Hugo's Restaurant and Tequila Bar Introducing Tex-Bra-LA-Comfort Mex

Culinary fusion needn't stop with two cultures -- if you're creative enough, you can add layer upon layer, until your taste buds are forced to quit trying to figure it out, and just sit back and enjoy the dish/Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Going all kinds of crazy on Tex Mex: Hugo's Restaurant and Tequila Bar.

Just opened in the naturally lit base of the Cole apartments on Lamar, Hugo's fuses traditional Tex-Mex with the Cajun/southern comfort roots of its head chef (formerly of Gumbo's), and the South American flair of its Brazilian owner, who's adorned the walls with a large cyan mural of the resto's namesake -- an agave plant-licking pet iguana she had to get rid of because of its love for margaritas (apparently Amphibians Anonymous doesn't accept reptiles).

The portions err on the side of monstrous, with meals including the "Bistec Brazilian" (top eye-round, coated w/ house chimichurri), pulled pork tamales stuffed w/ twice-cooked mashed yucca in curry coconut sauce, and "Anderson's Shrimp-N-Grits" w/ smoked Gouda, sundried tomato, spinach, bacon, shiitake mushroom cream, and jumbo blackened (in the kitchen, not the ocean) shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico.

Meanwhile, the bar aims to become ATX's premiere agave-pusher by doubling its already impressive 75 tequilas, and also slings signatures like the "Flame Thrower Martini" (jalapenos, lime juice, Patron Orange, Herradura Silver, OJ), the Stoli Vanil/Patron XO "Colombian Coffee Martini", and the rum, Kahlua, dark creme de cacao & vanilla ice cream "Bushwacker" -- a.k.a., the "Not John Kerry".

"What You Should've Saved Room For", i.e. desserts, run from Bacon S'Mores to the cheesecake & Belgian white chocolate "Tres Chocolate Thunder" -- if you're seeing three Darryl Dawkinses, you're in a dream so magnificent, not even that chick from 3rd Rock from the Sun Juno could build it.