Smoking in Bellaire

Popular barbecue pop-up spot spices up Bellaire with first restaurant

Houston's barbecue scene gets a little tastier this week. After over a year of planning and construction, Blood Bros. BBQ will make the leap from pop-up to brick and mortar with a new restaurant in the Bellaire triangle.

Blood Bros. has spent the last few years building a following for their creative take on Texas barbecue. In addition to the usual Texas trinity of brisket, ribs, and sausage, the partners, brothers Terry and Robin Wong and pitmaster Quy Hoang, incorporate a diverse array of Houston flavors into their cuisine. Hoang's rub has a little zip than the usual salt and pepper rub, and even a classic side like creamed corn gets a boost from chopped jalapeño.

Opening a restaurant also means that Hoang's creative sausages, which include Thai green chile boudain, mac and cheese, and jalapeno and cheese, will have a permanent place on the menu. Expect Blood Bros. classics like gochujang beef belly burnt ends and togarashi-spiced pork to make their appearances as specials once things get dialed in a bit.

The meats are smoked using a mixture of oak and pecan in either a Pitmaker vault-style smoker or a Pitmaker Sniper offset pit that's been lengthened to hold extra meat. As with all of Houston's top barbecue joints, the meat is cooked with wood only.

The plan for now is to start off slow by only serving lunch four days a week, which will increase to five sometime in January. Since Hoang only quit his job in the aquarium business a month ago, he says he wants to get used to the new schedule and also assess demand.

Although the Wong brothers own the popular Glitter Karaoke bar in Midtown, the barbecue joint is their first restaurant. To gain some logistical expertise, they've added Felix Florez, the owner of Black Hill Meats and one of the operators in the soon-to-open Bravery Chef Hall, and Ryan Echiverri, a real estate investor and nightclub owner. In the kitchen, they've hired chef Alan Duhon (Haven, Harborside Mercantile), who brings both lots of experience and the potential to create specials inspired by his East Texas roots.

Inside, the restaurant is clean and comfortable. As at most barbecue joints, diners line up to order at the cutting block then find a seat at the tables and booths in the dining room. An inset patio offers outdoor seating and helps preserve the picnic feel that always made a Blood Bros. pop-up fun to attend.

The opening of Blood Bros. should be a welcome addition to Bellaire's dining options. While it has a couple of old school barbecue options, the area lacks an establishment that serves the smokier, more aggressively seasoned style of barbecue that's become the dominant trend. Just as area diners have embraced Bernie's Burger Bus, Blood Bros shopping center neighbor, expect a similar frenzy when the doors open Thursday, December 20.

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Blood Bros. Texas BBQ; 5425 Bellaire Blvd.; Thursday - Sunday 11 am until sold out.

Blood Bros BBQ opens Thursday.

Photo by Eric Sandler

Blood Bros BBQ opens Thursday.

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the more things change

Houston's essential Jewish diner looks better than ever after refresh

Photo by Sergio Trevino

The dining room has more light than ever.

It’s tricky to renovate a restaurant that’s as essential to its community as New York Deli. A staple of Houston’s Jewish community for almost 50 years, the tiny restaurant near Meyerland will serve as many as 400 people during a busy Sunday brunch.

Still, the time had come, as the tape on the deteriorating banquettes and peeling wallpaper illustrated. With the restaurant’s lease up for renewal, co-owner Michael Saghian saw an opportunity for some updates.

“I couldn’t be the new guy who ruined the place by moving it,” he tells CultureMap. “We worked out a deal with the landlord [to stay] and did a big refresh.”

The most noticeable change is the removal of the restaurant’s front door and vestibule. Instead, diners enter through the restaurant’s companion bagel shop. Separate entrances made sense when the bagel shop was certified kosher by local religious authorities, but now that designation only applies to the Bellaire location that opened in 2020. Not only is the new setup easier for people with mobility issues to navigate, it allows more light into the dining room, brightening the place considerably..

Saghian and co-owner Riana Sherman worked with interior designer Erin Hicks on the refresh. Tables, chairs, and banquettes are all new, but the color scheme remains the same. The process yielded 10 more seats, and the furniture is a little more durable, too.

“People have flipped chairs because they’re so lightweight,” Sherman says. “We got a sturdier chair.”

Behind the scenes, an expanded kitchen allows for the restaurant’s cooks to work faster and more efficiently. An additional egg cooker should cut down the amount of time people wait for their food to arrive.

“The kitchen had one of everything. Now we have two of everything. We can pump out a lot more food,” Saghian says.

Photographs on the walls honor longtime customers such as the “bagel girls,” a group of woman who’ve eaten breakfast at the restaurant since the ‘80s. A piece of old wallpaper has been framed and hung on the wall, too, as a nod to the space’s history.

New York Deli interior changes Photographs on the walls honor longtime customers.Photo by Sergio Trevino

Photo by Sergio Trevino

The dining room has more light than ever.

Saghian says he suffered from sleepless nights as he worried about people’s reactions to the changes, but so far his customers have been effusive.

“It still feels like an old school diner,” Saghian says. “It has pieces you remember. Even the new stuff is old school.”

While the physical environment is new, the staff remains the same. To ensure he kept the same team of cooks and servers, Saghian paid their wages for the two weeks the restaurant was closed for renovations.

Even more importantly, the prices are the same. That’s something that will make even the oldest regulars happy.

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