Monica Pope

The Second Annual Go Pig! Or Go Home! Throwdown is Coming This April

"Go pig! Or go home!" That is the gauntlet that has been thrown, and the challenge, the question, the machismo duel that will pit 23 of Houston's most prominent chefs in a challenge to create Houston's most supreme incarnation of a suckling pig. The second annual event is scheduled for Sunday, Apr ... More >>

Menu of Menus 2013: Ticket Presale Begins Today

Anyone who went to Best Bites at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo this past Sunday night can attest to how much fun these grand tasting event extravaganzas can be. Our very own tasting night is coming up on April 9 at 7 p.m., and plans to be bigger and better than ever. Last year was our 10th ann ... More >>

5 Houston Chefs We Want to See on Chopped

Chopped has to be one of the best culinary competition shows on TV, today. It's filled with excitement as contestants from all over the country open up a basket full of mystery ingredients that you (and probably the competitors) would never put together in a dish. The four selected chefs for each e ... More >>

Health Department Roundup: Sparrow, the breakfast klub, Cafe Japon and More

The city doesn't mess around when it comes to eggs. Despite getting hit with just three violations, an inspector cited Sparrow Bar Cookshop (3701 Travis, listed on the Health Department website as Boulevard Bistro - t'afia) after finding an employee not wearing effective hair restraint (corrected ... More >>

Shining Some Light on Sparrow Bar Kitchen

While I was quick to name Sparrow Bar Cookshop -- the revamped restaurant from chef Monica Pope and the subject of this week's cafe review -- as the No. 1 restaurant in Midtown a few weeks ago, it was not without some reservations. Namely, Sparrow leaves its customers in the dark too often -- bot ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness: Hatch Chiles, Booze and That One Song

Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating...Our Words, where we're working hard every day coming up with innovative ways to beat scurvy and passing the drunkenness on to you. Don't thank us; booze-infused fruit is its own reward. We started the week off right by reaching number one in our T ... More >>

A Date with a Pig and Much More at Monica Pope's Sparrow Bar Cookshop

Chef's Monica Pope's new concept to replace the famed t'afia is called Sparrow Bar Cookshop. She chose the word because it resembles the Latin word for "hope" -- "sperare," fitting -- not only because she is working on a memoir entitled Eating Hope, but also because hope is truly one of the main t ... More >>

Openings & Closings: t'afia Becomes Sparrow Bar & Cookshop and The Broken Spoke Breaks Down

After being closed for only two short weeks, Monica Pope's t'afia has already been transformed and reopened as Sparrow Bar & Cookshop. The new concept opened its doors this past Tuesday, August 14, with what's being described as "a free-flowing and easily sharable menu." That menu is somewhat inter ... More >>

A Mouth-Watering Good Time at the Houston Press Menu of Menus®

What do you get when you cross a food sampling event with a live Iron Chef competition, musical entertainment, and an open bar? One hell of an event, otherwise known as the Houston Press Menu of Menus®. Tuesday night, the Houston Press, in conjunction with Stella Artois and Whole Foods, put on the ... More >>

Here's a List of All the Restaurants You'll Get to Taste at Menu of Menus 2012

In my years of covering and attending our yearly Menu of Menus event, I've never been quite as excited for the grand tasting as I am this year. Why? In addition to the first annual Iron Fork competition -- which pits two of Houston's best young chefs against each other, Iron Chef-style, while chef ... More >>

Win Free Tickets to the 2012 Menu of Menus and Iron Fork Competition

This year's Menu of Menus will take place on April 17 at Silver Street Studios. In addition to featuring 50 of the city's best restaurants in one place, Menu of Menus will offer an exciting new component this year: the Iron Fork competition, our own little take on Iron Chef. The Iron Fork competiti ... More >>

Upcoming Events: Iron Forks, Mudbugs and Beer

Big news first: Our 10th annual 2012 Menu of Menus event is coming up on April 17 from 7 to 10 p.m., and in celebration of its first decade, it'll be like no other Menu of Menus you've ever seen. We will have a line-up of 40 restaurants sampling their best dishes -- including favorites like Radical ... More >>

Half-Off at t'afia: Start Your Holiday Shopping Now

​Do you have friends or family who've never managed to eat at t'afia? Despite chef/owner Monica Pope's well-deserved stint on Top Chef: Masters And the fact that the restaurant helped start the local food movement here in Houston? And despite the fact that it's still one of the city's best res ... More >>

Openings & Closings: Flying Saucers and Farmers Markets

H-E-B's Montrose Market will be open in less than a week.​In big grocery news this week, Trader Joe's has set its sights on The Woodlands as its first Houston-area store, Phoenicia has finally opened downtown and H-E-B's Montrose Market is close to opening at 1701 West Alabama. Stay tuned next ... More >>

Upcoming Events: A Week Full of Beer

Read on for our picks of the best beer dinners next week.​In case you hadn't heard, it's Houston Beer Week, y'all. The week-long celebration of craft beer and local breweries kicks off tonight with a kick-off happy hour at Ziggy's Downtown, from 5 to 7 p.m. The restaurant will be offering $2 ... More >>

Yoga Fuel: Green Plum Kitchen Protein Trio

​First let me say YES, I realize this dish is 99.9 percent brown. The Protein Trio from Monica Pope's Green Plum Kitchen that I picked up at the Urban Harvest City Hall Farmers Market (Wednesdays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.) might be a tad monochromatic, but it's healthy, light and flavorful, which makes ... More >>

Upcoming Events

​Taking place on Monday will be the long-awaited Chefs Under Fire competition, in which five area chefs compete for a spot in the state-wide Chefs Under Fire Finals to be held in Austin on October 25. So far, the chefs from Dallas-Ft. Worth and the Austin-San Antonio region have already been c ... More >>

Meals on Reels: Food, Inc.

Chef Monica Pope serves up a heaping helping of truth

Keeping Cool with Green Wine

​There are three qualifications for drinking in the Houston heat: the beverage in question 1) must be cold 2) must be light 3) must be refreshing. The one wine that meets all three criteria with flying colors is neither white, rosé or red. It's green. Known "officially" as vinho verde, whic ... More >>

Riddle Me This

​This is a tough one ya'll...What has: Ego overload; Awkward, obvious dubbed-over video (at times); Shameless product placements of Toyotas, Whole Foods and now bands like The Bravery; Ridiculous food challenges: using gas station ingredients to cook a gourmet meal; An annoying yet addic ... More >>

Sampler Plate: This Week In Food Blogs

Each week, we put together a sampler plate of the most interesting links from both local and national food blogs. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below. Confessions of a Gluttinous Chinaman: One of two blogs that we were just turned ... More >>

Jinxed Restaurant Locations of the Decade

​Is there really such a thing as a jinxed restaurant location? Some say it is just a myth. But we beg to differ. In July, Eating Our Words featured its first list of jinxed restaurant locations. We are happy to see that some of these restaurants have beaten the curse. Feast even made it into B ... More >>

Purple Kohlrabi

​I grabbed some fresh purple kohlrabi at the Last Organic Outpost community garden last Saturday. There's lots of kohlrabi in the farmer's markets this time of year. It's a cold-weather vegetable that's related to cabbage and much beloved by Eastern Europeans (my people). Kalarabeleves is the ... More >>

Holiday Cocktails

The owners of a respected Vermont restaurant and wine bar visited T'afia last weekend to hold a holiday cocktail camp benefiting local charity Live It Big. Sommelier Deirdre Heekin talked guests through the history of many of the spirits they sampled as chef Caleb Barber prepared each drink. T ... More >>

Upcoming Events

This weekend, get outside and enjoy this beautiful weather while it lasts. The Slow Food Picnic Dinner at Discovery Green is just one way to do that. Monica Pope and Andrea Lazar of t'afia are putting on the at 6 p.m. It will feature locally grown and caught food prepared by local chefs like Ra ... More >>

Hop On Board: Houston Culinary Tours Embarking Soon

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt​Have you ever wanted to cruise around with one of your favorite chefs, picking their brains as you hit his favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the city? Your chance to do just that is coming soon. Whole Foods Market and the Houston Convention and Visitor ... More >>

A Vegan Dinner at a Meatatarium

Photos by Katharine ShilcuttAppetizers: sweet potato chips and truffled carrots, radishes and turnips​Vegans may take our cheese (and milk and meat and butter and even honey), but they may never take...our truffles. This seemed to be the rallying cry on Monday night at Beaver's Ice House as seven ... More >>

Chef Chat: Monica Pope of t'afia

Photo by Griff Smith​Arguably the most admired chef in Houston and probably the most lauded in the past decade, the ubiquitous Monica Pope runs t'afia restaurant (3701 Travis Street), hosts the Midtown Farmers Market every Saturday morning, presides at Beaver's, and teaches weekly classes at t ... More >>

A Delicious Recipe for Success

Photos by Katharine ShilcuttGracie Cavnar and Monica PopeIt was a gorgeous summer night in the gardens of a stately West University mansion, and Monica Pope was serving a most unlikely dish to the well-to-do types at the table: scrapple. A dozen enraptured guests had their first taste of the dish - ... More >>

Free Cooking Classes: Monica Pope is Plum Crazy

And I mean that in the best possible way, of course.  In addition to creating one of the more popular farmers markets in town, Monica Pope -- head chef at locavore paradise t'afia -- is now offering free cooking classes every Saturday morning at the restaurant, located at 3701 Travi ... More >>

“Cooking Where Your Food Lives: How to Use Local and Seasonal Ingredients”

Monica Pope teaches Houston how to make Bayou City-centric meals

Fundraiser for the Koonce Family

Slow Food in San Francisco

T'AFIA'S BLO-JITO

Get Lit: The New InterCourses: an aphrodisiac cookbook

BEAVER'S ALL THE KING'S HORSES

Potlikker Film Festival

Eat it, drink it, see it

Pope: The Garden Gourmet

Monica Pope

Mixing It Up

The world's best chefs have turned their attention to cocktails, with surprising results

Best New Restaurant

Best Light Rail Station

Monica Hits Midtown

Pope's new restaurant is flat-out brilliant

Teachings of the Pope

Learning to love Boulevard Bistrot

View From the Kitchen

We're Really Sorry

View From the Kitchen

Table Talk. Or: Why I love working with artists

Hot Plate

Schlotzky's Marketplace

When Nature Calls

Bar Food

Diner's Notebook

Restaurant Stew

Letters