Phil ‘er Up
Phil’s back, but the ‘Stros have removed their Hickey. Of all the problems the Astros have had this season, coaching, apparently, ain’t one of them. That’s clear as today, your Houston Astros have reupped with manager Phil Garner. The Astros manager is now under contract through 2008. A man who’s…
For Every Action, There Is a Jackson
Bell and The Rev hit H-town this afternoon. Recently, gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman stumped in Texas with his pal Jesse Ventura. You may remember Ventura as the former pro wrestler who defied haters and was actually elected governor of Minnesota, thanks in large part to young voters. Here in the…
On the Record with Randy
Todd Purifoy Note to self: Eat before hanging with Randy. Country singer Randy Rogers was recently nice enough to invite me to come see him tape a video for his new CD Just a Matter of Time at Houston Studios. There was mix-up and I thought the invitation also included…
Smackdown: Waltrip High
“Ain’t no one calls my girl ‘absenteeism!'” We’re hearing stories about a scuffle at Waltrip High School today. From everyone’s favorite HISD spokesman Terry Abbott, we get this: Here’s a report on what happened at Waltrip High School this morning: According to the principal, we’ve arrested a mother, her daughter…
Re: Blonde Ambition
Copyright 00A9 2006 ABC, Inc. / Bob D’Amico OMG! H-town “socialite” Erica like, flew coach for The Bachelor! Seriously, there’s a reason we named this section “Thank God for TiVo.” There was no way I was going to watch the season premiere of ABC’s The Bachelor last night — not…
Who’s Jessica Dating? Check the Texans
NFL.com First it was Nick… It started out with the signing of fullback Nick Luchey in the offseason. And soon, the Houston Texans would cut the strapping veteran blocking back — seemingly for nothing, much like Jessica kicked Nick Lachey to the curb. The team then signs fullback Jameel Cook…
Who’s Jessica Dating? Check the Texans
NFL.com First it was Nick… It started out with the signing of fullback Nick Luchey in the offseason. And soon, the Houston Texans would cut the strapping veteran blocking back — seemingly for nothing, much like Jessica kicked Nick Lachey to the curb. The team then signs fullback Jameel Cook…
No, Seriously, They Won
NFL.com Mario got his 1.5 sacks yesterday. Just 17 more, and fans will be happy. I decided to forego watching Sunday’s Texans game from Reliant Stadium’s press box, and instead watch it with friends, one of which is a Texans season ticket holder. Season ticket holder — let’s call him…
Rest in Peace, Astros…
Anyone up for a Rogering next season? …Boring, Bungling, Steroid-Using Peace, That Is… Like most Houstonians this year, we gave up on the Astros a long time ago. But we forget to take into account the utter ineptitude of the rest of the National League, whose highlights should always be…
Can’t Mess with Texas
Hats off to you, Texas. There was a big honkin’ parade in NYC that ran from Madison Avenue to Times Square this afternoon. And it was all for Texas. “Don’t Mess with Texas” has beat out 25 other well-known slogans for Advertising Week’s 2006 Walk of Fame contest. Some of…
Three-way, Anyone?
MLB.com The Braves will get Rogered tonight. Okay, so Major League Baseball held their frighteningly important coin toss today, a simple flip of the coin that determines where the potential National League Central tie-breaking game will be played. The news: Should there be a tie between the Cincinnati Reds and…
Showing Her Colors
Wanna get Cyndi really going? Throw on some zydeco. Stateside, Cyndi Lauper’s never quite gotten the respect she deserves (and gets overseas). Her pink-haired, tattered-clothed flamboyance in those glory days of MTV videos — especially “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” — overshadowed both singing and songwriting talents that can only…
BOH on KHOU, LOL
HouStoned Images, Ltd. Unlmtd. Will Tracy leave us for daytime TV? Stay tuned… Yesterday, the chipper folks at Great Day Houston, KHOU’s morning program, devoted seven minutes and 45 seconds (an eternity in the broadcast world) to a segment on the Press’s Best of Houston issue. Alarmingly bubbly host Whitney…
Best o’ tha Blogs
We love you, you love us. Well done, BOH Man! With our much-anticipated, big, fat and glossy Best of Houston issue (professionalism be damned, I’ll say it — the real Best Of in this town) on stands now, thought I’d check in on some of the lauded blogs/sites in our…
SonzalaSoReal
This week’s feature in the Press is all about Matt Sonzala, a man who busts his butt to push the Texas sound around the world. We wouldn’t expect you to read it without a soundtrack, so here we offer three clips from YouTube to get your head poppin’. — Keith…
SonzalaSoReal
This week’s feature in the Press is all about Matt Sonzala, a man who busts his butt to push the Texas sound around the world. We wouldn’t expect you to read it without a soundtrack, so here we offer three clips from YouTube to get your head poppin’. — Keith…
Live
Nothing boosts album sales like having a song performed on American Idol, which is what happened when Idol contestant Chris Daughtry sang “Mystery” from Live’s new album Songs from Black Mountain on the show’s season-six finale. Not that Live really needed the help. The four-member band has been together for…
Image of the Week
Forget those drab Water Lilies by Monet — the Museum of Fine Arts Houston got a dash more colorful on a recent Saturday when Houston’s Sabor Mexico Theatrical Dance Company helped to celebrate the 10th annual Museum District Day. To view the image larger, click here…
Best Art-Opening Cocktails
The Press conducted a lot of research for this category (see “Free Booze,” December 1), and we’ve got to hand it to the freewheelin’ spirits at the Art Car Museum for running away with the prize. Of course, they don’t really serve up cocktails per se; rather, a couple of…
Best Strip Club
You might think all strip clubs are the same: Naked women shaking their asses to “pay for school”; cheesy 50-year-old men paying a girl their daughter’s age to spend five minutes pretending they’re interested in them; and some DJ named Rick playing a ten-year-old Limp Bizkit song for Sinammon’s upside-down…
Best AM Radio Personality
Most of Houston knows Ronnie Renfrow from the Ronnie Renfrow Big Band. But bandleader Renfrow turned radio host a while back and has been spinning jazz and big-band tunes on the Swinging 650 — Classic Cool show on 650 AM for more than a year now. He’s on air seven…
Best Place for a Last Date
This cozy spread is way too quiet and intimate to accommodate anyone making a scene. If someone were to try, they’d likely get shushed — or ministered to. (More on that later.) The vast offering of free-trade coffees proffers an air of rightness and justice, setting the tableau for your…
Best Local TV News Reporter
In a city where much of the TV news talent tends to cycle through quickly, it’s a relief to have someone who can tell Bellaire from Baytown. Channel 13’s Cynthia Cisneros has the city in her bones — she grew up in South Houston, worked summers at AstroWorld and graduated…
Best Bathroom Graffiti
No one can beat the ne’er-do-wells at Rudz when it comes to scatological cleverness. The normal bathroom taggers are well represented: Chicken Boy, I Love You Baby, Consumer, GY and DTS. But it’s the literary odes that get us chuckling when going about our business. Take the mullet haiku, for…
Best Performance Space
Old punkers fondly recall The Axiom, the semi-decrepit club in the Warehouse District east of the George R. Brown Convention Center. Since 2001, though, the facility has been best known as the home of Infernal Bridegroom Productions. Even though IBP has added the luxury of working bathrooms, the club still…
Best Theater Company
Five years ago, Mildred’s Umbrella started out in a cavernous, cold room, putting on original shows with virtually no set, no lights and no money. It’s come a long way. The company is still putting on new work by resident playwright John Harvey, but MU has also added some terrific…
Best Thoroughfare
If you can’t find what you’re looking for on Westheimer, it probably doesn’t exist. This central artery is home to world-class restaurants and cozy lunch spots, shopping that’ll suit any budget (the Galleria, antique malls, curio shops, international bazaars), a major university, street festivals, public parks and parades. The thoroughfare…
Best Doughnuts
Maybe it’s because the shops were born right here in Houston. Maybe it’s because it’s still a family-run business and there really is a Mr. Shipley who oversees the 200 or so company-owned and franchised stores. Maybe it’s because Shipley’s hasn’t changed its recipe much in more than 70 years…
Best Nachos
What sets apart the nachos at El Tiempo are the toppings: You can choose from brisket, chorizo, veggies, carnitas, fajitas, crabmeat and shrimp. The waitstaff is very accommodating, so if you want to mix it up, they’re happy to combine ingredients, add stuff or go half and half — perfect…
Best Liquor Store
There are few adulthood joys that compare to the childhood experience of walking into a Toys-R-Us. But walking into Spec’s Liquor gives grown-ups that same feeling of wonder. You immediately find yourself running down the aisles going, “Oh, wow! I can’t believe they have this stuff, too!” Wanna down some…
Best Designer Boutique
The reigning queen of fashion, this Highland Village landmark is the place for serious femme shopping. Don’t let the overattentive sales staff (“May I get you a drink?”), trophy wives and designer jewelry intimidate you. Sure, River Oaks divas drop a bundle on the evening gowns here, but Tootsies also…
Best Magazine Selection
Issues offers no coffee bar, no hearty muffins, no place to sit and page through periodicals. Heck, it hardly offers a place to park. But the store’s lone location on Shepherd has that certain something the big-box book behemoths don’t. Namely, it’s not a big-box book behemoth. Devoted almost exclusively…
Best Carpenter
Nothing is more crazy-making than remodeling, so finding a carpenter you can count on is the first line of defense against the dread of disappointment. Rosendo Mendez goes way beyond reliable. He will make your fabulous new kitchen/bedroom/great room dreams come true, and he won’t break the bank doing it…
Best Hobby Shop
It seems as though everyone’s doing it: preserving family memories in a personalized scrapbook. But where do you go when you need supplies? You’ll find everything and we do mean everything at Maridawn’s Scrapbooking. Don’t know how to make a scrapbook? No worries. The Maridawn staff can show you. They…
Best Burger Joint
A pioneer in curb service, the old Prince’s Drive-in on Main Street was the place where Houstonians went to hang out in their cars. The new Prince’s doesn’t have carhops, but the retro burger-joint decor pays homage to the original with displays of historic photos, old menus, vinyl booths and…
Best Late-Night Restaurant
Rude waiters who keep forgetting the pickles, obnoxious drunks at the bar and lousy, overpriced sandwiches — is this an authentic New York deli, or what? We always order a salad plate with chopped liver or egg salad, a stack of fresh rye bread and some pickles — and then…
Best Place to Skip Dinner and Have Dessert
The rows of cakes, tarts, pies and puddings displayed at Ruggles might look modest at first, but they’re some of the best desserts Houston has to offer. This substance-over-style approach is commendable, especially since not one of their 20 or so offerings has ever been a disappointment. The white chocolate…
Best Sports Role Model
It’s a shame that, in the 21st century, coming out of the closet is still a big deal for a celebrity. It’s an especially big deal for a pro athlete. But when you have a president who wants to go out of his way to amend the freaking Constitution in…
Best Stadium Announcer
It’s not the bouncy organ music or seven seconds of a metal-pop tune that calls Houston Astros fans to order at Minute Maid Park. No, it’s the booming pipes of Bob Ford, who, as he checks names off the starting lineup, sounds as if he’s listing horsepower and torque stats…
Buttercup
San Antonio seems like an odd place for an artsy power pop band to call home, but that’s where Buttercup is based. The group has been wowing San Antonio crowds for years at its Grackle Monday performance art experiments, and with new album Hot Love it has delivered 12 catchy,…
The Sample Truth
Joe Sample, considered a pioneer in contemporary jazz, laughs while he talks about growing up in Houston’s Fifth Ward area. “I was six years old, and my priest asked me what I was going to do with my life. I told him, ‘I want to play the piano.’ I don’t…
Best Movie Theater
Maybe it’s because the Angelika seems to be the only Houston theater where there aren’t any assholes answering cell-phone calls throughout the entire movie. Maybe it’s the cinematic selection, a mixture of art-house indie and mainstream indulgence. Whatever the reason, the Angelika provides a downright pleasant moviegoing experience, while the…
Best Music Gadfly
If you switch on the radio mid-song and hear Bun B’s latest joint segue into a ferocious live attack from Irish punks Flogging Molly, you’ve probably tuned in to Rad Rich’s Rock & Roll Revue on KPFT/90.1 FM. In a city that’s far too often bound by the dictates of…
Best Brewpub
Rice Village is a prime place to go to forget you’re in Houston or, hell, even in Texas. It’s a textbook example of the glitzy hodgepodge of strip malls that’s homologizing the country, but hidden amongst the Gap, Starbucks and Kinkos is Two Rows Classic Grill & Brewpub, an establishment…
Best Nonprofit
The do-gooders at Grassroots: Art in Action, which only recently received 501(c)3 status, are determined to improve the state of art education in our public school system. Promoting creativity and critical thinking in the classroom and the community, the group develops innovative and collaborative teaching and learning experiences by focusing…
Best Local TV Commercial
With the advent of TiVo and various other DVRs that give us the ability to fast-forward through the most annoying aspect of TV — commercials — there’s still one ad we actually take the time to view. Hilton Furniture’s commercials are so insanely funny, bizarre and somehow endearing that you…
Best Jukebox
Many bar owners are content to let jukebox vending companies stock their boxes for ’em. That’s why you so often see the same Otis Redding, Patsy Cline and Eagles discs everywhere you go. And while there’s nothing wrong with those, it’s cool when you see and hear something different. Under…
Best Chorus
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Houston (formerly the Montrose Singers) was founded in 1979, and over the past 25 years it has flourished and grown into one of the finest choirs — and assemblages of talent — in town. And through all of its political ups and downs, the chorus…
Best Cemetery
Glenwood Cemetery is a treat for amateur genealogists who go to trace their family’s history back to the Civil War. Headstones dating to the 19th century are scattered throughout Glenwood’s woodsy 84 acres, which house the remains of three Texas governors, more than 20 Houston mayors and a bevy of…
Best Hole
We were going to give this award to your mom, but then we remembered the James Turrell Skyspace at the Quaker meeting house in the Heights. Every Friday night, the Friends open the Skyspace, a square hole in a concave ceiling, and welcome visitors to sit back and watch day…
Best Hamburger
The big puffy buns tighten around the slippery burger patty, keeping the sandwich hanging together perfectly even though the half-pound of fresh-ground USDA Choice sirloin is extremely juicy. Garnished with lettuce, tomato, mustard and mayo and served in a basket with fries, this is a classic Texas burger. Add cheese…
Best Plantains
It’s called mofongo; that’s Puerto Rican for a great plantain dish. Don’t go looking for a “heart-healthy” sign on the menu for this one, and once you read the list of ingredients, you’ll understand why. A mortar is filled with garlic, chicharrn (the fatty, crispy kind, not pork rinds), olive…
Best Dry Cleaners
Although having something dry-cleaned sounds like it should be a straightforward task, it can sometimes be a horrific experience: You drop off your most expensive piece of clothing and it comes back destroyed, with a terse reminder of the cleaner’s liability disclaimer. A former member of Faith No More once…
Best Grocery Store
Central Market is the cure for the common grocery store. Exotic produce, gourmet microbrews, healthy snacks, bubble bath and sweet-smelling soaps, case upon case of tender cuts of meat, freshly baked bread, prepared foods and towering bulk bins vie for patrons’ attention in this gourmand’s paradise. You’ll never again be…
Best Place to Buy an Engagement Ring
These days it’s all the rage to slap ridiculously sized diamonds which cost as much as a two-bedroom pad in West U on plain platinum bands and call them engagement rings. But if you long for something classier than a gaudy, Paris Hilton-esque trinket, your answer is antique and estate…
Best House Painter
Whether you like your walls museum-white or racy red, Marcelo Escobedo is happy to oblige. And it’s a good thing, too; he can make any wall into a thing of beauty with his steady hand and Zen-like technique. Once he’s done with a room, you can’t help but marvel at…
Best Veterinarian
Unless your pet is the star of an animated children’s movie or the product of a really bad acid trip, chances are it doesn’t speak English. So when something goes wrong with said pooch, kitty or ferret, you need the help of someone as close as possible to an animal…
Best Colombian Restaurant
Two TVs constantly tuned to soccer, live music on weekends, arepas (corn patties) served with everything, large portions and great value in a relaxed atmosphere all make Mi Pueblito a favorite of local Colombians. Regulars prize the ajiaco bogotano (chicken soup with three kinds of potatoes), and the bandeja paisa…
Best Breakfast
The Kelley’s Grand Slam breakfast is spread out over three plates — there’s a monster chicken-fried steak on the first, three eggs and your choice of grits or hash browns on the second, and an oversize biscuit with a bowl of gravy on the third. Those looking for lighter fare…
Best Pizzeria
The pies at Dolce Vita are a thing of beauty: The toppings are unusual, generous and full of flavor, and the superb quality of the meats, cheeses and produce makes it hard to go wrong. Sauce is used sparingly, and the crust is thin and crispy and a little chewy…
Best Gym
The most frequent accolade expressed by YMCA habitus is a deep appreciation for the unending supply of fresh towels, and we agree — especially since the huge stacks here are often warm. Add state-of-the-art, clean and diverse workout facilities (including an indoor Olympic-size pool), a helpful staff, income-based membership pricing,…
Best Texan
On a team that boasts the inhumanly powerful and blazingly fast wide receiver Andre Johnson, it would seem blasphemous to name anyone else Best Houston Texan. But Andre the Giant, while ever fearsome, was felled by a lackluster offense last season. Truthfully, there were few obvious standouts in the 2005-06…
GREETINGS HOUSTONIANS
Houston is no stranger to disaster. When Katrina hit, we were there for the citizens of New Orleans. When Rita came through, our officials were ready. Sure, no city is perfect — can we say traffic nightmare? But we learn from our challenges, and we come out the better for…
Playtime
Sweet, crazy and tinged with sadness, Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep is a wondrous concoction. The tricksy romantic story — in which Gael Garca Bernal plays a hapless, Chaplinesque mad man — may be reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which Gondry directed from Charlie Kaufman’s script…
A Lighter Shade of Blue
In the summer of 1981, the new music critic at the Houston Chronicle walked down five flights of stairs at 801 Texas Avenue, went through the lobby and stepped into the thick, tormented Gulf Coast afternoon. At the curb sat a black, low-slung beat-mobile with a couple of blues guys…
Best Radio Station
Somewhere on the dial, among the Blue October and Laura Ingraham, there’s a little college radio station pumping out 50,000 watts of pure uncommercialized goodness. From the excellent MK Ultra DJ sets every Friday night to the generally upbeat morning drive, Rice University’s KTRU gives Houston the very thing most…
Best Band to Get Together in the Past Year
Taking listeners on a musical ride that has as many ups and downs as a voyage at sea, Sharks and Sailors combines heavy choruses with soft breakdowns. Featuring former members of Panic in Detroit, the group emerged from the Super Unison scene to deliver their sound to Houston. Reminiscent of…
Best Wine Bar
Sometimes it seems as though Junico and Tracy Velarde are rubbing it in. Not only did they score the phone number 713-942-WINE, but their Wine Bucket Boutique & Bar seems designed to attest to the fact that no other couple inside the Loop knows more about wine and wine drinkers…
Best Activist
You wouldn’t expect a group of drywallers and bricklayers to be vulnerable dudes, but when the Minutemen and other anti-illegal-immigration advocates started shouting that the city was “coddling” day laborers, these workers were left standing alone on the corner. But Juan Alvarez, founder of the Latin American Organization for Immigrant…
Best Local Magazine
For a dozen years now, Houston readers — gay and straight — have been entertained and informed by the glossy monthly magazine OutSmart. Beyond the great Q&As with celebrities who are coming to town and meaty listings for folks unfamiliar with Montrose (or those who still think the city’s gay…
Best Place to Watch Trains and Drink Beer
Like beer? This little ice-house-style tavern’s got plenty — about six dozen varieties, bottled or canned, and a couple dozen on tap. And they have an airy patio out in front. But hell, so do a lot of places, including Little Woodrow’s other locations. What sets this location apart is…
Best Meeting of Art and Music
The Menil Collection is admired not only for its outstanding assemblage of art but also for its impressive building; the Renzo Piano design inspires a sense of awe and serenity. Da Camera of Houston has helped the Menil make the most of that intimate setting with its series of live…
Best Church
Veterans know that if they’re going to the 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. mass on Sundays at St. Vincent de Paul, they’d better get there early: Good seats go fast. Why? A welcoming, friendly atmosphere, engaging sermons and a dedication to helping the greater community. Parishioners were at the forefront…
Best Nihilist Web Site
Many people who click on Anus.com aren’t looking for philosophical treatises, but porn seekers just might end up finding enlightenment. A.N.U.S., an acronym for American Nihilist Underground Society, was started back in the ’80s by privileged, countercultural hacker-slackers and pranksters from River Oaks, whose taste for highbrow philosophy and lowbrow…
Best Crawfish
If you like your mudbugs extra-spicy, this is the place for you. Floyd’s cooks them in a peppery boil and then dusts them with a cayenne-heavy spice blend. Your lips will burn for hours no matter how many beers you wash them down with. And yet there are Floyd’s patrons…
Best Kebabs
Darband Shish Kabob specializes in — what else? — kebabs. So it should come as no surprise that they offer a large selection, ranging from $5 to $7 per plate. Choose from among the kubdeh (ground beef), chengeh (lamb), shish (beef chunks), barg (beef sirloin strips) or chello (ground lamb)…
Best Shoe Store
The company’s Web site says the typical DSW store carries more than 30,000 pairs of shoes in more than 2,000 styles. Sounds about right. The two Houston locations are huge yet easy-to-navigate churches of footwear. They’ve got everything from dress shoes to flip-flops at prices that will make your wallet…
Best Sporting Goods Store
Houston is not the only place you can find this sports authority, but it is the home of what was once known as Academy Super Surplus. It’s for good reason that this local favorite has spread its huge selection of boats and bats, shorts and shotguns, tents and tennis balls…
Best Tattoo Removal
Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to get the big spiderweb tattoo that curls around your neck. And though Blues Brothers is a classic, you might have gone a little far getting “J-A-K-E” inked across your knuckles. So now it’s time for a little tattoo removal. The folks at Town…
Best Real Estate Agent
The booming Houston real estate market makes finding a good agent more important than ever. Dennis Sigut of Keller Williams Realty isn’t just good he’s one of those rare go-getters who can buy and sell with the best of them and still sleep at night. His dealings are honest, and…
Best Department Store
Foley’s downtown emporium, which occupies an entire city block on Main Street, has long been the flagship location of the chain’s 70 or so stores. In its heyday (the chain was founded in Houston more than a hundred years ago just a few blocks from the downtown location), it featured…
Best Korean Restaurant
Korean barbecue is an after-hours tradition. You wind up a long night of partying by gathering your gang around a grill set in the center of a large table, and everybody takes turns cooking. Favorite meats are bulgogi and wang galbi — marinated steak and marinated boneless short-rib meat. Arirang’s…
Best Restaurant for Divorced Dads
If you have trouble thinking of Hooters, that steamy hotbed of sexual titillation, as a family restaurant, odds are you aren’t a regular. Poke your head inside the front door of a Houston Hooters location, and you’re likely to see quite a few kids — and a lot of hot…
Best Cuban Restaurant
Legendary salsa star Celia Cruz made her way to Cafe Piquet every time she visited Houston, and it’s easy to understand why. Made-from-scratch food, a stylish atmosphere and attentive service — all staples here — have made this a haven for Cuban-Americans in search of a taste of home. Don’t…
Best Yoga Instructor
A refugee from corporate America, Kay Westcott has been teaching yoga full-time since 1995. She leads 20 classes a week at different venues around town, including the Jewish Community Center, the West U Bally’s and Your Body Center. What makes her classes so enjoyable is her positive attitude and playful…
Best Cheerleaders
We love football on TV — and we love twins. And, thanks to the Houston Texans and the Houston Texans Cheerleaders, we have both. While the football team didn’t dazzle anyone last year, the cheerleaders most certainly did, with members such as Larisa and Marisa, the identical — ahhh –…
COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE
If an actor lives 50 years without burning out and fading away, or without dying like James Dean or John Belushi, it’s a cause for celebration. If a theater lives to 50, it’s a miracle. And so maybe nobody was really surprised when Country Playhouse, an iconic West Houston theater…
Men Behaving Badly
One would never confuse the work of writer-director Todd Phillips with that of the late Robert Hamer, whose filmography includes the essential Kind Hearts and Coronets. Hamer’s movies had a gentlemanly quality, no matter the cruelty that skulked beneath their prim exteriors; one always felt the characters in his movies,…
Catch the Wave
Hours: 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.
French fries and mayo: $6
Tuna tartare: $12
Crab cake: $13
Short ribs: $23
Rib eye steak: $27
Trout: $22
Best Radio News
There’s really no competition in this category. While many other radio stations have “news departments” or an assortment of programs, KTRH remains the gold standard. With a mixture of original local reports, locally based talk show hosts (Sam Malone, Deborah Duncan, Chris Baker) and selected national programs, KTRH’s coverage of…
Best Band to Break Up in the Past Year
We’ve always held that there was a Houston Press Music Awards jinx. Over the years, most of the bands that win big either break up shortly thereafter, move to Austin (never to be heard from again) or even end up in prison, as was the case with South Park Mexican…
Best Place to Consider Ending It All
Yeah, we know it’s meant to be a “peaceful sanctuary” and all, and no, we’re not exactly arguing. But we must respectfully ask: What’s more peaceful than death? The, shall we say, negative capacity of the black canvases on the walls is not to be underestimated as environmental design, but…
Best Protest
For once, this city saw a protest in which most of the marchers were directly influenced by the issue. Sure, there were some anarchists and LaRouche drones sprinkled throughout the crowd, preaching solidarity and handing out pamphlets, but most of the estimated 30,000 folks who marched from the Second Ward…
Best School
It’s not often you go to a middle-school graduation and see a student who’s finally moving on after 18 years and see that student get applauded as if it were a real accomplishment. But that’s the beauty of HISD’s T.H. Rogers school. Former district superintendent Billy Reagan, an Asia buff,…
Best Ballet
A streamlined classic with touches of pre-Raphaelite dressing by the late Kristian Fredrikson, Stanton Welch’s new $1.6 million Swan Lake was the high point of the dance season this year. Beautiful to look at and swift of foot, this version of one of ballet’s most beloved tales of love and…
Best Club for Local Acts
Although Javajazz sounds like it might be a cozy, bohemian hangout, it’s anything but. The spacious Spring-area venue has two full-size stages (the Javajazz stage and the Rockville stage) where they throw two shows a night, four days a week. And we’re talking six to seven bands per concert –…
Best Tourist Attraction
The Bolivar Ferry has been entertaining kids for more than 70 years. Shuttling back and forth between Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula, the boats often attract frolicking dolphins as escorts. You can head to the back with some bread or chips and feed the seagulls by hand as they politely…
Best View
Looking down on Houston from the fancy restaurant high atop the Hilton Hotel downtown can lead you to ooh and aah. But looking up at the city from street level is even better, especially when viewed through French artist Jean Dubuffet’s zany, cartoonish sculpture at the corner of Louisiana and…
Best Burrito
“Big as yo’ face” burritos have been a specialty at Chuy’s since long before McDonald’s got into the burrito business with the Chipotle chain. Chuy’s regular burritos are stuffed with your choice of ground sirloin, chicken or fajita meat and then served with beans, cheese and the sauce of your…
Best Pasta
Handmade, one-inch-wide ribbon pasta, handmade fennel-laced, spicy sausage (made by “Mr. C,” Johnny Carrabba’s father), sweet red peppers, onions, tomatoes, a big slice of goat cheese that slowly melts as you eat the dish, creamy sauce, lots of Parmesan cheese…Need we say more about the Pappardelle Campagnolo? This fettuccine’s name…
Best Adult Video Store
That’s right, Megaplexxx. With three Xs, you know you’re getting the real deal. We’re talking a purported 100,000 movies, eight private viewing rooms and nine 63-channel arcades. We’re talking a cornucopia of porn a “pornucopia,” if you will. They’ve got hot new releases, cheap used videos and classics, and there’s…
Best Car Wash
The type of cars you’d normally see being patted down with diapers by valets can now be spotted rolling into a $4 car wash. Why? As the name implies, there’s a magnetic appeal to a place that offers a job well done. The best part is that you, the driver,…
Best Reason to Go to the Galleria
Described by one disgruntled along-for-the-ride male acquaintance as a “cosmetics crackhouse,” Sephora is an orgy of high-end lip gloss, eye shadow, blush and sundry other forms of pretty-up. For a truly overwhelming experience, venture to Sephora’s Galleria location on a Friday or Saturday evening between six and eight and bear…
Best Local Interior Designer
Call her the Color Guru, because Cari Brookbanks can slide her magic gaze over any space and know just what it needs to make it absolutely gorgeous. Whether you’re trying to fix up a house to sell, or redo an outdated condo to last you for the next 20 years,…
Best Place for Men to Buy High Heels
Jewel Dean is more than a boutique owner, she’s a fashion expert. And she’s generous with her expertise. Customers at her store will find wigs, makeup, dresses, body forms (translation: fake breasts) and shoes in special sizes (translation: giant), but they’ll also find a warm, supportive atmosphere. Not to mention…
Best Cajun Restaurant
Magnolia Bar & Grill opened in 1983 during Houston’s Cajun-restaurant frenzy, the same boom that got the Pappas brothers and Tilman Fertitta started. Most of the Cajun restaurants that opened back then compromised on the spicy Cajun flavors to become family-friendly — but not Magnolia Bar & Grill. The food…
Best Malaysian Restaurant
In a sprawling city of international cuisines, Cafe Malay offers the best choice for Malayasian food. The roti canai (nan-like fried dough) with curry chicken dipping sauce is particularly good, as is the Malaysian eggplant. The satay, chicken Hainan and chicken sambal are flavorful, too, but the real strong suit…
Best Long Lunch
There’s so much to do at the Rainbow Lodge that lunch might be an afterthought. Stroll through the lush grounds overlooking Buffalo Bayou. Visit the pond and gazebo, where many have celebrated their nuptials. Smell the herbs in the garden. Then enter the old lodge, examine the stuffed hunting trophies…
Best Place to Canoe
At high water or low, there’s no place better for a human-powered boat to put in than Armand Bayou Nature Center. Early risers can watch deer, reptiles and waterfowl as they start their day in the wetlands. At any time, though, attentive visitors can enjoy abundant native wildlife in the…
Best Putt-Putt
Maybe it’s the trippy mushrooms and butterflies. Perhaps it’s the gaping mouth on the great white shark. Or maybe it’s just that everything around you is glowing: The funky neon murals and figures at The Putting Edge seem like they’re straight out of a Tiger Woods acid trip; black lights…
ENRON
When the bottom fell out five years ago, it fell farther for some people than for others. Some are still climbing out. Two years ago, the Houston Press interviewed the mother-daughter duo of Jamey Duckworth and Sarah Konczakowski for a story on the Enron disaster. Duckworth had lost her job…
That Sinking Feeling
Watching The Guardian, you’ll learn that the U.S. Coast Guard’s rescue swimmers rank among the bravest and least heralded of military personnel, selflessly hurling themselves into raging currents or hurricane swells to save a single human life. But I doubt that even these knights in neoprene armor could rescue an…
BEST OF HOUSTON® 2006
Houston is no stranger to disaster. When Katrina hit, we were there for the citizens of New Orleans. When Rita came through, our officials were ready. Sure, no city is perfect — can we say traffic nightmare? But we learn from our challenges, and we come out the better for…
Best Blues Club
Whether Cynthia’s dishing out some delicious Malibu punch or it’s Big Bass serving up some funk-dafied bass thump, we’re in love with the Gallant Knight. A gem in the middle of Medical Center dullness, the Gallant Knight has been helping kids and doctors get their blues on for more than…
Best Band to Leave Houston in the Past Year
Steve Earle once wrote a song in which he called Townes Van Zandt “the last of the hardcore troubadours.” But Earle hadn’t yet heard Hayes Carll. While Carll isn’t quite as hardcore as Van Zandt — no epic vodka bouts or heroin binges, as far as we know — he’s…
Best Hero
There was a certain inevitability to it. All observers, whether they wore burnt orange or crimson, knew that once the Texas defense stuffed LenDale White on fourth and two at the Texas 45-yard line with two minutes left on the clock, the ball game was over and the Longhorns would…
Best Local Blog
Matt Sonzala’s blog is all about Third Coast hip-hop, which is fitting, considering how integral the man is to the scene. HoustonSoReal always seems to have the word on H-town haps, whether it’s flicks from a video shoot in the Fifth Ward, a write-up of local rappers doing their thang…
Best Criminal Court Judge
Technically speaking, Sim Lake isn’t a criminal court judge, since he sits on the federal bench and hears both criminal and civil cases. But this year he heard the biggest white-collar-crime case to hit Houston since the Allen brothers started the ball rolling with real estate fraud. We mean, of…
Best Dancer
And once again the award goes to…Mireille Hassenboehler, Houston Ballet’s rising star. This long-limbed creature — who looks and dances like the best and brightest of the Balanchine glory days — proved her classic chops again this year as Odette/Odille in the new Swan Lake. Not only has this muse…
Best Concert Venue
When Warehouse Live opened earlier this year, we were skeptical. Live music in a midsize club usually means shitty sound, long bar lines, smokiness and an aesthetic that can only be described as filthy. But after dozens of shows, we can think of just one word to describe the club:…
Best Secret
No night in the Theater District is complete without a stroll over to the Magic Button, a big red disc hidden in a tower on the Preston Street bridge. Push it, and you’ll hear the sound of water being released into Buffalo Bayou. Now, we could make some phone calls…
Best Local Radio Show Introduction
It’s midnight on Saturday, going into Sunday. It’s high time to wind the party down and steer your mind over to matters relaxing and/or spiritual. And there’s no better way to do that than to spin your radio dial over to KCOH, where Mister Misty ushers you from party-time to…
Best Gelato
Try the rich, fluffy version of the classic Italian ice cream at this Rice Village restaurant at your own risk — you could lose your taste for Blue Bell. The flavors change daily. Sometimes they don’t have chocolate, but they just might have such alluring choices as mango, strawberry, raspberry,…
Best Tart
The coconut almond cream cheese tart at Tart Cafe contains almost everything people love, with the exception of chocolate. The dessert has a thick pastry shell, giving it the appearance of a mini-quiche at least an inch thick and four inches in diameter. The moist coconut cream cheese is mixed…
Best Bookstore
Whodunit? Murder by the Book, that’s who. The 26-year-old Inner Loop book nook has retained a loyal following despite the proliferation of enormous chains in its immediate neighborhood. Many patrons of the indie store are die-hard mystery fans who go to see and hear the parade of prestigious and up-and-coming…
Best Spectacles
If you’re on the lookout for Elton John-esque specs, funky, cheap or just cooler-than-average eyewear, Smith’s Opticians is the go-to place. Owner-optician Phillip Brown is an affable guy with a burning love for spectacles, an affection passed down to him from his dad, who was also an optician. Brown’s vintage…
Best Camera Store
Any photog geek will tell you there’s really only one camera store in the city worth knowing, and that’s the Houston Camera Exchange. A perennial winner in this category, the warehouse-size location on Westheimer is a dream come true for any avid shutterbug. And budding amateurs needn’t be shy: The…
Best Local Clothing Designer
What’s not to love about Chloe Dao? The sixth of eight children from Pakse, Laos, Dao settled in Houston with her family and grew up riveted to CNN’s Style with Elsa Klensch. A good daughter, Dao followed her parents’ wishes and entered UH’s business school, but she soon left to…
Best Gas Station
Gassing up your car has become a budget-breaking experience, but you can make the trip a little more pleasant by going to the Shell station off 290 and West 43rd. There are plenty of pumps, so there’s no waiting. The shopette features fresh fruit and pastries, along with beer and…
Best Chinese Restaurant
The steamed scallops in garlic sauce at Fung’s are exquisite — probably because the scallops are still alive when you order them. The shellfish come to the table barely cooked and attached to the shell and lovingly decorated with chopped garlic. Chef and owner Hoi Fung adheres to the culinary…
Best Spanish Restaurant
Tasty tapas, an award-winning paella, an affordable wine list, the use of many homemade and imported ingredients and unparalleled European hospitality from the Spanish chef and owner make this the best in town. Homemade ingredients include a delicious, soft cow’s-milk cheese, sweet quince jelly and a wonderful chorizo. From Spain…
Best Atmosphere
Few restaurants have a better view of downtown Houston, and none has a more beautifully appointed interior, than Artista, which is located on the second floor of the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Extremely elegant and very quiet, the main dining room is an expansive, high-ceilinged space dominated by…
Best Water Park
With Six Flags theme parks going the way of the World’s Fair, it might not be long before SplashTown becomes a parking lot. So pay homage while you can to the Texas Freefall, one of the oldest spots in Houston where you can get a colossal water-slide wedgie. Remember all…
Best Place for a Pickup Game
It looks like a friendly neighborhood city parks department recreation facility, but local ballers know that the Fonde Rec Center is a hallowed hall for hoopers. For years NBA stars past and present have run pickup games on the center’s basketball courts. The facility isn’t far from the Toyota Center,…
PRINCE’S DRIVE IN
A decline in the neighborhood put the famous Prince’s Drive-In on Main Street out of business in 1990, and for a while, chocolate malteds went the way of the soda jerk. So the next time you order a malted milk shake at one of the new Prince’s Hamburgers locations, think…
Low-Rent Scoundrels
The award-winning Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the Bart Simpson of Broadway musicals — tasteless yet entertaining. This could also describe the extraordinary star turn by Norbert Leo Butz, but more of him later. Jeffrey Lane, who’s won countless Emmy awards for a TV sitcom career that includes Mad About You,…
Where You From?
The eight-inch sausage in the po-boy sandwich ($3.99) at Frenchy’s (3919 Scott, 713-748-2233) wears its Creole heritage on its sleeve. It’s bold, brash, hot and spicy and, like everything else on the menu, it’s been kicked up quite a few notches. The incredibly moist sausage, which comes on a soft…
Best Place for Cocktails
If you work downtown, you should already know that the best place to unwind is the Magnolia Hotel. After a long, tedious day of playing office politics and staring out the window at the beautiful array of ozone and carbon monoxide that makes up Houston’s daytime sky, you deserve a…
Best Unsigned Band
Venues fill to capacity practically every time this band plays a gig. You’d think, “These guys must really know how to rock.” But you’d be wrong. Nay, sir. The Reverend, Uncle Tick, Rag Tag Mac, Coach and friends really know how to jug-band. Owning the stage while playing grassroots instruments…
Best MySpace Page
“Wrestling in the present to fight for the future!” is the slogan greeting visitors to Dyk-A-Tron’s page. The so-called cybernetic lesbian from the future — shown in full costume and holding her title belt/trophy — is known around Houston for her Doomsday parody wrestling matches, and the page is a…
Best Rail Station
No, there’s not much to do at this particular stop on the light-rail line. Unlike Ensemble or Preston, this is not an entertainment hub, nor is it a sports stop like Reliant; it’s mainly a place for people to transfer from the bus to the train or vice versa. But…
Best Civil Lawyer
Mark Lanier is an ordained minister in the Church of Christ, but he’s also a God-given pain in the ass to pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Lanier is a leading lawyer among the legions who are suing Merck over the arthritis drug Vioxx, and he was the first one out…
Best Modern Dance Company
Dominic Walsh is a triple threat: He dances, he choreographs and he has better business acumen than Jeff Skilling. Who knew a former Houston Ballet dancer could put together a company that was not only artistically vibrant but also financially healthy? Walsh has done it. Last season he mounted the…
Best Public Arts Project (in Progress)
Some hoity-toity critics contend that David Adickes’s sculptures — which include the enormous statue of Sam Houston set along Interstate 45 — are more roadside kitsch than art. Love him or loathe him, the parking lot to his studio represents the city’s best, and most surreal, public arts project (in…
Best Window Display
At Pig Stand No. 7, the popular greasy spoon on Washington, the window display cases are filled with ceramics, dolls and figurines of all things pig. There’s a pig nativity scene and a pig beach scene. Pigs kissing and pigs eloping. Pigs pumping iron and pigs pumping gas. Pigs chomping…
Best Cabrito
Goat isn’t the kind of meat you just throw on the grill and smother with a slice of cheddar. Roasted long and slowly, good cabrito is as hard to come by in Houston as a village campfire. But the closest thing you’ll find to the real deal — the Mexican…
Best Macaroni and Cheese
Gravitas earned its reputation as the hippest kitchen in the city by reinterpreting slow-food classics. Chefs Jason Gould and Scott Tycer put an Alpine spin on macaroni and cheese with an item the menu calls housemade German spaetzle baked with Gruyre. The dish brilliantly combines delicate little noodles with a…
Best Wings
“Jazzie Cafe Famous Hot Wings and Po-Boys,” reads the sign on top of the newly painted red, blue and yellow building on 19th Street near Beall. And if they’re not famous yet, maybe they will be someday. Jazzie’s sweet-hot chile chicken wings are coated with a thick sauce that tastes…
Best Asian Grocery
The total square footage of this market comes to an even freakin’ huge. They had to invent a whole new measurement to calculate the aisles of exotic treasures you’ll find in this Chinatown landmark. It’s nothin’ fancy, just tons of great produce, meat, fish, spices and desserts you’d rarely find…
Best Place to Shop When You Don’t Know What to Buy
People who wander into Bering’s Hardware expecting to find nuts and bolts and little else might find it confusing when they stumble onto the innovative cookware or the stationery section. They might be thrown by the unparalleled customer service and the divine smell of roasted coffee that lingers over the…
Best Weekend Getaway
Palacios is the shrimp capital of Texas. So what, you say? Well, we’ll tell you. Hundreds of crusty old sea dogs deliver big, fat, still-jumping fresh shrimp to Palacios’s restaurants every day, and you can sit on the deck of one of the town’s many seafood restaurants, eat a delicious…
Best Florist
Did someone you know have a birthday, baby, wedding, graduation or simply a bad day? Did someone get promoted? Or die? Elaine’s has a great vase or basket bouquet for all those occasions. They’ve got floral arrangements, bromeliads, silk and dried arrangements and even a cute gift basket selection that…
Best Place to Buy Fish
Whether your interest is in freshwater or saltwater fish, the best place to buy your finned pets is Aquarium World. Not only is the selection of animals and aquatic-type products one of the largest in the county, but the staff is extraordinarily helpful and knowledgeable about all things fishy. At…
Best Jamaican Restaurant
Tropical Grill’s $10 weekend buffet features stellar curried goat and pickled fish, plus hard-to-find Jamaican classics such as velvety soft stewed tripe, tangy boiled green bananas and chunky homemade dumplings. Though some of this fare might seem a bit arcane, the buffet also includes such approachable items as shrimp salad…
Best Expense Account Restaurant
Nothing says “big spender” like a big hunk of meat, a big, expensive wine and a big cigar. There’s no place better to blow a couple of Gs on two people than at The Capital Grille, that clubby bastion of the expense account crowd, the ultimate meat market. Start out…
Best Wine List
The half-bottles are called “Mini Mes,” and there’s a whole page devoted to wines for “wine geeks” on this, the hippest wine list in the city. Subheads include “All that Shimmers” for champagnes, “Clean Whites” for crisp white varietals, “Dirty Reds” for the big Cabs and Zins and “Rose Water”…
Best Place to Bike
In the ’60s a handful of forward-thinking people strove to save the bayous from being paved over for the sake of “progress.” Luckily for us, Terry Hershey and her husband were able to make some political strides back then, because today we have more than ten miles of bike trails…
Best High School Team
Who just won the Pro Staff of Greater Houston (PSGH) High School Football Sportsmanship Award? Who just sent its former coach, George Kirk, to the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor with an 89-43-5 record? The Klein High School Football team, that’s who. Actually, that should be teams…
AFRICAN SOUNDS TAPES, CDS AND VIDEOS
African Sounds Tapes, CDs and Videos is situated across the street from Bayland Park in a ramshackle strip mall that’s home to no fewer than three storefront churches. The surrounding neighborhood, once blue-collar/lower-middle Anglo, is now a riot of south-of-the-border culture mixed with stuff from further afield: a couple of…
Capsule Reviews
Boy Gets Girl In award-winning playwright Rebecca Gilman’s thought-provoking 2001 drama, in its premiere production for Houston’s newest theater group, The Pendulum Theatre Company, we have an Alfred Hitchcock movie without a murder. The movie master’s palpable sense of dread intensifies into fear as the play progresses. Icy blond career…
Dean’s Fuzzy Navel
A friend and I meet up at Dean’s (314 Main Street, 713-227-3326) on a Wednesday night. The place is celebrating its tenth year of operation, which is eons in Houston bar culture — and this despite the way it’s often overlooked by many downtown revelers who think it’s just a…
Best Bar Games
The Tipsy Clover is the kind of beautifully schizophrenic neighborhood bar that serves a dual purpose: It can be the place to go to meet up with friends after work, grab a pizza and play a casual game of pool. Or it can be an all-out frenzy of Golden Tee…
Best CD by Local Musicians
Exquisite melancholy is a difficult emotion to capture on disc — most bands that strive for it end up sounding either whiny or pretentious. Scattered Pages is not most bands. The newest of their three EPs — 2006’s This Is Where the Story Ends — picks up where Neil Young’s…
Best Place for a Kid’s Birthday Party
Other places have the same ingredients: buffet, birthday cake and Skee-Ball. But at this ’50s-themed place, birthday kids are made to feel truly special. A hostess keeps the pace of food, games and celebration going strong, often in a private room. Party packages and add-ons such as cakes, goodie bags…
Best Court Ruling
It wasn’t so much a court ruling as it was a jury verdict, but Houstonians everywhere let out either a sigh of relief or a gleeful shout of schadenfreude when a jury of their peers came down hard on Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. The city had lived through five…
Best Criminal Defense Lawyer
What can you say about a lawyer who’s a Kinky Friedman supporter but whose most prominent client is Tom DeLay? How about: Tom DeLay sure knows who to hire when he gets indicted. Attorney Dick DeGuerin has amassed a truly eclectic clientele, including David Koresh, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Robert…
Best Bar Food
Rudyard’s is the self-described “living room of Montrose,” and considering that quesadillas, pizza and other tasty treats (the ones most likely to stain your sofa) are in no short supply here, this is a fair assessment. Many drinking establishments are really restaurants that also sell alcohol, but Rudyard’s is a…
Best Radio Talk Show
A little girl sings to her father “You Are My Sunshine.” A mother pleads for her son to drink plenty of water after laboring in the fields. A wife chokes on her tears, promising her husband, “My sweet love, I love you, I’ll try to see you soon.” The forum…
Best Place to Meet Single Women
Meeting chicks, especially hot single chicks, is a challenge for guys in this town. SM ISO HSF (single men in search of hot single females), we suggest you pay a visit to Midtown’s Bond Lounge, a one-stop shop for fit, busty blonds and brunettes. Of course, the easiest way to…
Best Chicken-Fried Steak
Whether you’re fulla bull or not, if you want to feel fulla beef, no place satisfies like Hickory Hollow. Offering three sizes of the national steak of Texas, the Hollow has a plate suited for every appetite. The Plowman’s Meal is described as “jest right fer lunch,” but it’s so…
Best Caesar Salad
The Sabor version of a Caesar salad is a return to the dish’s glorious past. Made on a cart at tableside in a big wooden bowl with a coddled egg, plenty of anchovies and a host of other ingredients, Sabor’s Caesar dressing is closely patterned on the original, which was…
Best Salsa
There are two salsas available at this taco truck located behind Canino Produce on Airline. One is iridescent green with a tart tomatillo base and the fiery flavor of fresh serranos; it’s superb on chicken gorditas and on the sublime tacos de tripita (tripe). The other sauce is a deep,…
Best Computer Store
Once upon a time, nerds had to wait until they died to get to computer heaven. But the brothers Fry saw a market in sentient beings, so they opened one of the most kick-ass electronics stores around. And they put an emphasis on customer service to make shopping at their…
Best Place to Buy a Gun
For Texans, “gun control” means using both hands, so it’s no mean feat to be the greatest gun- and gun-related equipment retailer in Big H. Whether you’ve been buying and trading guns since you were knee-high to a bumblebee or you’re a first-time shooter, Carter’s Country has a full lineup…
Best Coach
In Houston, sports championships — in sports that people actually care about — are rarer than Matthew McConaughey’s Oscars. So getting a nod as Best Coach is not about the win-lose record, it’s about how you explain the (not good enough) win-lose record. And no one does it better than…
Best Novelty Store
Ahhh, Cindie’s, you had us at “butt-plug.” Cindie’s sells good old-fashioned fun: We’re talking body jewelry, oils, vibrators, love kits, body stockings, even educational videos for those in the remedial classes. Their hours are great, too open till midnight Monday through Saturday and until 10 p.m. on the Lord’s day!…
Best Soul Food Restaurant
You walk through the door, and no one seems particularly glad you came. You stare at all the amazing choices on the menu while they wait and sigh. You ask for pepper steak, and they give you meatballs. You ask for macaroni, and they say, “Yams it is!” But because…
Best Restaurant
Nobody’s opening Southwestern cuisine restaurants anymore, yet Houston’s best chef, Robert Del Grande, is still hanging on to the Southwestern label. Sure, he made upscale enchiladas, tortilla soup and black bean terrine famous a decade and a half ago, but those dishes are so dated now they’re beginning to look…
Best Italian Restaurant
A recent expansion means more tables and more room to move at Da Marco — which is a welcome change, since the dining room was sometimes a little too intimate. But whatever the seating plan, Houston is lucky to have an Italian restaurant this good. Chef Marco Wiles has adapted…
Best Service
Spewing happy talk and fawning over socialites has long been mistaken for good service in Houston’s top-end restaurants. (It’s actually an institutionalized form of panhandling.) T’afia exemplifies a new and more enlightened approach to restaurant service. The waitstaff is unobtrusive, unassuming, yet helpful. Most important, they’re extremely well informed about…
Best Park
To get the full effect of Donovan Park, go in the company of a four-year-old. Watch his eyeballs bulge out of his head and stand back as his little motor revs up for the expansive fantasyland of castles and trains, bridges and climbing structures. The park and playground, built in…
Best Pitching Performance
Admit it — upon watching Albert Pujols’s titanic bomb off Brad Lidge in Game 5 of last year’s NLCS, you had that sick feeling that you were witnessing yet another in the Astros’ long history of dismal postseason choke-jobs. With the series returning to the soon-to-be-imploded Busch Stadium, the cosmic…
HOUSTON DYNAMO
No one on the Dynamo has bought matching Hummers for their family members. None of them peddles ground beef and fresh produce for H-E-B. Not even one has made the news for his haircut. Nope, they pretty much just play sports. Major League Soccer, to be exact — something long…
“Singular” Sensation
Printmaking has been the redheaded stepchild of the art world, never getting the same attention and respect as sculpture or painting. But art critic, art dealer and filmmaker Peter Blum wanted to change that. In 1980, he began publishing prints from a broad range of contemporary artists with the objective…
Best Influx
We’ve heard plenty about the problems Katrina washed onto our shores, but we can’t forget those magical months right after the storm when our city was flooded (yeah, we said it) with the sounds of the Big Easy. Kermit Ruffins, Lil’ Wayne, Glen David Andrews, Corey Henry, Dr. Michael White…
Best Neighborhood Bar – Midtown
There’s no other bar in Midtown — or in Houston, for that matter — like Leon’s Lounge. Not only does it boast an existence spanning nearly six decades — quite a feat, considering the blink-and-you-missed-it nature of Houston businesses — it’s also the most interesting place you can find any…
Best Local CD cover
This op-art gem is crisp, it’s bright, it catches the eye, and the picture of the grinning, gold-toothed chimp set in yellow-and-orange swirls references the English translation of the band’s name. (Yes, yes, we know, chango means monkey, and chimps are primates, but still…) The whole thing is as bold…
Best Religious Leader
One part egomaniac, one part friendly next-door neighbor, Joel Osteen preaches a positive-vibes-only brand of nondenominational Christianity that’s helped his membership grow exponentially in the past few years. Although we don’t appreciate the unholy amount of traffic Lakewood’s services bring to Highway 59 every weekend, we do appreciate the lack…
Best Parade
Far too many parades are bogged down by rinky-dink floats, processions of skinny high school kids in silver helmets and quasi-military uniforms, and convertibles full of D-list local dignitaries. Screw that. Parades should be about bands — bands that bring the big beat. And no parade in H-town booms like…
Best Civil Court Judge
Good civil judges tend to stay under the radar until they get a headline-making case. During that low-profile time, however, they can make life awful for an awful lot of people. Sometimes they do it through rulings that are either baffling or tend to favor one side (usually, since this…
Best Band Name
Lead guitarist Erik Westfall, whose band was formerly known as the Slurpees, once said that he knew the band would make it big if they were ever sued by 7-Eleven. Well, they came close: After a write-up in the Chron, the group received a cease-and-desist letter from the home of…
Best Nightlife Trend
You don’t need to lug a camera around anymore to capture moments from your nightly escapades, thanks to the recent rash of photographers who’ve been canvassing the hottest nightlife spots and snapping shots of regular folks as if they were celebrities. Many of these photographers, including OneOctoberNight.com’s Matthew Marand, put…
Best Sanctuary from the Fast Track
Every kid has a special place where secrets are whispered and whisked away by the wind. It might be in a forest, a cemetery or along a river’s edge. Adults, too, need a sanctuary from the fast track, and there is none better than Sam Houston Park. Set directly behind…
Best Milk Shake
The Hershey’s chocolate milk shake at Becks Prime is the epitome of what a milk shake should be: thick, extra-creamy and ice cold. It’s so thick that you can’t possibly drink it through a straw — that’s why they provide a spoon with every order. The creaminess and unbelievable mouth…
Best Cheeseburger
Often overlooked as a burger mecca because of its lack of tables, this shabby convenience store serves the most impressive cheeseburger in town. The greatness starts with a half-pound, hand-formed patty mounted on an oversize, well-toasted sesame-seed bun. Go “all the way,” and the adornments include lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo,…
Best Mojito
Call us purists, but we love enjoying a good mojito in distinctly South American environs. And when we want to sip on the pretty, minty cocktail and watch pretty people, we head to Arturo Boada’s Beso (Spanish for “kiss”). Downtown scenesters, young professionals and hip South Americans flock to the…
Best Plants
Has your green thumb turned brown and got ya down? And has that balcony herb garden barely yielded enough to do anything other than order takeout? Maybe it’s time to stop picking plants at the grocery store as an afterthought. Buchanan’s specializes in flora native to the area, so whatever…
Best Dog Trainer
Fido still isn’t listening when you calmly explain that jumping on the furniture is costing you a fortune in upholstery-cleaning fees? Trainer Loralei Zwitt can teach you how to get your message across effectively by utilizing her famous motto: Think like a dog. Houston’s own dog whisperer has nearly 20…
Best Astro
For years we’ve been the slightest bit put off by Craig Biggio, who seemed to be working far too hard on his all-American-boy image and has never, as far as we can tell, given an interview that wasn’t a dull string of “one game at a time” clichs. But with…
Best Clothes for Your Dog
If there’s one thing every dog loves, it’s wearing clothes. And in Houston, your best selection is at this venerable chain, which carries a bounty of haute couture for Fluffy and Rex. This summer, why not treat your bitch to a striped tennis dress or a cool zebra-print affair? For…
Best Restaurant Comeback
More than just a Tex-Mex joint, Felix’s is a historic local landmark, serving up enchiladas and margaritas to Houstonians for nearly sixty years. And when Felix Jr. announced that the place would be closing its doors and shutting down for good, there was an overwhelming response from people all over…
Best Tex-Mex Restaurant
The fajitas and the fajitadillas (fajita-meat quesadillas) are made with sizzling, fresh-off-the-grill beef. The enchilada sauces are perfectly seasoned and never too thick or too watery. And giving away free chili con queso along with the chips and salsa at lunch hasn’t hurt their popularity, either. The original Doneraki on…
Best South American Restaurant
The signature dish there is, what else, churrasco, a charcoal-grilled, center-beef tenderloin steak. From a petite six-ounce serving to a platter-sized 16-ounce slab, these are some of the best steaks in town. But there are plenty of other tasty delights to be sampled at Churrascos as well, including doblones (chargrilled…
Best Brunch
You can get brunch just about anywhere these days, but at Backstreet Cafe, the meal’s staples are redefined. The fluffy gingerbread waffle is served with sauted cinnamon apples. The French toast is reinvented as brioche generously stuffed with bananas and served with a sticky-sweet caramel sauce. The Eggs Benedict are…
Best Kiddie Pool
When you have kids, your recreational choices change. For one thing, you forgo a pool packed with hard bodies for one that’s safe for your non-swimming toddlers to splash around in. But despite Houston’s heat, it’s hard to find a kiddie pool inside the Loop. The Garden Cove Swim Club…
Best Candidate to Be the Female Larry Bird
Goodrich, Texas — about an hour north of town up in the Piney Woods of Polk County — is little more than a wide spot in a logging trail, home to a mere 243 souls. Their high school had only 70 students, one of whom was Adrian McGowen, a five…
SARTIN’S
The Sartins made barbecued crabs famous in East Texas, but not because they’re lucky. It’s a fact that of the 14 Sartin’s Seafood locations that have opened over the years, all but three are gone, the remainder lost to one disaster or another. And every time a calamity closed one…
Slamburgers
We’d love for you to come to the Randy Rogers video shoot,” coos the P.R. rep over the phone. “Come at lunchtime, he’ll be able to sit and talk with you then.” Excellent, lunch with Randy Rogers, a Texas country singer with a new CD and a hot single. How…
Capsule Reviews
“Collect Them All! Soft Brown Narratives” Very rarely has Barbie been used well in art, but Lauren Kelley pulls it off. This exhibition includes some great color photographs of staged scenes using altered Barbies and other dolls. But the real showstopper is her video Big Gurl (2006), which stars the…
Best Happy Hour
If years and years of practice have taught us anything, it’s that happy hours end pretty badly unless you get some food in your stomach before things really get going. Otherwise, you forget to eat altogether (and we all know how that turns out) or you end up snacking later…
Best Neighborhood Bar – Montrose
Though a number of other worthy watering holes crowd the field, Poison Girl strong-arms the competition with its outstanding service, noteworthy patio and, most of all, its compulsion to give back. Despite being all but concealed in shadows, Poison Girl has become popular through word of mouth. Why? It’s a…
Best Menagerie
Just south of Loop 610 off State Highway 288 is the newest manifestation of Houston’s inherent weirdness — a fresh companion for other such exuberant folk-art outbursts as the Orange Show, the Beer Can House and the Flower Man House. In a huge green field just off Holmes Road, on…
Best Landmark
Co-designed by architectural legend Philip Johnson, the 901-foot-tall Williams Tower has the kind of power and grace that impresses people who aren’t normally impressed by buildings. Completed in 1983 and originally known as the Transco Tower, the edifice was built as two separate structures, one atop the other. The building…
Best Local Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll Blog
Local musician and occasional Houston Press contributor Greg Wood sets up one of his blog entries thusly: “So there I am, pouring teaglasses full of Wild Turkey, inhaling fat lines, when I had a GREAT idea. Why be alone? Female company was but a phone call away, this being the…
Best Bureaucrat
If the word “bureaucrat” refers to paper-pushers, then Charles Bacarisse — who deals with all the paper generated by judges and lawyers working in 74 courts — is a bureaucrat of the first rank. But he’s trying hard to change that. Bacarisse is leading the effort to make the district…
Best Bar Atmosphere/Decor
The people at Helios have always maintained that the joint is an art space, not a bar, but once you’ve kicked back a few well drinks and/or Lone Stars, it’s hard to tell the difference. Owner Mariana Lemesoff and other local artists created most of the tables, chairs and decor…
Best Pool Hall
Pool is the drinking man’s game of choice, for good reason: The more you drink, the better you play. And there’s no better place to get a rack-chalk-and-break game on than Cue & Cushion. Though it’s smaller than some pool halls around town, it boasts 16 pristine pro-size Brunswick tables,…
Best Benefit to Living Downtown
Slowly but surely, downtown Houston is coming back. Its revitalization lags behind that of other major cities, which long ago converted their warehouses from ugly eyesores into coveted loft spaces. Houston presses forward with the opening of many new restaurants, clubs and plans for a huge urban park. But surely…
Best Pimento Cheese
If the Goddess of Pimento Cheese does not sound like a glamorous title, then you’ve never had Janice Schindler’s pimento cheese. The former food editor of The Houston Post and the Houston Chronicle whips up a concoction that will make you forever forget that pale, pinkish spread found in convenience-store…
Best Sushi
The fish seems fresher and the sushi chefs seem sharper at Uptown Sushi than anywhere else in town. On weekends, expect to dine among dressed-to-the-teeth singles mingling to a throbbing techno soundtrack. The sashimi is top-notch, and the raw Kobe beef is extremely popular. But it’s the edgy, innovative dishes…
Best Sake
The bass booms at the chic Zake Lounge, where Asian hipsters with asymmetrical hair mingle with Inner Loop hotties in halter tops and Montrose bohos in Birkenstocks. While amped-up dance versions of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” (huh?) and Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al” (WTF?) throb overhead, regulars order chilled blue…
Best Day Spa for Men
Metrosexuals, unite! While the term may have gone out of vogue, (some) men’s proclivity to stay neatly groomed predates and will forever outlive pop phrases such as “manscaping.” Owner Raul Guzman opened METRO in November 2004 and has been offering cosmetic services, massage and pampering to his male clientele ever…
Best Watch Repair
In a day and age when nearly every business seems hell-bent on offering services as varied as nose-wiping and landscaping, it’s refreshing to find a place that’s been doing one thing and doing it well for nearly 60 years. The Little Watch Shop is a small house/store in Montrose that’s…
Best Cheap Seats
It’s been a long, long time since baseball was a cheap date, as Astros fans can tell you. Even before you start spending crazy money on food and beer at a game, buying a pair of seats hugging the foul pole will set you back almost $75. But there are…
Best Doggy Day Care
Why not give your special buddy a chance to get footloose and fancy free while you’re at work? Take him to Rover Oaks, a company founded on a philosophy of “positive reinforcement, plenty of exercise, and group play’ for pets with good social skills,” and whose Houston location (there’s one…
Best Salvadoran Restaurant
Houston’s Spanish-speaking community includes a great many people from El Salvador. If you need verification, just look for a pickup ftbol game at Hermann Park or hit a pupuseria, the Salvadoran answer to the taqueria. El Pupusdromo is easily the most successful Salvadoran chain in town, and with good reason:…
Best Greek Restaurant
New Greek cuisine entres such as grilled sea bass or angel-hair pasta with sauted shrimp, scallops and calamari may be the most interesting things on the menu, but Alexander the Great Greek is doing an admirable job of being all things to all Greek-food lovers. There’s Athens-style fast food like…
Best New Restaurant
Glass Wall is a great new American bistro just where we needed it most: in the restaurant-deprived Heights. Predictably, the eatery has been packed since it opened in early April. Lance Fegen, former co-owner of Zula and chef at Trevsio, has left behind the overwrought designs and menus of his…
Best Delivery
It’s 8:30p.m., you’re starving and sitting in your underwear, and the last thing you want to do is get in the car again. What to do? Savvy diners in the Heights area call on Spaghetti Western, named for the cowboy shoot-’em-up movie staple. The Italian restaurant’s delivery menu features obligatory…
Best Sports Columnist
If there’s one thing that annoys a fan of the U.S. national soccer team, it’s when someone criticizes the players after watching just one World Cup match. Thankfully, Houston readers have a columnist who’s on the ball: John P. Lopez covered this year’s World Cup in a way newcomers could…
Best Candidate to Be the Next Hakeem Olajuwon
Standing just a shade under seven feet, this Jordan is not of the Michael mode. Instead, he’s a shot-blocking machine, recently described by one national basketball recruiting junkie as “a black hole for runners, floaters, short jumpers and lay-up attempts” who “makes Ben Wallace look lazy and meek.” Jordan, who…
The 3700s
This didn’t start off as a musical social experiment. It started off with me trying to get to see the Damnwells in concert. But somehow I ended up spending three nights in one week on the 3700 block of Main St. Between the Continental Club, the Mink and Sig’s Lagoon,…
Skinny Gabacho Doesn’t Want to Stand Out
Dear Mexican, I have a stupid, unemployed, 16-year-old gang-bangin’ cousin who already dropped out of school, and I’m pretty sure most Mexicans are related to somebody who fits that description. About eight months ago, he knocked up a girl around his age, so last week I was dragged to their…
Best Artist
We love Francesca Fuchs’s breasts. We especially love that she had the balls (so to speak) to devote an entire show, “MOM,” to them at Texas Gallery. All six paintings were different shots of a breast-feeding baby, seen from above, through the mother’s eyes. But this wasn’t a foray into…
Best Neighborhood Bar – Downtown
Warren’s is a bar. You drink at Warren’s. You don’t watch the game, you don’t pick up chicks. You have them pour you a stiff cocktail and you put John Lee Hooker on the juke and you smoke a cigarette. You look at the inevitable old drunk guy, and you…
Best Spanish-Language Radio Station
Mega 101 doesn’t have an entirely Spanish-language lineup; they play a Spanglish mix of hip-hop, rock, salsa and reggaetn. So what makes it so popular with Houston’s Latinos? It’s the music, combined with the “Latino and Proud” attitude, that have earned it legions of listeners. The morning show features the…
Best Local TV Personality
Dominique’s got personality to spare. Whether she’s sharing the joys of her pregnancy with viewers or talking about her bulldog, Butkus, she’s hypnotizing. Mostly, it’s the lips; just look at those things. When she first announced she had a “secret,” we feared the worst. Was she leaving us? Was she…
Best Public Restroom
The kind folks at Nordstrom have made service their No. 1 priority, and this extends to the deluxe restrooms on every floor of the upscale department store. The third-floor facilities are the apex, however, featuring a generous family restroom that flustered moms and dads of small children can especially appreciate…
Best Republican
For someone who has 3.6 million constituents, County Judge Robert Eckels has kept somewhat of a low profile — which, considering the colorful, if not entirely legal, activities of some county court predecessors (like, ummm, his father), is a good thing. All that changed in 2005, when Eckels teamed with…
Best Bar
Catbirds doesn’t have the town’s best parking situation, especially on a busy night, but once you’re inside and the vocals by greats such as Ella Fitzgerald and Nat “King” Cole kick in, you forget about the perilous journey you made to get there. The atmosphere is always laid-back, regardless of…
Best Midtown Club
Many clubs open and close within a matter of a few years, but Rich’s has been going strong for two decades. Despite being located, for many years, in a desolate area of town between downtown, Montrose and the Third Ward — long before Midtown became a nightlife hotspot — the…
Best Community Newspaper
Scrappy and hard-hitting with a generous dollop of sugarcoated sentimentality: These are the ingredients for a great community newspaper. The front page will devote as much space to chili cookoffs and church socials as burglary trends and city hall scandals. After all, the paper exists not to bash the community…
Best Crepes
It used to be that crepes and Houston went together like tea parties and Hummers. Maybe that hasn’t changed, but at least Houston now has an actual creperie — and a good one at that. CoCo’s Crepes & Coffee, which opened last year, serves a savory crepe that would make…
Best Oysters
When the water in Galveston Bay gets cold and the oysters start to get plump, we head to Willie G’s oyster bar, where the shuckers are top-notch and they always seem to get the smallest, freshest and sweetest oysters. It’s too bad they don’t have a Muscadet or other extremely…
Best Bloody Mary
Much like a foamy pint of Guinness, a Bloody Mary is a drink that eats like a meal. And when you’re faced with returning to the sober world on a Sunday morning — but need a little help — there are few better meals than a Bloody Mary. But the…
Best Bakery
In cities such as San Francisco, almost every neighborhood has a boutique bakery with handmade breads and pastries cooked with top-quality ingredients. Houston has Kraftsmen. Walk over (if you live in Montrose) or drive in from Sugar Land. Either way, it’s worth the trip if you value a great French…
Best Manicure
It’s not hard to find a mani-pedi combo in this town for $25: Look for the nearest strip mall and take your pick. There’s no need to wait that is, unless you’re going to Instyle Nails, where you’ll get a great deal and a great massage. Yes! A shoulder and…
Best Aero
If you want flash in hockey, you look for a speeding, preening wingman. If you want solid dependability, you look for a defenseman. And on the Houston Aeros, you look for Curtis Murphy. Murphy, who returned to Houston this season after a year of competing in Russia, seemingly never misses…
Best Barber
Walking into Doug & Don’s Barber Shop in the Heights is like taking a step back in time. Nostalgic photos and articles line the walls, and the sounds of KPFT, Neil Young or the afternoon news fill the room during conversational lulls. It’s a classic barbershop, similar to one you…
Best Moroccan Restaurant
In the same strip center as a Conoco gas station, on a block full of car repair shops and import stores, Casablanca hides behind a narrow wall of shiny windows, reflecting southwest Houston’s grunge. But step inside, and the bleak atmosphere gives way to cheerful walls of tangerine and lime…
Best Mexican Restaurant
Hugo Ortega’s upscale version of Mexican cuisine draws on his family’s roots in Puebla, as well as on his training in the Houston restaurant business. The bar is loaded with premium tequilas, the guacamole is outstanding, and they make their own tortillas. Mexican-food enthusiasts will delight to find such exotica…
Best Greasy Spoon
Greasy hamburgers, fries and chicken all have their devotees in this town, but if you want to try a place that has really earned its grease, look no further than Himalaya. At this Muslim-Indian joint, a massive dose of oil and meat fat carries off an equally massive dose of…
Best Place to Watch Wildlife in the Urban Jungle
This man-made Brays Bayou feeder teems with wildlife both native and exotic. From the levee that protects the western edge of the Ayrshire subdivision you can gaze down on a usually sluggish (and, truth be told, smelly and trash-strewn) stream full of minnows, frogs, snakes and three kinds of turtle…
Best Dog Park
Millie Bush Dog Park, named for the spaniel that roamed the White House under George and Babs, isn’t just the best dog park in Houston. According to the editors of Dog Fancy Magazine, it’s the No. 1 bark park in the USA. We haven’t scoped out the country’s other 700…
Best 15 Minutes of Fame
Wholesome Will Makar of The Woodlands was cut from utterly different cloth than Katys Kimberly Caldwell, the only other local Idol contestant to make it to the late-stage TV rounds of the show. Where Caldwell was the type of bad girl youd bribe your son to dump, Makar was the…
Xiu Xiu
Listening to Xiu Xiu is like tasting a strange tropical fruit: Either you savor its exotic nature, or you throw up a little in your mouth. The band’s sixth album, The Air Force, fuses anguished vocals with dominating melodies, but unfortunately misses the mark just as often as it hits…
Fourth and Inches
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PS2, Xbox, GC, PC, X360, PSP, DS, GBA
Price: $30-$60
ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)
Score: 8 (out of 10)
Best Artistic Collaboration
Last year was a paint-splattered banner for I Love You Baby. The collective — consisting primarily of Will Bentsen, Andrea Chin, Rodney Elliott, Mark Flood, Paul Kremer, Chris Olivier and Dale Stewart, but involving whoever the hell shows up on any given Wednesday night — showed pieces at DiverseWorks and…
Best Neighborhood Bar – Heights
Onion Creek, with its decidedly Austin-esque vibe, is a great place to grab a drink and catch up with friends. Half coffee shop, half wine bar, it’s the perfect combination of casual cool and laid-back hip. Go on a Saturday night and you’re likely to see a few local celebrities/Onion…
Best Place to Relive the ’50s
Step inside the Bellaire Broiler Burger dining room and you’ll find yourself transported back to a time when burgers weren’t fusion food, and a ten-spot could actually get you a satisfying dinner. The Happy Days malt-shop decor includes vinyl booths, knickknacks right out of Grandma’s living room, faded plastic flowers…
Best Local R-Rated Blog
For more than a year now, a self-described nympho identifying herself only as “Vix” has been telling us about her need for constant sex. Up until a few months ago, that need was met by her boyfriend, although not as often as she wanted. They split, so she started a…
Best Hidden Neighborhood
Going to traffic court can be just a little more bearable if you take a slight detour off the beaten path: Venture into the Old Sixth Ward, which is tucked behind a mishmash of busy thoroughfares on the western edge of downtown. There you’ll discover 1,000 acres of Greek Revival,…
Best Democrat
Bill White had some flubs in his first two and a half years as Houston’s mayor: the fight against capping the city’s ability to generate tax revenue, the enthusiastic push for a light rail referendum that’s grown only more controversial since its passage, and the growing crime rate. But he…
Best DJ
Witnes’s skills on the ones and twos, plus his ability to keep a steady scene at The Proletariat’s “Rockbox” every Thursday, are what make him worthy of Best DJ honors. (And his radio show, Late Nite Snax with The Grinch on KPFT/90.1 FM, brought Houston the latest in local, independent…
Best New Bar
When The Mink and its neighboring Backroom opened last summer, Montrosian hipsters finally had a good reason to hit up the burgeoning Main Street strip in between Wilbern and West Alabama. The Mink is housed in what once was Drink Bar, but owner/nightlife entrepreneur Tim Murrah gave the slender space…
Best Show of Houston Pride
Annual games of chicken with hurricanes, questionable politicians, Enron and suffocating humidity aren’t selling anyone on Houston. So scrap the “Houston. It’s Worth It” campaign and hire on Paul Wall, who’s made sure the world is familiar not only with Houston but with Houston landmarks such as Timmy Chan’s Chicken…
Best Dim Sum
There’s always a huge crowd on hand at Kim Son’s Stafford location on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so you might have to sit outside and wait for a table. But it’s worth it; the selection of dim sum there is the best in the city. But no matter how well…
Best Barbecued Crabs
When you order barbecued crabs at Sartin’s, the top shells and the messy innards are removed in the kitchen. What’s left are spicy, meaty crab bodies (with two claws attached) that taste like a cross between barbecue and Cajun deep-fried seafood. The dish was invented in Sabine Pass, the corner…
Best Nan
You can hear the slaps as soon as you walk in the door. The thuds emanate from behind the counter of Khyber North Indian Grill, where a chef painstakingly pounds dough into plate-size discs, which are then toasted in a tandoor oven. Out they come, steaming, delicately crisp on the…
Best Meat Market
Yes, we know they sell meat at Fiesta and Kroger and Whole Foods. But do they sell hog chitterlings and Cajun pan sausage? Do they sell smoked andouille and three kinds of boudin? Well, they do at Burt’s Meat Market & Cajun Foods, making the trek past payday stores and…
Best Chiropractor
Any chiropractor can crack your bones, but few are going to care about your total state of health as much as Jackie Doval does. At Alternative Health and Wellness, she uses traditional chiropractic manipulations (a.k.a. bone-popping), in conjunction with exercise, massage and nutrition, all in a supportive environment. A community…
Best Fans
Face it: Being a hockey fan in Houston can be tough. Mention the Rangers to someone, and they think you’re talking baseball. Give a Texans fan five chances to spell Jaromir Jagr, and he’ll still be tossing Y’s at you on his fifth try. But there’s plenty of upside: The…
Best Mechanic
In Houston, finding a mechanic you can trust is as important as finding a competent doctor; many people in this town practically live in their vehicles, and chances are that your car will see more time on the operating table than you ever will. That’s why it’s imperative to find…
Best Middle Eastern Restaurant
The uninitiated, the experienced, the displaced natives and the seriously hungry alike all find solace in the wide array of offerings of this Middle Eastern/Mediterranean buffet. Diners looking for culinary standards are more than pleased with the falafels and kabobs, and heartier appetites are appeased by the shredded beef and…
Best Bistro
There aren’t any ceramic roosters, Ricard pitchers or other bistro clichs here; Bistro Moderne’s interior is appointed in dark chocolate-brown with cream trim, and the extensive banquettes are accented with brilliant blue cushions. The look is fashion-forward, and the feel is extremely comfortable. You won’t believe you’re in a hotel…
Best Chinese Fast Food
If the prospect of eating another bland box of Chinese-American takeout gives you a moo goo gai panic attack, then here’s a fresh idea: real Chinese fast food in the heart of Chinatown. Near the long, spare counter, back-lit photos depict an assortment of dishes that are often vegetable-centric, well…
Best Bowling Alley
There are few places left in Houston where one can drink, smoke and bowl, all at the same time. There’s just one, in fact, and that place is Palace Lanes. The joint is technically located in Southside, rather than in Houston metro, even though it fits within the borders of…
Best Place to Fly a Kite
Though Houston is nothing like Chicago in terms of wind, the occasional gusts coming in off the Gulf can make flying a kite here an exhilarating experience — especially at Rice University. In addition to the great view of the neighboring Medical Center, the beautiful campus has many wide-open grassy…
Ben Kweller
Not many high school kids can say their band touched off a major-label bidding war, but indie whiz-kid Ben Kweller’s group, Radish, did just that. It wasn’t until after he abandoned Radish and went out on his own, at 17, that Kweller made good on the hype with Freak Out,…
Camel Light
The Big Animal (Milestone) It’s a simple yet lesser known law of comedy: Camels are always funny. There are the jaws that drool and chew side to side, the front legs that move like a human’s, the humps — but mostly it’s the eyes: There’s something of Buddha in a…
Best Sports Bar
A stone’s throw from Memorial Park sits a ramshackle house with a roof that appears to be caving in under the weight of two enormous satellite dishes. Inside Bubba’s Sports Bar & Grill, flat-screen TVs fill every corner. With its worn wood floors and stone fireplace, this neighborhood favorite has…
Best Coffeehouse
Dear Agora: You have us spellbound. So much so that we will risk breaking our neck on your steep staircase and pay a little more than we should for that Greek coffee whatchamacallit or that Shiner Bock. But we will do this because you kick ass. We love your warm,…
Best Place to Relive the ’80s
Music — way more so than movies, books or fashion — has the power to put you in the Waybac Machine and plop you instantly into the past. Hearing the opening notes to “The Safety Dance,” “Addicted to Love” or “Goodbye to You” will take more years off your visage…
Best Local City Life Blog
Though this mysterious fellow’s real name is a secret, regular readers of his blog know that Slampo is an ex-employee of the defunct Houston Post, a native of southwest Louisiana now living in the Westbury area, a fan of both baseball Hall of Famer Enos “Country” Slaughter and primordial swamp-bluesman…
Best Renovation
Just two short years ago, those who happened upon the Jefferson Davis Hospital on the periphery of Old Sixth Ward didn’t hold out much hope for the long-abandoned building. With a barbed wire fence protecting its graffiti-riddled exterior and glass shards hanging tenaciously in every window, the red brick Classical…
Best Comedian
Paul Oddo (pronounced “OH-doe”) isn’t a giant on the city’s professional comedy scene, but he’s sparked some humorous fires at alternative venues such Rudyard’s and The Proletariat. It’s likely his native Houston isn’t ready to embrace his long-winded, introspective style: His approach to stand-up is more thought-provoking and anecdotal than…
Best Art Gallery
Moody Gallery, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, is a well-respected fixture on the Houston art scene. Founder and director Betty Moody focuses on work that has what she feels is a personal vision; she doesn’t care about courting art stars and avoids flash-in-the-pan trendiness. The gallery’s focus on…
Best Bar Mom
Before setting foot in Rowdy’s Roadhouse, all we knew was it had a mechanical bull. We had to assume that its patrons were rednecks and/or refinery workers. We didn’t know just how rural the surrounding area is (you can actually see the stars in the big Texas sky), and we…
Best Place to People-Watch
Really cheap drinks draw the Montrose bohemian set like free samiches draw the homeless. Rockabillies, punks, indie nerds, artists, bookish introverts, extroverted exhibitionists and the occasional clump of local comedians filtering out from open-mike Mondays at the nearby Laff Stop flock to the capacious patio of this watering hole to…
Best Indian Desserts
Indian desserts are harder to find than Indian curries, but they’re no less important to Indians. Anyone who has seen Deepa Mehta’s film Water knows that a saccharine gulab jamun can be transcendent. And no place makes better dessert for the soul than one of the area’s authorities on matters…
Best Dumplings
There are many opinions as to what makes Doozo’s dumplings so good. “It’s the dough,” one source says. “The dough is handmade.” “Definitely the sauce,” says another. “You don’t have to bother with the spicy one, because the regular is so good.” Really, Doozo has hit on a combination of…
Best Martini
Sure, it’s cool to sip a $12 martini on a cushy chaise longue in a chic hotel bar. But sipping a cheap martini while sitting thigh-to-thigh with strangers on a cramped couch in front of a fireplace — a televised fireplace? That’s cool. That’s the Davenport. The place is so…
Best Bartender
We’ve been to Absinthe Lounge on nights it’s so busy that you can’t hear a damn thing over the voices echoing off the tile floor, and each time we’re more impressed with owner Ralph Rager, who’s a machine when it comes to slinging drinks. He’s so deft and accurate, so…
Best Farmers’ Market
Inner Loopers have been patting themselves heartily on the back lately for bringing back “roadside” produce stands at various farmers’ markets. Although our hats are off to the boom in homegrown tomatoes, we’d like to give props to the giant farmers’ market (inside the Loop) that’s been offering a tremendous…
Best Psychic
Every month, a dozen people gather at the Sugar Land house of psychic Sean Harribance for a potluck lunch and a day of exploring the paranormal. Somehow, with no planning or coordination, it always seems like there’s just the right amount and variety of food. Is it the triumph of…
Best Comic Book Store
Seedy strip-mall location? Check. Pale, geeky-yet-arrogant clerks who live up to the stereotype by listening to bands like Rush and Jethro Tull? Yep. Nan’s has all of those things. (And best of all for male comic book lovers, they even employ some cute comic-book-loving girls.) Even better than all that…
Best Pre-Theater Restaurant
Open for dinner Thursday through Saturday nights only, this red-checkered-tablecloth Italian restaurant caters to theater and concert hall patrons eating a pre-performance meal. The prices are reasonable, the food can be good, and the atmosphere is friendly and fun. Order fresh-tasting dishes off the daily special board — grilled salmon…
Best Seafood Restaurant
Opened in 1911 in Murdoch’s bathhouse at the 21st Street pier, Gaido’s is a fourth-generation family heirloom. They don’t serve crabs in the winter, and they don’t serve oysters in the summer — they buy what’s in season. Like Antoine’s in New Orleans, Gaido’s is as much a museum as…
Best Prix-Fixe Lunch
Think you can’t afford Tony’s? Think again, for there’s a bargain for the taking. Considering that the entres alone range from $12 to $32 for lunch, Tony’s prix-fixe lunch (a.k.a. the Crescent Express) is quite the bargain. Just $17 gets you a three-course lunch with soup or salad (which change…
Best Guided Meditation
Near the busy intersection of Richmond and Shepherd rests the modern oasis of Dawn Mountain. From its spacious, airy new home, the Tibetan temple, community center and research institute welcomes all seekers to its meditation sessions every Sunday at 11 a.m. Enter quietly, place your shoes in the snug cubbyhole…
Best Rocket
As fans are painfully aware, the 2005-2006 Houston Rockets season went from hopeful to hateful, from “Just Do It” to “Just Kill Us.” Free agents Derek Anderson and Stromile Swift were a bust and a disappointment, respectively. Tracy McGrady, despite putting forth a stalwart effort, succumbed to back spasms and…
Chico Hamilton
Drummer Chico Hamilton has earned some impressive credits during his more than 60-year career. As a young man, he played with Nat “King” Cole, Lena Horne, T. Bone Walker, Dexter Gordon and Billie Holiday. Later he co-led the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, before leading several of his own bands. He has…
Our top DVD picks for the week of September 26:
Beowulf & Grendel (Anchor Bay) The Book of Daniel: The Complete Series (Universal) Bratz: Passion Fashion Diamondz (Fox) Con Man (Docurama) Curious George (Universal) Danger Mouse: The Final Seasons (A&E) Daniel Boone: Season 1 and Season 2 (Goldhil) Dark Shadows: DVD Collection 26 (MPI) Dracula: 75th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Drop…
Best Icehouse
The bartender, a whip-smart kid with a shaved head, is about to enter the police academy. He’s excited about it, even counting down the days. “Cops are like flies,” spits a shaggy-haired patron, pausing to make sure the kid is listening. He adds, triumphantly, “They eat shit and pester people.”…
Best Gay Bar
Probably the most popular gay bar among straights and hags, South Beach is the hub of the Pacific Street district, the sparkling gem of Montrose. True, most of the men there are gorgeous. Sure, the go-go boys are divine. Yes, the drinks are stronger than the love of those two…
Best Place to See Vintage Flicks
Ever wonder what it was like to see silent films in the old days, with an orchestra providing a dramatic soundtrack? Wonder no more. The film department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston regularly includes silent films along with offerings of classic and contemporary cinema. And some of those…
Best Public Information Officer
Earlier this year, we submitted public information requests to 63 Houston-area school districts, just to see how they’d respond (see “Needling the Haystack,” by Keith Plocek, May 18). We wanted to measure how each district would treat a taxpayer who’d walked in the door and demanded to know what was…
Best Demolition
No one wanted to see AstroWorld go after 40 years, but you have to admit that once the decision was made, it was fun watching it get torn down. First went modern, sleek rides such as the Viper and Serial Thriller, and then some of the buildings and the waterpark…
Best Party
We usually rail on hipster types who begin sentences with “Oh, you mean you’ve never…,” but if you missed these parties, well, it sucks to be you. From the understaffed, expectation-blowing explosion that was the first event to the overcrowded, throbbing mlange that was the last, the Beats of Basquiat…
Best Curator
Italian-born Paola Morsiani brings a broad range of art to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. In the past year, she organized an exhibition of work by an international art star, an installation from a little-known Albanian artist and a group show of emerging Houston artists. She also co-curated a fascinating…
Best New Club
Clubs in Midtown and downtown are so predictable: They usually have asinine rules and regulations, and there’s almost always a queue of suburban dwellers paying upward of 15 bucks to get inside a club playing Top 40 hits, ’80s throwbacks or hip-hop. Booooring. But a38 is changing the way we…
Best Reason to Stay in Houston During the Summer
While most of Houston’s arts groups take a breather in the humidity of summer, the Tony Award-winning Alley Theatre turns up the heat. The Alley’s ExxonMobil Summer Chills series always brings edge-of-your-seat thrillers to life. What better way to spend a hot summer evening than in the air-conditioned theater watching…
Best Margarita
There are margarita lovers, and then there are margarita borachos. A truly great margarita bar appeals to both. And by that measure — as well as its (literally) mind-numbing selection — El Palenque is the best margarita joint in town. Before 8 p.m., $5.50 will buy you a frozen margarita…
Best Sangria
Sangria, although simple to make, can be a tricky thing; it’s often too sweet or tastes too much like a glass of cheap red wine. Bossa’s sangria is fruity and just sweet enough without going over the top, and it’s served in a pint glass with crushed ice and wedges…
Best Mint Julep
Let’s hope the new management of the Cotton Exchange Bar brings back their once-legendary mint julep. Offering premium spirits, elephant ear-sized mint leaves and a special silver tumbler, the club served the best in town. Until that happens, we’ll stick with the mixmasters at Under the Volcano. Every barkeep at…
Best Art Supply Store
We’re going to have to retire this award unless someone else steps up to the easel pretty soon, but for now the folks at Texas Art Supply can hang up their third plaque in as many years. The place really does have it all: paints, brushes, canvases, easels, stamps, inks,…
Best Mexican Bakery
La Ojarasca Panaderia has been around for more than 40 years and that’s a lot of cookies. And bolillos (French bread). And marranitos (gingerbread made in the shape of a pig). Deep in Houston’s East End, La Ojarasca is the place for fresh, hot Mexican delicacies. Don’t worry if you…
Best Live Models
Despite what you might think, life isn’t easy for the luscious live models at the Galleria’s Abercrombie & Fitch store. Gaggles of preteens constantly swarm with cameras. Lonely types offer lame come-ons. And occasionally mall security is called to haul away a leering creep. Of course, it doesn’t help that…
Best Place to Buy CDs by Local Musicians
Sound Exchange might not have the widest selection of local music the place is too small for that but it’s still the best spot to buy the stuff. That’s because the staff there knows local music like no other salespeople anywhere, and they pretty much stock anything from any band…
Best Bang for the Buck
Bang doesn’t really do it justice. It’s more like kaboom! An explosion of sambar masala piquancy attracts crowds to Balaji Bhavan faster than moths to a blaze. Devotees of a good chole (chick peas in tomato sauce), rasam (a thin soup with tamarind) and rava masala dhosa (a crepe stuffed…
Best Barbecue Joint
You judge a barbecue joint by its smoked meat. And the best comes from a real pit. The old cinder-block pit in Thelma’s on Live Oak ought to be declared a historic landmark. The design was brought to Houston by the legendary Joe Burney of Beaumont back in the ’20s…
Best Comfort Food
Comfort food shouldn’t be expensive. It should bring back fond memories of home, of Grandma and Aunt Sue. It should be plain and simple. Blue Plate Bistro fills the bill on all accounts. There you’ll get a good meal at a reasonable price in comfortable surroundings. Maybe it’s mac ‘n’…
Best Bike Path
If you’re looking for a good way to break some bones, Memorial Park’s bike paths can do the trick. Known as the “Ho Chi Minh” mountain bike trail amongst regulars, you can find yourself smack in the middle of a Mountain Dew commercial before you even realize what hit you…
Best Sports Hairdo
An NFL coach’s hair says a lot about him. Does he sport a pretty-boy tousled look, such as Tampa Bay’s John Gruden (a reflection of youthful flashiness)? How about a NASCAR-crew mullet, la Tennessee’s Jeff Fisher, reminding everyone that a good ol’ boy can survive despite a 4-12 season? Examining…
The Album Leaf
The best Album Leaf album, Seal Beach, distinguished itself in two ways: The songs were all instrumentals, and the record was only an EP. On his subsequent full-length efforts, The Album Leaf’s Jimmy LaValle further cultivated an introspective, expansive style of tranquil electronica, but the discs’ longer running times and…
Party Boy
The City was tired. It drank the night away at clubs in Tribeca, the East Village and the Meatpacking District. It kept the buzz going the next day at alumni bars, kicking off the football season with cheap shots and bottomless pints. It danced its ass off to Spank Rock…
Best Patio
Christopher Columbus stands at the south end of Bell Park pointing an index finger toward some trees as if he has made some big discovery. The six-foot sculpture ought to be rotated 90 degrees so Chris can point the way to a place that’s really worth discovering, if you haven’t…
Best Musical
In this day and age of musicals that have little to do with artistic expression and everything to do with making buckets of dough, it’s wonderfully refreshing to discover a song-filled night of theater that actually asks us to think. Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Wicked, which ran last fall…
Best Jazz Club
Everyone has a front-row seat at Cezanne, since the bar holds only 150 people. Upscale without being stuffy, the club’s intimate setting makes it the perfect place to take in local jazz favorites such as David Caceres and Sebastian Whittaker, as well as national acts. (Joshua Redman made his Houston…
Best Cheap Thrill
When we were kids, we loved to ride in or underneath the shopping cart while Mom propelled it along. Now that we’re older, we shop at Fiesta — not just for the value, but because their carts can easily be wheeled off the premises and used for a little extracurricular…
Best Weathercaster
Until something bigger and badder comes along, Houston weathercasters will be measured by how they did during Hurricane Rita. Rita was tailor-made to induce widespread panic (and, of course, sky-high ratings) — as it followed in the wake of Katrina. And for the longest time, it looked like it was…
Best Art Show
Andrea Zittel’s work is literally life-changing. Her sculptures and installations reflect the media-driven desire to tweak all aspects of our day-to-day travails, and the solutions she presents — portable chamber pots, modular living spaces, bizarre escape pods — often come off as claustrophobic and paradoxical, just like our options in…
Best Microcinema
Aurora Picture Show operates like an innovative art gallery and is based on the theory that each film — and each artist — is a piece of a bigger picture. Now in its ninth year, Aurora presents curated film shows during its 11-month season, occasionally peppering its lineup with treasure…
Best Original Show
Leave it to Jason Nodler, the long-absent founding artistic director of Infernal Bridegroom Productions, to return with a bang. After spending time working around the country, Nodler visited the Bayou City just long enough to create his best original show to date. Speeding Motorcycle, a surprisingly sweet rock opera, which…
Best Drag Queen
No one has yet to remove the fabulous tiara from Miss Kofi’s head. That’s because when she takes the stage, any trace of self-described country boy Terry Nabors immediately disappears, leaving in his place this BBD (big beautiful diva). For a while now, Kofi has entertained discriminating drag-queen audiences with…
Best Bread
Nothing is simpler and more satisfying than a slice of bread and butter, and for sheer variety, you won’t beat the fresh bread at eatZi’s. Long or round, soft or crispy, regular or whole wheat, plain or flavored, savory or sweet, sliced or whole — any way you like your…
Best Cheap Sandwich
Lee’s is a sandwich mecca, bread factory and dessert carnival, all under one roof. Open 24 hours every day, Lee’s serves up a large variety of Vietnamese and traditional American sandwiches for $1.85 to $2.15. If that’s not enough to get you sprinting to this Chinatown spectacle, they also bake…
Best Salad
Not many salads can last for three meals, but Barnaby’s chicken Mediterranean salad does it consistently. The whole affair starts with a massive plate of shredded lettuce. Then come the thin, crunchy red onions, slices of roma tomatoes, some plump black olives and a mound of seasoned chicken, thinly shredded…
Best Hip-hop Mall
Is there a shopping center anywhere in America as gangsta-riffic as our own Sharpstown Mall? Each of the mall’s entrance halls is lined with jewelry stalls or bling counters, as we like to call them. Of course, there’s the Johnny Dang/Paul Wall joint venture TV Jewelry, which now has multiple…
Best Place to Buy Socks
Even for a chain boasting overall prices that distribute evenly along the “Holy shit, that’s cheap!” continuum, this particular Marshalls is an even better bet than most for those hoping to land CK and Polo hosiery for next to nothing. And, as a special added bonus for the frugal yet…
Best Flea Market
A visit to Traders Village might tempt you to buy the RV of your dreams and move right in. The open-air flea market, located just outside the beltway in northwest Houston, has great carny food: turkey legs, sausage-on-a-stick and funnel cakes. The entertainment is old-timey: bluegrass bands, chili cookoffs, amusement…
Best Record Store
The demise of Cactus Music and Video this year left a huge void in Houston’s music scene. Not because of the inventory, mind you, but because of the sense of community and the 100-percent-Houston-proud vibe Cactus had. Good thing Sig’s Lagoon opened up shop. Though much smaller than Cactus, Sig’s…
Best Meat and Three
Hosting a group of Katrina evacuees last year, Zydeco quickly won them over with its stellar gumbo and red beans and rice. This joint can hang with most any Cajun place on the Gulf Coast. But what really packs in the business crowd every day are the divided plates heaped,…
Best Thai Restaurant
We always remember to bring our own beer to Vieng Thai, because food this hot doesn’t taste right without it. If only we could bring our own air conditioner! The restaurant, a former Asian grocery store with scuffed concrete floors and a malfunctioning a/c, is short on ambience and long…
Best Churrascaria
No, it isn’t the first churrascaria in Houston, or the biggest. In fact, it’s a pared-down version of a Brazilian steak house, designed to fit in a Montrose bungalow. But with its wood floors, stone fireplace and cozy porch, the atmosphere of Nelore Churrascaria is more pleasant and personal than…
Best Driving Range
If there’s one thing Houston isn’t short on, it’s golf courses. Our fair city has enough rich white men to fill several GOP fund-raisers, so it’s only fitting that we have an abundance of excellent places to swing some clubs. The best place by far to get your drive on…
Best Franchise Owner
Unless you were trapped under a large rock for the past eight months, you know that the Houston Texans have shaken things up a bit. Gone are oft-maligned GM Charley Casserly and oft-confused head coach Dom Capers. And though the changes appear to be for the better, the transition hasn’t…
Hatebreed
Connecticut’s Hatebreed comes out of that whole “We’re all about unity and positivity, and we’ll kick the ass of anyone who says different” mindset fostered by the New York and Boston hardcore scenes. It has managed to bash out four albums of monochromatic metalcore — the latest being the brand-new…
Show God the Money
The bright spotlight of the journalistic world shone on George Adams recently, when he starred in the lead anecdote for a Time magazine cover piece that asked, “Does God Want You To Be Rich?” The story said — or at least strongly implied — that Adams moved from Ohio to…
Best Hotel Bar
The bar located just off the lobby at the Four Seasons Hotel is a throwback to an earlier era, when love-struck couples donned their best duds for a night on the town. Spare in its details — cushy chairs, a few framed artworks and lamp-lit tables that emit a hazy…
Best Theater Season
Any theater that can land the regional premiere of The Pillowman for its season deserves a standing ovation; producing Martin McDonagh’s much-lauded sensational drama about a writer of horror tales was a true feat. But the Alley Theatre and its artistic director, Gregory Boyd, did more than grab up one…
Best Band Stage Show
It’s not only Houston fans who are getting to see LoneStar PornStar’s stage antics: The group is now making regular appearances in Austin, Corpus Christi and San Antonio, as well. And antics — loud antics — is the correct term for these hard rockers. Singer Greg David Stegman commands the…
Best Not-So-Cheap Thrill
Of all the places one could wish to spend one’s FEMA relief money, The Penthouse Club is the place where one can drop some serious cash in a seriously quick amount of time for a seriously not-so-cheap thrill. Whether you’re scoring some champagne for your party, getting some VIP treatment…
Best Local TV News
KHOU is like the New York Yankees of old: sleek, classy and unbeatable. When other stations in town grabbed ratings with crime-heavy shtick and eye-scalding graphics, the team at Channel 11 just kept on putting out solid, information-filled newscasts that didn’t ignore City Hall for the sake of a fire…
Best Installation
Tom Burckhardt’s cardboard atelier blew us away. Using brown cardboard and black paint, the artist took over DiverseWorks’s project space and re-created an entire studio, complete with a vintage storefront entrance decked out in graffiti. Inside, we felt like Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit: utterly confused in a…
Best Alternative Club
Alternative in just about every sense — except maybe sexual preference — this unashamedly divey hangout is peerlessly grungy and eclectic, with a great jukebox, pool, cheap drinks, handy parking at the bank next door and an entertaining weekly lineup of DJs and local bands. In the past year, the…
Best Actress
Given her bookishly shy demeanor and a willingness to step back and let others shine under the spotlight, Shannon Emerick hardly seems like much of a star. Yet when she moves across a stage, something in her deeply intelligent gaze takes over. It’s difficult to take one’s eyes away from…
Best Use of Taxpayer Dollars
After all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth that accompanied the introduction of Mayor Bill White’s SAFEclear program, and a few tweaks after it was started, it appears that he was right and those of us who opposed it were wrong. Who knew it was such a good idea…
Best Veal Marsala
If two is better than one, then three is definitely better than two. All of the dishes at Maggiano’s are served family-style, and when you order their wonderful veal Marsala, you get three large slices of meat — plus enough mushrooms to cover the entire platter — for scarcely more…
Best French Fries
They’re not curly, they’re not seasoned, not wedged, not shoestring, not waffled, but they are some damn good fries. Crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, Cafe Montrose’s french fries actually taste like the potatoes whence they came. In the Belgian tradition, these fries are meant to accompany…
Best Breakfast Tacos
Few portable breakfasts can rival the chorizo-and-egg breakfast taco. Problem is, you’re likely to suffer a coronary after the second one, they’re so drenched with oil and grease. Not so with the version at Brothers Taco House. The venerable little East End stand offers a version of this breakfast staple…
Best Record Collection
If there were any justice in the world, Nick DiFonzo would be a wealthy man. A few years back, the KHOU-TV technician/satellite truck engineer started Bizarrerecords.com, a Web site on which he posted scans of hundreds of the weird, tacky and just plain bad album covers he’s found in the…
Best Tattoo Parlor
Since opening in December, Bombshell Tattoo has quickly become the only place we get our ink done. Whether you need a butterfly or have been dreaming of a custom back-piece, this shop’s talented stable of artists knows how to create art that’ll last, well, forever. Its Spartan, lavender interior is…
Best Junk
The sign in front of Texas Junk Company has an offer you just can’t refuse: Over 1,000 used cowboy boots under $30. Sure enough, once you step inside, the smell of well-worn leather will guide your nose to the shelves piled high with Tex Ritter’s favorite footwear. Aside from the…
Best Vintage Clothing
Admit it back in the day, you were totally envious of that kid who sported an “I’m a Pepper” T-shirt. Now, thanks to folks who purge their clothes from yesteryear, you can finally get your hands on one at That 70s Shop if you stop in at the right time…
Best Mom-and-Pop Restaurant
Cali Sandwich, which has won several Best of Houston awards over the years, is the kind of place that makes owning a restaurant look easy. But its path to Midtown fame was riddled with disaster. Nga Chong, who runs the place with her sister, her daughter and her mom, fled…
Best Vietnamese Restaurant
Bodard Bistro is a 24-hour fast-food joint that serves pho, mi, all kinds of noodles and Vietnamese sandwiches. (The sandwiches are an incredible deal — buy two and get one free.) The restaurant is usually packed at lunch and dinnertime, and people wait in line for a table here while…
Best Taqueria
El Charro’s flagship location on Harrisburg is seconds away from the center of downtown, making it a popular destination for those in need of breakfast tacos. But what puts this full-service taqueria head and shoulders above the rest is an extensive menu that also includes barbacoa, lengua, fajitas, carne guisada,…
Best Frisbee Golf Course
With 124 acres of lush green land and the city’s most popular Frisbee golf course, Buffalo Bayou Park offers the aspiring thrower 18 holes of opportunity to perfect his or her tomahawk against the backdrop of the beautiful downtown skyline. As Dave said in The Tao of Steve, be desire-less,…
Best Tiger Woods Creator
The phrase “family-friendly course” is enough to send avid male golfers running. Last we checked, most guys hit the links to escape the pressures of work and family. But here’s hoping the adult members of The Clubs of Kingwood see the business sense of buying into the club’s golf program…
blacktopGYPSY
If you think the new Dixie Chicks record is good (and it is), you’ll probably want to take blacktopGYPSY’s self-titled release to bed with you. Singer Andie Kay Joyner may not have Natalie Maines’s pipes (who does?), but she and her partner, ass-kicking fiddler Heather Woodruff, write a mean song…
Letters to the Editor
Who’s in Charge? Cop-out: I feel great sympathy for Lisa Collins and her child — heartfelt sympathy [“Baby Blues,” by Todd Spivak, September 14]. However, I suggest that Lisa fell into what is the All-American Health Cop Out: “I’m not in charge of my body. My doctor is.” When something…
Best Mural
The “Sky’s the Limit” mural on the side of the Sand Dollar Thrift Store isn’t there just to beautify the shop’s exterior — it’s also there to remind the hundreds of kids who walk past it every day on their way to school that there’s no limit to their potential…
Best Cigar Bar
Once upon a time, Downing Street Ltd. was the hangout for local politicos, trust-funders and single yuppie guys. The crowd has changed a bit — there are more scenesters and social climbers these days. But most folks flock to this River Oaks lounge to simply enjoy the cigars, premium Scotch,…
Best Latin Club
People go to Azteca’s for dinner, but that’s not the main draw. The main draw is the live music. Oh, and the $2 margaritas. And the jamming happy hour. And the crazy DJs. Located on the edge of Montrose, Azteca’s is not for the faint-hearted. When it gets crowded (which…
Best Place for a First Date
For those initial getting-to-know-you interludes, you want a place like Byzantio, where there are plenty of cozy nooks and hideaways with plush sofas under dim lighting. Start off the date with a coffee to maintain awareness during the “So, do you have any brothers or sisters?” phase. Move on to…
Best Local TV News Anchor
For many, many, many years, the anchor desk at KTRK/Channel 13 was a Mount Rushmore of never-changing faces. And we’re not referring to the Botox-caused immobility of the stars’ faces. Gina Gaston finally broke into the Ancient Anchors Club five years ago, and she’s since grown into a steady and…
Best Dive
Call it a semantic paradox: Once a place gets labeled a dive bar, it ceases to be one. Regular drunks don’t use the term “dive bar” — only hipsters do. And once the hipsters show up, well, you know where we’re going with this. But Alice’s Tall Texan somehow has…
Best Museum
Picking Houston’s best museum wasn’t easy: Lawndale Art Center is the herald of the local scene. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston thinks outside the box, bringing in Colombian artifacts and quilts from Alabama. Even the Orange Show has an underdog charm. But, in the end, we had to give…
Best Actor
Jeffrey Bean is one of Houston’s most valuable theatrical treasures. A character actor with all the charismatic glow of a leading man, Bean makes just about every show he’s in better. But last season’s production of Martin McDonough’s much-lauded The Pillowman gave Bean a chance to show us the depth…
Best Courtyard
This consistently unassailable downtown watering hole-cum-burger joint has a secret weapon, ambience-wise: If it’s getting too crowded inside, a quick hustle through the unassuming back door lands you in the equivalent of a medieval fairyland. Surrounded by mesmerizingly high walls covered with creeping vines and intricate molding, entering this courtyard…
Best Ceviche
Ceviche has to be the simplest way to prepare fish. All you do is marinate it in lime or lemon juice with some hot peppers and salt, and the result is fish that’s both chewy and tender. At Mambo, they are true to the tradition of serving ceviche made with…
Best Mussels
Mussels are not the first thing that comes to mind when most Houstonians think about the Black Lab. There’s the beer, of course, and the fireplace and the classic British fare, but shellfish? Steamed in white wine with tomatoes and garlic, these mussels are tasty, and the broth is great…
Best Empanadas
The Marini family started their storefront shop in the early ’70s, and they’ve been a Houston favorite ever since. Three generations of this Argentine family have been serving up fresh, flaky dough with authentic, traditional fillings. And some not-so-traditional fillings (nacho empanadas, anyone?). Looking for dinner? Try the ground beef…
Best Head Shop
We used to bemoan the way the Houston 420 franchises were taking over the city. We felt like the Starbuckization of head shops was, like, totally uncool, man. But then we realized that all head shops are already pretty much the same anyway: bongs, hookahs, metal and glass pipes, Bob…
Best Store in the Galleria
One employee at the Apple Store in the Galleria is a shaggy-haired slacker who stumbles around the place singing to himself. “Hey, what’s up?” he’ll interrupt himself to ask a customer. “What’s the deal-i-o?” The store, painted stark white with blond wood floors, is as sleek as the wafer-thin iPods…
Best Arborist
One of the only things that make Houston tolerable during the dog days of summer is the gorgeously green trees that embower the city. The soft shade of the live oaks, pecans and crepe myrtles that grow so profusely here can make the unforgiving heat seem almost worthwhile. So it’s…
Best Fabric Store
On any given Saturday afternoon, crafty soccer moms, fashionable drag queens and frantic brides-to-be can be seen pushing and pulling at thousands of bolts of fabric and at each other in search of a yard of perfect pastel polyester or a roll of fabulous faux fur. With one of the…
Best Indian Restaurant
Succumbing to the easy pitfalls of “fusion,” modern Indian cuisine often sheds thousands of years of culinary tradition simply to appeal to timid Western palates. Indika adroitly avoids these hazards. Since it moved from west Houston to Montrose, it has been turning out some of the most unforgettably delicious food…
Best Steak House
There are only a handful of steak houses in the city that offer dry-aged USDA Prime, and Pappas Bros. Steakhouse has more of them than anybody else. Granted, the dark-paneled men’s-club atmosphere is getting a little dated, as is the whole cigar-lounge thing. Newer steak houses such as the Strip…
Best Deli
At Kenny and Ziggy’s, it’s not just about the sandwiches — although a certain sense of accomplishment follows packing away a pound of corned beef. It’s really about the comfort food. The chicken soup with kreplach is the best way to make it through flu season, and the chopped liver…
Best Place to Hike
Houston isn’t generally known for its natural beauty and places to hike, but it boasts some close-in hidden gems that you can quickly escape to when the urban lifestyle starts to degrade your mojo. When it’s time for a recharge, take a trip to Brazos Bend State Park in Needville…
Best Play-by-Play Announcer
For a true baseball fan, it’s not just the image of the triple play or the stolen base that makes it memorable; it’s also the sound of the announcer’s voice. For 21 years, Milo Hamilton has led fans through the Houston Astros’ regular-season bumbles and postseason heroics with his velvet…
