Monica Pope

James Coney Island Unveils Line of Chef-Designed Hot Dogs on June 1

James Coney Island is one of the oldest restaurants in Houston, founded in 1923 by Greek immigrant brothers James and Tom Papadakis (this explains the Greek-influenced chili which remains on the menu to this day). But although the chain is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, the food is anyt ... More >>

Ribs and Ramen Reign Supreme at the 2nd Annual Go Pig! Or Go Home! Suckling Pig Throwdown

There are pig parties, and then there is Go Pig! Or Go Home! The second annual charity throwdown event last night at Kata Robata was every pig lover's dream -- and then some -- with Houston's top chefs throwin' down everything from traditional roast suckling pig to cochinita pibil to oysters topped ... More >>

13 Houston Chefs Who Have Celebrity Doppelgangers

Check out which local chef sure looks a lot like a Spice Girl, who might be hosting a game show in his spare time, and who we think is a long-lost triplet: See also: - 12 Celebrity Chefs Who Have Cartoon Doppelgangers - 13 Celebrity Chef Doppelgangers 13. Kaz Edwards vs. Joshua Jackson We could s ... More >>

Where the Chefs Eat: Christine Ha and Alvin Schultz

This week, our Where The Chefs Eat series turns to two amateur chefs turned television reality stars: Christine Ha and Alvin Schultz. Both living in Houston and Vietnamese by descent, they each snagged a spot on the TV reality show, MasterChef. Schultz, who was featured on Season 2, is known for ... More >>

7 Formerly Jinxed Houston Restaurant Locations That Have Reversed the Curse

Late in 2009, Eating...Our Words took a look at the then-Top "jinxed locations" in Houston. The compiled addresses had such a long and storied history of failure they made the Astros look like the Yankees. Looking back at the list today, there may be hope for hometown baseball. Of the eight restau ... More >>

Where the Chefs Eat: Amalia Pferd, Sean Carroll, John Peterson

Owning a food truck/mobile cart is hard work, but at the end of the day, you still gotta eat. For this week's Where the Chefs Eat series, we're checking in to see where some of Houston's on-the-go chef-proprietors get their grub on. Let's see where Amelia Pferd of Good Dog Hot Dogs, Sean Carroll o ... More >>

Today's Voice Daily Deal: $24 of Food for $12 at Beaver's

The famous Chick-on-Chick sandwich may no longer be on the menu at Monica Pope's playful icehouse, Beaver's, but plenty of other great dishes are -- and today, you can get that food for a bargain price. Those dishes includes our own favorites like: 2011 Best of Houston® Best Veggie Burger 2010 ... More >>

Before You Mow Your Lawn, Be Sure and Forage Your Dinner

There are fads, there are trends, and then there are those ideas that are so clearly right and time-honored that we must take notice. Alice Waters started it on the West Coast, and Monica Pope started it on the Gulf Coast - locavorism, sustainability and seasonality. These are ideas that served our ... More >>

Where the Chefs Eat: David Denis, Jean-Philippe Guy and Philippe Schmit

When we think of French dining in Houston, the following three chefs should assuredly come to mind: David Denis, Jean-Philippe Guy, and Philippe Schmit. David Denis has made a name for himself with his elegant Le Mistral Restaurant on the Energy Corridor, where big-name oil execs come to sample exqu ... More >>

Hope Is Not a Plan, It's an Eating House

We've been teased for days with gorgeous photography and cryptic but beautiful words. Monica Pope was up to something, and she let it out of its cage on Tuesday. Sparrow Bar Cookshop is her latest culinary invention, and in a way a personal revolution. Other than the address and the brick walls, ... More >>

Keep Cool and Caffeinated

Houston's ten best iced coffee crinks

July 2012 in Openings & Closings: t'afia Is Dead, Long Live t'afia

It's true: t'afia is closed. But only until August 14. That's when -- as chef/owner Monica Pope told us on Wednesday -- the restaurant will be reopened with a revamped concept. It's also true that our beloved Nabi is on the chopping block, as owner Ji Kang confirmed to Eater Houston. However, just ... More >>

Hot Spots for Cool Treats: Where To Get Great Gelato, Ice Cream and Snowcones in Houston

I spent the morning over at KHOU's studios this past Tuesday discussing ice cream and other cool treats with Debra Duncan on Great Day Houston (all pandering aside, a really great crew of people to work with and always a very fun time) and special guests Matt Marcus and Ryan Soroka from the Eatsie B ... More >>

OIMBY Returns After a Two-Year Break

Outstanding in the Field dinners -- meals which feature a tour of a local farm and food prepared by a master chef on the farm itself -- are famously fabulous, but also notoriously expensive. And two years ago, a few Houston food lovers decided to do something about it: start their own. Outstanding ... More >>

Chefs Chosen for 2012 Iron Fork Competition: Let the Games Begin

You may have been to our annual Menu of Menus grand tasting in the past, but this year's event will be upping its game thanks to our first ever Iron Fork competition. Curated and emceed by Houston's own celebrity chef Monica Pope, the chef throwdown will take place Iron Chef-style in front of a live ... More >>

The Key to the Kitchen: Coppa's Female Executive Chef, Brandi Key, Is No Novelty Act

November 3 was National Men Make Dinner Day, one of an increasingly nonsensical line of national holidays that are being trotted out in larger numbers every year. This particular holiday was especially perplexing to those in the food industry, where men make dinner every night. A man probably will m ... More >>

Upcoming Events: Hairy Bikers Heat Up Houston

Hairy Bikers hosts Bill Allen and Paul Patranella will be in town tonight at District Lounge.​The History Channel came to Houston recently, and the bloggers behind spicy food blog Eat More Heat were tapped to help the show Hairy Bikers with the Ultra-Hot Chile Burger Challenge that will be fea ... More >>

Upcoming Events: Monsters (and Mikkels) of Beer

Those of you already looking forward to the annual Monsters of Beer festival on November 12 now have something equally cool to look forward to: Night After Monsters at Whole Foods Montrose on Sunday, November 13. While the Monsters festival is only $35, Night After Monsters is a little more expensi ... More >>

Upcoming Events: Tequila at TQLA and Multi-Course Mystery Dinners

If you've been looking for the right opportunity to try TQLA -- which just won our rather specific, yet no less applicable, award for Best Revival of a Genre -- here's the opportunity you've been looking for: TQLA is hosting a tequila dinner with Don Julio on Wednesday, October 19, starting at 6:30 ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 3: Joe Apa of Rudz

​After chatting at Rudyard's and sampling some food and beer (see the rest of our conversation here and here), chef Joe Apa and I took an impromptu road trip to Conroe's Southern Star Brewery. Immediately, we were in awe of this grass-roots operation. It's a total craft brewery. Tall fermentin ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 2: Joe Apa of Rudz

​Take an awesome chef and put him in a pub, and you get a creative environment with a bar full of good beers. It's like giving the Eagles Mariachi instruments -- you know it's going to rock but in another environment. We had a blast chatting with him this week at Rudyard's. At several high pr ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 1: Joe Apa of Rudz

​Sitting at the bar at Rudz, I noticed that Chef Joe Apa was having one of his epic beer tastings on Valentine's Day, serving five courses paired with beer. I had never been to one of these events, which usually fall on the last Thursday of the month. The dinner started and ended with several ... More >>

Comment of the Day

​Today Katharine Shilcutt asked the editor of Food & Wine magazine why there wasn't one Houston chef on the magazine's list for The People's Best New Chef 2011. Which got commenter CL91 pondering the ways our city regularly gets passed over: I had this exact same thought reading Saveur's "100 ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Photo by Ms. PantsNothing can warm you up on a chilly Houston night quite like a nice, tall glass of anti-freeze.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we're already rigging our rooftops up with traps and buying ingredients for our famous reindeer chili. We starte ... More >>

The Night I Snuck Around Jones Hall and...Oh, Yeah...Talked to Anthony Bourdain

The Night I Snuck Around Jones Hall and...Oh, Yeah...Talked to Anthony Bourdain

Katharine ShilcuttCan you spot our mustachioed interloper? ​Fellow chef Mike Nutt, the Chef de Cuisine at Laurenzo's Grill on Washington, invited me to tag along with him and the other chefs catering the book signing following Anthony Bourdain's sold-out talk at Jones Hall, called Up Close and ... 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. And after this Monday's nearly comprehensive list of all the Houston area food blogs, we now have even more blogs to spotlight each week! Know a blog we should be paying particular atten ... More >>

Houston's Hottest Chefs: Jody Stevens

Tam Vo​Every day this week we'll be highlighting the female winners from our poll on Houston's Hottest Chefs. On Friday we'll reveal the hottest chef of all. Eating Our Words: Were you surprised to see that you were named one of Houston's hottest female chefs? Jody Stevens: Definitely! I wa ... More >>

Local Spotlight: Jolie Vue Farms

​WHAT: Farm-fresh meats, delivered right to your doorstep. That's right -- beef, pork, poultry and eggs. It's an all-organic, ecologically sound, raised-with-love virtual meat market that arrives as regular as a newborn baby once per month. Honi and Glen Boudreaux have agriculture in their b ... More >>

Houston's Hottest Chef: Voting Is Now Open

Thankfully, none of our nominees look like this.​We've carefully combed through the 100 plus comments from last week's post and compiled the top five male and top five female chefs you nominated as Houston's hottest chef. We combed through our own photo archives and -- occasionally -- the che ... More >>

Houston's Growing Garden Party

Chef Ryan Pera tends the garden at the Grove.​If food is fashionable, local food is the flashiest piece on the Paris runways. These past few years have seen the locavore movement skyrocket like mad in Houston. The city now boasts dozens of farmers' markets, and people are beginning to explore ... More >>

Table Seven

Upcoming Events

​Although it's facing stiff competition from Southern Star lately, Saint Arnold is still our favorite hometown brewery. And this weekend's Foam Raiser at the Orange Show (Saturday, October 24, from 7 to 10 p.m.) is one of many reasons why. The ticket sales for the 2nd annual Foam Ra ... More >>

Houston's Best Recipe for Success

Chef Monica Pope at MacGregor Elementary School. Photos by Carlos Meltzer There's alot of talk these days about problems and solutions. The economy, the environment, healthcare, education. But as we all know there appears to be a lot more problems than there are solutions. And alot more talk th ... More >>

Chefs Pitch In for Brennan’s Fire Victims

Thai High

Do you want your dinner "bong-hit hot" or "acid-flashback hot"?

Best Farmers' Market

Right on the Market

Monica Pope gives Midtown some European flair

Bordering on Bennigan's

Is Morgan's on Montrose just an unfortunate chain reaction?

The In-Tycer

National honors go to the chef at Aries

Bye-Bye, Bistrot?

Monica Pope contemplates her future on Montrose -- and in Houston

High-Tech Spectacle

Jennifer Steinkamp and Sharon Engelstein bring back the big and bold.

Best Bathroom

Boulevard Bistrot

Today's Horoscope

You'll meet a creative Aries who will shake up your traditional ideas

The Food Chain

Meals on Montrose

Get In Line

Bruce Molzan's Ruggles Cafe Bakery makes meals worth standing around for

43 Skiddoo

Monica Pope's bargain bistro needs more seasoning

Taste of Texas

Rancho Tejas does guy food a gal could learn to love

Paris, Texas

Montparnasse, er, Montrose Boulevard gets a civilized new hangout