Photos by Molly Dunn

Get your kolaches to go and enjoy while you drive down I-35.

Now that the world knows of West, Texas -- and that it is not in fact in the western region of Texas -- everyone should also know about the Czech Stop and Little Czech Bakery, the famous combination deli/bakery that serves over 600 hungry customers a day.

One of my favorite things to do as a student at Baylor University in nearby Waco was to head to West, Texas, for a midnight road trip to Czech Stop and the Little Czech Bakery. Kolaches, pastries, brownies, cookies and pies are ideal treats for midnight cravings, and being only 15 minutes away makes it super easy to jump in the car and drive down I-35 to enjoy West's famous sweet and savory kolaches.

After the recent devastating fertilizer plant explosion in West, neither the Czech Stop nor the Little Czech Bakery closed their doors.

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Photo by Katharine Shilcutt

A ramen extravaganza at Ramen Tatsu-ya in Austin.

Although all the wild press coverage of Goro & Gun (my own coverage firmly included) may lead you to believe that ramen -- that national craze and newest foodie obsession -- didn't exist in Houston until last month, that simply isn't true.

As Mai Pham pointed out earlier this week, Soma Sushi has been serving great bowls of Japanese noodle soup for a couple of years now -- the Hokkaido-style broth with a pat of Way Back When butter being my own personal favorite -- under chefs Gabe Medina and his predecessor, Jason Hauck (whose own noodle recipe was used as the template at Goro & Gun). So have several other restaurants, most notably Kata Robata and Cafe Kubo's.

Still, it took a while to get here.

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Haven't had a chance to peruse this week's feature yet? Catch up on our list of the 30 essential Texas restaurants and then meet us back here. Synchronize Swatches!

There have been plenty of questions asked by readers confounded by how some of their favorite Texas restaurants could have been left off a list that's supposedly "seminal" and "essential" and all those other fun words that arbitrarily determine something's importance in our lives. And we've answered some of those questions so far.

See also:
- The 30 Essential Texas Restaurants: What Happened to West, South and East Texas?
- The 30 Essential Texas Restaurants: Near Misses (a.k.a. the Dan Marino Restaurants)

But that doesn't mean we don't have a few questions of our own. Like where's the beef?

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Photo by Katharine Shilcutt

La Gloria in San Antonio

If you've read this week's feature -- "Eat Here: The 30 Essential Texas Restaurants to Visit Before You Die" -- then you've no doubt already asked why X, Y or Z restaurant didn't make the list. Maybe you've asked this question angrily to your computer, or rhetorically to a coworker who actually tried to answer the question. Neither of these situations will provide satisfactory answers, of course, so maybe this will help.

Below are the 13 restaurants that kept getting mentioned again and again by our food writers and nearly made it, but just didn't get that final vote or two to push them over the top. These are the Dan Marinos of our list -- the Superbowl shut-outs that almost had a taste of sweet, sweet Astroturf.

Alternately, you could think of these 13 restaurants as an extension to the top 30 list, in case 30 just wasn't enough to satiate you. They're arguably as important as some of the others that made the top 30 list and represent an even broader swath of Texas. Tack these 13 on to the end of the top 30 and play the whole list on "expert" level.

Restaurants are listed alphabetically and, as with our 30 list, are not ranked:

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Sorry about that teaser earlier this week. No fooling around this time, though: Our list is live. Go check out this week's feature -- "Eat Here: 30 Essential Texas Restaurants to Visit Before You Die" -- before reading on. We don't want to spoil any surprises for you.

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Read it yet? Are you sure you didn't just skim it?

Fine. This is on you. Because we don't have spoiler tags on this site.

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After reading through the 30 restaurants scattered throughout the state -- Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, even Beaumont -- you may have noticed that a few areas of the state were, shall we say, underrepresented. And being the inquisitive lot that you are, you may be wondering why.

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Photo by Robb Walsh

After reading Chris Gray's recent feature ("The Texas 30") on the 30 best Texas albums of the last 30 years, the question of the 30 best Texas restaurants naturally arose at the Houston Press offices. But not just the best -- the most seminal.

What are the restaurants that are most essential to the Texas landscape? Which restaurants speak the loudest to our past and present, our heritage and our future? Which restaurants best represent the culinary face that Texas presents to the rest of the country?

These are the questions we asked ourselves, and the questions we asked of 20 different food writers from across the state. The result is this week's feature -- "Eat Here:
30 Essential Texas Restaurants to Visit Before You Die" -- which will be online this Wednesday and in print on Thursday.

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Photo by Eric Niu

The Health Camp's all-original signs beckon by night.

When I was in school at Baylor University in Waco, our dining options -- both on- and off-campus -- were sadly limited. I hear they've built a Hooters there now, though, so good for them. (Not on the campus, obviously. Hell, the Chili's they built on campus a few years ago isn't even allowed to serve beer.)

Instead, when I was a poor college student, my meals were restricted to a few basic food groups: coastal Mexican at El Siete Mares, Thai at the Clay Pot, a Vietnamese restaurant within walking distance from campus, veggie sandwiches at Terry & Jo's Food for Thought and burgers at Dubl-R or Health Camp. These are the restaurants I still recommend to visitors today -- always and especially Health Camp.

It always frustrated me that visitors to Waco would end up at the overpriced Elite Cafe, located on the "famous" Waco Circle (a giant traffic circle that no one knows how to navigate, despite being located in the same place for 50-some-odd years) next door to Health Camp. Sure, the Elite Cafe was supposedly a favorite of one Private Elvis Presley while the King was stationed at Fort Hood in nearby Killeen, but the quality of the food has suffered greatly in passing years.

Besides offering a superior dining experience to the Elite Cafe for far less money, I always thought Health Camp to have the greatest claim to fame of the two iconic Waco restaurants: the most ironic name in the world.

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Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

It's been a big year for craft beer in Texas. One of the biggest stories, however, is news that hasn't quite made its way down to Houston. Dallas is currently experiencing a boom in breweries as big as, if not bigger than, the expansion Houston and Austin have seen in past years. Dallas/Fort Worth and its surrounding counties have added no less than six breweries to the fold. With all the buzz slow to reach Houston, Eating...Our Words decided to take the show on the road and head to Dallas to see if the City of Hate could make us fall in love with their beer. This week we look at a few of the hotspots in Dallas's new-found beer economy.

I still remember beer blogger Leslie Sprague's first mention of Revolver Brewing back in 2011. A craft brewer in the small lakeside town of Granbury -- where a large portion of my extended family, including my parents, have retired -- about 40 minutes outside of Fort Worth seemed like a bit of a pipe dream. Owner Rhett Kiesler eventually got back in touch with Leslie to confirm that yes, Virginia, there is a brewery in Granbury.

Not too long after, my mom called me rather excitedly to tell me that her little town had a brewery. Clearly the word was spreading and things were happening out there south of Fort Worth. Revolver Brewing officially sold its first keg late this summer, and in the subsequent months afterwards we at Eating...Our Words heard bits and pieces regarding the brewery -- but the beer itself has yet to make it down to Houston. So if the mountain won't come to Muhammad... Muhammad must go to Granbury. We headed up north a few weeks ago to find out what we could about the small outfit.

See also:
Lakewood Brewing Brings Its A Game
The Common Table Gives Us an Insider's Look at DFW Brews

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Photo courtesy of Lakewood Brewing Company

We can't wait to get these bottles here in Houston.

It's been a big year for craft beer in Texas. One of the biggest stories, however, is news that hasn't quite made its way down to Houston. Dallas is currently experiencing a boom in breweries as big as, if not bigger than, the expansion Houston and Austin have seen in past years. Dallas/Fort Worth and its surrounding counties have added no less than six breweries to the fold. With all the buzz slow to reach Houston, Eating...Our Words decided to take the show on the road and head to Dallas to see if the City of Hate could make us fall in love with their beer. This week we look at a few of the hotspots in Dallas's new-found beer economy.

Of all the beers to make their way down to Houston from Dallas this past year, none has had quite the buzz surrounding it as The Temptress Stout from five-month-old Lakewood Brewing Company. Most Houstonians had their very first taste of The Temptress and other Lakewood beers at last month's Draft beer festival. Since then, the question we have heard most often -- and rightly so -- is, "When are these guys coming to Houston?" We took that question and a few of our own to founder Wim Bens of Lakewood Brewing.

The brewery itself is not situated in its namesake Lakewood proper, but rather just down the road across 635 in Garland -- a distinction very few outside of Dallas will probably recognize. The brewery is housed in a large complex of strip warehouses, not all that different from the nondescript metal and brick structures that once held Saint Arnold and now house Karbach.

See also: The Common Table Gives Us an Insider's Look at DFW Brews

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Photo: Dallas Observer

The Common Table, one of Dallas's biggest craft beer destinations.

It's been quite the year for craft beer in Texas. One of the biggest stories, however, is news that hasn't quite made its way down to Houston. Dallas is currently experiencing a boom in breweries that's as big as, if not bigger than, the expansions Houston and Austin have seen in past years. (See "The Rise of the DFW Brew" by Lauren Drewes Daniels in the October 25 edition of Dallas Observer for the full story.)

Dallas/Fort Worth and the surrounding areas have added no less than six breweries to the fold in the past 18 months -- and there are even more on the way. With all that buzz slow to trickle down to Houston, Eating...Our Words decided to take the show on the road and head to Dallas to see if the City of Hate could make us fall in love with their beer. This is part one in our series on Dallas beer as we spend the week looking at a few of the hot spots in Dallas's new-found beer economy.

We talk a lot here on Eating...Our Words about the "Meccas" of craft beer around town: The Petrol Station, Hay Merchant and the like. Dallas happens to have a little place just as noteworthy in the form of The Common Table. Having just celebrated its two-year anniversary this past summer, the bar and restaurant has developed a strong following in the beer world for stocking some incredible brews and pairing it back to upscale comfort food, all in a tidy little spot in Dallas's swank Uptown neighborhood.

After two years of missing it each time I was in the Metroplex, I was able to swing in this past weekend to throw back some beers -- not to mention a bourbon and Temptress chocolate milkshake -- chat with the guys and finally see what all the buzz was about.

Owner, music nerd (his iPod is on shuffle at the restaurant and gave us several music boners throughout the evening) and all-around Texas craft beer guy Corey Pond was kind enough to give us the low-down on malts and hops in Dallas.

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