Houston Food Blog

​Dark chocolate bark with chipotle and almonds marked the beginning of a romantic Valentine's Day season at my house. My wife is wild about chocolate and chile pepper confections, so I try to buy her some every year at this time. I used to mail-order the wonderful chocolate-and-chile pepper bark with pumpkin seeds from Sahagun Chocolate Shop in Portland, Oregon.

But the Sahagun website didn't offer the chile pepper chocolates this year. I tried the Chocolate Bar, but the counterman told me that the owner hated chocolate and chile peppers and refused to carry it. Then I remembered Valerie Gamble. Gamble is a French-style chocolatier who moved here from Austin last fall. I loved her handmade truffles, so I went looking for her shop, Expressions Fine Chocolates.

​This Valentine's Day, you won't find the nostalgic Sweethearts of elementary school crushes past. Instead, you'll find a new, fruitier version of these classic American icons. After 145 years, NECCO has decided to "upgrade" the flavors of its conversation hearts. Here is a list of the new flavors: green apple, blue raspberry, strawberry, lemon, grape, and orange. No, you're not going crazy. The wintergreen and the white are now long gone, off to conversation heart heaven.

We don't uncontrollably pop these chalky candies into our mouths like M&Ms, but the little kid in us still wants to get a box of NECCO Sweethearts that will stay unopened on our desk until next Valentine's Day. While eating the candies isn't the point for us, we still think changing the flavors is blasphemy.

Of course, the New England Confectionary Co. has been changing the actual messages on these super-sweet Valentine's Day treats for years. This year, they've taken a more techie approach. Messages like "tweet me" and "text me" can be found decorating your nostalgic conversation hearts. You can even download a new iPhone app that will let you personalize a heart and send it digitally to your sweetheart. But the company is also bringing back some historic messages, like "love bug" and "sweet pea."

​On a recent trip to Border's bookstore, we found ourselves perusing an intriguing little table with a big percent-off sign. Everyone loves a good Christmas reject, so we were quite pleased to find an old-fashioned lunch box adorned with black-and-white zebra stripes. Called Zebra Mix, it was very kitschy-cool. Even better was what it held inside: an organic cupcake mix that was designed to be made by kids. Now, despite the fact that we do not have a child, we were enthralled by this little box of yuppie-ish retro fun. A quick check at the sticker revealed that it had been marked down from $17.99 to less than $5. Sold.

It wasn't in red on our calendar, but apparently January 23 was National Pie
Day.

Joanna Torok and Joe Phillips, co-owners of a new mobile eatery called Oh My! Pocket Pies, weren't about to miss out.

The two-month-old business takes the form of a truck, typically parked in Kim Hung Mall parking lot (1005 St. Emmanuel St.) weekdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Last Saturday, however, the pair pulled into a vacant lot in the 300 block of 19th Street in the Heights and soon had a line down the sidewalk.

Photos by Groovehouse

That's a lot of cupcakes...

​We lost count of the guests somewhere around the 300-person mark. The crumbs and frosting of 144 different cupcakes smeared most of the available table surfaces. Empty cups of milk and wine lay discarded across the room. And our panel of five judges were fairly begging for a platter of spicy, salty, greasy food after tasting 24 super-sweet cupcakes apiece. But we accomplished our goal last night at Block 7 Wine Company of crowning the best cupcake in town.

It wasn't easy, though. With six different metrics to judge (cake taste, cake texture, frosting taste, frosting texture, cake-to-frosting ratio and overall apperance), our panel had quite a task in front of them. Judge Jody Stevens, owner of Jodycakes and pastry chef at Gravitas, explained her somewhat messy process to us: "First I stick my finger in the frosting to feel its consistency, then I taste it. Then I take a piece of cake to feel it, then I taste it. Then I take an overall bite to see how they taste together." Blindfolded, this process led to the judging table covered in crumbs, spilled drinks, glops of frosting and generally looking as though a set of toddlers had had a field day with a box full of the desserts.

Although there was some confusion about whether the public would be able to taste the cupcakes (bakeries were only asked to bring enough cupcakes for the judges) or whether any cupcakes were available for purchase (Block 7 made several enormous batches that went as quickly as they were set out), guests seemed to have a good time and raised an enormous amount of food and money for the Houston Food Bank as they watched the judges polish off cake after cake.

​
We were driving down Westpark the other day in the office park no-man's land of Houston when we noticed the Kegg's candy factory. The marquee read "Daily Tours." We didn't know much about Kegg's, so we called the factory when we got home. The young lady who took our call, Brandy, informed us the factory was open for "self tours." Self tours, no way! Willy Wonka would never have allowed this. We asked her if they had any caramel apples available, and she told us that they were all out. But she also said customers could call in orders, and Kegg's would make the apples to order. We put our order in and headed over.

​Before you envision Everlasting Gobstoppers and crazy factory owners doing cartwheels - Kegg's factory is kinda small, and the employees are of average height and hue. That's okay, they make crazy delicious caramel apples and even have chocolate-covered Nutter Butters. As for the self tour, it consists of one long hallway with windows that allow you to peer into the little factory of people making handmade candies. It was still worth the visit, even if there was no Wonka Vision or TV dinner-flavored gum...

Click on for more photos.

​Ed. Note: The comments section is now closed, as we have made our decision. Sofia Straus joins Melanie Tello as our second reader judge. Good luck to them both.

We broke you in easy with the first Eating Our Words event: a wine tasting with light bites and smooth jazz. But now we're ready to rumble.

We'll be hosting a Cupcake Smackdown on Sunday, January 24, at Block 7 Wine Company from 4 to 6 p.m. Cupcakes from a dozen restaurants and bakeries around Houston will be pitted against each other in an epic gladiatorial event that's too big for our weekly Food Fight. To keep things interesting, we'll also have a batch of homemade cupcakes thrown in to the mix to see if our judges can tell the difference. Cupcakes will be blind taste-tested by a panel of four judges on cake taste, frosting taste, cake texture, frosting texture and cake-to-frosting ratio. Finally, the cupcakes we've kept in reserve will be revealed and the judges' blindfolds removed so they can judge the overall appearance of each cupcake. The winner will be crowned the Eating Our Words Cupcake King.

To assist us in keeping this battle under control, we've enlisted experts: Plinio Sandalio, pastry chef at Textile, and Jody Stevens, pastry chef at Gravitas and owner of Jodycakes, will be our two professional judges. But we need your help. We need two of our readers to fill out the judging panel. In addition to a whole lot of cupcakes, the two judges will also receive special limited-edition Eating Our Words aprons for lending their tasting talents to the panel.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

​We entered through the back door into the labyrinthine kitchen of Textile. It was our third time at Scott Tycer's restaurant (although the first in its kitchen) and we were glad to be back: The desserts were the best part of our first two visits, and we were eager to repeat the experience.

For such a small restaurant, the size of the kitchen is overwhelming until you remember that they share the space with Kraftsmen Bakery. The bakery, which is also owned by Tycer, works day and night to produce the bread that graces the tables of many of Houston's best restaurants. In one corner, hundreds of warm, fat, little loaves stood waiting to be whisked away as we walked past yards of stainless steel counters, enormous sacks of flour and a glowering picture of Marco Pierre White tacked to a cabinet, standing guard with an intensity that smolders even from a simple black-and-white photocopy.

We were in the kitchen for one of Plinio Sandalio's famed dessert tastings. Sandalio, the pastry chef at Textile, is a quiet, kind, unassuming young man with a fondness for Zooey Deschanel's quirky pop music and Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time." Not at all the brash character you'd expect behind what is simply the most inventive and creative food being crafted in Houston right now. With his chipper girlfriend Erica serving as both sous and expediter last night, Sandalio took the four of us through a crash course that challenged all our ideas of what the dessert station could (and should) be.

​Have we convinced you to fly under the radar for New Year's yet? Now that you have a handle on some delicious drinks and enchanting eats to serve at your low-key, low-expectations New Year's bash, it's time to discuss dessert. The easiest thing to do is to pick it up at Costco, which offers a beautiful range of cookies, pies, and chocolate-covered pretzels for your party pleasure. But if you'd prefer to Martha it up, we've got some recs for you, too.

Here are some splendid sweets to top off your evening and soak up some beer. A very happy New Year's to you -- We hope this is the unshittiest yet!

The House of Blues (in the Downtown Pavilions, 201 San Jacinto) held four gingerbread house workshops on the weekends leading up to Christmas, run by executive chef Jeff Inman.

We stopped by to video one and have sped up the video for your amusement. At $45 per Swedish-made gingerbread kit and $10 per additional kid, the event provided some fun, at least for the kids we saw.

It certainly looked a lot tastier than the scarring experience we had in elementary school, when the icing for our gingerbread project included raw eggs and we were prevented from even tasting the tantalizing architectural morsel before us.

Not that we're bitter.

Note: This is a rerun of a popular post from last Christmas. We'd be remiss in not sharing our favorite fudge recipe this time of year. Enjoy and good luck in your fudge endeavors.

My mother is known for many things, but chief among them is her famous Christmas fudge. Each year, lucky friends and family make out with a tin or two. And until my grandfather passed away last year, she would always make an enormous gift basket for him each year at Christmas, filled with several different kinds of the sweet, creamy, toothsome confection.

The fudge isn't coveted so much because the recipe is some great secret. Instead, it's the sheer amount of effort and attention required while tending to the fudge that makes it so good. Certain techniques, certain utensils, a certain level of patience -- all are required to make the perfect batch of fudge. And if you're willing to devote yourself to an afternoon over a hot stove, I'll teach you how to make the kind of fudge that if given to heads of state around the world, would most likely usher in a new era of sweet, fudgy peace.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

​This has been a year for non-traditional gingerbread houses in Houston. The gingerbread dog houses at Voice kicked off the season earlier this month, and Caroline Collective all but finished it off with its first annual Gingerbread Build-Off.

The concept came from Caroline Collective co-founder Ned Dodington, who works with the Architecture Center of Houston (ArCH) and was inspired by the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects' yearly sandcastle contest on Galveston Island that has grown over time from a simple competition among friends to a heavily attended and highly competitive building contest. And just as the sandcastle competition results in massive yet ephemeral creations, perhaps the gingerbread house contest will -- in time -- become similarly popular. Matthew Wettergreen, Caroline Collective's other co-founder, has different yet dovetailing hopes for the contest: "We loved the idea of combining food and architecture, something not a lot of people are doing these days. And instead of passively educating, we're actively having fun and exercising creativity."

Starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning, teams of architects and engineers set about crafting the most intricate -- and structurally sound, of course -- houses from the ingredients that were provided by Caroline Collective. Each team was allowed to bring in other ingredients and tools, as long as each component of the house was edible. Some teams took this allowance a bit further than others; one intense-looking team was spotted with a soldering iron and welding mask.

Jen Mathis, an artist with a background in architecture, created what was dubbed "Santa's Florida Home" with her team. Using mitre boxes, tiny saws, drafter's rulers and several cartons of frosting as adhesive, their post-modern gingerbread home sprung from a waterfront made of blue sour candy strips. These people weren't messing around.

​You've probably had German chocolate cake, the multilayered chocolate dreamboat filled and topped with a luscious coconut-pecan frosting. While this lover is a year-round nationwide favorite, most people have never heard of its cousin, the German chocolate pie. The pie version features the same enticing tastes in a less overwhelming vessel. You get a more pure form of the flavor, allowing you to pinpoint the delicious differences between German chocolate and its cross-town Nestle rivals. Now that's a blind tasting we'll judge any day of the week.

Contrary to popular belief, German chocolate did not originate in Germany. An Englishman named Sam German actually created the popular flavor for the Baker's Chocolate Company in 1852. Initially called "Baker's German's Chocolate," the name has morphed over the years into the more efficient German chocolate. We're not sure why German chocolate has declined in popularity over the years, but we're certainly not upset about it: More. For. Us.

Brighten up your holiday buffet with a gold-star progression of a classic dessert. Family, friends, elves, reindeer, and co-workers will revel in your splendor.

​We are suckers for free cupcakes. We will even brave Houston streets in the middle of a snow storm for them. Yes, we are putting our lives at risk, but it's all in the name of chocolate.

Seven weeks ago, Little Debbie launched a 10-week "Share-a-thon" campaign to promote its new chocolate cupcakes. A crew of six is traveling to 21 cities to deliver 200,000 free cupcakes. Today, we caught them at the corner of Main and Dallas giving out free cupcakes to some very cold and snow-drenched customers. They were supposed to set up shop from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Houston Pavilions. Instead, they were hiding from the snow under random awnings until about one.

Photos by Groovehouse

​If it didn't feel like Christmastime yet on Tuesday night with a slight chill in the air, the sight that greeted us as we walked into Voice put us right in the holiday mood: delicately and immaculately designed gingerbread houses all in a row, next to a glimmering Christmas tree. But these weren't just any gingerbread houses -- these were gingerbread dog houses, complete with candy bones and fondant pups.

It was all part of the 2nd Annual Christmas Tail, a charity fundraiser conceived by Chef Michael Kramer to benefit Lucky Dog Rescue. For a donation of $25, guests enjoyed free cocktails and bites from the restaurant while bidding on their favorite dog houses, which were crafted by some of Houston's best pastry chefs -- both professional and amateur -- like Rebecca Masson of Shade and the team at La Toretta del Lago. Proceeds from the auction went to Lucky Dog, while the dog houses went home with the highest bidder  at the end of the night.

A panel of judges, including John DeMers -- author and host of Delicious Mischief -- and me, chose their favorite gingerbread houses from among the batch. Photos of the winners are below the jump.

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Crave Cupcakes in Uptown Park dropped a dozen cupcakes off at Eating...Our Words this morning to give us a chance to try out its special holiday flavors: gingerbread with cream cheese frosting and eggnog with nutmeg frosting (with a perky green and red holly replica on top).

Also included in the box were crowd favorites red velvet and dark chocolate. As always, Crave gets an A-plus for presentation, and as always, people tend to have extremes of opinion over whether these are the best cupcakes in the city.

​With winter comes that extra sumpthin'-sumpthin' that keeps us warm at night. It's called the dessert layer. That's right: As the temperature drops, so does our metabolism. (Thud.) And while we fall in and out of love with desserts on a regular basis, the current State of Sweet around town is too strong to ignore. Houston pastry chefs have been pushin' their trade and testing our limits. Oh, we're not talking any of those fruit-based desserts and sorbets of summer (yawn). We're talking rich, buttery offerings that we down without hesitation since, of course, we'll all seek dietary redemption come January. Heh. Here are a few of our sugarplum favorites.

Check out the dessert menu at Stella Sola the dynamite pistachio pound cake. Topped with ice cream and served with a gaggle of sour cherries, the cake is moist-delicious, and not overly sweet, but has an incredible nutty flavor that absolutely tastes like Fall. Simple and simply creative, this is a show-stopping way to end your meal.

Shade recently brought back its regularly requested cherry-and-chocolate-croissant bread pudding. The tart cherries taste like Christmas, while the chocolate croissants add just the right amount of buttery sweetness. The tender consistency is spot on, and you won't even notice how rich it is until you're half done.

Photos by Bobette Riner

​So you made a tradeoff with the Devil this year: In exchange for your invitation to join a Thanksgiving feast, you agreed to bring a dessert. Everyone knows what dessert means this time of year: You're not showing up with tiramisu or German chocolate cake or apple fritters -- you're bringing pie, damn it! And it better not be some apple pie made in 1998 and tucked away ever since in the grocery store's most remote freezer section.

No sir, it'd better be good. And that's just what we found today, easy as pie. A "good," or make that Goode Co., pie. At a recent visit to the dentist, the assistant said sotto voce, "Did you hear about Goode Co.? They have a drive-thru where you just pick up your holiday pies! You don't even have to order them! Pecan and icebox chocolate!"

​I got a tiny box containing four chocolate truffles in the mail. I ate the one that was covered with pistachio crumbs and filled with green pistachio cream. It was so good, I ate the one covered with cocoa powder and filled with dark chocolate ganache. Then I put the box down for a minute, and the other two disappeared. The chocolate thief asked me where I got those and when I could get some more. I handed her the press release that came with the little box.

​From the moment we first tried it, tres leches has monopolized a decent-size spot in our hearts previously reserved for chocolate. This originally Nicaraguan dessert is a vanilla sponge cake full of tiny, tasty air bubbles and topped with an incredible combination of three milks: evaporated, sweetened condensed, and whole milk or cream. The distinct texture, as holey and odd as it is, explains why the cake never gets soggy, despite being soaked in rich liquids.

As a dessert, tres leches provides just the right amounts of sweetness and splendor. But it's so loaded with calcium that we often like to consider it breakfast fare (don't judge!). The cake is moist without mush, light without air, an angel without wings. Calorie-wise, it's not health food by any twist of the lens, but it sure is a mighty fine way to finish a meal.

In a quest to find the best tres leches in town, we recently hosted a small blind tasting featuring the perennial city favorites. Here's what we learned.

5) Escalante's
Escalante's serves up a beautiful-looking tres leches that's topped with a generous beat of shaved chocolate. While the gesture looks nice and all, we found that the chocolate's bittersweetness overpowers the inherent simplicity of the vanilla cake. (Should we tell them that vanilla and chocolate only work together in Neapolitan ice cream and Dairy Queen dip cones?) Even after we scraped the shavings off, however, this lackluster cake failed to impress. And at $7, Escalante's version of tres leches costs double the others, so we see no reason to place this piece anywhere but last.

4) 100% Taquito
When you place your Tres Leches order at 100% Taquito, the chica behind the counter asks a simple question: Would you like caramel on top? And the answer -- obviously -- is yes. Laden with magically gigantor air pockets, the cake here is certainly the spongiest of the lot. But while we expected great things at the outset, the milk mixture is overly thin and doesn't soak into the cake quite right, leaving you with a filthy, runny mess. The caramel steps up the flavor punch, but it can't hide a downtrodden consistency that's moist on the bottom and dry on top.

​Last month J.C. Reid raved about DQ's Pumpkin Pie Blizzard, ushering in the 2009 holiday-beverage season. Frozen or not, these are guilty pleasures at best. But we'll still take them intravenously if given the option, from tried-and-true drinks like the Starbucks Gingerbread Latte to Jack in the Box's more questionable eggnog shake.

As the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard goes quietly into the night, replaced by the Girl Scout® Tagalong® Peanut Butter Patties Blizzard®, a new champion, the Chick-fil-a Peppermint Chocolate Shake is back for its second season.

​This past summer, Robb Walsh visited Fredericksburg hot spot Rebecca's Table, owned by famous chef and baker Rebecca Rather. After his mouthwatering description of the rabbit sausage there, I couldn't wait to go. Unfortunately, it's now closed, but I decided to try the bakery next door, Rather Sweet, which Rather opened in 2001.

We got there about an hour before closing. The lunch service was over, but we were hoping to grab a few goodies for our drive home. We weren't the only ones with that idea. Ten people were already in line waiting to order when we walked in, and more people were filing in quickly. When Rather walked out, two people behind me whispered excitedly, "I think that is her."

Wrong, but right: Oreo Pizookie

​Imperial Sugar may not actually produce sugar in Sugar Land anymore, but even as dust collects on the factory smokestacks and the museum leads tours through the old warehouse, there are still a number of bakeries, breweries and cafes making Sugar Land's namesake proud.

5. Dessert Gallery is an itch that never should have scratched, especially because, unlike a lot of places in Sugar Land, it's open late. We recommend chocolate-dipped chocolate cookies, white chocolate Oreo truffles, and basically anything with raspberry icing for those weak moments at 11 p.m. that often involve sweat pants.

​After a fruitful trip to Half-Price Books in Rice Village, we stopped by the newest location of The Chocolate Bar, which serves up chocolate-covered fun in just about any form you can imagine: fruit, nuts, popcorn, coffee beans, pretzels, Oreos and more. If you can dream it, they can dip it. And we can eat it.

Yesterday, staring right up from the display case, was a gorgeous-looking creation we'd yet to notice: a Twinkie draped in ribbons of dark chocolate. Huh. Curiosity piqued. Several years ago we ate a Fried Twinkie at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, and it was 90 seconds of pure bliss followed by 90 minutes of murderous bubble gut. Still, the potential for greatness in this chocolate-dipped imitator was intriguing, and we couldn't pass it up.

​Let's start by saying that Pecan Pie in a Jar is not meant to be eaten directly from the jar. One spoonful and I was sure this taste test was over before it began, but upon further review of the fine print, it turned out you actually need eggs to make it remotely edible.

Was it better than my grandpa's pie made with pecans from the tree in his own backyard in Pasadena, or the Armadillo Palace pie that's so good it merits its own wooden carrying case? As if.

​Another great find at the Chocolate Festival of Texas was Mary Louise Butter's chocolate brownies. Butter's Brownies are available in 16 variations, with flavorings ranging from rose water to stout beer. The Aztec God flavor is a take on the spicy-chocolate trend - it gives a nice kick of heat at the end without confusing the palate with seasoning best left to enchiladas. The Ruby Port brownie, made with wine and espresso flavors, is just plain delicious.

​This Saturday at the Chocolate Festival of Texas, Eating Our Words set out to see just how much chocolate and wine $25 will buy you at a Sheraton near IAH.

The answer is about five half-glasses with no obligation to pour any out, and enough chocolate to make you consider trashing all remaining Halloween candy. There were chocolates and there were wines, but the most notable finds fell into the "both" category.

A chocolate wine: Landon Winery from McKinney boasts a limited-production "Chocolate Finale" red dessert wine, which has to be one of the more tolerable dessert wines I've had--it's not syrupy and overdone but chocolately in a dark way that blends flavors well.

​Berripop is the current designer drug in a long line of addictive frozen yogurts. The consistency is smooth and creamy, with surprisingly few calories.

The locations at Greenway and Uptown Park rotate flavors rather haphazardly, keeping customers on their toes and checking in regularly for the occasional surprise. Staples include blueberry, raspberry pomegranate, mango, peach, black cherry and acai berry. On rare occasions, there's green tea.

​Yesterday we talked about the soup at Star Snow Ice, the amazing restaurant tucked away in the corner of a plaza off Bellaire and Beltway 8; today we take on its sweet offerings. Snow ice, a common dessert in Asia, has gained in popularity here. It's served two different ways. One version comes with fresh fruit, shaved ice, condensed milk and, sometimes, salty plum syrup; the other is a savory dessert-snack hybrid consisting of various beans, egg puddings and other odd ingredients that might shock the conservative palette. We decided to go for the "mixed fruit snow ice" and were not disappointed.

​The Bavarian cream-filled Bismark is the thing to get at Daily Donut on Barker Cypress just north of 290. The cream-filled donut there was delicious, while the raised donut was stale and lame. Though Daily Donut calls this a Bismark, some would disagree with both the usage and the spelling. Exactly what is or isn't a Bismark is one of those pastry pilpuls that you could spend the rest of the week arguing about.