Upcoming Houston Food Events: Late-Night Eats at UPB After Dark

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

UB Preserv, 1609 Westheimer, is launching its UBP After Dark today, providing late-night food and drinks to post-shift restaurant industry workers and anyone else who wants something tasty after 10 p.m. The limited menu will run from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. every Thursday, with eats from soy-garlic Korean fried ribs and Thicc n’ Hearty Burgers to salt-and-pepper squid and al pastor mushroom quesadillas. Reservations can be made online, and there is outdoor seating, too.

On Wednesday, October 21, Underbelly Hospitality’s Chris Shepherd and spirits director Westin Galleymore will be tasting through Kentucky bourbon and cocktails along with Sazerac master distiller Harlan Wheatley at a virtual Sazerac Dinner and Tasting. Tasting kits are $200 (designated for two) and include ingredients for the dinner (think smoked turkey roulade with “hot brown” bread pudding, Kentucky bbq lamb and bourbon-glazed pecan praline pound cake) and three spirits, including Wheatley, Buffalo Trace and Sazarac Rye.Ingredient kits can be picked up at 1100 Westheimer on Tuesday; the tasting session starts on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

From Friday, October 16 through Sunday, October 25, Jonathan’s The Rub Memorial Green, 12505 Memorial, will be pouring and donating for Old Fashioned Week, which was created by Elijah Craig in partnership with PUNCH magazine to show off classic or signature Old Fashioned cocktails and raise money to help hospitality workers whose lives have been disrupted by the pandemic. For the ten days, Jonathan’s will donate $1 of every Old Fashioned sold to a special fund set up and administered by Elijah Craig. Money raised in each community will go to a charitable service for hospitality workers in that community. 

Lucille’s chef Chris Williams will serve as one of the featured chefs in James Beard Foundation’s Taste America, a national event celebrating local restaurant communities across the country. This year’s event will bring chefs and diners from 20 cities together for a virtual communal dinner on Sunday, October 18 at 7 p.m. Williams will represent the city of Houston with a three-course menu that reflects the well-refined Southern cuisine with international infusions that he serves at Lucille’s. Tickets are $150 and the three course meal will be available for pick-up on the afternoon of Sunday, October 18 at Lucille’s, 5512 La Branch. Each three-course menu is also accompanied by wine and a whiskey tasting along with access to cooking demos and a national broadcast featuring a lineup of James Beard Foundation friends, chefs and special guests.

Bistro 555, 13616 Memorial, will have its debut Stay At Home Wine Dinner on Thursday, October 22, collaborating with French Country Wines to showcase the Rhone Valley. Call to reserve the number of dinners needed, and on the day of the dinner, pickup the food (with simple reheating instructions) and wine curbside from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. or 5 to 6:30 p.m. At 7 p.m., join your fellow wine dinner partners, your hosts and a possible winemaker or two in France via Zoom. Each course, from duck and cherry tomato flan and filet de boeuf en croute to three-chocolate fondant, is paired with four ounces of the selected wine per person and cost is $69 plus tax and gratuity. Call 713-827-8008 or email [email protected].

Tickets are now available for Urban Harvest's biannual Sunday Supper fundraising event, held this fall on Sunday, November 8 and featuring a drive-in movie theme with a course-dinner designed and prepared by local chefs with ingredients sourced from the Urban Harvest Farmers Market. The socially distant event will take place at the new East End Moonstruck Drive-In Theatre, where guests can enjoy a viewing of The Biggest Little Farm from the comfort of their own cars, plus dinner for four created by chefs Chris Shepherd and Nick Fine of UB Hospitality, Austin Waiter of Tony’s, Becca and Jason Kerr of Little Kitchen HTX and Elaine Won of Dumpling Haus. Tickets are $300 per car and includes food for four, water and the movie screening. There are also options for premier lounge seating for six ($1,500) or eight ($3,000) that includes outdoor, socially distanced premier lounge style seating with exclusive snacks, swag bags and mocktails.