; supper, which includes a light appetizer and salad of your choice; and dinner, with more substantial offerings in the appetizer and salad categories. Appetizers range from a house pate to a taco de picadillo—a soft tortilla artistically and scrumptiously laden with onion, cheese (no Velveeta), picadillo and sliced jalapenos. French onion soup is baked to order in a ceramic ramikin and arrives with a magnificently crusty cheese topping. Chinese curried chicken, beef teriaki (tiny slices of marinated beef you cook on a miniature hibachi called a konro), escargot, clams, enormous fresh Louisiana oysters and blue crab claws are also included to whet your appetite.
The salad offering is perhaps the most inventive group on the menu. Thirteen salads are described, most having their own integral dressings. (You'll miss the waiter plopping a dollop of French, thousand island or blue cheese onto the iceberg shavings.) Choose from a preserved fruit with avocado dressing, polynesian pepper salad and avocado salad with garlic French dressing. Several special salads are made only for two and make it worth bringing a friend. The Silver Lining consists of lettuces, green onions and avocado slices dressed with Vietnamese Nuoc Mam sauce and roasted sesame seeds that are ground in a mortar right before your astonished eyes. Kubla Kahn, a variation of a Caesar salad, puts Swiss cheese and shaved bonito where the Parmesian and anchovies once reigned. A regulation Caesar salad is also beautifully executed for the traditionalists.
Selecting an entree is a herculean matter of eliminating 31 of the 32 tantalizing choices. Surprisingly for Bryan, The Texan has live lobsters and chef Tapley boils them, broils them, steams them, teams them (with steak), or turns them out exotically as lobster Cantonese in a sauce of black beans and pork. Beef is chosen, cut and cooked meticulously by—you guessed it—the chef himself. We haven't found better meat anywhere. Along with sirloin, filet mignon and rib eye, Tapley offers a cleaver innovation, a top butt anterior cut which comes off the forward end of the top sirloin butt. This cut is particularly flavorful. Dishes less common in Bryan (New York or Paris for that matter) than steak include ho yow bok opp (which translates as Chinese squab with oyster sauce), tempura (served with an authentic sauce made from dashi kombu and katsuobushi—dried kelp and shaved bonito to us), chicken saute Marengo, quail with white grapes, and chicken cacciatore (served over chi-chi beans) to mention a few.
Service is impeccable. Young men, most of them Aggies, serve you smoothly, graciously and knowledgeably. Mrs. Tapley acts as hostess and oversees the dining room. Back in the kitchen, Robert Tapley, looking like James Coburn in boots, string tie and apron, personally cooks every entree. You won't see him punching the cash register or chatting with customers. He cloisters himself in the galley where he keeps a steady hand on the culinary tiller. Not unlike the mystic who disciplines himself in order to attain an ideal level of existence, Tapley directs his energies to producing the most perfect meals possible. He goes to great lengths to assemble the finest ingredients available. In fact he shops for salad makings and vegetables at the supermarket, having found that bulk produce is often less than prime; and he sends back meat that isn't up to his standards. (The only thing he hasn't successfully come to grips with, in our opinion, is the bread.)
The chef-owner combination is the crucial ingredient in the success of both The Texan and The Media. Tapley and Foulard are as different as soup and nuts—one the philosopher, the other the artist. Yet, to both cooking is away of life as well as a livelihood. Dining at either The Texan or Foulard's Media is an experience well worth the trip.
Foulard's The Media
3901 Westheimer, Houston
713-622-7891
Luncheon: Monday- Friday, 11:30 A.M.-2 P.M.
Dinner: Monday-Saturday, beginning at 6 P.M.
All major credit cards except Carte Blanche.
Reservations recommended.
The Texan
3204 South College Avenue, Bryan
713-822-3558
Dinner: Monday-Saturday, 5 P.M.-Midnight
All major credit cards.
Reservations recommended.
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