​Just recently, the best burger and pizza joints have shuttered, Bernie’s Burger Bus and Dolce Vita, respectively.  The best stop for kolaches, by far and away the best place for kolaches in the area, in my opinion, is still open, the Kolache Shoppe, with two locations.
 
As I try to support worthwhile local restaurants as much as I can, safely and daily, I’ve visited the Kolache Shoppe a few times, with the drive-thru at the Heights spot being especially handy.  It’s been wonderful; I’ve had a couple of the best meals from there since the shuttering of the restaurants in March.  The kolaches, both the traditional and savory, are the best of breed.  The savory ones are technically called klobasniky in the plural in Czech, at least for the pigs-in-a-blanket versions, but seemingly only the uptight writers or editors at Texas Monthly really care about that.  They are all kolaches in the common parlance here: the traditional Old World-derived fruit-or-cheese-filled pastries, those sausage-centric pigs-in-a-blanket, the nicely caloric breakfast ones often with Tex-Mex fillings along with the newer styles featuring beef brisket or boudin inside.  All the versions at the Kolache Shoppe are excellent.
 
The quality begins with the dough, just slightly sweet, airy, fresh-tasting, and flavorful, unfailingly complementing whatever filling it surrounds.  It’s the best kolache dough I’ve encountered in memory.  And, those fillings are usually terrific, too.  Breakfast sausage, egg, pickled jalapeño and cheddar cheese; Pinkerton’s brisket, egg, cheddar cheese and pickled jalapeño; Kiolbassa brand sausage link and cheddar cheese; and strawberry and lemon cream, both of these topped with a judicious amount of sugar, are a few of the ones I’ve really enjoyed in recent weeks.
 
I’ve eaten a lot of kolaches over the years, most of them not that great or worse – mostly courtesy of The Kolache Factory, which is cheap and convenient, a once guilty pleasure, often when hungover.  There have been better ones than those around here, if not quite the Kolache Shoppe level like from Original Kolache Shoppe on Telephone Road, a long-shuttered place called Bright and Early, and ones from Underbelly and also Monica Pope at the Saturday farmers market.  Kolache eating in earnest for me began with trips to and from Austin years ago when I was in school and afterwards.  Weikel’s in La Grange became a near-must stop either way, and was long a benchmark for me.  It’s been eons since I’ve been there or nearby Hruska’s in Ellinger.  I’ll need to revisit those and probably a few others before stating definitively that the Kolache Shoppe serves the best kolaches in the state. I haven’t had any better thus far, and that includes all four places in West, Texas, the small Czech-American community north of Waco that is known for its kolaches, and Kenner’s Kolache Bakery upstate in Arlington that has a good reputation, the furthest from home I’ve had kolaches.
 
No matter where the Kolache Shoppe might eventually rank among the best kolache shops of the state in my research, it continues to make brilliant kolaches right here in Houston.
 
The Kolache Shoppe
3945 Richmond (just east of Weslayan), 77027, (713) 626-4580
1031 Heights Boulevard (entrance on Yale just south of 11th Street), 77008, (281) 846-6499
kolacheshoppe.com

​Last night was going to be the first night in the villa my family had rented overlooking Verona.  After that it was to be a week in Trieste as a home base to explore the surrounding areas, both in its region of Friuli and nearby in Croatia and Slovenia.  We did this last a couple of years ago in and near three different cities.  Parma was one of them.  We ate a lot of prosciutto there.  Prosciutto crudo, the familiar raw version served thinly sliced.
 
Parma gives its name to the famed prosciutto di Parma, which is made in the vicinity.  In the region of Trieste, the similar salted and air-cured raw ham produced nearby is prosciutto di San Daniele.  It’s just as revered as its Parma cousin, if maybe a little less known over here, as it is produced in lesser quantities.  I’ve found it is slightly sweeter in taste, but quite similar, and a similarly excellent product.  I was planning to eat a lot of it while staying in Trieste, probably Verona, too.
 
In Parma, the recommended wine to accompany prosciutto di Parma eaten as antipasto or a snack is locally produced, fizzy low-alcohol Lambrusco in the amabile, or off-dry style.  It is an excellent pairing, better than with the dry version of Lambrusco that I had drank more frequently.  In recent contact with wine producers in Friuli I queried them on what they drink with the regionally produced prosciutto di San Daniele.  A couple replied it was Friuliano, typically a dry, light- or medium-bodied white wine that is often aromatic, with notes of pears or citrus, and a bit of welcome minerality.  I quite enjoyed the Friulianos during the week I spent in the region some years ago.  I remember that it was an excellent match for the seafood we ate, and I’m sure it complemented the prosciutto quite nicely, if my memory is a bit hazy on that.  One producer recommended Pinot Grigio ramato, a unique richer style in which the grape must is in contact with the skins for about 10 hours or so.  I was looking forward to trying that, too, especially since it is tough to find here.
 
I found it interesting that wildly different wines, the slightly sweet, effervescent, light red wine and a couple richer white wines might complement the not-so-different-tasting hams.  I was looking forward to confirmation of the latter this week and next.  Though that won’t come to pass, I might have to do some prosciutto pairings at home in its place.  It won’t be as enjoyable, but good prosciutto and good wine are always fairly enjoyable wherever you are, I’ve found.

An advertising poster hanging in the only commercial prosciutto di Carpegna factory I visited a few years ago.