Photo by Hotel de la Ville Monza

"How may we do our best to ensure your dining experience is the polar opposite of Fawlty Towers today?"

It's hard to find good help, or so the saying goes. Indeed, many of the chefs and restaurant owners I've spoken with over the years privately admit that finding good waitstaff in Houston can be a Sisyphean task: You manage to find a truly great server or two, they dazzle your diners and then -- because this is a very marketable skill we're talking about -- they're lured away to another restaurant, and your search begins anew.

But at the restaurants we're spotlighting today, the service remains consistently spectacular from visit to visit -- whether the same employees are retained or not. These restaurants run the gamut from fine dining to mom-and-pop joints and all manner of cuisines.

They have one thing in common, however: Service that makes every meal memorable. The kind of service that encourages you to return again and again just to see a favorite waiter or catch up with restaurant owners who treat you like family. The subject of this week's cafe review, L'Olivier, is an excellent example of old-school service in an updated climate -- and so are the 10 restaurants below.

More »

See you tomorrow...that is if I still have a job.

Any healthy adult will tell you that the proper response to being called out on a self-admitted mistake is to have the dignity and wherewithal to own the mistake and work toward improvement in the future. That sounds like a lot of work, though, and apparently Pastor Alois Bell thought so, too.

Pastor Bell, of St. Louis, Missouri, decided to spend her recent Friday evening, January 25, dining with members of her congregation -- a party of ten -- at a local Applebee's franchise. After what we assume was a hearty meal -- or "Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood," as it is known in certain circles -- the party received their check, which was then split among the group as requested.

More »

No thanks.

I still remember the sight of my first -- and only -- glass cooktop. It gleamed in the soft glow of the kitchen lights like some beautifully alien technology. With all of the coils and heating elements contained under a sleek, shiny surface, it would be a breeze to clean...or so it promised.

Instead, I found out quickly that the glass cooktop was not only terribly easy to get dirty -- it was also terribly difficult to clean. Within only a few months, its surface was scarred with what would have been the most minor of spills on a regular electric or gas stove. Spills that could have easily been wiped clean from a steel surface, but which stuck stubbornly to the glass cooktop.

Those spills were even more firmly adhered to the cooktop by the fact that the heating elements practically glued any spills -- even water! -- into place more quickly than you could grab a rag. And forget about trying to clean the spills up right after they'd occurred anyway; the surface was always too hot to even come near with a rag, and stayed that way long after you'd turned off the burners.

Some kitchen gadgets seem too good to be true, but aren't: My countertop Breville convection oven, for example, is the perfect marriage between a toaster and a full-sized oven. Others, however, are simply a frustrating waste of money.

More »

I have yet to meet a food critic who looks -- or acts -- like Anton Ego.

We don't expect you guys to read every little thing we write. After all, Eating...Our Words publishes at least ten posts per day. But every once in a while, a topic arises on which we've pontificated in the past -- and in those cases, we like to re-run a previous post which we think still addresses the issue with some relevance. Parts of this post were previously published on June 26, 2011.

Last week, the owner and chef of Lucille's took umbrage at our cafe review of his restaurant -- not a glowing one, but also not a complete slam -- and took to the comments section to voice his dissatisfaction.

"This is not journalism, this is an attack done in poor taste," wrote Christopher Williams. " "Since we are unable to satisfy your discerning palate with our 'leathery ice tea,' we invite you to dine else where in the future."

And in a move that restaurant critics everywhere have seen since the day that they first crawled out of the primordial ooze created by the likes of Craig Claiborne, Williams blamed the harsh review on advertising. Or rather, Lucille's lack of interest in advertising with the Press.

"To any restaurant who wants a good review from the Press, and avoid this type of attack," Williams finished, "you had better fucking advertise now!"

More »

Chefs are not fans of Cook's prose stylings, according to The Daily Meal.

Photo courtesy of Eater Houston

They say that turnabout is fair play, and that's just what The Daily Meal did this week when it polled a group of chefs across the U.S. to see how those chefs rated some of the nation's most preeminent food critics.

Those 20 food critics were chosen by Arthur Bovino, executive editor of The Daily Meal, and editorial director Colman Andrews, who sat down and -- according to Bovino -- "developed a 'wish list' of chefs and restaurateurs who are among the most well-known and revered in the industry." Each of the 20 critics was rated by chefs on four metrics: culinary knowledge, prose style, integrity and likeability (the latter of which is arguably the least important measure of how good a food critic is at his or her job).

Two of Houston's own made the "wish list": Alison Cook -- longtime food critic at the Houston Chronicle -- and Robb Walsh, who was the former food critic here at the Houston Press and has lately been writing independently at RobbWalsh.com.

And while Walsh escaped relatively unscathed in the rankings, Cook was near the bottom of the pile: She came in at No. 18 out of 20, beating out the Orange County Register's Brad A. Johnson -- whose own website humbly suggests that he is the "best food critic in America and worldwide" -- and Tim Carman, food critic for The Washington Post and former managing editor here at the Houston Press.

At the very top of the list were Pete Wells of the New York Times at No. 3, Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue at No. 2 and Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold of the Los Angeles Times at No. 1.

But exactly what methodology is behind these rankings? And which chefs are responsible for stating of Cook that she "is a critic with limited knowledge in a limited market and at a fading newspaper"?

More »

Photo by Kevin Harber

There's no need to fear the daily specials.

You've heard the old adages about dining pitfalls to avoid:

Don't order fish on Mondays. (It's all left over from Friday's seafood shipment, goes the tale, and you don't want gross, slimy salmon.)

Don't eat the bread in the bread basket. (It's supposedly recycled from table to table, people say.)

Don't order the daily special. (It's just a way for the kitchen to use up old food that's on the verge of spoiling, they'll tell you.)

But in the modern era of chef-driven restaurants and places that emphasize fresh, local, seasonal ingredients above all things, are these old wives' tales just that? Or is there still a kernel of truth in the warnings?

"The beauty about food these days is constant availability," says David Luna, executive chef at Line & Lariat in the Hotel Icon. "Seafood is available and my sources have product coming to them or them going to the docks pretty regularly."

More »

Photo by Bob Franklin

If the wine list is making you see double, it's time to cut yourself off (even if the restaurant doesn't).

UPDATE: The TABC has responded to some of our concerns and cleared up some errors and misconceptions about over-serving investigations. Carolyn Beck, director of communications, especially wished to stress that the quote from the Houston Chronicle below regarding one TABC agent for a county with over 800 establishments was untrue. Please read this updated post for more.

A few weeks ago, I endured a rather unpleasant dinner at The Rouxpour -- the subject of this week's cafe review -- which had nothing to do with the food itself and everything to do with two very drunk patrons.

After being harassed by the two men throughout the evening, I finally retrieved a manager and told him bluntly: "These guys have clearly been over-served. Can you please do something about it?"

My request fell on mostly deaf ears, as the men -- regulars, by their account and that of our waitress -- were allowed to stay. And, it seemed, to continue drinking.

I spoke with Lincoln Ward, one of The Rouxpour's owners, about the incident a few days later. Ward was appropriately upset at the actions of the two customers and his manager, but assured me this was not common practice for the Sugar Land restaurant.

As genuine as Ward was, however, I had a hard time believing that The Rouxpour had never over-served a customer before. The entire restaurant and patio that Thursday night had been packed with loud-mouthed, inebriated customers. And the subsequent Monday night -- during Monday Night Football -- was almost equally rowdy.

But this isn't a problem endemic to The Rouxpour. It's a problem across the state of Texas, where, according to a July 14 article in the Houston Chronicle by James Pinkerton, the understaffed Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission struggles to investigate hundreds of over-serving complaints across thousands of establishments -- sometimes with only one agent in a given county to handle upward of 800 liquor outlets.

In the last year alone, the TABC only investigated one complaint of "Sale/Serve/Deliver AB to Intoxicated Person" in Houston, which took place at a bar called The Playground, which used to be a Mr. Cash payday loan store according to records pulled from the TABC's Public Inquiry database. In 2011, there were two investigations: one at an illegal gambling parlor and one at the Baker Street Pub in Tomball.

More »

Photo by Manny Hernandez

Leaving a good tip couldn't be easier. See?

Last week, Eater alerted the great foodie masses to a Web site called Lousy Tippers that contains a pretty scary database of the nation's worst tippers.

"There is a consequence," the site preaches ominously from its header. Call it the ultimate form of societal pressure to make sure you leave a gratuity for your server, because if you don't...you may just see yourself listed among the "asshole who owns a bar" and "regulars who tip lousy" in the great database of stiffers. Or, worse, called out as an entire corporation: The list even accuses the Sherman office of Texas Instruments of ordering "over a grand in pizza" with "no tip for either driver."

Eater noted, rightfully, that the database itself is incredibly shitty for a number of reasons: It lists customers' names, phone numbers and home addresses in many cases, and the comments left by servers on the non-tippers range from racist to xenophobic. The servers even include details on how they screwed with customers' food:

"Your tea is 1/4 my piss." "Another customer that deserves the shit we do to his food." "You must love my spit because you eat it all the time."

Waiting was right, as always, about the cardinal rule of eating in a restaurant: Don't fuck with people that handle your food.

And while it's true that the database is pretty scummy for listing full names and addresses, it's also an interesting tool with which to gauge diners' propensity for failing to leave propinas. So which city in Texas ranks the worst according to Lousy Tippers' database?

More »

Photo by Katharine Shilcutt

Ken Takagi is a the hardest-working man in sushi-business at Sushi Tora.

I'm loathe to say that Houston has any "soup Nazi"-type characters dominating its dining rooms or kitchens -- only because I hate to start any post off with Godwin's Law. Instead, I prefer to think of people such as the late, great Darawan Charoenrat of Kanomwan (a.k.a. the Thai Nazi) as Houston's biggest food personalities: restaurant owners, chefs or even simply waiters whose mere presence is both awe-inspiring and intimidating.

That's how it is with Ken Takagi at Sushi Tora, the subject of this week's cafe review. Armed with sharp knives, a belligerent attitude and a foul mouth, Takagi is as much a reason to visit Sushi Tora as the sushi itself.

"We don't do half rolls!" I heard Takagi yell at Sushi Tora's sole waiter on a busy Friday night recently. When the waiter asked why, Takagi's response came viciously fast: "Because I don't fucking feel like it!" And within seconds, he was back to slicing fish with a smile and chatting gregariously with customers at the bar in his narrow, shotgun-style restaurant on Montrose.

A few days later, we witnessed Takagi, the aforementioned waiter and the waiter's girlfriend get into a screaming row outside on the patio. Seemingly unfazed, Takagi trotted back into the restaurant once the fight was finished and sent out a few bottles of hot sake to the tables who'd been nearest to the action. The customers who filled out the restaurant seemed as unfazed as Takagi, quickly going back to their hand rolls and chuckling amongst themselves about his latest outburst.

And that's the thing with Houston's big food personalities: Love them or hate them, they're as much of a draw as the food in most cases (and, in most cases, they're actually softies on the inside).

Takagi's own mother, Mami, was known for her own shenanigans when she operated Coco's Yakitori on Westheimer. While you can't get berated by Charoenrat anymore when you order Thai the wrong way at Kanomwan, you can still visit Mami most evenings at her son's restaurant, Sushi Tora. And you can visit these big food personalities in their own restaurants, too.

More »

Photo by André Hofmeister

This is a good indication that you've arrived far too late. Turn around and go elsewhere.

How late is too late to order food at a restaurant? That was the thought that plagued me as I sped toward Jeannine's Bistro last week, determined to get in a necessary lunch of moules-frites for a post. The bistro closes for lunch at 2 p.m.; at best, I was going to make it in the door at 1:40 p.m. I recalled my days as a hostess and waitress and felt chagrined.

The latest I like to enter a restaurant prior to its closing is 30 minutes. I feel that this is a reasonable buffer of time for the kitchen to take final orders before breaking down and cleaning up and for your average diner to get through a meal. I would never dream of walking into a restaurant a few minutes before closing -- not just because of the icy glares I'd surely get from the waiters, but also because I remember how tired I was at the end of a long shift, how eager I was to get off my feet and out of clothes that constantly smelled of refried beans.

I felt bad enough entering Jeannine's Bistro at 1:40 p.m. that day, even though the waitstaff was utterly gracious and accommodating the entire time, never once indicating that I was cutting it close or that they wanted to rush me out the door. But that hasn't always been the case at other restaurants.

In an article for Creative Loafing last year, LA Weekly food critic Besha Rodell told a tale of being rushed rudely through her meal after arriving at 10:25 p.m. -- even though the restaurant didn't close until 11 p.m. We've all experienced the same phenomenon: Waiters staring holes through your head while wiping down tables and stacking chairs all around you, eventually slamming the door behind you as you leave.

So how late is too late to darken a restaurant's door?

"If they're not willing to take orders up until closing time (and I agree this is an ambiguous concept, closing time, that is)," says Robert Sietsema, food critic for The Village Voice, "they should do what my laundromat does when it posts a sign that says, 'Last Wash at 7:30.'"

More »