I have what my friends call a "map fetish." I even have a degree in cartography. Totally useless, but what a great expenditure of my time in college considering that most degrees are basically useless pieces of paper anyway.

My tendency to plot data spatially does lead to some interesting revelations, however. For example, were it not for the fact that I obsessively plot every one of my weekly cafe reviews on an ongoing Google map, I may have overlooked the fact that -- well -- I've mostly overlooked the entire east side of Houston in the last year.

See?

A closer look at Houston's inner core reveals that there's a pretty stark dividing line represented here by I-45: I only reviewed a handful of restaurants to the east of that corridor this past year. Granted, they were some of my favorites -- Radical Eats, Conscious Cafe, Moon Tower Inn, Bohemeo's, and Green Seed Vegan, for example -- so it stands to reason that there are more wonderful places on the East End of town that I just haven't discovered yet.

So I'm making a pledge to investigate the eastern stretches of Houston more thoroughly this year, as well as pledging to visit some of its more far-flung suburbs. After all, places like Thanh Phuong in Pearland and Capri in Spring were some of my greatest discoveries of all in 2011.

But this is where I need your help, readers. Give me your suggestions and directions in the comments section below, and I'll fill up my gas tank and go. As of 2012, I am eastbound and down.

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