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Panini Al Tonno
Get lucky at the Boom Boom Room
By Sarah Gajkowski-Hill
The very name, “Boom Boom Room” might conjure up naughty thoughts and while it fits perfectly in with the February Love issue, it is guilty only of decadent, lusty cuisine and luxe décor. Seriously—you can take your father there. I did. On the other hand, it is a perfect date spot—very romantic and quiet on week nights and especially hip on the weekends. Friday and Saturday evenings, around 9:30 until around two in the morning, one of the owners, former local rockabilly band member Walter Shannen, starts playing blues standards on the piano. The wines are uncorked at will, and the quiet details of the decorating start to become ever more evident.
The details are what make this small, non-intrusive bar special, and upon hearing the labor of love that owner Jackie Harris went through to turn a “North Heights” cantina into a gem of a wine bar, that is definitely on par with higher end venues such as Glass Wall and Zimm’s in Montrose, is a testament to how many personal effects went into the building. It should not go without noting that Jackie is a visual artist and the first “art car” creator—it’s known as the “fruit car” for you art car aficionados. She is one of the reasons people move or at least drift to the Heights every weekend from all over the suburbs—it’s a place where artists thrive, bands play, and the people are diverse and ultimately accepting. The eclectic feel brings gay cliental, eighty year old couples arm in arm, and the underage latte crowd all storming the hot pink walls of Boom at any given hour--they even serve breakfast panini. Where the walls show they are bright fuschia and lavendar, but most of the room is cloaked in ceiling to floor velvety navy curtains. Jackie tells of a time when she found an antique bar and bought it impulsively. It now comprises half the entire bar, as the other half was commissioned to look exactly like the former. Every table boasts fresh cut flowers. The orange and gold women’s room has gold tiled ceilings and the erratic combination of high-back antique chairs, plush couches and hip Ikea-inspired card tables make the atmosphere both funky and unpretentious. The juxtaposition of fancy chandeliers and brightly colored Chinese lanterns is like an inside joke—which side of the room do you belong on? I chose the lanterns and a distressed leather couch.
Harris takes credit for the extensive and ever-more exclusive wine list. She lived for four years in Monaco and Provence, France and turned from a Corona-drinking Texas girl into a highly educated wine connoisseur. “You can drink champagne with every meal in France,” she confided to me, while pointing out the popular champagne cocktails Boom Boom serves. “Here we think it’s for saving for special occasions but in France you can drink it daily, so you’ve got to make it interesting.” Mimosas are among the most popular of this type of drink but what garnered my interest was a lemon mint basil concoction and a specialty called a pomegranate royale. I was overwhelmed looking at the around one hundred and eighty varieties of wines, however, and my father and I finally decided on a mid-priced dark Sicilian wine, a 2001 Girgenti nero d’avola, to start off with. It was robust and lusty—it was fitting it should be the first wine we sampled because our meal was about to begin. Enter: Kat Mims, chef and manager whose carte blanche á la Harris has given rise to a menu as diverse as Houston is culturally. The decadence and lusciousness of the menu is all hers. Kat brought us a Mediterranean plate to go with our wine. The spreads were comprised of hummus, an olive tampenade and a muhammara, made with both sweet and hot red peppers, pomegranate molasses and walnuts. Stuffed grapes leaves and warm pita finished off the appetizer. We were just getting started. It’s true that the food came cradled in beautiful tissue paper—you can tell presentation is important to Mims--but the real gift is her range and the excitement you can tell she feels in preparing exotic fare. When I asked what prompted some of the panini made with seemingly little Italian influence, she told me her main inspirations are the different ethnic markets in Houston. For instance, she will go to the Hong Kong or the Phoenician market to scour for new ingredients, she will replicate her favorite Latin, Vietnamese and Greek dishes. Her menu items are largely set but she rotates some of the panini as she experiments. Our treat the day we arrived was the panini al tonno of teriyaki marinated, pan seared Ahi Tuna with Asian slaw and a hint of wasabi sauce. On the crisp ciabatta bread, it had the potential of a world-class clash, but instead it was glorious. Beside it was a little take-out carton filled with Asian potato salad, a mix of red potatoes, green beans, sour cream and dill which made the perfect side.
We opened a fruity white wine, a Terra Blanca Sauvignon Blanc, which perfectly complimented the cool ingredients and offset the slight sting of the wasabi. Then came the ‘panini latini, their most popular menu item: a beef flank steak with carmelized onions, green chiles, and spicy pepper jack cheese, once again toasted to perfection on the ciabatta bread. Another wine was sampled, and generously poured I must add—a pinot noir that was just dry enough to take the bite out of the surprisingly strong chiles. As we tried the familiar and popular panini caprese, the mozzarella, basil and tomato seemed almost minimalist in comparison, but no less delicious. To think that’s what the average panini consists of—in a kitchen that is not run by Mims.
There were Boom Boom nuts (you’ll have to find out about these gourmet Asian nuts for yourself) and splits of champagne opened for the table. As Harris explained, the splits allow one to drink high quality champagne without having to go to the expense of opening an entire bottle. My father, a cook who has done his fair share of dabbling in Mandarin Chinese cooking, was discussing with Mims the various schools of dumpling folding and I took inventory of the prices. The wines by the glass ranged from about six dollars to seventeen. The bottles ranged from twenty to about sixty with several choices that cost considerably more. The sandwiches, if you can really call gourmet recipes “sandwiches” simply by virtue of the presence of bread, were very reasonable. I thought we had just about stuffed ourselves with enough rich food and wine to make our exit when Kat asked me if I had heard about the pleasure cakes. “Pleasure cakes?” I asked, my eyes suddenly shining. I have heard legend of the New York Magnolia bakery cupcakes, and have often craved a foodstuff I had never even laid eyes on, but the pleasure cakes of Kat Mims were the most intricate and beautiful creations I had ever seen. I felt like Marie Antoinette carefully lifting the marzipan from the homemade cupcakes—strawberry cake with whipped raspberry icing, lemon with a topping made with a drop of pure oil of lime, an impulse buy that most definitely worked out for the esteemed chef, and a divine chocolate delicacy with a ganache and butter cream icing, a chocolate twig stuck proudly in the center. Apparently people from all over, since their opening in June, have made it to the bar for the pleasure cakes although it is speculated that most are not even aware that other menu items exist. I was in heaven. If you happened through the doors this month, I believe you may just come to love Boom Boom, too.
