F&W's guide to Houston
Food & Wine gets Houston (mostly) right in new tourist guide to city
The articles includes classics and newcomers.
When it comes to national media profiling Houston, we have to take the good with the bad. Just last year, a New York Times writer put together a very reasonable “36 Hours in Houston” column — but still managed to annoy locals by picking Montrose staple Tacos Tierra Caliente as the city’s best taco truck.
Earlier this week, Food & Wine published its updated take on “Our Favorite Places to Eat, Sleep, and Explore in Houston.” Written by Dan Q. Dao, a native Houstonian turned New York-based writer, it offers a fairly comprehensive overview of the state of Houston dining.
Dao covers most of the immigrant culinary traditions that fuel the city, mixing classics with some new options. For example, in the fine dining world, he recommends Bludorn, Riel, March, and Theodore Rex alongside Creole institution Brennan’s of Houston. Similarly, he recommends of-the-moment tasting menu concepts Tatemo and Neo.
Barbecue gets three strong representatives in Truth BBQ, Feges BBQ, and Blood Bros. BBQ, while the Original Ninfa’s on Navigation is Dao’s only Tex-Mex pick. South Asian restaurants get a mix of classics and more contemporary options that include Pondicheri, Da Gama Canteen, vegetarian staple Shri Balaji Bhavan, and Himalaya, Kaiser Lashkari’s game-changing Indo-Pak destination.
Dao plays it mostly safe in Chinatown, sticking to staples such as Ocean Palace, Kim Son, Mein, and Mala Sichuan Bistro. Viet-Cajun favorites Crawfish and Noodles and Cajun Kitchen both get shout outs, just in time for crawfish season.
The article’s biggest issue is a couple of geography mix-ups. For example, Dao states that Theodore Rex is in Montrose (downtown’s Warehouse District) and puts Money Cat in Katy, when it’s actually in Upper Kirby.
Similarly, for as comprehensive as the article is in acknowledging a broad style of cuisines, it only recognizes one Black-owned restaurant in ChòpnBlọk, the West African concept in downtown’s Post Market food hall. Keeping with Dao’s preference for classics, he could have easily name checked The Breakfast Klub and Lucille’s to cover his bases.
The article gets a little weaker in the “things to do” component. Recommending the Rodeo is always a safe bet, but praising Eleanor Tinsley Park for hosting Free Press Summer Fest is a little strange when it hasn’t taken place since 2017. Also, how about a little recognition for Memorial Park’s Land Bridge and Prairie project?
In the “where to stay” section, the author recommends mainstays such as the Four Seasons, the Marriott Marquis (and its Texas-shaped lazy river), the Post Oak Hotel, and La Colombe d'Or, among others. However, the article recommending where to stay in Houston leaves out the iconic — and consummately Houston — Houstonian Hotel, Resort & Spa, which like the Post Oak, just landed on Forbes Travel Guide.
Minor objections aside, any visitor would be well served with these suggestions. They’ll have to discover local favorites like Candente and Aga’s by befriending locals — or discovering CultureMap.
