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    Houston's Best Brunch Spots

    Houston's Best Brunch spots: Top restaurants make breakfast and lunch a gourmet party

    Marene Gustin
    Marene Gustin
    Jun 15, 2014 | 9:58 am

    Before moving to Houston, I'd probably been to a nail salon and valet parked but they certainly weren’t regular things. But they are now. As is Sunday brunch.

     

    But brunch wasn’t new. When I lived in Austin we used to do the Sunday brunch thing at the Four Seasons where they set up omelet and carvery and pastry stations in the lobby lounge and the servers were opera students from the University of Texas music school. They’d stop in the middle of pouring your mimosa and rush to the piano to belt out a song.

     

    It was great if it was an aria or a Broadway show tune, but the Disney songs were painful earworms. We used to pay the staff NOT to sing them. You’d be surprised at how many families wanted to hear songs from animated movies. Hopefully they aren’t doing this anymore or patrons would be screaming from repeated singing of that song from Frozen.

     

     

      Did you know this juice is a natural way of lowering high blood pressure? So drink up the pomegranate mimosas and margaritas, they’re healthy. 

     
     

    And while I’ve yet to find singing waiters in Houston, the city certainly has its fill of brunch choices and it seems like every restaurant around is doing brunch these days. And all the menus look so good I wish there was a week full of Sundays so I could try them all.

     

    But, if we could combine a lot of items from the different menus on one table, this is what it might look like:

     

     Trenza in West Ave has just entered the Sunday brunch game and they are bringing it. For the perfect brunch buffet I’d definitely take their chorizo and black bean tostadas, with chard tomatillo sauce and poached egg. That’s a meal in itself.

     

    But let’s add to that the crab cake Benedict from Tony Mandola’s new brunch menu and some of Nara’s sushi from its new Sunday brunch menu. And let’s get that whole roasted pig from the brunch buffet at the Cordúa’s Américas and Churrascos because it’s just not a Sunday party without a pig. Especially one with crispy skin and succulent white meat underneath. And if we’re being pigs here, how about the shrimp, crab and lobster frittata from Backstreet Cafe’s menu?

     

    And while we’re at it, let’s bring the whole dessert table from Hugo’s Sunday brunch with delicious Mexican pastries from chef Ruben Ortega over to our make believe restaurant. As long as it’s the season let’s include some of Hugo’s squash blossom-stuffed enchiladas, too.

     

    Drinks should be at least one spicy Bloody Mary, maybe the one from Haven that contains the restaurant's own pickled okra as a garnishment and comes in a canning jar. But I’m also partial to anything with pomegranate juice it these days. Did you know this juice is a natural way of lowering high blood pressure? So drink up the pomegranate mimosas and margaritas, they’re healthy.

     

    And we’ll need some entertainment. Mariachis are good, as are the blues musicians at Danton’s Gulf Coast Seafood Sunday blues brunch. But I’ll go with the gospel singers at the monthly House of Blues Sunday gospel brunches.

     

    So there ya go, possibly the perfect Sunday brunch from around town. But since we can’t get all that in one Sunday, you’ll just have to hit all the restaurants one at a time. That should take care of the rest of your weekends for the summer.

    Bison michelada at Americas and Churrascos.

    Americas and Churrascos brunch June 2014 BISON MICHELADA
      
    Photo by © Julie Soefer
    Bison michelada at Americas and Churrascos.
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    What's Eric Eating Episode 476

    Award-winning Houston chef dishes on season 4 of hit show The Bear

    CultureMap Staff
    Jul 15, 2025 | 6:00 am
    The Bear cast photo
    The Bear/Facebook
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    On the most recent episode of “What’s Eric Eating,” James Beard Award-winning chef Justin Yu joins CultureMap editor Eric Sandler to discuss season four of The Bear, the FX series set in a Chicago restaurant. It’s become an annual tradition for the two men.

    (Spoilers ahead for all episodes of season four of The Bear.)



    In season four, which debuted on June 25, the show’s eponymous restaurant is struggling to find its footing after a review in the Chicago Tribune criticized the inconsistencies of chef Carmy Berzatto’s constantly-changing menu. The stressful environment leads chef de cuisine Sydney Adamu to contemplate leaving for a new restaurant. Yu relates to the other chef’s desire to hire Sydney away from The Bear.

    “This constantly happens in the restaurant business. We become both friends with and fans of people working under other people. You envision opening something new and having that person work for me. How do we get them to move over,” Yu says. “The ability to create is one thing. Money is a big thing. The promise of work-life balance is one thing. Those are ways to get people to move from one place to another.”

    The duo also take up the topic of sous chef Tina Marrero’s struggles to get the timing down on the pasta course that’s part of The Bear’s tasting menu. Sandler asks Yu about encouraging cooks to improve their skills

    “It’s trust but also training and the ability to have them understand what each dish means, the way it should taste and why, and how fast or slow it should go. A long time ago when we were being trained, we were told to cook the food and not given a reason for why it should be done that way. Whereas, we try our very best these days to explain the reasoning behind having a dish with fewer components so it can be plated up more quickly to get another turn on a table.”

    Listen to the full episode to hear Yu’s thoughts on Carmy’s decision to step away from The Bear. He also provides an update on some big changes come to the menu at Theodore Rex, his restaurant in downtown Houston’s Warehouse District that earned a Bib Gourmand designation in the Michelin Guide.

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