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ST. LAWRENCE MARKET, TORONTO -- “You must be from the States,” the butcher at the St. Lawrence Market said as I took his picture carrying a huge hindquarter of beef into his meat market. “You guys don’t get to see real meat anymore, hey?”

He was right. In Houston, meat comes in little plastic packages, even in the Mexican carnicerias. It was shocking to see big primal cuts of beef hanging in a meat locker.

Texas may be a cattle ranching state, but when was the last time you saw a side of beef? When was the last time you saw a real butcher shop?

Houston’s Sylvia Casares-Copeland, of Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen, was named one of the Top Ten Best Latino chefs/restaurants of the year by Siempre Mujer magazine.

Casares-Copeland is in good company. The rest of the list includes: Silvana Salcido Esparza, Barrio Café, Phoenix, AZ; Douglas Rodriguez, Ola at the Sanctuary, Miami Beach, FL; Luis Fernando Caamal, Colibri Mexican Bistro, San Francisco, CA; Priscilla Satkoff, Salpicon, Chicago, IL; Lydia Sharpe, Little Havana, New York, NY; Jose Andres, Jaleo, Washington, DC; Archie Mejias, Sabor Latin Bistro, North Bergen, NJ; Rocio Gomez, Amaranta, Canoga Park, CA; Dunia Borga y Taco Borga, La Duni Latin Café, Dallas, TX.

The honor should help sales of Casares-Copeland’s book/DVD Hot Tamales, a take-off of her popular cooking class. – Olivia Flores Alvarez

While working on this week’s feature about Hugo Ortega, I needed someone in the restaurant industry to explain the situation honestly. Understandably, no restaurant owner in Houston wanted to come out and say he was hiring illegals. So I e-mailed Tony Bourdain, who is not only a television star and a best-selling author, but is also one of the most outspoken chefs in America. He supplied me with a long quote on the subject. I couldn’t use all of it in the article, but you can read the full quote below. -- Robb Walsh

"People have differing opinions on what we should do about immigration in the future. How open or how closed our borders should be. Fine. But let's be honest, at least, about who is cooking in America NOW. Who we rely on--have relied on for decades. The bald fact is that the entire restaurant industry in America would close down overnight, would never recover, if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly across the board. Everyone in the industry knows this. It is undeniable. Illegal labor is the backbone of the service and hospitality industry--Mexican, Salvadoran and Ecuadoran in particular. To contemplate actually doing without is to contemplate mass closings, a general shake-out of individually owned and operated restaurants--and, of course, unthinkably (now) higher prices in the places that manage to survive. Considering that our economy and employment picture is now largely based on us selling hamburgers to each other, the ripple effects would be grave. I know very few chefs who've even heard of a US born citizen coming in the door to ask for a dishwasher, night clean-up or kitchen prep job. Until that happens--let's at least try to be honest when discussing this issue."

Okay, so one of our regular contributors, whom we'll spare from naming (cough, Tunnel Mole), says this radish looks like a vagina. We personally don't see more than a pair of legs (and maybe the visage of Mother Mary in those pecans, but that's another matter entirely). However, we wouldn't want our personal biases to cloud our reporting, so we now ask for your opinions on this pressing matter. Anyone out there care to weigh in? -- Keith Plocek

From curry burritos to Bosnian hamburgers, our man Robb Walsh never shies away from a culinary challenge.

So when we asked him to pick his top ten dishes from 2007, he licked his lips and dug right in.

Click here to see what made the cut. -- Keith Plocek

My favorite wine expert, Karen MacNeil, passed through Houston not long ago, and I was honored to join her for lunch. MacNeil’s 910-page paperback, The Wine Bible ($20 Workman, 2001), is the only reference book on wine that I keep on my desk. As the name suggests, it’s a comprehensive guide to famous wineries and wine styles, regions and varietals, with a healthy dose of trivia and humor thrown in.

MacNeil is especially knowledgeable on the subject of Texas wines, and she told me she had tried some very interesting ones lately. Texas has long been a wine region in search of signature varietals. Some Texas wine mavens think that Viognier and Sangiovese might be the grapes we’ve been looking for, and MacNeil admits to being impressed by the few she’s tasted.

Where: La Viña Cuban Cuisine, 9419 Richmond, 713-526-9700

What $13 gets you: Carbs, tons of them. You’d think these Cubans are carbo-loading for a marathon the way they pack them on.

To my undeveloped palate, Cuban cuisine has always seemed like a poor country cousin to Mexican cuisine. Although they share many of the same ingredients—rice, beans, pork—Cuban food often comes off as bland and uninspired. Some blame Castro and the Soviets for dumbing down the menus of Cuban chefs. With local Cubans raving about La Viña, I decided it was time to reassess the state of affairs in Cuban kitchens.

I started things off with a Malta Hatuey ($2), a Guinness-like soda that’s reputed to fortify the weak and sickly. It tasted like watered-down molasses and yeast, cut with a bit of corn syrup. All the traditional Cuban favorites are here, including ropa vieja ($9) and a Cuban sandwich that looked like a bargain for under $4. I settled on a grilled chicken breast with plantains, black beans and rice for $6.95. There was not a hint of spice and the flavors were subtle, yet the meal was extremely satisfying. The chicken breast was tender and juicy, while the plantains had a candied texture that wasn’t too sweet.

I kicked myself for ordering the Malta. I could’ve skipped the beverage and had enough to for a traditional cortado ($2), an espresso with a dash of milk, like everyone else at La Viña.

Where: Fadi’s Mediterranean Grill, 4738 Beechnut, 713-666-4644 (and 8383 Westheimer, 713-532-0666)

What $13 gets you: Lots of good-for-you Mediterranean food, including a healthy number of vegetarian choices. During our lunchtime visit I went with the spinach pie ($2.99), three sides (Greek salad, stuffed grape leaves and cucumber salad) ($5.99) and a fresh squeezed orange juice ($2.59). My dining partner had the falafel platter with three falafel and two sides (tabuli and hummus) ($6.99), a fresh strawberry juice ($2.59) and baklava ($1.59). Each of us made it under the $13 limit.

It’s downtown Houston and I’m standing in a treehouse, high off the ground right in the middle of the upper levels of huge oak trees. Last night, The Grove restaurant opened its doors and its treehouse (actually the roof deck) at 1611 Lamar for a $100-a-person fundraiser for the still-under-construction park that surrounds it – Discovery Green.

This 11- or 12-acre park at Lamar and Crawford and nearby the George R. Brown Convention Center has as its centerpiece an amazing (for downtown) expanse of grounds (referred to by some as “that soccer field”) and the wood-and-glass restaurant scheduled for its formal opening sometime in January (pushed back from an earlier December target). Down below, a more casual restaurant, The Boathouse, will open sometime next month as well.

2007 was a big year for taco-truck journalism here at the Houston Press. We covered Houston’s top taco trucks online with the Taco Truck Gourmet series and in print with “Las Fabulosas Taco Trucks.” Press food critic Robb Walsh also wrote a taco truck article, “As the Taco Turns,” that appeared in the September issue of Gourmet Magazine.

For the Gourmet article, Walsh traveled around the country eating at taco trucks and taking pictures. We’ve already seen photos of the top Houston taco trucks in the Taco Truck Gourmet series, so here’s some pix of out-of-town taco truck fare, in case you were wondering how ours compares to theirs.

Feeling appropriately guilt-ridden from my last attempt at Hanukkah, I looked to the Internet in search of something to get me back in the good graces of my people. I soon found that quirky Seattle-based soda company Jones Soda had come out with a line of Hanukkah flavors (with a free dreidel in every box) and quickly placed my order. Before the sodas arrived, I decided to search Houston for the food counterparts to see if Jones had really hit the mark. Once the bottles of Latke, Apple Sauce, Jelly Donut, and Chocolate Coins were safely atop my counter, I was ready for another night of Hanukkah flavors.

LATKES

Real version: I began my meal with these traditional potato pancakes, deep-fried in the liquid of the season, oil. Four latkes from different “tribes” sat in a circle on my plate. There was Kenny & Ziggy’s unsightly but traditionally dense variety, Central Market’s nicely styled onion-filled cakes, Leibman’s Wine & Fine Foods' elegant and not overly greasy silver-dollar-sized mini and my personal favorite, Saba’s Kosher Kitchen’s savory nests of potato goodness.

Get out your blotters, it’s time for plates of oil-filled food and candlelit evenings. As much as Hanukkah traditions hold a special place in my heart, when it comes to holidays, the Festival of Lights doesn’t even hit my top five. Sure, there are eight nights of presents and lots of fire, but the loot was all-too-often school-oriented (“Oh great, an eraser set!”) and the fire always highly supervised. Then there’s the whole dreidel ordeal. I remember sitting in a circle on my Great Aunt Mildred’s wood floor, splinters poking through my tights, frantic to win some very low-end foil-covered chocolate that tasted more like wax lips than anything Cadbury ever produced.

So this year, with eight nights before me to do with what I pleased, I decided to reinvent my Hanukkah celebration. Lighting up an elaborate array of various tea-candles that were littering my cupboards, I invited some of my goyum friends over to experience the magic. Instead of the traditional dry-as-a-bone brisket that I was used to, I served up a couple pounds of Luling City Market’s, which I've always found deliciously moist, even without the sauce. Instead of the tired, browning broccoli florets that sat collecting wax beneath a dripping menorah, I opted for a pre-packaged Central Market Spring Mix, a perfect palate cleanser. And replacing the much loved but somehow still tired latkes, I decided to schlep out to Cracker Barrel for some nasty-good Hashbrown Casserole. (Just look at that photo.)

Sometimes — late at night when I can't sleep — I sit at the computer and stare longingly at pretty pictures. – Robb Walsh

Robb Walsh wrote about the Texas Chicken-Fried Steak Belt earlier this year in the feature "I Love CFS."