Results tagged “restaurants”

Yelp.com, a business review site where locals can rant or rave about their favorite restaurants and hangouts, is hosting their first Yelp Eats! Restaurant Week in our fair city of Houston after successful endeavors in Chicago and L.A.

Big fans of Fearless Critic we are. And, we're big fans of free. Now the two have come together like PB&J, and we're preparing to enjoy it - milk optional.

Turtle soup lovers can breathe a sigh of relief: Brennan's of Houston is officially rebuilding and will be open to Creole junkies in October 2009. After being mostly destroyed in a devastating fire during Hurricane Ike, no special occasion dinner has been the same for thousands of Houstonian foodies.

Tomorrow is the biggest day in professional football: two sets of grown men in protective padding, brain buckets and tight pants will go head-to-head to see which is the best team in the nation. Whether you feel this to be the most spectacular sporting event, a good excuse to party like a rock star or you care less about it, but, you dig the commercials, most of the nation will be glued -- beverage in one hand, nacho in the other -- to the television.

Disclaimer: Houstonist knows that pho isn't pronounced "fo," and so should you.

Just because you don't want to cook a huge spread or can't get out of town to visit family doesn't mean you have to spend Thanksgiving without some great food. We're thankful for our friends at B4-U-Eat, who have compiled a thorough list of all Houston-area restaurants that will be open on Thanksgiving Day.

Starting next week, OpenTable.com (a website that allows you to make restaurant reservations online) will be holding their yearly Appetite Stimulus Plan, in which Houston-area restaurants will be offering special three-course menus at a greatly reduced price. From November 17th through the 21st, the restaurants will be offering either lunch or dinner menus or -- in some cases -- both. The price for the lunch menus is $24, while the dinner menus are an equally reasonable $35 (excluding tax and gratuity).

Congratulations on not completely falling down on the job by exercising your right as an American citizen and voting today. But the fun's not over! You still have an entire night of talking heads, exhausting rhetoric and ceaseless exposition to look forward to as our nation chews the cud of the 2008 election until early morn. So instead of parking it on the couch and watching the overly-hairsprayed pundits on CNN and Fox News, why don't you head out and celebrate Election Night in style? We've got plenty of options for you, so get out there and keep on rocking that vote tonight.

Move over Montrose and Midtown: the first certified organic restaurant in town is moving in, and it's moving into the suburbs.

Tucked away in the shell of an old K-Mart in a west Houston strip center that defines the word "unassuming" is one of the city's best markets and -- dare we say it? -- the best salad bar around. There. The secret is out.

Houstonist took our sweet time finally getting down to The Lake House in downtown's Discovery Green, and do we ever wish we'd discovered (heh...get it?) this little gem sooner.

Oh, how we wept and wailed when Ming's closed. We rended our garments in the streets, gnashed our teeth and decried the unfairness of it all. How could they move to Austin and leave us without convenient, if mediocre, Chinese food after a long night at Numbers?

The sad news has reached almost everyone in Houston by now: landmark restaurant Brennan's was lost to a fire in the early hours of Saturday, September 13th, even though firefighters bravely fought to contain the flames throughout the fierce winds of Hurricane Ike.

We took a trip over to the Heights today at lunch to see how the historic neighborhood was faring five days after Hurricane Ike. The Heights, like many other older neighbohoods in Houston, was badly battered by the high winds and tornados that Ike produced. The incredible wealth of beautiful old live oak and pecan trees in the neighborhood only gave Ike additional fodder during its destructive rampage.

If you're in the Washington Avenue area (or the Heights area, or Midtown, or Montrose...) and are still without power, we have good news courtesy of our friends at Catalan Food & Wine! The restaurant is very generously giving away what ice they have on hand tonight, after 10:00 p.m.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Soon, there will be one more reason to be jealous of your friends who live in Midtown (aside from easy light rail access and The Big Top): Crave Sushi.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if there is an Ethiopian restaurant in a city, it will be called "Blue Nile." Houston, no stranger to universal truths, has its very own Blue Nile, tucked away in a strip mall on Richmond on the west side of town.

Saturday evening from 4:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. the Heights will unfurl "White Linen Nights in the Heights", so that we can toodle around the neighborhood, exposing ourselves to art, food, shopping and perusing some of Houston 's nearly condo-eradicated architecture. Yes, construction commenced in the 1890's on this, Houston's first, planned community (who knew a planned community could rock!). This event is free, parking is free, pedi-cabs? free! shuttles, yeah free, too!! So, bust out your best white linen outfit and come stroll around, white linen banners will identify participants. This year's sponsors include: Glaceau VitaminWater, Sweet Leaf Teas, Bacardi, St. Arnold's Brewery and Real Ale Brewery(love some local beer products!), Spanish Flowers, Wind Water Gallery, M2 Gallery (home of last years 600 sq. miles exhibit), Coldwell Banker United Realty, The Leader News, Heights Pages, Contents Fashion Boutique and many others. There are typically over 100 sponsors participating in this event. Here's a map of the event, some transportation information, and a full list of offerings and participants.

News broke this morning that all 300 restaurants in the Texas-based Bennigan's chain had mysteriously and suddenly closed overnight, all across the nation. Confused staff reported showing up to work and being met by shuttered doors, while some managers spent their morning calling employees to inform them of the situation. Thousands of waitstaff, line cooks, bartenders and bussers across the country are simply stranded, waiting for any news from Bennigan's on whether or not they'll have a job tomorrow.

Houston Restaurant Week is just around the corner and menus for the popular event have finally been posted. Is your favorite restaurant among the participants this year? Probably. Are there some tried-and-true establishments serving up much-adored dishes? You betcha. Are there some exciting new restaurants to try? Definitely.

Houstonist headed out to Washington Avenue this past Sunday afternoon to try the newest Italian restaurant cum grocery store, Raia's Italian Market. With an untested location in a brand-new building and the time-tested juggernaut Nundini's only a few blocks away, it would appear that Raia's has a lot to overcome if it wishes to succeed in a market already saturated with Italian restaurants (Candelari's, Spaghetti Western, Star Pizza, Collina's, Patronella's, and Cavatore are just a few that spring to mind in the immediate area).

Looking for a fun way to spend a summer evening with your girlfriends? Don't mind laughing hysterically and crying into your Kleenex within the span of the same two hours? Then head on down to Gravitas, where they'll be hosting "Dinner & A Chick Flick" every Tuesday throughout July.

This weekend, the Houston-area chapter of the Chowhounds boldly declared, "We don't need no stinkin' Texas Monthly surveys!" as Pearl Bar played host to the first annual Chowhound BBQ Smackdown to find the best barbeque in Houston. The results were surprising, to say the least.

Can we interest you in the brisk salt air and the reassuring view of distant oil platforms in the Gulf with your beer? If so, you'll want to attend the next Saint Arnold pub crawl this Saturday, June 28th starting promptly at 4:00 p.m.

Slate takes notice of what millions of Houstonians already know: Houston, We Have No Problems (a longer version of the article can be found here, in Newsweek).

We were all set to interview chef Randy Rucker earlier this week when a slight delay occurred that required us to reschedule. That delay? Rucker's brother had killed a 100-pound wild hog and brought it part and parcel to his doorstep that same afternoon.

Do you love bagels? And saving money? And helping sick kids? Of course you do! So read on...

Great news!! If you have not checked the list of participating eateries in the Dining Out For Life list, Niko Niko's is participating!!! Houstonist had lunch w/ a couple of peeps this week. As always, it was delish - we chose rice for our starch to accompany the gyro plate, it's creamy and flavorful - we'd love the recipe, just saying. We've had the potatoes and the fries previously, both are very good choices, as well. The portions are huge, and we love the gyro plate, in particular because you get a choice of side, a little pita, lots of luscious gyro meat, topped with red onion and tomato and yummy sauce and a bonus dolmade on the top. We can't seem to consume more than half of our plate in one sitting - no matter how hard we try.

Molina’s Cantina, a family-owned and operated Tex-Mex Restaurant chain headquartered in Houston, announced yesterday that they will not renew their lease at 5227 Buffalo Speedway, located at the northeast corner of Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet. The last day of business will be Saturday May 24, 2008. The Molina family is proactively seeking a new location within the same geographic region and intends to be back in business in the West University area soon. Meanwhile the current site will be cleared for new construction and redeveloped by H-E-B Grocery Co.