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.
Dallas Observer: The big Texas dining news last week came out of Dallas (I know!), where the Observer's new-ish food critic Hanna Raskin condemned the Big D as being dull, dreary and depressing when it came to having any kind of decent dining scene. Raskin interviewed Houston's own Bryan Caswell in the piece, in which he hesitated to slam Dallas but certainly made the comparison between Houston's and Dallas's dining scenes seem pretty stark. Backlash -- from local outlets like D Magazine and national ones like Eater -- was quick and fierce, but I can't say that I disagree with Raskin's assessment of Dallas, newcomer to the state or not.
Dude, You Going To Eat That?: Wise words from Dr. Ricky upon finding a box of bread pudding mix for those of us who struggle to make every recipe "perfect":
A brownie is born out of a failed cake recipe, and look, it came out delicious. In this age of festive cooking, leave fear off the ingredient list, many of our much beloved classics are products of happy accidents.
CHOW: Although mentioned briefly yesterday in a post on pho ga, I felt this funny little chart from CHOW merited closer attention, in case you want to be out ahead of the food trends for 2011 so you can start stocking up on chia fresca and Australian finger limes now.
29-95: The Chron's Alison Cook reviewed The Burger Guys the week after we did; I can only imagine the lines that place must have experienced after those two press-heavy weeks! But any place that puts together a wicked Shipley Burger -- the Houston version of a Luther Burger -- like the one Cook recently blogged about can probably handle the pressure.
H-Town Chow Down: Albert takes a break from blogging about burgers to check out the newest addition to The Woodland's Market Street development: a small, family-run Creole outfit called Shilleci's. He was just as surprised by this new place as I am, in a good way.
Chili Bob's Houston Eats: Another blogger break, in which Bruce takes a breather from reviewing ethnic food trucks and focuses instead on one of the new chef-driven food trucks that's tooling around the streets of Montrose lately. He tried the offerings at HTown Streats and pronounced them the "best street food [he's] had in Houston." High praise indeed!
