Houstonist Bites: Tenpin Grill and Pizza Shop (Palace Lanes)

To heck with that resolution to be thinner - we are embracing our inner grease-lover, you know, the one who firmly believes that cheese is a food group and will eat cardboard if it comes covered in cream gravy. Yes, that one, the "believer in spandex britches". So, we are back on our "burger thing" and will be telling you all about good burgers, mediocre burgers and possibly bad ones (hey, if it's gross AND gucci, we will attempt to prevent you from wasting your coin). To that end, here's the first burger scoop of the year it also happens to be a "double bonus" report. Meaning, you get to have a seriously tasty burger and some tots, rings or fries, score some ice cold beer or cocktails (there is a full bar) AND bowl a few games. It's all the makings of a near perfect evening of entertainment in one convenient building located just slightly ITL (In The Loop) at Palace Lanes.

Houstonist seriously digs us some bowling (we have our very own bowling gear - yep, we're dorks) and when you can bowl and visit with the very cool bartenders at the alley and have one of the better burgers in town complete with very crispy tater tots or dang decent rings, well. What's a Houstonist to do? Take full and complete advantage of every opportunity to hit Palace Lanes for an evening, that's what! These are not big, fat burgers - they are thinner patties, very flavorful burgers offered up on a toasted bun with cold crisp veggies and the perfect schmear of mayo and mustard. If you are crazy hungry double up on the meat or just order the tots, you get an ample amount of them and they are cooked hot to order.

We get our "usual" burger, which you may have forgotten, seeings how we have not given you any burger love lately. The bacon cheeseburger, "drag it through the garden" and an order of tots (we can't resist the lure of good tots - unless the rings are some kinda spectacular). We dump our bowling crap, go all the way down to the Tenpin, place the order and then proceed to harangue the bartender for the adult beverage of your choice. Your meal will take about five minutes to prepare, which gives you time to beverage up, put your groovy bowling shoes on, put the ball in it's place and wander back down to retrieve your fresh hot burger. The bacon is nice, not too thin and we have never been skimped on that. The veggies are nicely piled on and the burgers are juicy, but not in that wonderful "running down to your elbow" kinda way. The toasted bun really sets this burger off, nothing says burger love like a bread product slathered in a buttery substance and flapped on the grill. The cheese hits the patty on the grill and is nice and melty, not melted into submission and sliding off the meat, but gently melted so that it hugs the meat. When you retrieve your burger, the salt/pepper/ketchup/napkins are out for the taking. The tots are tops, ranking in our top 5 - but, that is a whole other post.

Bottom Line: These burgers with tots will set you back about $6-ish and you should seriously tip the nice ladies who take your order and make your tasty burger! Cold beer is well in the normal price range and the bartenders at Palace are very cool (tip them well too!). Bowling is rather self-explanatory. You should plan an evening of burgers and tomfoolery at Palace, if you have never been, period. The rest of the menu is pretty darned good, the pizza is tasty and there are some vegetarian selections (notably an absolutely fantabulous grilled cheese which happens to go very well with the above referenced tots). See the menu right HERE. We get extra pickles on the side - 'cause that's how we "roll".

Tenpin Grill and Pizza Shop
Palace Lanes
4191 Bellaire Blvd.
713.667.6554

Note: You can warm up your bowling arm with a few "12 oz. curls" at the Little Woodrow's right down the street, trust us, it'll either improve your game, or make you care less about busting a hundy on the scoreboard.