Photo by Brooke Viggiano

The Ultimate Sunday Funday Showdown

​After an entire season of Sunday Fundays enjoyed watching football (and cursing loudly as Sanchez throws yet another interception), I am ready to report back on my findings. Each Sunday, you can find me and a group of rowdy friends either occupying a large booth at Pub Fiction or huddled around the bar at Blackfinn American Grille.

While I enjoy what both Midtown bars/restaurants have to offer, only one can win this game. Broken down by quarter, with points for game day atmosphere, drinks, food, and overall service, here's how the game went:

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Nature Fusion had points docked for being ridiculously, outlandishly difficult to open.

​General holiday stress, wildly schizophrenic weather and two weekends in a row of driving to Dallas-Fort Worth has taken its toll on me: I have a cold.

It happens once a year, despite my best efforts. And I'm not alone: Texas's cold and flu season generally runs from December through February, so I'm guessing a few of you poor bastards out there are down for the count too right now.

It's okay, though: We're all in this together. And, as I told one of my editors, the worst part of being sick isn't the sore throat or the stuffy nose or the aching joints or the mucus sliding slowly and stubbornly past my epiglottis. The worst part is the medicine.

I hate cough syrup. I hate "Cold & Flu" syrup. I hate all of it. If there is anything else in the world more capable of triggering my gag reflex, I've not yet met it.

"How can people get addicted to this stuff?!" I asked my editor over email. "It's disgusting." And then she had a brilliant idea: a taste test to find the least offensive-tasting syrup for cold and flu season.

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This lobster risotto and accompanying lobster came from your friendly local dive bar.

​One is a highbrow full-fledged restaurant -- a "brick-and-mortar" place, to use the parlance of the day -- owned and operated by heavyweight restaurateurs. The other is a cobbled-together food truck, ephemeral and fleeting by nature here in Houston, where the City actively targets mobile food vendors and where many trucks go under for reasons purely of their own creation.

Both, in this case, happen to serve some of the finer foods in life: steak tartare, filet mignon, lobster risotto, bone marrow service. Yes, two of those things come from a truck. If you're a regular reader of ours, you'll recognize the latter two as coming from The Modular, a tin can truck which is often camped out at a hipster dive bar on the edge of Montrose.

The first two come from Ava Kitchen & Whiskey Bar. And I inadvertently pitted the two establishments against each other on Friday night. Although not terribly surprised by the outcome -- in fact, I sometimes fear that we start to sound like broken records around here, constantly expressing dismay that the city's great cooks aren't cooking on a regular enough basis -- it stood out to me as representative of all the things both wrong and right with our city's culinary scene right now.

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Can one person eat a 28-inch pizza in an hour? The short answer is: no. But that didn't stop two devoted Houston Press staffers from taking on Russo's New York Pizzeria's party pizza challenge.

Although other Russo's have carried the 28-inch party pizza for a while, it's still somewhat new to the Russo's New York Pizzeria location at 5727 Westheimer. If you can finish the coffee-table-sized pizza with two toppings within an hour, Russo's will pay you $200. I don't anticipate anyone walking away with that prize money any time soon, however, as demonstrated by our utter failure to make a dent in the two 28-inchers we ordered this past Sunday afternoon.

Houston Press receptionist Abrahan Garza and designer Anthony Reynolds each tackled a pepperoni pizza of their own on Sunday. Although the pizzas only had one topping each, I don't think an additional topping would have made a difference. The biggest barrier to eating all that pizza, as the boys found out, wasn't all the pepperoni: It was all the grease.

"I think I can eat half," boasted a cocky Reynolds prior to the competition between him and Garza. Fifteen minutes into their competition, Reynolds had retreated to the bathroom for a breather. He had barely eaten one-fifth of the pizza at this point. Upon his return, he could no longer disguise the fact that the pizza was already getting the best of him.

"I feel intoxicated," he moaned. Drunk on grease.

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Carrie Applegate Jaeger

​As promised, here's the follow up to the last Greatest Grub featuring favorite flavors of Blue Bell ice cream. I can only imagine how many gallons of that stuff are bought in the state during these unbearably hot summer months. I know that Blue Bell is the hometown favorite brand, but you Texans must admit that there are some damn fine ice creams that are made outside of your beloved state. Being a Vermonter, I may be shunned if I didn't choose a Ben & Jerry's flavor. Luckily, my favorite is, in fact, made in the Green Mountain State. But, are others on the B&J bandwagon or are there other greats out there?

From Eating Our Words:
Stacy Zane
Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie
My childhood in a pint. I can't tell you how many times my mother would find me passed out on the couch, with my Wee Sing in Sillyville tape on, and a whole mess of chocolate covering my face. Creamy chocolate ice cream with chunks of chewy fudgy brownies? Say no more! And guess what else I learned? The brownies come from Greyston Bakery which provides employment & training to economically disadvantaged residents of Yonkers, NY. So, see? Get fat and help people at the same time! Stuffing for your face = good deeds.

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cmurtaugh

​My husband, a native Houstonian, and I, a relocated Vermonter, have had many a debate over the greatest maker of ice cream. As you can imagine, there is never a winner in the Blue Bell vs. Ben & Jerry's discussion. Or maybe we're both winners because there is ALWAYS ice cream in our house.

Over the years, I've seen the way Texans revere Blue Bell. I don't really understand the obsession when you can so easily purchase the superior sweet treat from Vermont, but I appreciate the devotion to your state and all things created within. So this Great Grub, about favorite Blue Bell flavors, is for you, Texans.

Eating Our Words:
Stacy Zane
Pistachio Almond
I only recently discovered that I like pistachio ice cream, which closely followed my discovery that I'm also a big fan of anything almond-flavored. Even lotion. Except not to eat. But back to the ice cream - Blue Bell's combo of the two makes for a nutty and sinfully sweet concoction that you'd never guess has fewer calories than their traditional Homemade Vanilla flavor. Okay, only 10 calories less, but still! Any excuse I can use to make myself feel better about shoveling spoonfuls of it into my mouth, I'll use. And just so you know, if you ever see this flavor in the store, stock up on it. It's one of their "rotational" flavor, so you never know when you'll see it again.

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Photos by Matthew Dresden

Store brand pretzels from Whole Foods (left) and Trader Joe's (right)

​As my friend Sara Dickerman wrote in 2007 in a fascinating piece in Slate, pretzels don't get much love in the snack-food world. When was the last time you saw a television commercial for pretzels? Don't answer that: right after I wrote the previous sentence I remembered Jason Alexander's Rold Gold commercials from the 1990s. In my defense, I don't even think of the ultra-sweet Rold Gold as pretzels. Also, those commercials stopped airing something like 15 years ago.

Apparently Snyder's of Hanover, number two in American pretzel sales behind Rold Gold, also runs television commercials (hat tip: YouTube), which I might have known if I hadn't cut off my live viewing of USA Network in 2008 after they stopped showing the U.S.Open. Turns out Snyder's is a sponsor of Psych and even finagled a Wayne's World-like product placement in a recent episode. The writing staff must have loved that contract provision.

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Carrie Applegate Jaeger

Cafe Red Onion's Pineapple Salsa

​If you've been in Houston for any period of time, you've likely had chips and salsa from more restaurants than you can remember. Unfortunately, many times the salsa is just that - forgettable. From Eating Our Words writers and a couple of nice strangers, here are some suggestions for salsa that will leave you wanting more.

From Eating Our Words:
Lauren Marmaduke
Molina's and Sylvia's Enchilada Kitchen
For me, it's a tie between Molina's and Sylvia's Enchilada Kitchen. Both are served warm and have a rich, smoky chipotle flavor. Molina's is much spicier, and I won't dare dip a chip unless there's water on the table.

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Photos by Matthew Dresden

A slice of sweet potato pie from House of Pies

​A sweet potato is not a yam, and a yam is not a sweet potato. Except when a sweet potato is called a yam, which is not because that sweet potato is an actual yam, but because it is a variety with softer flesh, like an actual yam. It's purely a marketing appellation, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture polices by requiring that all sweet potatoes that are called "yams" are also called sweet potatoes. I'm guessing not much money is allotted to enforcing that, because I've never seen a produce display identifying something as both a yam and a sweet potato. But to be fair, most people don't know the difference, or care to.

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Kevin Shalin

Mom's Chocolate Cake at Benjy's.

​Chocolate. In my book, it's a superfood. Have something to celebrate? Break out the chocolate. Have a bad day at work? Time for chocolate. Feel like you're going to explode from overstuffing yourself at dinner? Chocolate to the rescue. Here are some picks for where to find the best chocolate cake in town.

From Eating Our Words:
John Kiely
Benjy's
We used to dine at Benjy's in the Village when it had a Japanese chef. He was one of the few people who actually mastered "fusion" food, rather than "mutt-grub," a more accurate description of the genre. Normally I avoid cake because it triggers hypoglycemia, but I never resist heavily-hyped dishes, to deride them if possible. Mom's Chocolate Cake was cocoa-intense, fudgy-gooey with a counterpoint of pecans, and like most great highs, definitely worth the crash.

Me
Mockingbird Bistro
Mockingbird Bistro's Flourless Chocolate Cake is divine. My husband and I were introduced to this little gem when it was brought to our table for his birthday. Despite being stuffed, we nearly licked the plate clean. Although it's not a typical chocolate cake, it will certainly meet any chocolate lover's expectation. Not for the faint of chocolate heart, it is dense, cocoa-y decadence. The raspberries that dot the plate are a tart reprieve from all of the sweet deliciousness. Yum, yum, yum.

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