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    Best Oysters In Houston?

    The best oysters in Houston? This restaurant is a must try — especially during the holidays

    Marene Gustin
    Marene Gustin
    Dec 7, 2013 | 4:01 pm

    The holidays are the perfect time for oyster consumption — for enjoying those succulent, briny little bivalve mollusks that are best served raw on ice with hot horseradish or baked to perfection with cheese and spinach.

     

    And after a bout of red tide — basically a harmful out-of-control bloom of algae — in the Gulf Coast this summer caused the Texas Department of State Health Services to ban oyster harvesting, Gulf Coast oysters are now back on menus everywhere.

     

    And no more so than at Danton’s Gulf Coast Seafood Kitchen. The six-year-old restaurant on Montrose Boulevard, run by lifelong friends Danton Nix and Kyle Teas, has a menu that reminds one of the famous Bubba scene in Forrest Gump, only with oysters instead of shrimp. They have oysters on the half shell, oysters Kyle —oysters sautéed in garlic lemon butter served with cheesy garlic bread to sop up the liquid, oysters Rockefeller, baked oysters Dan, oyster stew, fried oysters and oyster Po’ Boys. Whew.

     

     

      "We only serve oysters from the Gulf Coast, in particular from Galveston Bay and San Antonio Bay, because that’s what I grew up eating and I think they are better." 

     
     

    The Gulf Coast oyster ban was tough on Danton’s, where the special half-priced oysters on Monday night is a huge draw. It was a little over a month that the restaurant didn’t have any oysters, and Nix wouldn’t import New England versions.

     

    “I grew up here,” says Nix, “fishing in the gulf and eating gulf seafood. We only serve oysters from the Gulf Coast, in particular from Galveston Bay and San Antonio Bay, because that’s what I grew up eating and I think they are better, bigger and sweeter than the ones from New England.”

     

    Now that they’re back, Danton’s has been serving up 5,000 to 8,000 oysters each week. That’s a lot of bivalves, and you could pretty much eat some each day of the week in a different dish.

     

    If you’re a fan of raw oysters, they are cold and fleshy here with a kick-ass horseradish (made from scratch like everything else in the kitchen daily) but I think it’s the baked oysters that really wow. Oysters Rockefeller, one of my personal favorites and a classic for any holiday party, are wonderful but the oyster Dan is superb.

     

    Similar to oysters Rockefeller, Nix’s version has a half dozen freshly shucked Gulf Coast oysters drenched in garlic butter, topped with lump crab meat, breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and Dan’s special spice and baked to wonderfulness.

     

    Oh, and then there’s a baked version topped with housemade tasso, a hunk of shoulder pork heavily seasoned with Cajun spices and smoked until crispy and delicious. It creates a party in your mouth with the juicy oysters. Nix also adds his tasso to the oyster stew for an added kick.

     

    So this holiday season why not enjoy the bounty of Gulf Coast oysters? They are low in fat but high in the good omega 3 fatty acids and zinc. Serve them up at your holiday shindigs or hit up a place like Danton’s where you can enjoy and not have to do the dishes later.

     

    Charbroilled oysters on the half-shell.

    Danton's charbroiled oysters
      
    Danton's Gulf Coast Seafood Kitchen Facebook
    Charbroilled oysters on the half-shell.
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    roll out

    Self-taught chef slices into Houston with high-quality sushi to go

    Eric Sandler
    Jul 17, 2025 | 5:57 pm
    Kaisen Sushi Houston nigiri
    Courtesy of Kaisen Sushi Houston
    Each order of nigiri comes with a house made sushi sauce.

    The ghost kitchen phenomenon may have diminished somewhat since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the idea of a delivery and to-go-only restaurant still draws talented chefs who want to focus on food at a lower overhead than a traditional brick-and-mortar. One of those chefs is Sunny Bertsch, whose restaurant Kaisen Sushi Houston is already drawing buzz from inner loopers looking for a more affordable, at-home sushi experience.

    Located at the Blodgett Food Hall in Third Ward, Kaisen Sushi serves typical nigiri, maki, and temaki (hand rolls), along with a steak bowl. Prices are a little lower than what someone would find at a typical sushi restaurant, with an eight-piece nigiri set priced at $18.99 when ordered through the Blodgett Food Hall website (expect to pay more if ordering via a third-party delivery service such as Uber Eats or DoorDash).

    While Bertsch’s food may be familiar, his story is not. The diners who’ve rated Kaisen with 4.9 stars on Google may be surprised to learn that he’s only been cooking professionally for two years. As Bertsch tells CultureMap, prior to becoming a professional chef, he worked in fields as varied as aerospace and dog walking.

    “I’d always been interested in cooking,” he says. “I was blessed to be born into a great Korean American family. My dad and my grandparents always cooked great food. I learned by osmosis.”

    Bertsch began his career as a private chef by working for friends. He built his business by catering lunches to powerhouse law firm Vinson & Elkins. Eventually, his clients asked for private sushi dinners, and he had to figure things out.

    “I got an opportunity to do a sushi omakase. It was brutal. It was messy. But I knew once I did that, I wanted to dedicate my life to sushi,” he says. “Since then, I have studied and practiced. I threw a lot of money and time and fish at it.”

    Bertsch improved his speed and knife skills by taking a $13-per-hour job at Japanese grocery store Seiwa Market. While there, he says he made thousands of pieces of nigiri, rolls, and sushi bowls. That experience, along with meals from similar to-go-only concepts in New York and San Francisco, convinced him to open Kaisen as a ghost kitchen.

    “So far, I’ve spent $90,000. That’s more than the average investment for a food hall kitchen,” Bertsch explains. “I’m a clean freak. I’m a technology freak. I’m an authenticity freak. I outfitted my kitchen in the way I thought was necessary for long-term success.”

    Just as he spared no expense in specing out his kitchen, Bertsch puts thoughtful touches into his food, too. For example, every order of nigiri comes with a dipping sauce Bertsch makes himself from low sodium soy sauce, kombu, vinegar, and sake.

    “It’s a complex sauce that’s less salty and tastes good,” he says. “You know when you don’t have it and you’re given cheap soy sauce.”

    Similarly, his California rolls use imitation crab (as do most restaurants), but it’s seasoned with a housemade, Japanese-style kewpie mayo, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and sesame oil for more umami and less sweetness. Since the chef uses more crab mix than other restaurants do in their rolls, Kaisen’s California roll not only tastes better — at $11.99, it’s a better value, too.

    The chef showcases Japanese techniques and Korean influences with his $25 steak bowl. A USDA Choice ribeye or strip is cooked sous vide with a marinade made from garlic, tamari, and seasoning salt. Once a diner orders the entree, the steak is seared in a pan, basted with Kerrygold butter, seasoned with furikake and sesame oil, and served with short-grain sushi rice and microgreens from local farm Zero Point Organics.

    Word of mouth has been building. Even though it’s only been open for a month, Kaisen already has over 2,000 followers on Instagram. Once he’s able to hire a full roster of cooks, Bertsch plans to expand the menu and offer lunch service. Despite some challenges, he’s pleased with the restaurant’s progress.

    “The support I've gotten on social media has blown me away,” he says. “It’s been amazing. I could not have done it without Instagram. It blows my mind.”

    Kaisen Sushi Houston nigiri
      

    Courtesy of Kaisen Sushi Houston

    Each order of nigiri comes with a house made sushi sauce.

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