This Week in Dining

These are the 11 best food and drink events in Houston this week

July 20 marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S. moon landing, the day our country fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's promise that before the end of the decade, we would send men to the moon, choosing to do it — and other things — "not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Houston played a huge role in that historic event, and this week the Bayou City marks the anniversary with a host of moon-inspired dishes and cocktails. For those looking for more terrestrially minded options, this week features plenty of other events, including the opening of two new restaurants.

Monday, July 15

Special Lunar Landing Menu at The Grove
Beginning today and continuing until July 27, check out lunar-inspired food items at this popular downtown restaurants. For dessert, The Grove is offering $5 artisanal moon pies; diners may choose from the classic, graham crackers stuffed with marshmallow and dipped in milk chocolate, or the chocolate, made with chocolate cookies stuffed with marshmallow and dipped in white chocolate. The restaurant is also featuring The Moonwalk cocktail, made with fresh grapefruit juice, orange liqueur, rose water, and champagne. It's available for $10, and was apparently the first cocktail Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren sipped when they returned from that historic mission.

Tuesday, July 16

Lunar Landing Cocktail Special at the Bar at the Houstonian Hotel, Club and Spa
One of the city's swankiest addresses marks the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing with the Mission Control cocktail for $17. It's a coffee-smoked cocktail inspired by the quick-thinking team that successfully guided Apollo 11. The special also is available on July 20 and 25.

Wine Dinner at Costa Brava Bistro
With open seating from 5-8 pm, diners can check out some wines from Madame Veuve Point that are brand new to the Houston market. The four-course dinner with wine pairings includes selections like rainbow trout Meunière paired with the 2017 Pouilly-Fuissé, roasted duck breast with the 2015 Beaune 'Climat Epenottes,' and a blueberry crêpe with ice cream. The cost is $90 per person. To reserve, call 713-839-1005.

Wednesday, July 17

National Hot Dog Day
All day long at all Bernie's Burger Bus locations, get 44 Farms USDA Choice Angus beef franks for $2 each. The special is good for dine-in only, and all locations open at 11 am. Over at both Kenny & Ziggy's spots, diners will find a flight of three dogs for $17.95: Da Bronx dog is piled high with potato salad and mustard; the Queso-Ra-Sera! is wrapped in bacon then topped with pepper jack, avocado, pico, chipotle cream, sour cream, and onion rings; and the YoSo Dog is a frank with avocado, fried onions, ebi sauce, and chipotle cream. At James Coney Island, the first 96 guests in the door starting at 10:30 am will receive a free Original Coney. The legendary hot dog spot continues festivities on July 18, too, offering 96-cent Original Coneys.

Celebrity Waiter Spaghetti Supper at Radunare Italian-American Table
Benefiting the Montgomery County Food Bank, this event features celebrities from The Woodlands "waiting" tables at the grand opening of the new Italian restaurant. Dinner is from 6-9 pm, and the cost is $40 per person. Tickets may be purchased online.

Thursday, July 18

Grand Opening of Mendocino Farms
The fresh-food-forward concept opens its doors in Rice Village at 11 am, bringing with it a commitment to sourcing locally and partnering with farm and artisan partners, as well as giving back to the community. Out of the gate, they've paired up with chef Chris Shepherd to create a charity sandwich that will be available the first month they're open; 100 percent of proceeds from the sandwich will go to chef Shepherd's Southern Smoke Foundation.

Lunar Landing Soiree at Le Colonial
Celebrate one giant leap for mankind with a party that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the historic feat. From 7-9 pm, enjoy DJ tunes, a special menu of cosmic cocktails for purchase, and complimentary light bites. A portion of the evening's proceeds will go to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Apollo 11 Moon Landing Dinner at Xochi
The downtown restaurant helmed by chef Hugo Ortega hosts a special dinner to mark one of the most famous feats in history. Each of the evenings five courses is named for (or inspired by) a part of the Apollo moon mission. The pre-dinner reception, "Lunar Orbit," features an American sparkling wine and light bites.

"The Eagle Has Landed," the first course, offers a crispy hoja santa leaf filled with house-made Oaxacan cheese, mole verde, and masa dumplings paired with the restaurant's special Tranquility Base Margarita. "The First Step Huarache" is an heirloom “boot”-shaped masa flatbread with squash blossom filling, huitlasquites mole accompanied by the 2014 Birichino Jurassic Park Vineyard Old Vine Chenin Blanc. And the "21.5 Hours on the Moon Carne De Res," the evening's main course, is an all day-braised short rib wrapped and cooked in agave leaf, roasted heirloom vegetables, chichilo mole paired with the 2014 and 2015 Macan Rioja Classico. Dinner begins at 7 pm, and tickets are $115 per person, excluding tax and gratuity, and can be purchased online or by calling 713-400-3330.

Saturday, July 20

An Ode 2 Beef : A Meaty Culinary Tour
The Swanky Maven herself, Felice Sloan, has paired up with 44 Farms for a progressive beef tour around the city. Meet at Bayou and Bottle in the Four Seasons at 2:45 pm for a cocktail reception and steak flight of smoked Texas rubbed tenderloin, braised short rib, and slow-cooked sirloin. Guests will travel around the city in a motor coach, sampling smoked tri-tip served with ghost pepper chimichurri on a bed of roasted potatoes at Blood Bros. BBQ and beef tartare with oyster aioli over at Eunice. Tickets are $155 per person, and the Four Seasons is offering a special rate of $225 for the night for tour participants. Tickets may be purchased online (the hotel discount will be provided after tickets are purchased).

Sunday, July 21

Guard & Grace Welcome Dinner at Kiran's
Chef Kiran Verma rolls out an Indian welcome at her Upper Kirby restaurant to preview the arrival of Denver chef Troy Guard and his Guard & Grace restaurant, coming to Houston this fall. The one-night-only dinner is part of Guard’s Kitchen Kollab series. The menu items feature the styles of both Kiran and Guard, and include lobster bisque, tandoori rack of lamb, steamed and crisped Gulf shumai, and mango cheesecake. Dinner starts at 5:30 pm, and tickets are $105 per person, although those who want a wine pairing can add it for another $60. To reserve, call 713-960-8472.

Get a first taste of Radunare at a special fundraiser.

Photo by Koko Art Studio

Get a first taste of Radunare at a special fundraiser.

news-you-can-eat cocktails wine dinner

Wine Guy Wednesday

Chris Shepherd shares his favorite cold weather wines and whiskey

Photo by Chris Shepherd

These wines will keep your warm all winter long.

What’s happening, team?! It snowed and not just a little bit — quite a bit! You know what that means? We get to drink some big red wines! Yes, it’s cold, and yes, it snowed. You never know when it will happen again.

You also never know if and when you will need to have this handy little article to see you through the next time it gets cold. Or if you are planning a ski trip, you’re going to need to know what to drink. When the city shuts down and you can’t go anywhere, here are a few things I think you should try. I’m not saying that you should consume all of these at one — unless you have really cool neighbors and want to share these while having a snow ball fight (that literally just happened to me).

First up on my list is a Sparkling Valdiguié from Cruse Wine Co. Now this is a beautiful rosé made from old vine Valdiguié grapes from Rancho Chimiles, which is in the Southeastern part of Napa Valley. Valdiguié is red grape grown primarily in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of Southern France but has also been known as Napa Gamay. I call it delicious, and you are starting to see some of these styles of grapes being used more and more — I am a huge fan of this movement. Michael Cruse is one of the best young winemakers out there, not only with sparkling wines but his still wines as well and is really someone that everyone should know. You read it here first.

Next up on our snow day off is from Robert Sinskey Vineyards. Yes, I do write about them a lot because they make kick ass wines, and we should all drink more of them. Today, it’s all about the SLD which is Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine comes from their estate that was in the Stags Leap District on the east side of the Valley.

In December of 2022, Robert Sinskey sold its winery real estate to The Wonderful Company but retained the brand, the vineyards and the inventory. They are now located at Wilding Farm in Carneros which is not a vineyard, but a farm. It is an absolutely beautiful property with goats, some cattle, horses, and an orchard. We were lucky enough to have dinner out there last summer.

Back to the wine, the SLD has amazing complexity with all the flavor components that you would expect from black fruits, black cherry, leather and forest floor (I always love that one.) The sad part of this is that in 2017 they harvested the last vintage before fire took the vineyard. It has been replaced so it will still be some time before we see this amazing wine again. You can still purchase the 2017 on their website so take advantage.

On to the next! Paradigm is a vineyard that is owned by Napa Valley royalty Ren and Marilyn Harris. Marilyn’s family has been farming Napa Valley since the 1890s, and Ren’s family came over from Ireland during the late 1800s — his paternal grandfather was a descendant of the rancheros who founded the Presidio of San Diego in 1796! That is some family history right there. They remodeled and sold their house which enabled them to buy a prune orchard in Oakville in the late 1960s.

Like all the fruit farmers in Napa they pulled most of the stone fruit and planted grapes. We are all very thankful to those that did this, although I have had the opportunity to eat some very old heirloom stone fruit, and let’s just say it’s magical. One of the many things that I love about Paradigm is that the current vintages for sale are the 2015, 2016 and 2017 for the Cabernet Sauvignon which means they’ve been cellar aged by them — before you drink it, it’s already primed up and ready to go!

Next up: let’s head over to Sonoma to get down with arguably one of the California legends of Syrah, Pax Mahle. I would say that for this article we will talk about Syrah but, I would be an ass if I didn’t mention the Chenin Blanc, Pinot Blanc, and the Gamay Noir, too. All of these wines are fantastic and should be enjoyed.

The 2021 Sonoma-Hillsides Syrah is made with 100 percent Syrah that’s grown on organically farmed hillsides in Sonoma County and is blended from different sites with different terroir from steep rocky sites to old vines grown in sandy soils. Why, you ask? To develop a more balanced wine with power while keeping its harmony and balance. This process helps to develop delicious flavors of dark fruits and pink and white pepper! Crack a bottle and thank me later.

If wine isn’t your cup of tea, enjoy the so-called bourbon glut and pour yourself a glass of Henry McKenna. This bourbon used to be readily available almost everywhere until someone wrote it up as one of the best out there. At that time, it was about $30 a bottle; if you can find it, the price has probably doubled, but I believe that it was always underpriced anyway. To find this 10 year, 100 proof Bottled in Bond bourbon was almost a joke for the past give years but you can find it more and more now. I literally found this bottle case stacked at a liquor store last week.

Let’s talk about Bottled in Bond for a minute. It’s a label for an American-produced distilled beverage that has been aged and bottled according to a set of regulations originally specified in the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. Before, you were never really sure what you were drinking or how it was made. It also helped with taxes to ensure proper accounting and tax collection.

To be labeled as bonded, the liquor must be produced during one distillation season by one distiller at one distillery. It must have been aged in a federally-bonded warehouse under U.S. government supervision for at least four years and bottled at 100 proof. Some distilleries still use this method while many don’t. It’s okay either way these days, but it definitely helped people stay away from some seriously bad beverages back in the day.

I hope you enjoy this cold weather and are staying safe. Now it’s time for some Syrah. Until then, what’s next?

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What did you drink during Houston's snow day? Let Chris know via email at chris@chrisshepherd.is.

Chris Shepherd won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014. The Southern Smoke Foundation, a nonprofit he co-founded with his wife Lindsey Brown, has distributed more than $11 million to hospitality workers in crisis through its Emergency Relief Fund. Catch his TV show, Eat Like a Local, every Saturday at 10 am on KPRC Channel 2.

wine chefs chris shepherd

This Week in Dining

These are the 11 best food and drink events in Houston this week

Get a first taste of Radunare at a special fundraiser.

Wine Guy Wednesday

Chris Shepherd shares his favorite cold weather wines and whiskey

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