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Best Bar Food

Royal Oak Bar & Grill

Royal Oak came on the scene towards the end of 2010, a newly minted addition to the Montrose bar scene and the next venture from the owners of the hipster-Valhalla watering hole Boondocks just a block away. Royal Oak is shinier and brighter than Boons, and it has one killer food and appetizer menu that can go up against any of the so-called gastropubs in town. Start with a pint of Fireman's #4 and a plate of truffle fries, soaked to perfection in truffle oil, Parmesan cheese and fresh-cut herbs. Bring a friend, because unless you haven't eaten in a few days or you just ran a marathon, you will not be seeing the bottom of the pile on your own. As for entrées, you can't go wrong with a burger or the Gulf shrimp & grits. More than likely, Royal Oak will be the only stop on your nightly crawl once you have seen the menu. Food comas aren't a joke, kid.

Best Public Art Project

Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance and the Museum of Cultural Arts Houston Mural

The Rice University Boniuk Center for Religious Studies and Tolerance turned to the Museum of Cultural Arts Houston (a past Houston Press MasterMinds Award winner) to add a visual arts aspect to the 2011 Sacred Sites Quests program. The program hosts high school students on an annual tour of churches, temples, mosques and other places of worship. This year, the students visited 16 sites, after which they designed and created a four-piece mural reflecting both the unity and diversity among the various traditions they observed. The four panels, which include a tree topped by a globe instead of leaves and a couple staring at a star-shaped sun, were installed on the Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston headquarters in May, becoming the first public art project of its kind.

Best Juke Joint

Farrah's Pub

A couple of things need to be on point for a juke joint to be dubbed as such. For one, it can't boast any mainstream online presence (e.g., Facebook, Twitter or even a business Web site) whatsoever. For two, absolutely, under no circumstances, can the place be an ironic sort of hang that's all hipster'd out. Third Ward BYOB bar Farrah's Pub passes both criteria and instead showcases, without even trying, an authentic juke-joint experience. (If there was any question, try ordering a Lone Star or Pabst Blue Ribbon and see what type of look you get in return.) Pay $2 on a Monday night, gaze at the palm frond decor reminiscent of an African chop bar (Motherland slang for a cheap roadside bar), bring a decanter of your favorite liquor and kick back to the sounds of the house band playing a mixture of some of the best soul jams, blues joints and love dusties ever created.
  • 6334 St. Augustine, Houston, 77021 Map

Best Renovation

Leon's Lounge

As Houston's oldest continuously-operating bar (not including icehouses), Leon's always had its stained-glass and crystalline charms. There was even a level of elegance remaining beneath the nicotine grit and spilled Busch residue of the past 60-plus years. Last year, Pete and Vera Mitchell of Under the Volcano fame bought the bar and at last revealed their months-long facelift, and what a job they did polishing this dustiest of gems. While the bar still feels old and funky, they've removed the naugahyde and other synthetics, replaced the carpets, scrubbed up and installed new tiles, varnished the wood on the bar and restored the bar's overhanging chandelier to its ancient glory. While it might not rival the Julia Ideson Library's renovation in scale, it does do so in execution. And that's a good thing, because for some people, a town's oldest bar says more about it than its oldest library.

Best Dance Company

Dominic Walsh Dance Theater

Dominic Walsh Dance Theater isn't yet ten years old, but it's already a fixture as one of the great contemporary dance companies of our time. The cadre of eight dancers master new ways of moving under the tutelage of Walsh, a longtime principal with the Houston Ballet and 2008 winner of the prestigious Princess Grace Award for choreography. Walsh pushes the notion of "classical ballet" to its breaking point in his own choreography, blending matchless technical precision with distinct and unashamed sensuality. Costumes are often unembellished, accenting and celebrating the human form. This is truly ballet for the twenty-first century.

Best Local Author

Roger Wood, Ph.D.

Roger Wood gets tapped as local author this year for his entire body of work. There was the 2003 title Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues (Jack and Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life and Culture), a look at Houston's especially rich history of blues, a collaborative effort with photographer James Fraher. In 2006, it was Texas Zydeco, another Wood and Fraher project, this time capturing the state's colorful heritage of "la-la" music. Most recently it was House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios, which Wood co-wrote with Andy Bradley, SugarHill's longtime audio engineer. For being Houston's prolific music historian, Wood gets a big "woop, woop."

Best Dance Party

A Fistful of Soul at the Mink

There is nothing quite like starting off your weekend with a cold Red Stripe in one hand and a sweaty dance partner in the other, while you hear the smooth sounds of early ska, mento, rocksteady, and the best bedrock R&B at the monthly A Fistful Of Soul parties in the front room of the Mink on Main. DJs and Houston scene vets Stewart Anderson and John Baldwin lead the parties, which usually end up fogging the windows of the bar up, regardless of the weather outside. Be on the lookout for special guest DJs from around the Lone Star State as well. Admission is always free, drink specials abound, and the dancing is always face to face. Now if they could only make more room out on the front sidewalk for all the vintage scooters that show up.

Best Band Stage Show

Wild Moccasins

Even without the confetti and streamers they are fond of sometimes, Wild Moccasins easily put on Houston's best stage show gig after gig. They even baked cupcakes for their fans once. Simply put, no other band in town that we can think of has so much fun playing together. The Moccasins, whose 2010 LP Skin Collision Past and 2009 EP Microscopic Metronomes were released by New West Records earlier this year (a proper New West debut is in the works), always look like they're having a ball, delivering their bubbly indie-pop tunes with the kind of obvious chemistry that only comes to bands who are best friends on and off stage. The Moccasins turn every show into a party, and everyone's invited.

Best Artist Collective

Box 13 Art Space

There's a reason why the 2011 Texas Biennial chose Box 13 as Houston's only space for the month-long art showcase. The East End gallery and co-op, for three-plus years, has boasted a wing-dinger of a reputation for contemporary artists showcasing left-of-field works. The Harrisburg Boulevard warehouse, which used to house a sewing-machine factory, is one of the city's best artist-run non-profits and features creative types such as Elaine Bradford, Dennis Nance and Jenny Schlief showcasing traditional wall pieces, avant-garde installations and experimental performance art. Along with the Biennial gig, Box 13 was the Bayou City's only venue to be chosen for "Low Lives 3 — International Festival of Live Networked Performance."

Best Latin Club

Club Tropicana

Salsa hot spots come and go, but Tropicana will always be there when you need to dance away the night. Inside an unassuming strip mall storefront on Fondren, you'll find a Casablanca-esque nightclub of dark reds and deep mahogany. The hardwood dance floor is spacious, and the salseros who wear it down are the city's best. Weekends are a blast at Tropicana, when you can groove to the bachata, meringue, salsa and chacha of live Latin bands. We love Tropicana for its mindblowingly diverse crowd. In a single night, you can twirl your way through the arms of a United Nations league of salseros, all brought together by the desire to dance.

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