Houston Food Blog

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

So cute you want to pinch them. Or eat them.

​Cupcakes are by their very definition almost too twee to engage in a battle of any kind. But no foodstuff is allowed to stand idly by in culinary wars, and cupcakes have been pressed into service this week in spite of their soft cakey bodies and mushy frosting heads. And as it turns out, there wasn't much of a battle this week at all.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

​"Cheese enchiladas served in chili con carne -- not thin, meatless chili gravy, or authentic enchilada sauce -- are the hallmark of real Tex-Mex, according to 78-year-old Fort Worth sportswriter and Tex-Mex expert Dan Jenkins," as Robb Walsh stated in his July 2008 feature "Temples of Tex-Mex."

The gooey, cheesy, occasionally meaty cheese enchiladas served in classic Tex-Mex joints were more often than not the first Mexican (used here interchangeably with "Tex-Mex") that most of us ever ate. And to this day, they remain some of the finest -- albeit not the healthiest -- comfort food around. There are few things better for the soul than a scalding hot plate of cheese and tortillas, accompanied by some savory refried beans, rice and tortilla chips with a bowl of refreshingly spicy salsa. But when cheese enchiladas go bad, they go very bad.

To wit: I once took an extended business trip to Rochester, in upstate New York. The locals there were exceedingly proud of their "Tex-Mex" restaurant, Don Pablo's. It vaguely resembled a Cafe Adobe, except for all the snow falling outside. But that's where the Tex-Mex resemblance ended. The food was the singularly most unpalatable thing I've ever attempted to consume (and I've eaten duck tongues and goose feet), the cheese in the enchiladas simultaneously stringy and gritty and as bland as Elmer's glue.

Luckily, Houston is home to more than a few Tex-Mex places which consistently get cheese enchiladas right, and thank God for that. And this week, we decided to not only investigate cheese enchiladas around town, but to pit two unlikely candidates against one another: a restaurant from our 10 Most Overrated Restaurants list and one from our 10 Most Underrated Restaurants list. The results will probably surprise you...

Photo by J.C. Reid

​Nutella, for those who've never tasted it, is the "original creamy, chocolaty hazelnut spread." Popular in Europe (it's made in Italy), Nutella is mainly eaten at breakfast or for dessert by smearing it on bread or a croissant, or folding into a crepe. "Nutella" is a brand name, but like "Kleenex" or "Xerox," it has been "genericized" to refer to any spread made with hazelnuts and cocoa.

Nutella inspires fierce passion in its diehard fans. Brand-name Nutella is indeed creamy, with a consistency and taste of chocolate icing, but not as sweet, and with a nutty aftertaste. I admit to being a fan -- one of my favorite breakfasts is a made-from-scratch, hot-out-of-the-oven croissant slathered with Nutella and washed down with a double espresso.

My first experience with Nutella came during a college summer abroad in Italy. My roommate was a chubby Greek kid named Dimitry. Dimitry would sooth his crippling homesickness by constantly spooning Nutella out of a container he always carried in his bag. Turns out it's a great comfort food. In the ensuing years I've continued to eat Nutella off-and-on, picking up a small jar at the supermarket or, if circumstances warrant, a jumbo container at Costco.

Recently, I received an email newsletter from the Midtown Farmer's Market announcing a new vendor that features homemade, artisanal "Nutella." This past Saturday I decided to stop by and check it out.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Crispy dragon rolls at Dragon Bowl Asian Bistro

​Despite the fact that so many of the Chinese dishes we as Americans consume aren't really Chinese -- things like chow mein, General Tso's chicken and chop suey are almost more American than apple pie -- the egg roll has actual roots in Chinese cuisine and, throughout the years, has managed to maintain close similarities to the dish from which it originated.

Egg rolls are most likely native to southern China; no big surprise as the dish -- vegetables and/or meat in a deep-fried wrapper -- is not unlike the chả giò of neighboring Vietnam or the lumpia of Indonesia and the Phillipines. Americans have been happily dipping them into sweet and sour sauce for decades, munching on them as appetizers before their Peking duck arrives or -- as poor college students -- making entire meals out of them and stealing soy sauce packets on the way out the door.

They've become so ubiquitous, in fact, that it's difficult to find a really good egg roll these days. So many egg rolls come to Chinese restaurants frozen and pre-assembled, ready for the fry vat and ready to be mindlessly consumed with the same blank mastication required for that other omnipresent appetizer: chips and salsa. This week's Food Fight looked to find some decent egg rolls for a decent price. Did we succeed? Find out below the jump...

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Chorizo and egg taco from Brother's Taco House

​There are those of us who are naturally early risers. And to those people go such wonderful things as brilliant sunrises, early morning calm, blessedly empty streets and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. And then there are the rest of us, for whom significant motivation is required to crawl out from under the burrow of sheets. And what greater motivation is there than the allure of breakfast tacos?

Breakfast tacos are just one of the many benefits to living in Houston (in case you forgot that there were any). Although they are ubiquitous here, you'll quickly find as you move east or north that you'll be virtually unable to satisfy any cravings you have for flour tortillas filled with eggs and meat, unless you take matters into your own hands.

As a result of its omnipresence, every Houstonian has a favorite breakfast taco place. This week -- to shake things up a bit -- we asked our followers on Twitter to recommend their favorite taco places for us to try. We had lots of votes for Whataburger (hey, Texans love their Whataburger), along with a few more suggestions, which we've pitted in battle for your dining pleasure.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

The defending champion...the Beck's Prime chocolate milkshake

​When putting out the request earlier this week for the best milkshake in town, we were confronted with a curious question from commenter Dr. Ricky: "Forgive me, but what constitutes a milkshake? Versus say a smoothie? Do we count licuados or sinh in this?" An interesting question, for sure, as the term "milkshake" generally denotes a dessert-type beverage made primarily with ice cream.

But research (i.e., Wikipedia) shows that milkshakes weren't always so straightforward, nor were they always made with ice cream. The original milkshake, dating back to 1885, was an alcoholic beverage out of your worst eggnog-induced nightmare made with eggs and whiskey. It wasn't until the early 1900s that milkshakes were made with ice cream. And the traditional, blended, frothy milkshakes that we know today weren't popular until the 1930s, after the invention of the electric blender.

These days, when someone says "milkshake" instead of -- as Dr. Ricky commented -- a smoothie, you know that you're in for a thick, frosty beverage filled with more ice cream than you should probably eat in one sitting and that's not the least bit healthy for you. And when we said "milkshake" on Monday, your top choice for milkshakes in Houston was Beck's Prime by a long shot. The distant second was a tie between Avalon Diner, Pappas Burger, Yale St. Pharmacy, Amy's Ice Cream and 59 Diner. With so many to choose from, it only made sense to choose the place that has a giant neon milkshake as its sign.

Photo by cryptdang

Man and milkshake sold separately

​We've had many requests over the weeks since we first started our weekly Food Fight feature. Egg rolls, breakfast tacos, donuts, fried calamari (oddly specific, that one)... But the most resounding has been for milkshakes. Whether it's the heat of the summer or the cool comfort found in its sweet, frosty arms, milkshakes seem to be on everyone's mind these days.

But much like Battle Pizza, we want your help on this one. Our hearts are forever betrothed to one milkshake and one milkshake only -- and it's not even a milkshake. It's the creamy, buttery, slightly savory butterscotch malt at 59 Diner. With a love that's been unshakeable for going on 12 years, it's hard to choose another ice cream-based drink without thinking wistfully of our first and only love.

With that in mind, we need your help. Tell us the best milkshake in town and we'll pit the top two choices against one another in this week's Food Fight. And we promise that not once will we compare it to a butterscotch malt. (Well, maybe in our hearts...)

Let the voting begin in the comments section below...

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

 A contentious battle if there ever was one... Chicken fried steak (or CFS, for short) is up there in the great pantheon of Texas foods alongside cheese enchiladas, brisket and chili. But just because a food is inherently Texan doesn't mean you can always find it done well in Houston, and vice versa: Some of the best Mexican food in the world is found right here in the Bayou City. Steve Earle said it best in a recent interview with John Lomax: "Houston was always tough for chicken-frieds."

He elaborated:

The last fucking place you can get a decent chicken fried steak is right over there. There's one little pocket there - Schulenburg, Flatonia and La Grange. That's the last place in Texas you can get a decent chicken-fried-steak. There's nowhere in Austin anymore...Maybe you can at a couple of the steakhouses in the Panhandle, but you have to go to a real steakhouse and they will have a chicken-fried round on the menu. But it's easier to get a good chicken-fried in Oklahoma than it is in Texas nowadays.

Could the hardcore troubador be right? We put two of the best local chicken fried steaks to the test and the results...were troubling.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Five Guys vs. Jax Grill

Did you know that Monday was National French Fry Day? Yeah, neither did we. We were still distracted by trying unsuccessfully to find poutine for Canada Day (July 1, ya hosers). But take National French Fry Day and combine it with Bastille Day (July 14, mais non), and you have the perfect recipe for the next Food Fight: Battle French Fry.

French fries are a tough food to define, tougher than you may initially think. In the most basic sense, fries are simply cut up sections of a potato, deep fried and (hopefully) salted. But that's only the jumping off point for the many variations of French fries that exist in this world: steak fries, shoestring fries, waffle fries, beer-battered fries, homestyle fries, seasoned fries, fast-food fries...where can one draw the line when pitting two foes in battle? Clearly, they must be evenly matched, which means that you can ultimately choose only one kind of fry -- one race of warrior -- for battle and let the best man win.

For this week's Battle French Fry, the choice was made to pit homestyle fries against one another in combat. Why? Because they're the closest thing to an actual potato that one can get -- plain, hand-cut slices of potato with the skin still on them. All other fries are simply offshoots and variations. With that in mind, we chose our competitors.

Photos by Jason Tinder

Peppermint bark kolache

The press conference room at Reliant Stadium was filled with a distinct aroma as the judges entered. It wasn't the scent of sweaty Texans players or their coaches' cologne; it was the sweet, doughy smell of kolaches. Plantain kolaches, Hawaiian chicken kolaches, teriyaki steak kolaches, sloppy joe kolaches... Dozens upon dozens of hot kolaches sat in trays, waiting for their moment in the spotlight.

The Kolache Factory held its annual Kolache Olympics yesterday, marking the eighth year that the company has held the contest to promote and develop new recipes for its stores. Each year, store managers and employees are invited to create recipes that will appeal to customers while still being relatively simple to bake each day and -- most importantly -- will fit neatly within the Kolache Factory's signature kolache roll. This was the first year that the recipe contest was open to the public, although most of the entries that made it past the testing stage and to the Olympics were still employee-created recipes. The winning kolaches go on to become the Flavor of the Month at area Kolache Factories and -- if they are popular enough with customers -- could eventually make it onto the full-time menu.

Kolaches were divided into two groups for judging purposes: A "chicken and/or no cheese" category and an "everything else" category. Andrew Eller, retail marketing director for the Kolache Factory, said that this was in response to customer requests for more kolaches with chicken and fewer kolaches with cheese.

Judges included Dana Tyson from the Sunny 99.1 FM morning show, John Harris from 1560 The Game, Jason Tinder, who won a contest on Twitter to become the wild card judge, and me. With almost a dozen kolaches in front of us, we began to eat our way through and determine a winner.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

On Tuesday, we asked for your help in deciding who the contenders would be for this week's Food Fight: Battle Pizza. Nearly 150 comments later, the choice was made. It would be an unusual triple battle between Star Pizza (which garnered the most votes from commenters), Pink's Pizza and Romano's (both of which were tied for the second highest amount of votes).

Many other contenders were mentioned in the comments section, from popular places like Dolce Vita, Russo's, Brother's and Candelari to dark horses like Frank's, Verona and NY Pizzeria. And although it was mentioned in the original post that pepperoni pizzas would be used for judging purposes, many people were appalled that we didn't specify between thin crust New York-style and deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. For that reason, the pizzas we ordered for the Food Fight were plain old, regular crust pizzas -- "Houston" style, if you will. If a regular crust and average Joe pepperoni topping doesn't level the playing field, nothing will, right?

Wrong. The taste testers at the Houston Press office -- who range from born-and-raised Houstonians and Midwesterners to Long Islanders and Jersey Boys -- were all looking for entirely different things in their pizzas, as you'll see below.

Last week, the Houston Press engaged in a little war of words on Twitter and on HAIF about the best pizza in Houston. Apparently, there's a disturbing number of people in Houston who honestly believe (whether because they've never eaten anywhere else -- not even at a Chuck E. Cheese -- or because they're legally insane) that Double Dave's has the best pizza in town.

Look, we're not in College Station, people. There is better pizza out there. Trust us. So for this week's Food Fight, we're pitting two pizza parlors in town against one another. But here's the twist: Because everyone and their uncle's dog has their own favorite pizza place, we're not choosing; we're leaving it up to you.

Leave your favorite pizza place in the comments section below. At the end of the day, we'll tally the results and order pepperoni pizzas from the two places with the most votes to compete in the deadliest game: Food Fight.

Ziggy's Healthy Grill vs. Mama's Cafe

When we asked our followers on Twitter which foods they'd like to see featured in the new weekly food fight, at least one response was [oddly] overwhelming: meatloaf. Personally, meatloaf is one of those items -- much like chicken and dumplings or cornbread -- that's best cooked and enjoyed at home. Unless the restaurants themselves are classics, they tend to take classics like meatloaf and screw them up beyond recognition, tweaking a perfectly serviceable dish with unnecessary additions and twists.

At its core, meatloaf is a very basic dish that -- if made correctly to begin with -- doesn't need any fancy sauces or garnishes. It's so basic, in fact, that the only true condiment that belongs on meatloaf aside from the sauce is a dollop or two of ketchup to spread around. This is comfort food at its most fundamental and most unfussy.

All that aside, the people demanded Battle Meatloaf, and Battle Meatloaf they shall receive.

We sampled the meatloaf at two highly-recommended yet disparate restaurants: Mama's Cafe on Westheimer and Ziggy's Healthy Grill on Fairview. Mama's is the epitome of old-school country cooking, all wood-paneled walls and cutesy sayings stenciled on yet more pieces of wood. Ziggy's is the epitome of Montrose, with a giant rainbow flag flying outside and an almost antagonistically healthy menu. Who would win?

As local grocery stores continue to fight over their share of your food dollars, H-E-B has started up My TexasLife, a monthly magazine to try to get more customers into its stores. The handsome publications (about 30 pages each and published by none other than Texas Monthly) offer bright food photographs, wholesome families and heads-up on such things as the rubber mulch H-E-B will start selling in the spring (it's made from recycled H-E-B truck tires).

In the May issue, what follows are health and cooking tips, recipes, a quick primer on how to plan a party, the cork vs. cap debate over how wine should be delivered, beauty tips and lots of coupons.

The June edition talks about the outstanding teacher awards H-E-B hands out every year, the power of vitamins, more recipes, more wine, cleaning tools and lots of coupons.

The monthly issues also tell you what items are on sale.   

It's a free publication (and here at the Press we're all in favor of free publications) that customers can pick up in the store. Since just ripping out a few back pages of coupons can save several dollars on a shopping trip, you might want to add it to your arsenal of survival skills while we're in recession mode.

I, for one, welcome our new McFlurry overlords.

It's hot as balls in Houston. You can do your best to hurry from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned movie theater / bar / restaurant / etc., but at some point you're going to be forced to spend more than 30 seconds outside. Just last night, Eating Our Words got stuck at an outside table for three solid hours because our friends are smokers, and of course smokers would cut open your still-beating heart if they thought a cigarette might be inside it, so forcing us to sit outside in the muggy armpit swelter of the city gave them no pause whatsoever. The point is, it's going to happen to you sometime, so Eating Our Words went looking for the best frozen fast-food desserts to help give you some small amount of comfort as you sit there baking your brains.

McFlurry: McDonald's McFlurry can be used almost as a control group. Everyone has had one; everyone knows exactly how they taste. We chose the variety with M&Ms. It was tasty, if unimaginative. McDonald's has always had decent-quality soft-serve ice cream, so when it's combined with M&M and served in big ol' cup, there's not exactly a lot of room for error.

Photo courtesy of Blondie and Brownie

The oil-based "whipped cream" adds a touch of "whimsy"

Sonic Blast: Eating Our Words was not looking forward to the Sonic Blast, having had one before and come away sorely disappointed. Still, that was a long time ago, and there's been plenty of time to improve, right? Not really, no. We chose the Butterfinger topping - one of our favorites - but to no avail. The ice cream was of very poor quality - watery, with a peculiar chemical aftertaste that made us think of Diet Coke that had been sitting in the garage for too long. The whipped cream topping seemed more substantial than the ice cream itself. Sonic may be good at hamburgers and cherry limeade, but if you want ice cream, you're better off going almost anywhere else. Or even making your own.

Kolache wars: Shipley's Donuts (L) vs. Olde Towne Kolaches (R)

Although primarily Czech in origin, the kolache is as fully Texan a food as chicken-fried steak or mayhaw jelly. First created by Czech and Slovakian settlers in central Texas in the mid-1800s, the original kolache was simply a pastry with fruit fillings like blueberries or apricots. These days, the definition of a kolache has expanded to include what was once called a klobasnek, or a sausage-filled pastry. And both kinds of kolache have taken a firm foothold in Texas cuisine.

Nearly every small town with any Czech influence at all claims to have the best kolaches in the state, from West to Weimer. The warm pastries (whether sausage or fruit-filled) grace the breakfast tables and breakrooms of homes and offices the state over, and we all have our own personal favorite kolache shops.

This week's Food Fight pits sausage-and-cheese kolaches from two very different contenders: Shipley's Donuts, the corporate giant of the kolache and donut world, and Olde Towne Kolaches, a small, three-location outfit popular on the west side of town. The results might surprise you.

In theory, Frito pie should be a relatively difficult thing to screw up. It's just a bag of Fritos and some chili with shredded cheese on top (and onions, if you're not one of those obnoxiously fussy eaters). But in reality, the Frito pie is greater than the sum of its parts: It's an iconic dish made out of simple kitchen scraps that recaptures the memories of Little League games and school carnivals past. And no one wants to screw with icons or nostalgia. That's how wars get started.

The sad truth is that Frito pies are difficult to get right. The chips themselves are a given -- as long as they aren't stale, you're golden. But the chili has to be perfect, the cheese has to have the right amount of ooze, the onions have to be finely diced, and getting the proportions of all four ingredients correct verges on rocket science.

For today's Food Fight, we pitted Frito pies at two of Houston's favorite restaurants: James Coney Island and Onion Creek. We grew up at one and now spend all our time at the other, but which one makes a meaner Frito pie?