Have you tried this?

Brunch, perfected: Branch Water brings the best of breakfast together in oneshortrib dish

Sometimes I find myself trying to explain why for the first 20 years of my life I avoided eating ribs. It had something to do with an aversion to Texas-style, sticky-sweet barbecue sauce and a lot to do with being a bit prissy and not wanting to get my hands dirty.

I'm not defending this decision, and I have spent the better part of the last decade making up for lost time. So when I saw the Shortrib Benedict on the brunch menu at Branch Water Tavern, it was a "hell, yeah." Situation.

If brunch has a formula, it's eggs + meat + bread + alcohol. The brilliance of the Shortrib Benedict is that it combines three out of these four elements without getting too heavy or too complicated.

The dish consists of two small chili cornbread muffins topped with big chunks of juicy braised short rib meat, which sits underneath a full poached egg sprinkled with chives and doused in a red wine jus.

Technically this dish, which costs $12, doesn't really deserve the Benedict title. In addition to replacing the English muffin with a sweet, mild cornbread (it was a little dry but nothing a puddle of jus couldn't fix), there's also, mercifully, no Hollandaise sauce, which would take the dish over the edge on richness.

Brunch has a tendency to be over the top, but what really struck me about this dish is how balanced the sweet and savory elements were, and how pleasantly restrained (considering the over-the-top nature of brunch) the four-bite presentation was.

If brunch has a formula, it's eggs + meat + bread + alcohol. The brilliance of the Shortrib Benedict is that it combines three out of these four elements without getting too heavy or too complicated. Order a bottomless mimosa and you have officially won brunch. E-mail me for your gold star.

unspecified

Farewell, ElRo

Creative Montrose pizzeria will shutter after only a year-and-a-half

Photo by Julie Soefer

ElRo Pizza & Crudo

An acclaimed Houston pizzeria will soon serve its final pies. ElRo Pizza & Crudo will close after service on December 31.

In a post on Instagram, chef-owner Terrence Gallivan thanks his staff for their dedication and his customers for their support. “We hope to see you all over the next couple weeks. Come celebrate with us,” he writes.

Open since June 2023, ElRo intrigued diners who enjoyed Gallivan’s work at pioneering Houston restaurant The Pass & Provisions. At ElRo, the chef served a modified version of the Provisions pizza recipe alongside crudos and shareable small plates such as arancini and housemade sausage. It earned four nominations in this year’s CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, including Best New Restaurant and Chef of the Year.

Sadly, Gallivan tells CultureMap that business has seen “a steady decline in business for many months.” Recently, the restaurant had tried a number of initiatives to draw in diners, such as steak night on Tuesday and fried chicken on Saturday.

The early announcement gives diners two weeks to make one more visit (or two) to the restaurant before it closes. Customers may want to time their visit for happy hour, which takes places from 3-6 pm Tuesday-Friday. It includes half-off glasses of wine, $4 draft beers, $9 select cocktails, and food specials.

Gallivan adds that he doesn’t know yet what his next move will be. Hopefully, he’s got one more comeback in him. Houston is a more fun town to dine in when Gallivan is cooking in it.

news-you-can-eat pizza closings