Photos by Mai Pham

Clockwise from top left: Dynasty Chinese roast pork; pig's head; Sparrow Bar + Cookshop roast pork

There are pig parties, and then there is Go Pig! Or Go Home! The second annual charity throwdown event last night at Kata Robata was every pig lover's dream -- and then some -- with Houston's top chefs throwin' down everything from traditional roast suckling pig to cochinita pibil to oysters topped with pig, plus pig pizza, pig sushi handrolls and pig ramen.

With more than 600 attendees and over 20 chefs competing, it was easy to get swept away by all the gleeful craziness of it all. Everywhere you looked, there were people enthusiastically stuffing their faces, while others laughed, drank, hugged and ogled the endless pig imagery on display at almost every single stand.

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Photo by Abrahan Garza

Frank's Americana Revival took home the Best Restaurant award last night.

The annual Menu of Menus grand tasting is much more than just a night for our readers to come out, meet their favorite restaurants, find new favorites and get their faces stuffed with delicious grub. It's also a fierce competition.

A wooden token was given to each guest as they entered Silver Street Station last night, good for one vote to the restaurant that wowed them the most. Newcomers Maine-ly Sandwiches and the Eatsie Boys -- serving buttery lobster rolls and Shipley's donut-flavored ice cream topped with specially-baked mini donut holes, respectively -- looked poised to win, but it was another newcomer that swept the competition last night.

Frank's Americana Revival, which opened just this past December, won in a landslide of tokens for its beautifully presented plate of braised short ribs, carrots and pearl oninos over a creamy scoop of jalapeño-cheese grits. Classy comfort speaks to the heart every time.

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Photo by egidionarvaez.

It was a true extravaganza Tuesday night at Silver Street Station for the 2013 Menu of Menus® grand tasting event. For the food fans who came out, it was a night of tasty food, fierce culinary competition, good music and new friends.

Many of those fans decided to share their night online via Instagram. We saw a ton of great photos posted, and selected some of our favorites to share. If for some reason you don't want your photo included here, just drop us a line.

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Photos by Francisco Montes

Were you at the 2013 Burger Bracket? You're probably in our slideshow.

It may be tough to imagine in Texas, but beef isn't always king. That was the lesson learned at the 3rd annual Burger Bracket this past Saturday at The Refinery, where Rainbow Lodge took home first place with a blended burger patty so good that it won with a landslide of plastic silver voting tokens.

Host restaurant The Refinery placed second with its perfectly cooked sliders (a triumph in and of itself, considering how many the icehouse turned out) topped with Cheddar, jalapeños and jalapeño-spiced bacon. Miller's Cafe took third place with its mayo-slathered, classic diner burgers on poppyseed buns.

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Photos by Joshua Justice

Trent Brooks brought his entire barbecue rig up to the Houston Barbecue Festival.

Trent Brooks, a second-generation pitmaster, packed up his entire barbecue operation -- smoker and all inside a trailer the size of an Airstream -- and headed south from Cypress. Ronnie Killen stayed awake for 19 hours straight, tending to 1,000 pounds of meat smoking in his pits overnight. José Luis Lopez made a rare appearance outside his family store, Gerardo's, located in Lindale Park, to serve his famed barbacoa to a hungry crowd.

These men and more -- from a total of 15 barbecue restaurants, joints, shacks and trailers across the greater Houston area -- devoted themselves fully to the inaugural Houston Barbecue Festival at the Bayou City Event Center for one reason: to finally prove once and for all that Houston does have good barbecue. It's just a matter of knowing where to look.

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Photos by Joshua Justice

Jean-Philippe Gaston and Randy Evans of Cove and Haven.

"We shucked 1,500 oysters tonight," said chef Randy Evans, owner of Haven and its raw bar, Cove. His table at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo's annual Rodeo Uncorked!® Roundup and Best Bites competition was littered with the remnants of oyster shells. The sauces in front, including Cove's signature truffle-and-Crystal hot sauce, were nearly depleted.

Evans had borrowed a special tray from Brennan's -- where he was once executive chef -- that normally holds ice sculptures, filled it with crushed ice and brought along three of his best oyster shuckers, including sous chef Jean-Philippe Gaston. The oysters went quickly, but it still wasn't enough to net Cove or Haven a prize at last night's competition.

The Popular Choice award, given by the hundreds of guests who pack Reliant Center for the food competition each year, went to Royer's Round Top Cafe. Bud "The Pieman" Royer was parked in front of his booth all night, passing out pies and warm smiles in his garishly colored apron, as he does each year at the Rodeo.

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Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Now in its second year, the annual Zombie Banh Mi eating contest at Cafe TH drew seven competitors on Saturday, all attempting to finish the sandwich that no one could last year. The banh mi -- so named for its capsaicin-riddled Zombie hot sauce and its association with the Houston Zombie Walk, which puts on zombie-related events for charity -- is available on Cafe TH's regular menu, but at its regular foot-long size. For the annual Zombie Banh Mi challenge, the sandwich is stretched to a massive four feet long and topped with everything Cafe TH has in its kitchen.

The panel of competitors sweated and grimaced their way through the banh mi and their allotted 30 minutes as fans cheered them on. Two former NWA wrestlers, a famous tag-team duo NWA called Chaz Taylor and Hambone, were the largest of the group but -- sadly -- fell the fastest despite chugging quarts of milk to cool the burn of the Zombie sauce. Taylor seemed to give up only 10 minutes in, while Hambone had to tag out completely with only 10 minutes to go. He ran for the restroom as quickly as his unitard would allow him.

A long table had been set up along one wall inside the Vietnamese sandwich shop, with onlookers cheering from every spot left -- standing on chairs, perching on tables. "It's like the blueberry pie-eating contest from Stand By Me," one onlooker remarked. "If most of the people in Stand By Me were covered in tattoos or dressed as zombies."

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Photos by Joshua Justice

The T-shirt I woke up in on Sunday morning came from Moon Tower Inn, but not in typical fashion. This isn't one of their "Come and Take It" or "UGHDK" shirts. The tattered sleeveless Misfits shirt once belonged to former Moon Tower bartender Bryan Jackson. He and I were so fond of each others' shirts late one night -- mine a Bad Brains T, his a sleeveless Misfits shirt -- at the East End bar, we decided to trade shirts, thinking nothing of pulling them off and throwing each to the other.

After teasing Facebook fans and members of the press for what seemed like years, Moon Tower Inn took to social media at 4 a.m. Sunday morning to send a series of status updates to announce that the icehouse would be open at 5 p.m. that afternoon. (Food service will start up again this Wednesday.)

Amusing shirt coincidence aside, it was pitch perfect that Moon Tower Inn ended its 15 month hiatus yesterday amid a bitter cold snap and while much of the city was caught up in the fanfare of the Texans playoff push.

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What to eat if you wake up lookin' like this guy.

New Year's is here and I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go out with a bang. And by bang I mean a bottle of champagne, at least three vodka-sodas and an undetermined amount of shots. It's a guaranteed good time.

It's also a guaranteed hangover.

So to help start the new year off wrong (and with another list muhahahah!), check out our list of the Top 5 Hangover Cures -- scaled for just how hungover you are:

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Photos by Francisco Montes

La Mexicana took home the gold for Best Tamales.

Check out pics from the second annual Tequila & Tamales throwdown in our slideshow.

If anyone thought that El Gran Malo's win at the 2011 Tequila & Tamales throwdown was a fluke, last night's results should change their mind. The year prior, the gastrocantina on Ella won the Tequila portion of the event with a blueberry-vanilla infused tequila with habanero peppers. This year, owner Steve Sharma employed the same nitrous oxide canisters to the same great effect -- but with an entirely different infusion.

"This is a roasted jalapeño-infused tequila with cucumber agua fresca to bring it back down a bit," Sharma told the guests at last night's event as he and his El Gran Malo team handed out samples, each one topped with a peppermint oil-laced stirring stick. "For the holidays," Sharma mused.

And by the end of the night, the cocktail was the crowd's clear favorite, winning out over old-school favorites like Pico Mex-Mex's neon blue margarita -- hand-shaken by the Pico's team -- and a surprisingly sweet avocado margarita from TQLA.

TQLA took home second place in both the Tequila and the Tamales categories, after winning the Tamales round last year. But this time around, it was this year's host that took home the gold in that category.

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