Y&H doesn't typically spend months researching each and every column he writes. For reasons of personal sanity and this daily little time suck, my columns need to be researched and written at a much faster clip.

But this week's Young & Hungry, the second installment of our Stealing Home series, literally took months to bring together. But I have a good excuse: I couldn't find a place in the area that did Tex-Mex right. Let me tell you, I ate more crappy enchiladas than you can imagine — and not the good-greasy crappy ones, either, the kind in which melted Velveeta oozes from every opening of your tightly wound corn tortilla.

I almost gave up hope that I'd ever find one. I figured D.C. considered itself too refined, too sophisticated to revel in the simple joys of processed cheese and chili gravy. At one point, I shared my frustrations with my buddy, Robb Walsh, food critic and author of The Tex-Mex Cookbook. He was sympathetic.

"East Coast Tex-Mex is tough," Walsh wrote me, "these folks will slather Cheez Whiz on a philly cheese steak and wash it down with chocolate Yoo-Hoo, but god forbid you put Velveeta in their enchiladas."

"I say, 'Let them eat pizza,'" he concludes.

I was ready to kiss off the whole Tex-Mex scene here, too, until I ran across one joint in Crystal City that comes as close as you're going to find in these parts. You can read about it here.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Perhaps it's because I lived in Texas for so many years, but when I think of enchiladas, I think of the Tex-Mex variety. You know the ones: tightly rolled corn tortillas stuffed with a thick, neon-orange sludge of Velveeta, topped with a semi-spicy chili gravy, and sprinkled with shredded cheddar cheese (or more Velveeta, or both).

So disgusting. So awesome.

Now, I've had fancier versions, too. The kind made with fresh Mexican cheese or Monterey Jack or cotija cheese or, God forbid, goat cheese. I've had enchiladas stuffed with spinach, with huitlacoche, and with various kinds of trendy meats. I've enjoyed many of them, but when I want enchiladas, I usually want a good, greasy pile of Velveeta cheese and tortillas smothered in chili gravy.

The first restaurant Carrie and I visited in Mexico was a place that looked, for all intents and purposes, like a tourist trap. It's called Los Rancheros, and it's located just yards away from the water on Playa del Carmen. Like everywhere else in Mexico, there was an hombre standing out front at Los Rancheros, barking at us to come inside and check things out.  He said they have air-conditioning. We were starving and hot. So we took up his offer.

Carrie and I were the only ones in the main dining room, which was more refined than the carnival barker outside would have suggested. There were tablecloths and water glasses on the table. The waiters replaced used utensils with each course, as if we were dining at a four-star restaurant. I started to feel better about our choice.

The waiter tried to direct me toward an expensive platter of seafood, but I wasn't in the mood. Instead, I ordered the chicken and cheese enchiladas, wanting to see how they compare to those in the states, whether Tex-Mex, gourmet, or whatever.

Like the dining room, these enchiladas were on the refined side — so refined, in fact, that the cooks didn't even bother to roll the tortillas into tight cigars. They merely flipped the tortillas over once to cover the filling, as if they were crepes. My tortilla crepes were then topped with the lightest, most delicate tomato sauce I've ever had on enchiladas. Its flavor was more sweet than piquant, which surprised me for a Mexican restaurant on the Yucatan. As a final touch, the enchiladas were drizzled with crema and sprinkled with queso fresco.

The dish was utterly delicious. The tortillas were warm and fresh and bursting with corn flavor, the perfect complement to the sweet, savory fillings and toppings.

But the enchiladas weren't complete until I added a minuscule amount of the hot sauce from the small cup on our table. The stuff was deep green in color, as lush as a Yucatecan jungle — and just as hot as one. This sauce was nuclear, due to the presence of the pepper most common on the peninsula — the habanero. Yet in the proper doses, the hot sauce added just the right amount of heat — and a slight bit of fruitiness — to those mouthwatering enchiladas.

I knew right then that Carrie and I were in for a lot of good eating on this trip.

Because Y&H has developed a warm, personal relationship with Joe Englert, Mr. Fatlas, I mean Mr. Atlas, District invited me to a sneak-preview of the long, long, long-awaited H Street Country Club on Sunday night, and I have just one thing to say: You'll never get a tee time.

This place is going to have longer lines than Ben's Chili Bowl during the inauguration. Everyone will want to putt-putt their ball between the bloated legs of a D.C. parking meter-reader who's exposing just a little too much butt crack. Or across the Reflecting Pool and up the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial. Or between the decomposing bodies of several dead presidents. Or around a multi-car pileup on the Beltway. Or....oh, hell, you get the point. This is miniature golf as imagined by the Coen Brothers.

Come to think of it, some people might even visit H Street just to sample the Tex-Mex menu designed by Ann Cashion, founder of Taqueria Nacional. Well, maybe.

Despite my utter delight at the playfulness of H Street Country Club — and its willingness to tweak D.C. and its institutions, including the never-say-die Marion Barry — I still think the place is going to have issues. Congestion being one of them. I can foresee several spots on the upstairs playground where customers will be bumping into each other with regularity — or even poking plate runners in the face with their putters. I also think Englert better have a budget to fix those K Street lawyers on Hole No. 3 and those dead presidents on Hole No. 5 who are bound to take a severe beating from indoor duffers.

I relayed some of my thoughts to Englert during a phone call today. He was touched by my concern. He also dismissed them all out of hand, including the notion that anyone could destroy the statuary designed by artist Lee T. Wheeler, who apparently built his sculptures out of the same substance that the auto industry uses to make cars.

That subject put to rest — at least for Englert — I raised the issue of a certain gargoyle hovering over Wheeler's links-oriented version of the Washington National Cathedral. It resembles a certain nightlife mogul, but with devil horns protruding from his noggin.

"It's a recurring joke," Englert tells Y&H. Wheeler "puts some [demonic] caricature of me in all the bars I own."

So there you have it. It seems that you can now play the Joe Englert version of Where's Waldo? in every watering hole that the mogul owns. Let's begin compiling the list of demonic Englerts now, starting with this one:

More pics from H Street Country Club: