The Rest of the Best

3. Sushi Jin

When it first opened, Sushi Jin helped raise the bar for Houston's raw-fish lovers. Flown in straight from Japan, the mouthwatering pieces of salmon, tuna and yellow tail are sure to impress even the snobbiest connoisseurs. Wanna walk on the wild side? Jellyfish, sea cucumber and other exotics are hidden away in a secret stash — all you have to do is ask and prove you're no novice. Private karaoke rooms allow diners to sing and dance, or you can just relax in one of the booths and enjoy the restaurant's simple, elegant decor.

dave77459

Why, hello there, childhood.

dave77459

Even if we do run out of Pumpkin Spice latte in Houston, you can always make a sad simulation with a Pumpkin Spice-flavored Via packet.

Related Content

• Pho to Ramen, Bulgogi to Bo 7 Mon
  January 3, 2013
• Top 10 Restaurants in the East End
  October 30, 2012
• Top 10 Restaurants in Downtown Houston
  May 16, 2013
• The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 10 Sushi
  October 11, 2012
• Pop-Ups Are Back: Will They Continue to Predict Houston's Culinary Future?
  April 22, 2013

More About

• Katharine Shilcutt
• Kata Robata
• Velveeta Cheese
• Sushi
• Japanese Food and Cooking

2. Uchi

James Beard Award-winning Austin chef Tyson Cole's ultramodern Japanese import, Uchi, occupies the old building that housed Houston classic Felix Mexican Restaurant for half a century — and the young restaurant is already just as popular thanks to chef de cuisine Kaz Edwards and his team, who run Uchi like a well-oiled machine. You'll have to make reservations for this dinner-only spot if you want to sit in the steely-chic dining room, but walk-ins can usually be accommodated at the surprisingly cozy bar. A spot-on sake list (as well as beer and wine) accompanies a menu of "hot" and "cold" "tastings" along with more traditional sushi, sashimi and hand rolls. Happy hour is every weekday and offers some of Uchi's favorites — machi cure with smoked yellowtail, for example, and the skewers of pork belly called bacon sen — for a drastically reduced price.

1. Kata Robata

It says a lot about the changing palates of Houston diners that a highly modern sushi restaurant with a strong undertone of French fusion was our choice as Best New Restaurant in 2010. But the food at Kata Robata (and the casual atmosphere that belies some of the menu prices) is truly the biggest draw of any place that's opened in the past year. Omakase platters prepared by the talented Manabu Horiuchi, formerly of Kubo's, are both playful and breathtaking at the same time — as well as quite a bargain. And that's a recurring theme at Kata Robata: fresh, flavorful, high-quality food for a lot less than you'd expect to pay, which is why it was awarded Best Sushi in the 2012 Best of Houston® issue.
_____________________

The Interwebs

The Real Debate

What's the best bread/cheese combination for a grilled cheese sandwich?

If 4chan is the Wild West of the Internet, Reddit is the PG-13 version: a cleaned-up mining town grown rich on silver that mostly keeps the riff-raff out, Tombstone-style (or at least confined to subreddits such as r/gonewild and r/spacedicks). It's where the local residents gather to discuss important topics like kittens, memes, science, puppies, politics, arbitrary arguments for the sake of arbitrariness and gross-out stories that 31-year-olds shouldn't still find amusing but do. Reddit also loves food. A lot.

Many of the stories that make it to the sacred "front page" of Reddit through its system of user (or "redditor") upvoting and downvoting are nothing more than a picture of what someone cooked for dinner that night. Occasionally, a photo spread of something like one man's summer of eating at Los Angeles food trucks will make the cut, too. Far more popular, however, are Reddit threads that not only feature food as a topic but allow discussion and/or arguments over which foodstuff in question is superior.

Recently, a Reddit thread on "the best cheese/bread combo for a grilled cheese" hit the front page and Redditors across the Internet converged to give their own suggestions for the most superior grilled cheese of all.

With one major problem.

Not once in the top 200 comments did anyone mention Velveeta. Sure, if you expand the comment thread to include all 500 comments, Velveeta gets a few paltry mentions.

"But the Velveeta processed dairy product is sooo creamy and melty. I love me some fake cheese," exhorts one redditor. To which another redditor immediately retorts: "Bleh. Just American cheese sold in block form."

Just American cheese? Sold in block form? How about the American cheese sold in block form?

It is well-established that nothing melts like Velveeta, thanks — yes — in large part to the many chemicals that keep Velveeta in its charming block form, a form which has remained unchanged since my childhood.

Thank God some other redditor further down the thread came to Velveeta's defense, or else I would have had to de-lurk after years spent in quiet contemplation of Reddit's curious nature solely to defend America's favorite cheese product:

"I always go with cheap white bread and Kraft or Velveeta American cheese. Served with a cup of Cambell's tomato soup. So nostalgic and comforting, it takes me back to my childhood! When I make a grilled cheese sandwich, I spread margarine very carefully, covering each possible surface. I use a small skillet that has a lid and spray it with a touch of PAM. Grilling it with the lid on ensures all the cheese will be thoroughly melted as the heat gets trapped in there and kind of steams it. I only like a medium grill on my bread, and I kept finding the cheese in the middle wouldn't get nice and gooey."