Midtown Changing New Bar

New Midtown bar vows to be non-snooty and unpretentious: There goes the neighborhood

Midtown's booming bar scene has a new arrival that promises to be a little different from some of the larger, very popular concepts that are currently dominating the neighborhood. Wooster's Garden opened quietly Wednesday night on Milam in a location near long-time Vietnamese staple Mai's with a simple goal.

"We have one true direction. That's to educate people about craft beer and craft cocktails," partner Rusty Delk tells CultureMap. "We want to be the non-snooty, non-pretentious place for people to learn."

Wooster's strives to achieve this goal in a variety of ways. On Tuesdays, the bar will host classes led by brewers, distributors and other experts in all things boozy and fermented. Topics wil range from styles of beer to the differences between bourbon and Scotch.

"We want to be the non-snooty, non-pretentious place for people to learn."

A chalk drawing on the wall shows the many different varieties of ales and lagers. Delk hopes customers will see it and start to understand how whatever they're drinking is connected to another beer they might want to try.

Delk is well-suited to the task. He worked as a specialty leader in beer, wine and cheese at Whole Foods; his background also includes a stint as a kitchen manager for expansionist taco chain Torchy's.

Full of reclaimed wood and repurposed materials, the new bar space has a clean, modern look with a variety of seating areas. A floor to ceiling sliding glass door runs the length of the space, or patrons can sit at either picnic tables or cabanas on the patio. Inside, a variety of seating options are able to accommodate large and small groups. Delk describes the atmosphere as "a smidge below elegant."

"We're trying to give to people the idea that this is Mid-trose. We want to appeal to both Midtown and Montrose," Delk explains. Asked about what aspects appeal to each neighborhood, Delk says that "the visual are Montrose; the cocktails are as well. The beer selection is Midtown: all craft beer. No domestics."

What about the substantial, 30-plus space parking lot that's a welcome addition in the cramped neighborhood? "The parking is almost Waco it's so good," Delk says with a laugh.

On the beer side, the 49 craft taps are divided up between local favorites like Karbach and Buffalo Bayou, Texas mainstays like Real Ale and national brewers. "How do you say no to North Coast Brewery," Delk muses.

Former Kata Robata beverage director Steven Salazar created the cocktail menu. Salazar originally left Kata to join the team at Anvil, but left when his doctor discovered a heart valve problem that's exaccerbated by stress. After taking some time off, "I'm feeling great and helping to train everybody," he says.

Delk has given Salazar a partnership in Wooster's, and they have plans for additional projects down the road, "but we'll talk about that another time," Salazar says.

In addition to applying the Anvil ethos of using fresh juices and updating the cocktail menu seasonally, Salazar has also committed to having at least one beer cocktail on the menu at all times. Currently, it's a drink he calls "Fizzled Tropics" that blends rum, lemon, lime and pineapple with a Belgian wit ale.

A selection of 10 wines by the glass and a tidy menu of "upscale bar food" like sandwiches and cheese plates rounds out Wooster's offerings, but the focus is squarely on beer and cocktails.

Thursday marks the first time Wooster's has announced it's open to the public, but December 11 has extra importance for Delk — it's also his birthday.

Wooster's Garden is open from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Mondays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

A swizzle made with green chartreuse, cognac and fresh watermelon juice.

9 Wooster's Garden in Midtown December 2014 drink cocktail

Photo by Eric Sandler

A swizzle made with green chartreuse, cognac and fresh watermelon juice.

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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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