Houston's Best Cheap Steak

Houston's best cheap steak: Restaurant Weeks makes these high-end steakhouse splurges affordable

One of the most appealing aspects of Houston Restaurant Weeks is the opportunity to visit some of Houston's best steakhouses at prices that are far below what diners would typically pay. Even at the new, $45 Restaurant Weeks price point, the cost for three courses is still about what a diner could typically expect to pay for a 16-ounce USDA prime New York strip alone at any of these restaurants during the other 11 months of the year.

The chance to leave a restaurant fat, happy and full of delicious meat while contributing to the Houston Food Bank? That's eating well and doing good.

Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse

Yes, it's a chain, but Del Frisco's always puts together a great Houston Restaurant Weeks menu, which is why it's always among the top restaurants in terms of fundraising. This year's $45 menu includes two steak options with both a filet and a prime strip — and both came with potatoes. For an additional $6 to $10, diners can add either a fancy butter, side of shrimp or oscar topping ((béarnaise sauce, crab meat, asparagus).

Sauteed salmon and chicken picatta are the "lighter" options, but sticking to the steak is probably the way to go. The salad and dessert choices are pretty standard looking, but Del Frisco's always gets the basics right. Del Frisco's is popular with visiting athletes, so going a day or two before the Houston Texans preseason games on Saturday and Aug. 25 could yield the sight of large men ordering massive slabs of meat, which is always kind of fun.

La Casa del Caballo

The Mexican steakhouse in the heart of Montrose might be offering up one of the best deals of any HRW restaurant, period. La Casa del Caballo's $35 menu offers three different steak options, including a massive, 20-ounce portion of smoked brisket and an eight-ounce rib eye.

As with the steaks on the normal menu, sides are included. Starter options include tortilla soup and signature beef carpaccio. White and dark chocolate mousse looks like the most compelling of the dessert options, but the flan also makes a good choice. Anyone who's feeling particularly indulgent should order the restaurant's excellent cheese enchiladas as a side to share at the table.

Churrascos

This South American restaurant is offering up one of Houston Restaurant Week's most diverse, $35 menus with six choices for both starters and desserts and a whopping eight mains. Each dish has its own recommended wine pairing that are all reasonably priced at $5 to $10.

Feeling conservative? Stick to classic menu items like empanadas, the churrasco steak and tres leches. Go slightly more adventurous with shrimp and crab polenta spoons, a mixed grill parrillada and caramel cheese flan. Among the supplements, the $14 lobster tail looks like the best bet.

Tradicao Brazilian Steakhouse

Usually, Tradicao's all-you-can-eat rodizio service and salad bar is $41 at dinner. Dessert is extra.

During Houston Restaurant Weeks, it's $35 and includes dessert, so save a little room. That's a pretty killer deal for an unlimited parade of 10 different cuts of beef, chicken, pork and seafood plus sides. Those with either a day off or a sufficiently relaxed work schedule to give into a meat coma should consider lunch. The same menu drops to $20 then.

Remember, the Brazilian cheese bread is a delicious trick. Eat one or two, then push them away to avoid filling up on bread.

Laurenzo's Prime Rib

An eight ounce portion of prime rib is $26 on Lorenzo's dinner menu, but during Restaurant Weeks it comes with a starter and dessert for $35. Sure, the crab etouffee enchiladas sound delicious, but let's be serious.

The words "prime rib" are in the restaurant's name, and, as with pho shops, it's best to order what the restaurant wants to be known for. Among the starters and desserts, house smoked salmon and Italian cream cake look like the most appealing options.

Laurenzo's Prime Rib

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Laurenzo's Prime Rib

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eat real food

Houston DJ-turned-TikTok star cooks up a cult following one recipe at a time

Courtesy of Uncle Dibbz

Uncle Dibbz, a.k.a. A.H. Bowden, has built a devoted following for his viral recipes.

For the past month, Uncle Dibbz has been, shall we say, going ham on social media with the myriad videos of alternative Thanksgiving dishes. He’s dropped how-to clips for such recipes as Cajun-roasted turkey, honey-baked ham/hens, oven-bag turkey, and six-piece fried turkey (to go). Basically, if you don’t want to cook a bland ol’ Butterball this Turkey Day, Dibbz has you covered.

Who is Dibbz, you say? Well, he’s a North Jersey-born, Georgia-bred, Houston-based chef who’s been building quite the foodie rep online. Several videos across his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube pages, from his cajun-boiled fried chicken (2 million on IG) to his “Propose to Me Pasta” (12.3 million on TikTok), has amassed millions of views. But Dibbz (government name: A.H. Bowden) wasn’t always a culinary content creator. He used to spin music back in Atlanta as DJ DiBiase, named after retired wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. “DiBiase is a mouthful to say, so people just always call me ‘D’ or ‘Dibbz’ for short,” says Bowden, 37, during a Zoom interview.

@uncledibbz PROPOSE To Me PASTA 💍 🍝 Trust your Uncle! This SEAFOOD Pasta will seal the deal 👌🏽 Get my recipe below ⬇️ or on uncledibbz.com [@uncledibbz Link in Bio] 🌐 **Ingredients:** - 8 ounces spaghetti - 1 lb mixed seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab meat, etc.) - 2 tablespoons olive oil - Fresh chopped basil - 2 cloves garlic, minced - 1/2 cup white wine - 1/4 cup heavy cream - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - Salt and pepper to taste - Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust [link in bio] - Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish) - Grated Parmesan cheese (for garnish) **Instructions:** 1. Cook the spaghetti pasta according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, chopped basil and sauté for about 1 minute until fragrant. 3. Add the mixed seafood to the skillet. Season with Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust to taste and cook for 2-3 minutes until cooked through. Remove the seafood from the skillet and set aside. 4. Pour in the white wine to the skillet and let it simmer for 2 minutes, allowing the alcohol to cook off. 5. Stir in the heavy cream, butter, Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust seasoning, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. 6. Add the cooked spaghetti and cooked mixed seafood to the skillet. Toss everything together until well coated with the sauce. 7. Remove from heat and garnish with fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. 8. Serve hot and enjoy the flavorful Seafood Spaghetti. That's good Shawty! #UncleDibbz #ThatsGoodShawty #Pasta #marryme #proposal #bride #wife #husband #relationshipgoals #datenight #easyrecipe #seafood #cajun #cooking #fyp #foryou #viral #houston ♬ original sound - Uncle Dibbz 🍴

He was making a nice living as a DJ, even serving as rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s touring DJ for a while. But when the pandemic hit, the gigs obviously dried up.

“I was living in Miami at the time,” he says. “And, you know, when you have a lot of time on your hands to think – but also need to figure out a way to, you know, sustain an income and everything like that – the ideas start coming,”

Like most DJs at that time, he was doing live mixes on Instagram. But his days throwing cookout parties in Atlanta inspired him to start doing his cooking videos, where he used his very own seasoning. Of course, he had a lemon pepper blend, which he used in a lemon pepper hot wings video that currently has over a half-million views on TikTok.

“I'm about to go live to DJ later that night, and my phone was just going off with orders,” he recalls. “So I'm like, where are these orders coming from? And it's not from my friends. I'm seeing the cities and the states. I don't know these people.”

Thanks to his videos, which usually end with him saying his signature line “That’s good shawty!” (that’s also the name of his cookbook he released last year), Dibbz went into the seasoning business full time. He eventually hired another person to help send out the piles of orders he was receiving.

He even got an order from former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, one of his favorite athletes. “I remember doing a book report on him when I was in fourth grade,” he boasts.

Although Dibbz has a flair for making meals that border on decadent, he’s an ardent practitioner of cooking with natural ingredients, especially in his seasoning. He has several low-sodium seasoning, including Bebe’s Salt Free – named after his mother, who had open-heart surgery a few weeks before the pandemic started.

“I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of toxins and chemicals that go into a lot of these seasonings,” he says. “You're starting to see it in the news now. A lot of the foods with certain dyes are being taken off the shelves and things like that.’

Soon, Dibbz moved himself and his new business to Houston, a favorite place to perform as well as a town whose hip-hop got him into music. He cites local chopped-and-screwed gods DJ Screw, Michael 5000 Watts, and OG Ron C as his holy trinity of influences. To give props to the music of his new home, he created a hot sauce – called HXT Sauce – whose uncharacteristically large bottle resembles Promethazine cough syrup (aka the key ingredient in lean, the preferred purple cocktail for the city’s rap community).

“It's not necessarily about promoting that usage,” he says. “But, at the same time, it’s just a homage to one of the factors and influences of screwed-and-chopped music.”

Dibbz still indulges in spinning records from time to time. The Waxaholics’ DJ Big Reeks has gotten him to break out the vinyl a few times during his Thursday-night sets at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge in Midtown. But creating new recipes, dropping delicious content and proving you can eat and live in a hearty, healthy fashion still remains his full-time mission.

“I’m not just talking about eating cauliflower rice all day and every day, but just eat real food,” he says. “We're eating fake food. That's the bottom line. We're eating fake food and my whole purpose is to inspire people to eat real food and that starts with real ingredients, real herbs, you know – real natural seasonings.”

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