This is the height of the blue crab season and wild shrimp fishing is underway as well. It’s also Houston Restaurant Week. When people ask me where to go for the $35 dinner specials, I recommend the places that are featuring crab and shrimp. Like Haven for instance–Chef Evans has a crab cake appetizer and a [...]
The CIA San Antonio campus at the Pearl Brewery Complex on the north end of the Riverwalk is undergoing a major expansion at the moment. The new CIA building will celebrate its Grand Opening in October with an open house. CIA Antonio, officially became the Culinary Institute of America’s third campus in 2008. The school was founded to realize a dream – El Sueño – to elevate Latin American cuisines to their rightful place among the great cuisines of the world, and to expand diversity within the foodservice industry. 
After I published a post titled A Short History of Shrimp and Grits in the Houston Press last year, I got a comment from Nathalie Dupree who reminded me that she had written an entire cookbook on the subject. Dang! That’s dedication. read more More Shrimp n’ Grits »  
Chef Chris Shepherd made this dish of crispy fried pig’s ears and poached eggs with chopped greens for a Soter wine dinner at Catalan last month. It was a tasty appetizer, and it certainly got a lot of attention from the wine guys. I usually eat my pig’s ears pickled–they are a favorite cold appetizer at [...]  David Norman While I was in Austin last week, I stumbled over to Congress Avenue in the early morning murk looking for breakfast. Las Manitas wasn’t where I left it. But there was a new place called Annie’s Cafe. And there I spotted my old friend David Norman baking bread. I tapped on the glass and got him to let me in although the place hadn’t opened yet. Norman is a veteran boulanger who has worked at such famous bakeries as Upper Crust in Seattle and the legendary Bouley Bakery in New York. He started at Annie’s around a month ago, he said. read more David Norman Is Now at Annie’s »  
Chef Randy Evans at Haven, the locavore restaurant on Algerian Way in Houston, served this simple salad of butter lettuce, wild brown shrimp and Texas red grapefruit that last time I was there. Since they don’t eat bold-flavored brown shrimp anywhere else in the country and we don’t produce enough supersweet red grapefruit to export, this [...] 
Leaders of the Houston restaurant community are exploring the idea of buying vacant lots in the Fifth Ward and turning them into organic gardens. At a recent meeting, the group looked at several lots adjoining the Emile Street Garden. Pictured (from left) David Kim and Stephan Fairfield of Covenant Capital, chef Randy Evans of Haven and [...]  Bryan Caswell at Barney Greengrass I met up with Bryan Caswell, Houston’s celebrated seafood chef and the author of the Wholefish blog while we were both in New York. I got him to meet me at my favorite New York smoked fish emporium, Barney Greengrass: The Sturgeon King, on Amsterdam and 86th on the Upper West Side. Caswell had already been to Marea, the trendy seafood restaurant that everybody in New York is talking about, so I thought I’d take him someplace old. Barney Greengrass is an ancient “appetizing store” that’s famous for smoked fish and caviar. Over the years, famous customers at Barney Greengrass have included, Groucho Marx, Alfred Hitchcock, Meyer Lansky, Irving Berlin, and Al Jolson. Marx Brothers scriptwriter and New Yorker essayist, S. J. Perelman, used to write about the place. read more Barney Greengrass: The Sturgeon King » 
Chef Ryan Pera at The Grove has a talent for charcuterie. Morgan Weber is a cutting-edge pig farmer. Talk about a match made in heaven. Pera is making salami and lardo with Weber’s mangalitsa pigs. Lardo is Mario Batali’s favorite form of salumi and it’s just what it sounds like–pure pig fat. It’s cured with spices for a couple of months and then…  
You’ve heard of boudin balls, right? So how about some headcheese balls! Chef Justin Bayse is whipping these cheeky hush puppies up over at Stella Sola, the meat-lover’s restaurant in the Heights where Bedford used to be. The tangy, gelatinous pork loaf tastes even better with a crunchy breadcrumb coating. Great smeared on some bread too. [...] |
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