Upcoming Houston Food Events: Get Your Tickets for Southern Smoke Spring

Mark your calendars, because you don’t want to miss these deliciously fun culinary happenings:

Chef Chris Shepherd has announced Southern Smoke Spring, a series of dinners throughout the city that will help raise money for the Southern Smoke Emergency Relief Fund. Since 2015, the foundation has donated more than $1.3 million—both to food and beverage industry professionals in crisis and to charities like the MS Society, the Gulf Seafood Foundation and Legacy Community Health. This spring lineup of events includes Steak with Aaron Franklin at Georgia James, 1100 Westheimer, on Sunday, April 14; and a Southern Smoke Spring Finale at One Fifth, 1658 Westheimer, on Thursday, April 18. Tickets will go on sale at SouthernSmoke.org on Tuesday, March 5.

The Rustic, 1836 Polk, is celebrating Mardi Gras an authentic, bayou-style Cajun crawfish boil all day on Tuesday, March 5. The Mardi Craw menu will feature Louisiana’s best crawfish with corn and potatoes (two pounds), jambalaya with grilled shrimp, chicken and sausage gumbo and a side of jambalaya, plus drinks like Pacific Beer, Corona Premier, a Hurricane Frozen Cocktail with Bacardi and Swamp Thing Frozen Cocktails with Bacardi. The party kicks off at 5 p.m. with a live DJ spinning New Orleans zydeco, jazz and R&B hits, followed a live performance by The South Austin Moonlighters. Admission is free with an RSVP on PreKindle. The event is first-come first-serve; an RSVP does not guarantee admittance. Limited VIP tickets are available for $40.

Snooze, multiple locations, is celebrating National Pancake Day on Fat Tuesday, March 5, offering an all-star lineup of throwback pancakes and a strong charitable arm. In honor of this day of indulgence, there will be one-time-only return of some of Snooze’s most missed pancakes, as chosen by guests and staff. Pancake preparations include King Cake, a honey cinnamon pancake topped with vanilla buttercream, served with maple bourbon sauce and festive raw sugar; Coffee N' Donuts, a buttermilk pancake drizzled with maple donut glaze, crushed pecans and a side of espresso cream; and Strawberry Fields, a corn batter pancake topped with fresh strawberries, strawberry honey sauce, whipped mascarpone, and candied almonds, among others. On this day, 100 percent of the pancake proceeds will be used to help develop and nurture a local garden in the community of each Snooze location.

The General Public, 797 Sorella, is bringing back Hump Day Oysters. Every Wednesday in March, the guests can slurp a dozen freshly shucked Gulf Oysters for $9.95.

Kicking off the spring season, the third annual Chef Fest Houston will take place at Harvest Green Village, 8939 Harlem, on Sunday, March 10. A lineup of ten local chefs — including Atlas Diner’s Richard Knight, Paul Lewis of Indianola, and Kulture’s Dawn Burrell — will use seasonal produce to create festival style dishes that celebrate the Houston terroir. Attendees will also enjoy craft cocktails, local wine and beer, and live music, all while benefiting local producers and our nonprofit beneficiary — I’ll Have What She’s Having.

Cottonwood, 3422 North Shepherd, is hosting its second annual Crawfish Cook-Off from 2 to 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 10. Stop by to taste crawfish from local teams alongside Saint Arnold beer and music by Pecos Hank and Garrett T. Capps. A $30 wristband earns you unlimited crawfish tastings at each booth and a voting token. Any crawfish ordered to a table and produced by Cottonwood is sold at an additional cost.

On Sunday, March 10, guests are invited to the first in a series of monthly pop-ups at Decatur Bar and Pop-Up Factory, 2310 Decatur. LMN Hospitality chefs Brandi Key and Jorge Valencia will host a Sunday Supper Club: Italian Night, a 30-seat, five-course dinner beginning at 6:30 p.m. Dinner highlights include King Crab and Corn, Sopresini “Carbonara and Brûlée Gorgonzola. Tickets are $125 per person, and drink pairings will be available on-site for $30.