Fritos

More Than Just Raspas at Refresqueria Rio Verde

To assume that Refresqueria Rio Verde is simply a refresqueria would be incorrect. Although the sides of its white-and-red truck are painted with the colors and flavors of the various raspas it sells, you may miss the comparatively less emphatic "tacos" and "tortas" that look like afterthoughts. Yo ... More >>

How Do You Dress Your Dog?

So often while watching Mad Men I am completely gobsmacked by the way things used to be in the olden times. I mean, wow -- smoking while you're pregnant? Referring to pot as grass? Crazy pants. I thought had seen it all until season 6, episode four ("The Collaborators") when Don gets stoned and tel ... More >>

Beyond Chili-Cheeseburgers at The Chili Shak

If Pvt. Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue had been into chili instead of shrimp, I imagine that The Chili Shak is just the sort of place he and Forrest Gump would have opened. The list of menu items that come topped with owner Bernard Montgomery's chili -- based on a secret family recipe passed down fro ... More >>

'Tis the Season for Spirits and Cheese: (Reposado) Tequila Edition

This holiday season, turn the tables on the traditional "wine and cheese" combo by pairing cheeses with your favorite hard alcohol. In this special series, I'll be investigating which fromages go best with distilled spirits as well as offering tips on how to construct a tasting without breaking the ... More >>

The Rest of the Best

Houston's top 10 pizzas.

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 10 Pizza

For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2012 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in which the winner had hefty competition from other Houston bars and restaurants. Earlier ... More >>

Don't Be a Weiner--Eat One! Celebrate National Hot Dog Month at Happy Fatz

Independence Day has passed, but your craving for hot dogs has not -- what's a weiner-lovin' foodie to do? Never fear, folks, because July is National Hot Dog Month and today's Houston Press Voice Daily Deal is good for half-off ($5 for $10) on joy-inducing Happy Fatz food. Located in the Heights, ... More >>

French Fries: Not Just For Ketchup Anymore

My older brother moved to Holland a few years ago for a girl. Though they aren't together anymore, she did visit us in Houston when they were still going out. Wanting to test the stereotype that the Dutch love to put mayo all over their fries, I took her to Whataburger. "Agog" is the only adjectiv ... More >>

Stew on This: One Pot Meals From Around the World

Family-style dining is a universal trend in food. There are cultures whose every meal is shared, served in a communal pot with some sort of bread or grain as an accompaniment. With origins in leaner times, one-pot meals exist the world over, bringing families together in good times and in bad. G ... More >>

Pie-magination: 5 Improbable Pizza Pies

Considered from a local, regional, national and international perspective, the world is home to a great variety of pizzas. From authentic to fusion to deep dish to Sicilian-thin, the term "pizza" covers all manner of sins. I think that we owe it to ourselves, as a pizza-obsessed nation, to do bett ... More >>

100 Favorite Dishes: No. 100, Chili Cheese Mac at Jus' Mac

This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston ® issue, we're counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston's cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least ... More >>

Pena's Is Donut Heaven

Pena's in Pearland gives Shipley's a run for its money.

Go Gourmet This 420 Day: Houston's Best Stoner Snacks

Today is 420 Day, the day known fondly to stoners everywhere as a kind of unofficial National Marijuana Appreciation Day. It's a holiday that's been around for more than 40 years -- you're not as hip or cool as your parents were, kids; they started this shit in 1971 -- and the evolution of the holid ... More >>

Odd Pair: What Wine to Serve with Frito Pie?

There is perhaps no dish that inspires connoisseurship among Texans as much as Frito Pie. Shrouded in mystique and lore, this mighty staple of rigorously authentic Texas gastronomy, speaks to the citizens of our state like no other in our culinary canon. By combining indigenous ingredients and form ... More >>

Frito Pies (or Not) Across America

I suffer under no delusions that Frito pies -- whether Texan in origin or not -- are as popular outside of Texas/Oklahoma/New Mexico as they are in this Frito tied-triangle. I understand that Frito pies are to our region as lutefisk suppers are to Minnesota or lobster rolls are to Maine. However, I ... More >>

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 5 Macaroni & Cheese

I always brake for mac and cheese.​For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2011 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in which the winner had hefty competition from othe ... More >>

We Love Food

Our 100 favorite dishes in Houston.

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 10 Burgers

For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2011 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in which the winner had hefty competition from other Houston bars and restaurants. Houston ... More >>

Mac and More

This spot started out serving its namesake dish and nothing else. Expanding the menu was a good idea.

Keep On Truckin': Pi Pizza Truck

There's something very appropriate about the fact that Pi Pizza's truck, dubbed Pythagoras, is stationed outside Catbird's nearly every night. The back of the truck reads: "Pizza. Tattoos. Whiskey. Rock 'n' Roll." The latter three of those are found in spades inside Catbird's, the Montrose bar best ... More >>

Chiles and Chili: The Most Obvious Episode of Top Chef: Texas Yet

Above is is how I imagine the initial planning meetings for Top Chef: Texas went. I'm also imagining future episodes where the contestants will be forced to shoot their own horses and grill them over a fire of cactus paddles. Let's go, Top Chef: Texas! DO THIS SHIT RIGHT. Until then, we'll have to ... More >>

The Frito Pie Is Not from Texas: Commence Pearl-Clutching...Now

Jalapeños are a popular Frito pie topping in Texas...if you're not a weenie.​There I was in Half-Price Books this weekend, poring over the alarmingly titled 500 Things To Eat Before It's Too Late (fearmongering listicles: they're not just for food blogs), when I saw it: a section on our belov ... More >>

The Real World

With expectations sky-high, El Real Tex-Mex Cafe struggles for glory.

Odd Pair: Turkey Chili, Fritos, French's, and Demi-Sec Vouvray

​Labor Day weekend found us in Orange, Texas, visiting with Tracie P's parents and family. Following our nephew Brady's football game, Mrs. B -- my mother-in-law -- had a lot of hungry mouths to feed on a rainy East Texas evening, including her three grandchildren, a six-months pregnant daught ... More >>

Odd Pair: What Wine Do You Serve with Doritos?

​When asked what factors had shaped his palate and his wine collection when he first began collecting fine wine, rockstar (literally, not just figuratively) and winemaker Maynard James Keenan answered: "Mountain Dew and Doritos. Like most American kids, that's what I grew up on." This was a fe ... More >>

Off-the-Menu at El Real: The El Real Burger

​Let me start by saying that I haven't eaten a Frito tortilla chip in about 15 years, so when I went out to eat and review the off-the-menu El Real Burger, I was a little skeptical. How delicious could it be, if it featured something I stopped eating in college? The answer is: pretty effing de ... More >>

Brew Blog: Ranger Creek La Bestia Aimable

Ranger Creek La Bestia Aimable: Smells like dogs - In a good way!​When I was in sixth grade, my family adopted a dog. Well, "adopted" might be a bit of a stretch. "Abducted" might be more appropriate. He'd been wandering around the neighborhood for a while, pretty clearly a dump-and-run, and I ... More >>

SXSW Eats: Freddie's on 1st

Photos by Katharine ShilcuttNo. Just...no.​Last year, I wrote an entire series of posts on places to get great grub while you're slumming in Austin at SXSW. Those were: Polvos (2004 S. 1st Street) Torchy's Tacos (1311 S. 1st Street) Moonshine (303 Red River) Mozart's (3825 Lake Austin Bl ... More >>

Top 5 Stinkers

Just don't get too close.​Maybe you're one of those people known for having offensive breath. Along with coffee, garlic, onions and tuna fish, these five foods may just be the culprits. 5. Chili Cheese Fritos How's a breath that smells like the armpits of a thousand construction workers s ... More >>

Shiftwork Bites: Yankee Chili

​This just might prove to be my last Shiftwork Bites column. Not because I'm going to stop cooking at work, but because I might be forced to stop writing about food in Texas, or living in it, for that matter. You see, I'm kind of a Yankee. Let that one sink in. Okay. Are you guys (note the ab ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Wait a minute, where the hell are the Fritos?​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where procrastination is (note to self: think of some clever definition and insert it here later). We started the week off with one of our favorite things: a recounting of time spent jud ... More >>

Comfort Food at Cream Burger

​"I've had a terrible day," my friend grumbled. "Terrible! I need meat." "Burger or steak?" I asked. "Burger," she quickly replied, a scowl still on her face. "Definitely burger." And so we were off to Cream Burger (3481 Elgin). The little burger shack in the Third Ward, just on the edge of ... More >>

Top 10 Restaurants in Galveston

​I don't know if it's the hot weather or the recent atrocity befalling the Gulf of Mexico or what, but lately I've found myself taking any and every excuse to make the trek down I-45 to visit our island neighbor to the south. Now, I'm not claiming to be a local who knows every great little und ... More >>

Strange Snacks

​If you were ever a fan of Sex and the City, you may recall the episode from season four in which the women recount their "secret single behavior" -- the things each of them did when their boyfriends, lovers or husbands weren't around. Carrie admitted that her "SSS" was standing around in the ... More >>

Recipe: Black-Eyed Pea Dip

Photo by Mike Licht​Today, Becky Means shared her recipe for classic black-eyed peas on Eating Our Words. Here's our favorite non-traditional black-eyed pea recipe, a crowd pleaser for sure. Purists know that the traditional New Year's Day meal also features collard greens, stewed tomatoes, ... More >>

Creekside Burgers and Beer

This Shady Acres cafe is a great place to go for beer and burgers, but a challenging place to eat outside.

The Wheel World

Commenters get angry on both sides of the road over "Ghost Riders."

New Burgers at Hubcap Grill

Photos by J.C. ReidRicky CraigIn a previous post about taco burgers, I mentioned I had struck up a conversation with Ricky Craig, owner of Hubcap Grill, and offered my services as a taste-tester for any new burgers he might be working on. This week I got the call. Craig invited me and several other ... More >>

Food Fight: Battle Frito Pie

In theory, Frito pie should be a relatively difficult thing to screw up. It's just a bag of Fritos and some chili with shredded cheese on top (and onions, if you're not one of those obnoxiously fussy eaters). But in reality, the Frito pie is greater than the sum of its parts: It's an ... More >>

The Thing About Frito Pies

Photos by J.C. ReidHaute cuisine? For people who did not grow up in Texas, and for the occasional Texan who did not spend time in public school lunch rooms or patronize the concession stands at Friday night high school football games, a Frito pie is a dish containing three ingredients: Fritos corn ... More >>

History of Texas Chili--Without Beans

Chili con carne was introduced to America by the "Chili Queens," women who served food in San Antonio's Military Plaza as early as the 1860s. Chili stands were also common in Galveston and Houston; they were the taco trucks of the 1800s. Tamales with chili was the most common order--beans were oft ... More >>

Mama’s Texas Bean Burger

Chicken-Fried Steak and Eggs at Little Hip's

Pretty Girls Make Saves

As video games go indie, Wack imagines a few likely pairings

A New Tony's Order

A Houston mainstay becomes a destination for culinary thrill-seekers

Wagyu Beef

Where to get it, how to cook it

With a Paddle

Local table-tennis players whack away

Barry Bad

Sonnenfeld's comic caper is in Big Trouble

Hot Plate

Press Picks