Denny's Corporation

The Chicken Fried Steak of My Dreams at Tom's Burgers and Grill in Arlington

Weirdly, there's nothing about Tom's Burgers & Grill anywhere on the Dallas Observer's website. Perhaps that's because Tom's and its charming, chrome-covered diner are in Arlington -- a bit far outside the normal expanse of coverage for our sister paper -- but considering that we routinely cover spo ... More >>

Houston Nightclub Parking Lots: After-Hours Death Factories?

If Houston's 2012 track record is any indication, the most dangerous places in the Bayou City seem to be our roadways and nightclub parking lots. Hardly a week goes by without an argument turning into some sort of drunken shootout or brawl leaving somebody or some bodies dead on the ground. Even l ... More >>

Don't Eat That: A List of Foods to Avoid

This is my close friend Jamie from Hackney, East London, and he will eat anything you put in front of him. Whole, raw jalapenos and Thai chiles, dubious Asian convenience store sandwiches at 3 am -- whatever it is, it doesn't bother him. He once showed me a video from Thailand of him eating ... More >>

Cop Shoots Man During Denny's Altercation

An off-duty cop eating at Denny's shot a man who threatened him with a knife during an altercation, Houston police say. Officer J.C. Lopez, a six-year veteran, was with a group of family and friends when another group, including Clemente Vela, 32, got into an altercation with them, HPD says. Each g ... More >>

West Eggs

A previously barren side of town gets two tasty breakfast options.

Joseph Harrell, Waco Minister, Pleads Guilty To Selling Millions of Fake Shares in "Petro America" Investment Scam

Photo by Mandy OaklanderA member of the Ministers Alliance on his way to a meeting at Denny's, in typical Alliance uniform.​Yesterday, a Waco minister named Joseph Harrell pleaded guilty in a Missouri federal court to playing a key role in a nationwide securities scam. Harrell admitted sellin ... More >>

On the Menu: Eating Puppies at Denny's

​Easy PETA, I'm talking about Denny's pancake puppies--the somewhat revolting breakfast appetizer I ordered last Sunday. I rarely get pancakes, but something was oddly intriguing about these bite-size balls of fried dough. Maybe it was just my sixth sense of the impending National Pancake Da ... More >>

Brunch at Mia Bella: Houston's Best-Kept Secret

"Bottomless" bellinis can't be beat.​I've never been good at keeping secrets. I have a mouth like a sieve. I laugh when I try to lie. And this is no lie: Mia Bella's weekend brunch at its Main Street location is one of Houston's best-kept secrets. How did this happen? Perhaps because no one v ... More >>

"Brinner": The Best Way to End The Day

59 Diner.​When I lived in the Northeast I was very familiar with "brunch," but it wasn't until I moved to Texas that I heard of the term "brinner" (i.e., breakfast for dinner), although I was certainly acquainted with the concept. As a kid, my mom would serve us ham and scrambled eggs and toas ... More >>

An Afternoon Breakfast at Ziggy's

Veggie sausage, eggs and sweet potato hash: Breakfast at Ziggy's is a very good thing.​After a very long week, nothing makes me happier than sleeping in as long as possible and then eating a leisurely breakfast around mid-day. Unhappily, it's difficult to find breakfast past, say, noon if you ... More >>

$2.99 Grand Slams at Denny's on Black Friday

We prefer the Moons Over My Hammy​Let's say for the moment you plan on being out early on Black Friday. Let's also say your four hours of sitting in line followed by the frenzied trampling of other humans to buy the hundred-dollar laptop and three-hundred-dollar flat screen television you are ... More >>

Denny's Grand Slams $2.99 on Black Friday

Mmm...Moons Over My Hammy​There's nothing getting an early start running errands or getting some exercise followed by a good, hearty breakfast. It's the perfect start to a great day. This Friday will likely not be one of those days. Instead of errands or exercise, there will be sleep deprivati ... More >>

The Five Reasons Your Food Photos Suck

Spike55151You're doing it wrong!​From blogs to Flickr to food message boards, everyone seems to be taking photos of their food for all of us to appreciate, but it's tough to enjoy crappy photos and far too many of them suck. Take just a few minutes to search Google or Flickr for any food item ... More >>

Health Dept. Roundup

​Inspectors tracked down some fairly heavy hitters in the last week, and we here at Health Department Roundup are only too happy to pass these bad boys on to you, our discerning public. Denny's at 8199 Southwest Freeway, south of Beechnut, was among the worst offenders this week, with eight v ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Sexy Pancakes would be a terrific name for a funk band.​ Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where man cook meat with fire. This includes cooking froggie with fire, which, while delicious, look disturbingly like a bunch of little naked half-people on the grill there. Y ... More >>

The 5 Scariest Things About Denny's

boost ventilatorBasically an entire goddamn Grand Slam Breakfast between two slices of bread.​In the recent kerfluffle regarding Denny's new sandwich, the Fried Cheese Melt, we seem to have forgotten that it's far from the only reason to be afraid of the 24-hour restaurant chain. Allow us to r ... More >>

The Zillion-Calorie Cheese-Stick Sandwich

​After learning that Denny's has a new cheese-stick sandwich, I just had to try it. Yes, that's right: a cheese-stick sandwich. Four cheese sticks are smothered between two slices of American cheese, two slices of buttered toast, and then fried again. Bring it on, baby! Don't forget the marina ... More >>

Five Reasons Your Drummer Hates You

​Q: What do Ginger Baker and black coffee have in common? A: They both suck without Cream. We all have our favorite drummer jokes. That's probably the best one we have ever heard in our time, because it's actually true. Drummers don't get enough love as everyone else in a band, considering ... More >>

Five Questions to Answer Before You Decide Where to Eat (When You're Drunk)

​You've closed out your local pub, and you're a little bit lit up. Not so drunk that you're stumbling around talking to trees and vomiting on yourself, but drunk enough to be extremely impulsive. And the impulse hitting you right now: You need food. Slowly you remember that you haven't eaten s ... More >>

Robb Walsh's 100 Favorite Houston Dishes #5 Fried Chicken at Barbecue Inn

​Over the course of the next few months, I'm counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in ... More >>

Healthy Alternatives: Late Night Breakfast

​Cramming for finals and 24-Hour diners go together like butter and salt. Diners and eating healthy, not so much. So when we decided to step up the difficulty level and make this week's healthy-alternative meal center on late-night breakfast, we enlisted a little help via the Internet. Living ... More >>

Remember Pimp C's Sweet James Jones Stories?

Houston's history is dotted with albums that, fairly or un, have been swept aside. We'll examine them here. Have an album that you think nobody knows about but should? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. Pimp C Sweet James Jones Stories (Asylum, 2005) ​We're not sure where we saw it, but we once read a l ... More >>

Food Fight: Battle Pancake

This is only disturbing if you don't love astronauts and pancakes. And if you don't love astronauts and pancakes, you probably hate America.​Breakfast is truly my favorite meal of the day. So many options, so many endless permutations of eggs and bacon and cheese, so many opportunities to blat ... More >>

Top 10 Restaurants In Clear Lake

Photo by Jared Cherup​There's more to Clear Lake than just NASA, the sadly rotting Jim West mansion and that hotel where a woman mowed down her husband in the parking lot. And there's also more to the area than overly-fancy eateries like Cullen's or old mainstays like Villa Capri and the Seabr ... More >>

Health Dept. Roundup: 77064-77071

​The next stops on our zip code tour of the city are in 77064-77071, an area northwest of town near Beltway 8. At Hido Japanese Grill & Sushi (17396 Tomball Parkway), a re-inspection on March 22 found potentially hazardous foods being improperly thawed in water. Inspectors also found the pla ... More >>

Aftermath: Hour After Hour at the Sprite Step Off With Lupe Fiasco, Brooke Valentine, Letoya Luckett, Trae and Sheila Jackson Lee

Photos by Marco Torres/ See our slideshow here​ 8:20 p.m.: Somehow, without checking in as media or anything, we've found our way backstage. That was a bit too easy; like, "Make You Feel A Little Uncomfortable About The Security Level At This Event" uneasy. 8:24: Yipes. Congresswoman Sheila Jackso ... More >>

Eating Out on Thanksgiving Day? What's Open

​Not everyone in the city celebrates Thanksgiving, and that should come as no surprise given our increasingly diverse tapestry of residents (something for which Eating Our Words is thankful). And not everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving does so with a big family dinner at home. For these folk ... More >>

Highland Village Farmers Market Thanksgiving

Photo by Experience LAFree range turkeys, making their way to a roasting pan near you...​For the down-to-earth and/or most ambitious of us, Olde World Farms is offering a limited supply of free range turkeys at the Highland Village Farmers Market this Saturday. It's part of a huge push on th ... More >>

How To Make The Perfect: Grits

We're starting a weekly series on how to make the perfect [insert food here]. While none of us are experts on everything, some of us are pretty darn close on at least a couple of things. Stay tuned each week as the Eating Our Words bloggers detail how to make the perfect meatloaf, marinara sauce, fr ... More >>

The Art Guys Are Home on the Range With New DVD

​Hot on the heels of their recent marriage to a tree, The Art Guys (Jack Massing and Michael Galbreth) unveiled their new DVD last Thursday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The two-DVD set, titled Home on the Range, features video works spanning 1984 - 2008, and the evening-length performa ... More >>

This Week In Deliciousness

Ray's Franks' Freddy Krueger will haunt your dreams. But in a good way. Welcome back to the weekly round-up here at Eating Our Words, where we have gravy on tap. To start off with, Mike Giglio out-spent Robb Walsh $13 to $7, because Mike is a fancy man of top-shelf tastes. He seemed impressed b ... More >>

50-cent Breakfast: Spicy Hog's Head Cheese

I heard the lines were pretty long outside of Denny's this morning. This is the day that all Denny's locations are serving a free Grand Slam breakfast. I like eggs and pancakes and all, but I started wondering if Denny's food was really worth waiting in line for. Then I remembered that I bought a ... More >>

Slam One Down For Free

Are you hungry for breakfast?  Are you poor (or at least cheap)?  Good news! Just in time for the recession, all Denny's restaurants across the nation are offering their Grand Slam breakfast for free tomorrow only from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  That's two pancakes, two eggs, t ... More >>

$7 at Huddle House

Where: Huddle House, 8619 Richmond off Dunvale, 713-785-0003 What $7 gets you: A chicken fried steak with hash browns, two eggs, buttered toast and jelly. It'll also get you (with change in most cases) the Patty Melt, Philly Cheese Steak, Huddle Burger, most of the rest of their sandwiches, and th ... More >>

Eagles of Death Metal

Denny's Adopts Rock Bands

The diner chain now serves up a little rock on the side

If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On

$13 at Mama’s Café on Westheimer

Fore for Four

Hit the links for a good cause

Mad About It

Costner and Allen are the upside of The Upside of Anger

Tail Wagon

Help E! live up to its exclamation point

Rock of Ages

Mayor of the Sunset Strip presides over pop

True Grits

Speaking off the toque: Tom Williams

The Feminine Mystique

Theater LaB's two-woman cast wrings all the humor and pathos from the feminist hit The Kathy & Mo Show

Live Free and Die

Smokers' rights activist Dave Pickrell thinks his freedom is being stubbed out cigarette by cigarette. He's fighting to stop that, coughing all the way.

News of the Weird

Dish

Playing Dumb

Atticus Finch are smarter -- and hungrier -- than they sound

Early Mex

Harmonic Convergence

Vegetarian Thai cooking finds a happy om at the Maharishi's pacifying Heaven on Earth