Restaurants and Food Services

This Modern World

Buen Idea

This Modern World

Buen Idea

Anthony Bourdain on Illegal Immigrant Labor in U.S. Kitchens

Some Value: Texas Roadhouse Will Take Those Benningan’s and Steak and Ale Gift Cards

Dining by Demographic

Fleming's Prime Steakhouse serves up excellent renditions of the nation's most average food and wine preferences

Last Call at Maud's

Fleming's Prime Steakhouse serves up excellent renditions of the nation's most average food and wine preferences

Food Fight

The Landrys came to Houston with good food and good ideas. But a good family squabble let Tilman Fertitta step in and carve himself an empire.

On the Chang Gang

The Landrys came to Houston with good food and good ideas. But a good family squabble let Tilman Fertitta step in and carve himself an empire.

Capital Idea

Is one more palace of red meat one too many? If it's the Capital Grille, the answer is no.

Dish

It's All Academic

Attack of the Killer Developers

Restaurants pop up in Midtown

Best Chinese Restaurant

Chinese Café

Best Overall Restaurant

Da Marco

TRIPLE TREAT TORTILLAS

California Pizza Kitchen

Grande Plans

Houston's most famous chef talks about prostate cancer, turning 50 and what's next for Cafe Annie

Best Croissants

Houston's most famous chef talks about prostate cancer, turning 50 and what's next for Cafe Annie

Best Secret

Houston's most famous chef talks about prostate cancer, turning 50 and what's next for Cafe Annie

Dry-Aged Discrimination

What grade of beef are the steaks at The Capital Grille?

Best Expense-Account Restaurant

Capital Grille

Steak House Shuffle

Vallone's takes a break just in time to give Fleming's a shot

Best Stuffed Mushrooms

Istanbul Grill & Deli

Chain for Fools

Houston versus Dallas: We're family-run; they're chained up.

Play Ball!

Sports bars and gay bars cater to a similar crowd: Guys who watch buff men

Stirred and Shaken

Champps Americana's Manhattan

Stirred and Shaken

P.F. Chang's mai tai

Nothing Small About It

The expansive Maggiano's Little Italy serves portions to match

Pushed Around

For City Hall, one downtown cart vendor may be too many

Menu Flashback: Don's Seafood 1972

Photo by J.C. ReidBack in 1972, the Landry brothers were on a roll. They'd opened four of their Cajun-inspired seafood restaurants in Louisiana and had just begun a push into Texas with a restaurant in Beaumont. One of their employees, Jim Gossen, ordered a new menu design for their flagship restaur ... More >>

Dive Bar-ology 101: What A Dive Bar Is Not

​These days, there are a lot of misconceptions about what constitutes a dive bar. Going by lists on sites like Yelp and Citysearch, and especially this laughable list from the Houston Chronicle, apparently any drinking establishment that does not sport bottle service, valet parking and a velvet r ... More >>

Dive Bar Eats: At Best, A Mixed Bag

Photo by Option ThisAre questionable jars of pickled eggs the most you can hope for at Houston's best dive bars?​This week's feature is all about Houston's best dive bars. Dive bar food in Houston is a pretty hit-and-miss affair. If you lump icehouses in with the overall class of dive bars, as ... More >>

Health Department Roundup: Cafeteria Edition

​ As with other restaurants, a cafeteria's quality varies, depending on management and food freshness standards, which -- as habitual readers of this column know -- often has little to do with menu pricing. The shadow of the Houston health inspector has recently fallen upon the following:The D ... More >>

Eating Out on Christmas Day? What's Open

​There will be plenty of things open on Christmas Day besides just presents. So don't despair if the Bumpus hounds eat your holiday turkey, you don't feel like cooking dinner or you simply don't celebrate a completely arbitrary day chosen as Christ's birthday simply because it fell on a conven ... More >>

A Decade of Landry's

Photo by B. Tse​Whether you love them or hate them, you can't escape them -- not even if you leave Houston. Over the past ten years, Landry's has become a household name. Besides owning such well-known restaurants as Saltgrass Steak House, Aquarium, and Vic and Anthony's, Landry's has dabbled ... More >>

The Yelp Effect

​Although there was no shortage of food-related panels at the Interactive portion of South by Southwest (SXSWi) this year, none were as insightful or as incendiary as The Yelp Effect, a frank discussion on the effect that online reviews and criticisms have on the restaurant industry. Led by A ... More >>

Health Dept. Roundup: 77077 to 77099

​This week on Health Department Roundup, we finally complete our systematic tour of Houston's zip codes. This last leg was pretty smooth sailing, as we made it all the way from 77077 to 77099 with very few offenders. We also checked in on the non-sequential zip codes that make up recently anne ... More >>

Live at the MGM Grand Garden Arena: Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin

The UFC starts the fireworks a day early with a Live at the MGM Grand Garden Arena bout between two heavyweight contenders

Diving Into Houston's Best Dive Bars

​Although the number of "true" dive bars is shrinking by the day, that didn't stop our own John Nova Lomax from tracking down the best ones left in the city and covering them in last October's feature story, "Dive Bars: A Handcrafted Tour of the Best, Most Obscure Places to Lean on a Stool in ... More >>

Where Are We Drinking?

Sturdy wooden tables, comfortable banquets, soft lighting and a glass of wine. This could be any upscale restaurant in Houston, right? Not if you look for the hidden clues... Think you know where we're drinking this week? ​Leave your best guess in the comments section below.

J'Ouvert Caribbean Cafe

Sturdy wooden tables, comfortable banquets, soft lighting and a glass of wine. This could be any upscale restaurant in Houston, right? Not if you look for the hidden clues... Think you know where we're drinking this week? ​Leave your best guess in the comments section below.

Where Are We Drinking?

A pool table and some long neck beers, hazy windows and boozy customers. It's all good here, at one of Houston's best dive bars in town. Think you know where we're shooting pool drinking this week? ​Leave your best guess in the comments section below.

Taco Palenque

A pool table and some long neck beers, hazy windows and boozy customers. It's all good here, at one of Houston's best dive bars in town. Think you know where we're shooting pool drinking this week? ​Leave your best guess in the comments section below.

Tilman Fertitta an "Executive to Watch" in 2011

This is Tilman Fertitta's three-story yacht. How's your 2011 looking so far?​Houston's Tilman Fertitta made a short list of restaurant executives to watch in 2011, in part because of his recent acquisition of a trio of new restaurant chains: The Oceanaire, Claim Jumper and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co ... More >>

Restaurant Lawyer David Jordan on Tip Pools and Illegal Immigration

​David Jordan is a partner in the Houston office of Littler Mendelson, an international law firm specializing in labor and employment law. Before he was a lawyer, Jordan worked in the restaurant industry for several years: flipping burgers at Burger King when he was in high school; working in ... More >>

Comment of the Day

​Joanna O'Leary had a delicious Italian meal at Fratelli's and decided that the restaurant was worth driving outside the loop for. Which gave commenter Laurie pause: Heaven forbid! Outside the Loop! Joanna get over it. It is all of 5 min outside the Loop. A majority of Houston lives outside ... More >>

Off the Wall: Capital Grille Delivers The Big O with Lobster Mac & Cheese

​ ...Outstanding, that is! What were you thinking? I'm pretty sure I'm writing this article from the afterlife because I have died and gone to heaven. Thank you to EOW reader Jeff for chiming in on last week's top five dressed-up macaroni & cheeses and pointing me in the direction of Capital ... More >>

Where Are We Drinking?

The canned pineapple juice-based Blue Hawaiian is the Friday happy hour special at this diviest of dive bars. But the bar tries to keep things classy by serving it in a wine glass and using real blue Curaçao -- and even including a cherry if you ask for one. ​Think you know where we're drink ... More >>

Texas Roadhouse Discriminates Against Old People, Feds Say

No oldies allowed, feds claim​There's not a lot that's authentically Texas about the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain -- it's based in Massachusetts, after all -- but there are 52 locations here in the state, including a handful in the Houston area. We think we've eaten there once, but have f ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in (Women's) Wine Blogs

Photo by Margaret Shugart, curator of a new blog, The Wine Roads of Texas.​The Wine Roads of Texas: "If you've never seen the communities that run across that vast stretch of road," writes Margaret Shugart, author of a new blog called The Wine Roads of Texas, "you are missing one of the most u ... More >>