Houston Food Blog

They run a great coffee shop, but the ambiance suffers a little from all the squished mushrooms and empty turtle shells lying around.

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Welcome back to the weekly round-up here at Eating Our Words, where we have a lovely bouquet and notes of walnut and oak in our boldly earthy flavor. Effervescent, but never insistent.

Robb Walsh started us off with some foreign mustard favorites. Sadly, French's did not make the list. They're French, right? No? Okay, we're totally lost. Luckily, Robb can help us find our way again with a reliable old standby, barbecue.

Some baristas got together at Coffee Groundz for some kind of throwdown, which we can only assume ended in an Anchorman-like melee-weapon rumble. It's all the caffeine. Makes 'em high-strung and murderous. Greenway Barista visited Star Snow Ice, which is either a Taiwanese restaurant or an upcoming animated Christmas special.

Each week, we put together a sampler plate of the most interesting links from both local and national food blogs. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below.

MEATSPLOSION!

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Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we've finally secured the patent on sourdough incense. This week started off with a bang, when Greenway Barista slammed the Luling City Market on Richmond, which is actually unaffiliated with the actual market in Luling City. We're allowed to do that, just steal a name and pass ourselves off as affiliated to those who don't know better? Well in that case, stay tuned for a blog name change from "Eating Our Words" to "Gordon Ramsey's Twilight Zombieland Harry Potter Pixar Foodstravaganza".

Robb Walsh investigated where the taco trucks go when their busy day is over (they buzz back into an elaborate honeycomb in the base of a giant enchanted tree). E. Ting chatted with future Top Chef: Masters contestant Monica Pope, who helpfully D. Constructed the chef experience for us.

Photos by Lauren McKechnie

​Necessity is the mother of invention. For those long stretches between Easter and Halloween when candy is in short supply and groceries dwindle--here's a simple recipe to squash late-night sweets cravings.

Estimated prep: The time it takes for infomercials for the Topsy Turvy to transition to episodes of Simply Ming. Start with two slices of bread -- wheat if you must but white if you're going for authenticity. Spread Nutella on one like you would peanut butter on this sandwich's inferior daytime counterpart. Give the other slice a Paula Deen-style helping of butter. We're going for near-equal parts of Nutella and butter here. Add sprinkles for that necessary crunch. Combine.

Enjoy feeling confident that if anyone were to witness your midnight misdeed, unlike chips or ice cream or that bowl of Count Chocula, they need never know what lurks between your slices of bread.

A magnificent photo of the completed sandwich is after the jump.

Each week, we put together a sampler plate of the most interesting links from both local and national food blogs. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below.

I'm Never Full: Although she uses Twitter as her main communication tool these days, Jenny Wang still maintains her blog on occasion. And the exciting announcement this week about the upcoming Bivalve (oyster) Throwdown is her latest post. Read all about it and score tickets while you still can.

Tasty Bits: Misha is a Houston-based foodie, but his travels to far-flung regions of the world allow all of us homebodies to live vicariously through his dining experiences. His latest post is an ode to the stellar cured meats of England's The Sportsman and his hopes for the Houston dining scene.

Cleverley's Blog: Another rarely updated blog, but full of good information when it is, Cleverley shares the results of the Zagat's 2010 America's Top Restaurants Survey. Among the interesting tidbits of information: Austin is home to the best dining values in the nation. Really?

Dude, You Going To Eat That? For food lovers of the Alton Brown persuasion (read: foodies who are also into chemistry), Houston's own Dr. Ricky is your man. His latest two posts on raw milk and the supposed health benefits versus its risks are typical of Dr. Ricky's style: heavy on fact and science but never boring.

Lords of the Loop: It's so rare to find a food blog that's abjectly, liquid-shooting-out-your-nose hilarious. And it's even more rare to find one that's local. And that's where the Lords of the Loop come in. Although they talk about drinking and darts a lot more than food, you'll want to add this to your Google Reader.

​It's a never-ending debate around these parts. What is Creole? Is it the same as Cajun? If not, why not?

And let's say you were an Australian supermarket chain and were looking for a name for your in-house generic rip-off of the Oreo, and you decided to call it the "Creole Cream." Should you expect a visit from the PC Brigade?

If you answered no, think again. Aussie grocers Coles recently found that out the hard way, when they were broadsided Down Under by a professor of Aboriginal descent.

"The word Creole comes from a period when people's humanity was measured by the amount of white blood they had in their bloodstream. This is the same kind of thought that underpinned horrific regimes like the Nazis," Sam Watson, the deputy director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland, told brisbanetimes.com.au yesterday.

A spokesman for the grocery chain denied any racist intent. He said the name referred to the "well-known Creole cuisine style that originated in the US.''

It certainly seems to us less offensive than Dairy Queens Moo-Latte milkshake, which we called into question five years ago, thus inspiring Slate to chime in from their ivory tower..

And one thing's for sure: Watson's head would explode if he ever visited Houston, where there are whole apartment complexes called things like the Creole at Yorktown and Memorial Creole, and where Cajun/Creole is one of the more popular cuisines. Googling Houston and Creole gives you almost a million results.

We put the Creole Cream question to Linda Smith, the Breaux Bridge, Louisiana-bred proprietor of the Louisiana Creole Cafe on Dowling Street in the Third Ward.

First off, she was as puzzled as we were about the allegedly Creole food in question.

"I don't know what any of this has to do with an Oreo cookie," she laughed.

Liven up your Halloween parties this year with some carne asada con silly string.

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Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we defiantly eat summer sausage in the winter and we don't care who knows it. We kicked off this week at a sort of cookout triathlon with a plot of Texas land on the line. J.C. Reid likes his steaks like he likes his women: rare, aggressively seasoned, and shared with a drooling audience.

E. Ting chatted up Remington Restaurant's executive sous chef John Signorelli and got his O. Pinions on chef headaches and signature dishes. Kathatine Shilcutt attended another chili cook-off, this time with a slideshow! Real Ale went all Drew Carey and introduced its coffee-beer in bottle form, and Robb Walsh had some without imploding, so that probably makes it okay for you to try it. If that sounds like your kind of thing.

​Although it's facing stiff competition from Southern Star lately, Saint Arnold is still our favorite hometown brewery. And this weekend's Foam Raiser at the Orange Show (Saturday, October 24, from 7 to 10 p.m.) is one of many reasons why.

The ticket sales for the 2nd annual Foam Raiser go to support the Orange Show, which puts on the yearly Art Car Parade in addition to funding many other Houston folk art projects. Tickets are $25 at the door ($20 in advance), and festivities will include music from the Wild Moccasins and Grandfather Child, as well as a very special cask of Honey Orange Christmas Ale. The only cask of this ale ever made, it contains honey made from bees that once lived in the walls of the Orange Show, along with delicious orange peel.

In other beer news, Block 7 Wine Company has a special guest (or an interloper; your call) for their weekly wine tasting: fall beers! Beer expert Charles Kirkwood will be on hand this Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m., pouring and discussing the newest falls beers and some special Oktoberfest brews. And as always, the tasting is free.

Each week, we put together a sampler plate of the most interesting links from both local and national food blogs. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below.

Guns and Tacos: Hilarious and topical (with pictures and captions that always crack us up), this is one of our favorite food blogs in town. Check out Jay's handy "Taco Stand Translation Guide" from last week.

Feed the Heights: One of several excellent Heights-specific blogs in town, this one concentrates solely on restaurants. This week, Theo is holding a "call for entries," looking for the most notable burger in the area. Have a suggestion? Let him know.

Es Bueno Houston: Although he doesn't always stick to Houston, we still like El Bueno Man's concise style and photo-heavy entries. This week found him trying -- and liking -- the food at Reggae Hut.

Dirty Kitchen Adventures: With fall on the way, Jen dishes out one of her favorite cold-weather recipes: a divine-sounding cauliflower soup. Excuse us while we scurry away to procure some cruciferous vegetables...

Blog Of An Aspiring Foodie: Yes, it's a few months old, but we still love Ed's entry on "12 Places to Drink Beer That Aren't Flying Saucer." It pairs nicely with last week's cover story on Houston's best dive bars, too.

Whole Fish: Chef Bryan Caswell's personal blog, which is mostly about -- you guessed it -- fishing. Except when it's about Southbound Food, the new food radio show on 1560 AM. This blog post is a fun behind-the-scenes look at the weekly recording of the show and how it all got started.

Photos by Groovehouse

The Divine Inspiration team sought chili guidance from above.

​With just the slightest hint of a chill in the air, Saturday afternoon couldn't have been a more ideal day for a chili cook-off. Luckily, the men and women of the No Holds Barred Chili Cook-Off were dishing out bowl after bowl of the stuff at Shady Tavern.

Smallpox vaccination scars are sexy as hell.

​Welcome back to the weekly roundup at Eating Our Words, where we never roll less than three sous-chefs deep, y'all. Paul Knight started off the week by attending the Grand Opening of Lucky Strike Lanes and sampling their grub. We'll spare you the inevitable bowling puns. Get it? "Spare"? No, come back. That's it, we promise. All further bowling puns will be stricken from the record. (Get it?)

Olivia Flores Alvarez spent $13 at Kojak's Timberbrook Café, and we'd definitely crack a Kojak pun here, if we had ever once seen that show. J.C. Reid put on his khaki vest, took to the front lines of The Tavern's "War On Limp Dick Pizza," and discovered that the most flagrantly offensive member of the new Axis of Limp Dick Pizza Evil is... The Tavern. Some corn hash with shrimp is a lovely palate cleanser.

Don't forget to come out to DiverseWorks this Sunday (October 18) for an Adobo Hoedown that benefits typhoon victims. If you're wondering what "adobo" is, he was the big bald thug in Double Dragon. Need some quick pho for lunch in the downtown area? Robb Walsh recommends Pho Saigon.

Each week, we'll put together a sampler plate of the most interesting links from both local and national food blogs. Know a blog that we should be paying close attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

David Cordua in the demonstration tent.

​Perhaps we our hopes were too high for what is essentially a street festival (large and wonderful though it may be). Or perhaps our bodies were still too water-logged and mud-coated from last weekend's three-day exercise in stamina at Austin City Limits. But we just didn't come away impressed with this weekend's Epicurean Adventure area at downtown's Bayou City Arts Festival.

Photo by Katharine Shilcutt

Filipino pastries from Godo's

​When Typoon Ketsana hit the Philippines on September 25, it was the worst weather-related disaster the country and its capital city of Manila had seen in decades. Severe flooding caused an evacuation of an enormous portion of the city, displacing nearly 600,000 people, while mudslides and flood waters have claimed nearly 250 lives to date. The damage from the typhoon is estimated at $100 million, resulting in the Philippine government requesting aid and supplies from the United Nations and the world.

You can help here at home by coming out to the Adobo Hoedown this Sunday, October 18, at DiverseWorks. A group of Filipino-Americans has organized an impromptu but fun-filled afternoon of food, music and culture to benefit their families back home. All proceeds from the ticket sales ($10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under) will be donated directly to the American Red Cross for Philippines Typhoon Ketsana Relief Effort.

The centerpiece of the Adobo Hoedown is an adobo cookoff, where ten people will compete to create the best batch of adobo, the Filipino national dish. The winner will be chosen by popular vote, and your ticket gets you a bowl, a spoon and a vote.

Hopia baboy is a lard-based Filipino pastry, not the name of the new Sigur Ros album.

​Welcome back to Eating Our Words' weekly round-up, where we separate the wheat from the chaff and then have Robb Walsh make us a bitchin' spiced blackberry chaffshake.

We started off the week with some gourmet-style pig face. That picture looks kind of incredible. It makes us imagine eating a bacon-flavored sea urchin. So in other words, it's awesome, like Hostess cupcakes, which are still going strong after 90 years. They go great with a 124-year-old Dr Pepper.

Robb bid goodbye to famous foodie magazine Gourmet, while Sarah Rufka enjoyed pretty much everything but the coffee at Coffee Groundz. Mr. Walsh also stuffed a whole lot of mango love into just one post, and E. Ting sat down for an R. Ticulate chat with chef - no wait, cook - Chuck Krauthamer, who wins the award for "Surname Best Suited For a Wrestler During World War II."

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

​Next Saturday, October 17, the normally bucolic grounds of Shady Tavern will be invaded by the heat-seekers and flame-throwers at the No Holds Barred Chili Cook-Off. Now in its third year, the young but increasingly popular chili cook-off will feature between 25 and 30 teams, all of whom are invited to -- as the name implies -- cook up whatever kind of chili cocks their pistols.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Potato Board

Cheesy Southwestern Potato Crisps

​Okay, so William "Trey" Smith went to Rice University, where he graduated in 2006 with a degree in economics. Following a not-unexpected career path, he enrolled in law school at the University of Oklahoma.

Along the way, however, he found he liked his avocation better than his planned life's work. The son and grandson of accomplished cooks (his grandmother Vita Espinosa introduced him to Santa Fe flavors) and a cook himself since childhood (his mother taught him to cook because she didn't always have time to make him his favorite dishes), he started working for a chef during his first summer of law school.

"It just felt right," he says. So he contacted the Culinary Institute of America, which offered him a scholarship if he came right away. He jumped ship and landed in New York City -- which is where he spoke to Eating...Our Words in a telephone interview.

Turns out the Houston native has just been declared the winner of the Ethnic category and overall Grand Prize winner in (and we are not making this up) "The Potato Innovation Recipe Contest" sponsored by the (not making this up either) the U.S. Potato Board, for his "Cheesy Southwestern Potato Crisps."

And the story gets even better.

​Our very own Robb Walsh will be making a guest appearance on The Michael Berry Show tonight and tomorrow night at 7 p.m., discussing a range of topics so wide that it necessitated two evenings of air time. Michael Berry -- who coincidentally just happened to win Best Local Radio Host in our annual Best of Houston® issue -- is a closet foodie in addition to being a political pundit and talk show host, and has lauded Eating Our Words as the best food blog in town on several occasions. (We think he might just be looking to score some free tacos or something.)

The topics covered over the next two nights will include insights into anonymous restarurant reviews and why they're important; recent positive and negative dining trends; nose-to-tail eating (as advocated in today's post on roasted pig snout); what makes the Texas culinary scene unique; and how exactly Robb became a food writer and two-time James Beard Award winner in the first place. (Hint: It involves the KGB. Or not.)

You can catch Berry's show and Robb's interview on NewsRadio 740 AM or at KTRH.com tonight and tomorrow night starting at 7 p.m. And if you miss it, don't worry. 740 AM and Michael Berry offer podcasts of their shows to download and listen to afterwards.

Golden-brown is the proper tone for any loaf of sourdough / Hollywood starlet.

​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where today we're bitterly sniffling at the fact that everyone else from the office is at the Austin City Limits festival. It's cool! There's lots of fun stuff to do in Houston, too, you know! Bastards.

We hope you've been following along all week, and got to experience first-hand the epic sourdough odyssey begun on Monday by Robb Walsh. It started with gestating anticipation, continued into glorious fruition, and climaxed in messy but fun experimentation. This sourdough voyage was a lot like how we picture the ideal relationship.

According to Sarah Rufka's late-night visit to 59 Diner,
"It's hard not to love a place where everything comes with pancakes." It's true. It feels like... home. *wistful sigh* In this week's booze news (we know; "Booze News" could be a website all on its own), Katharine Shilcutt checked out the Wine Conference, and when there's a bunch of wine-lovers in one place, you know what that means: drama. Maybe it's all the sulfites? Someone should brew some wine with Xanax in it. It would probably go pretty well in a Riesling.

A fried cube of macaroni and cheese? Pardon the tears... you've made an old glutton very happy today.

​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where the words are still sweetened with pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup because we deal in tastiness, NOT LIES. We started our week off with E. Ting's M. Peccable chat with Beaver's chef Jonathan Jones, whom you may have met serving up fantastic spicy barbecue wings at last night's Rocks Off event. "I deep fry a baguette until it becomes a huge crouton, then stuff it with oysters, pickles and fried onions. That's bad ass," says Jones. He then donned a full suit of samurai armor, switched on his lightsaber, and rode his noble grizzly bear steed Thor into the annals of myth.

Robb Walsh enjoyed some "lamb corazon," a tasty-looking finger food bearing a striking resemblance to something called "dove poppers". On which date is it proper to suggest that your loved one order dove poppers? We're going to go ahead and say the fifteenth wedding anniversary.

At least we don't have these in Houston...yet.

​A list of Houston's ten worst restaurants would be, how shall we say, divisive and ugly to say the least. And, really, who needs that kind of karma following her around? But to say that a restaurant has a terrible name? Now that's just pointing out the obvious.

Our sister food blog in San Francisco recently ran a list of the weirdest restaurant names in the world (or at least the weirdest they'd run across). While none of our own restaurants have names nearly as awful as "Dirty Dicks," "Taste of Negros" or "Hitler's Cross," that doesn't mean they aren't funky in their own way. So in the spirit of camaraderie -- and the spirit of gently letting local restauranteurs know that they may want to consider a new DBA -- we present the worst restaurant names in Houston.

10) Forno's: "What on earth is wrong with Forno's?" you may ask. We'll tell you. In our filthy, filthy minds, it comes across as nothing so much as a cross between "porno" and "fornication." And because we aren't the only people to have filthy minds -- just some of the only ones who openly admit it -- we're willing to bet we're not the first ones to have thought that.

Continue reading " Houston's 10 Worst Restaurant Names"...

The sandwich mesmerizes you with its exotic accent and mysterious foreign spices. Surrender to the sandwich.

​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we've already started marinating the turducken. After E. Ting's N. Formative chat with Elouise Jones of Ouisie's Table, Robb Walsh started the week off right with some obscure wine. Robb also figured out something for us to do with all this broccoli and cavatelli we've got lying around, so that was helpful.

Katharine Shilcutt wrote an article on Monday, and we still haven't figured out what it's about yet because the picture that goes with it features Scarlett Johanssen's boobs. Something about none of Esquire's top 100 American bars being in Houston? I dunno. Mmm. Wow. Talk about deliciousness.

Robb took a foray into the natural goodness of grass-fed beef, but at $7 a pound, some of us are simply going to have to learn to like the taste of bovine growth hormone. J.C. Reid tried out Chocolat du Monde in Rice Village, a dessertery based around the classic underrated Pixies album Trompe Le Monde. Try the Alec Eiffel Tower of Truffle.

Sure, "dessertery" is a word. We don't care what the dictionary says, smartass, this isn't Scrabble.

​Cleverley Stone is a Houston food institution. Of sorts.

For some, she's a lively, well-informed foodie who offers great discounts and tips on her blog, on a weekly radio show on CNN 650 AM (Proposed Station Motto: You've Probably Never Heard Of Us), on local TV morning shows and on her Twitter.

For others, she's a bit of a joke, someone who is pompous and gets too cozy with the restaurants that support her.

The Houston Chronicle's Alison Cook, for instance, decided last Saturday to listen to Stone's show for the first time and live-Twitter it. Sample tweets:

-- "wow, so far @cleverleys's show is way more about cleverley than anything else. Me, me, me; my my my. Oh my"

-- ""Ooh, I just pulled an earring out of my bra." --@cleverleys. 20 minutes in and still almost no food.restaurant content"

-- "34 minutes of unbelievableness. Not sure how much more I can take."

-- "How many more dramatic readings of dictionary food definitions will I have to hear?

Lance Zierlein is best known as the co-host of the morning sports-talk show on The Game, 1560 AM, the hands-down funniest sports-talk show in the market. He decided to do a local food show of his own, and things went to hell.

Or maybe they didn't, depending on who you ask.

"Oh God. I ordered eggs AND bacon, not eggs OF bacon. This is... actually, this is SO MUCH BETTER."

​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where, after years of therapy, we've at last learned not to hate ourselves for dipping our fries into our shakes. After Sarah Rufka's interview with the decidedly not-shy Geneva Gordon of Under the Volcano, Robb helped start the week off right with his resourceful foray into bobbing for fish-smeared croutons. Everyone will be doing it at this year's Halloween parties.

J.C. Reid recommended the bento box at Nippon, and Robb toured a wine vendor for people who don't know much about wine, but know what they like. The blog featured a wine called "Long Duck." We were proud to see that one of our comments hit on the (to us) obvious Sixteen Candles joke in the very first comment. Well done!

To escape accusations of bias regarding our popular weekly segment "Food Fight," Katherine Shilcutt and yours truly randomly chose the two participants out of a hat borrowed from Rocks Off's office. We have video to prove it. Scientific! Unfortunately, we had to make a last-minute substitution in the actual contest, and frankly, it was a suspicious thing for us to do. We smell conspiracy. We also smell delicious truffle fries.

You want a cupcake.

​Welcome back to the weekly round-up here at Eating Our Words, the only blog in the web-o-sphere to ever successfully hurt Gordon Ramsay's feelings. No, not that Gordon Ramsay... he was a kid we knew in fifth grade, used to call him Booger Britches.

We started the week off with Sarah Rufka's visit to Late Nite Pie, which went pretty well up until the frat boys ruined it. Oh, frat boys, is there any scene you can't doucheify? Next, we turned to Katharine Shilcutt for a list, via Anvil, of 100 cocktails to try before you die that caught on like wildfire. A hundred different potential hangovers, each with its own subtle tang. The mind boggles.

Robb Walsh turned up with an announcement regarding the organic, free-range, corn-syrup-less cupcakes at Whole Foods, and an update regarding the mutant strain of fruit known as the "pluot," which are hybridized affronts to God that go great on a salad.

Katharine Shilcutt was incapacitated by some of the losing salsas at the 19th Annual Austin Hot Sauce Festival, while Robb sampled the W Grill's W Burger, so named because it's served to you wearing a little aviation suit alongside a napkin that says "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!" Adorably delicious.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Four different salsas, none of them fit for human consumption.

​There was a point, roughly around the 84th salsa that I'd consumed, when I was absolutely certain that I was about to see the face of God. If I were a Simpsons character, this would have been when I'd just coated the inside of my mouth with candle wax and was about to partake in a lengthy conversation with a space coyote who sounded eerily like Johnny Cash. I began to question my own sanity as my head throbbed, my nose gushed and my stomach rebelled like a man on PCP being arrested by the cops. This might have been a bad idea.

This past Sunday, I was a preliminary judge at the 19th annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival, an event founded by our own Robb Walsh when he was still writing for the Chronicle and hosted by the man himself every year. The format of the competition allows entrants to submit their salsas in one of two main categories -- individual or restaurant -- and one of several salsa categories -- red, green and specialty. More than 400 salsas were entered this year, and only a select few make it past the preliminary judges and onto the final judging panel. Commercial bottlers can also enter their concoctions, but these are sent straight to the judging pros.

Runnin' down a dream.

​Welcome back to Eating Our Words' weekly round-up, where each table has salt, pepper, sugar packets, and a Super Soaker full of chile con queso. J.C. Reid kicked off our week with a long-overdue investigation into Tex Chick, Houston's only Puerto Rican restaurant. It's a wonder most Puerto Ricans still prefer New York City to Houston, especially after what happened to those poor West Side Story kids.

Robb Walsh has a new favorite melon: the honey-sweet Swan Lake melon, which will pirouette right into your heart. Er, via your stomach. Wow, the ballet conceit collapsed pretty fast, there.

Katharine Shilcutt brought us the good news of the re-opening of La King in Galveston, which makes us so very happy; it didn't seem like Christmas last December at the Strand without it. Also, it was around 80 degrees out.

Pork bellies galore. They plump when you cook and/or tickle them.

​Welcome back to Eating Our Words' weekly roundup, where we've already picked all those wonderful little brown rye chips out of the Gardetto's. This week started off with a story from another dimension: Conservatives are applauding Whole Foods, while liberals are boycotting it. WHAAAA?!!?! At first we thought we were in some kind of alternate universe where George W. Bush converted all the cars to run on water and Toby Keith sang hardcore industrial metal with filthy lyrics, but then we saw what had happened: Someone had disagreed with Obama. Say no more. We'll get our fantastically overpriced kombucha somewhere else, thank you! (Why are we doing this again?)

Sarah Rufka cooled off with some soft Italian ice at Coco's Crepes and Coffee, and Robb Walsh hit up the Cliff House in Stamford for some chicken fried steak, then asked for some noodles we need to know about.

J.C. Reid weighed famed chocolate-hazelnut spread Nutella against its off-brand and homemade imitators. Katharine Shilcutt got to sample a whole lot of tasty pork while various chefs were getting their widdle feewings hurt at Catalan's pork belly throwdown. But hey, it's all in good fun, right? WRONG, if the testy commenters on that article have anything to say about it. And they do. At great length.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

A packed dining room at Catalan on Monday night

​People swarmed the table full of pork and beans at last night's long-awaited Pork Belly Throwdown at Catalan like bees on a hive. Dishes such as Vermont maple-glazed Kurobuta pork belly shared space with whole suckling pig heads, their cheeks decimated and tongues greedily cut out by diners eager to devour the most tender parts of the flesh. Casserole dishes full of baked beans, various cole slaws and Hatch chile bean ragout flanked the pork dishes before giving way to a dessert spread of creme brulee bread pudding from Ronnie Killen, red velvet cupcakes topped with bacon from Jody Flood and homemade Fluffernutters. Church potlucks and family picnics everywhere wept in the face of such greatness.

The doors opened to the public at 4 p.m., as diners and industry personnel rubbed shoulders with one another over beers and beans, and food acolytes clamored shamelessly for the attention of their favorite chefs and restaurant owners. In one corner, the bartenders supplied a neverending line of thirsty patrons with Fireman's #4 and Southern Star Pine Belt Pale, while in another, David Buehrer of Tuscany Coffee kept peoples' attention with expertly crafted lattes and espressos. But the real star of the show was the pork.

Judging began at 7 p.m., and the table of assembled judges was more than up to the task. Organizer Jenny Wang shared the space with Teresa Byrne-Dodge, editor and publisher of My Table; our very own J.C. Reid; Chris Shepherd, executive chef at Catalan; Misha Govshteyn of Tasty Bits; and Justin Bayse, sous chef at Voice.

Photo by stu spivak

​Monday, Monday, Monday! The battle to beat all battles will be held tonight at Catalan featuring contenders from across the city as they compete to claim the prize of Houston's best pork belly.

The third in a series of popular "throwdown" events organized by Jenny Wang of the Houston Chowhounds, tonight's Pork Belly Throwdown will feature Cody Vasek (sous chef at Voice) and Randy Evans (executive chef at soon-to-be-opened Haven), the winners from the Fried Chicken Throwdown, defending their titles against a crop of new chefs as they try to create the tastiest pork belly dishes possible.

Competitors include Randy Rucker (executive chef at Rainbow Lodge), Jason Gould (formerly of Gravitas), Ryan Pera (executive chef at The Grove), Ronnie Killen (of Killen's Steakhouse), Jonathan Jones (executive chef at Beaver's Ice House) and many more. Additionally, members of the Houston Chowhounds will be competing in an amateur event, Battle Beans (because what goes better with pork than beans?).

If you've already gotten your ticket, good for you -- the event sold out almost as soon as it was announced. Otherwise, stay tuned to the blog tomorrow for coverage and pictures from tonight's throwdown.