Rice University’s Student Newspaper — Since 1916

Thursday, March 28, 2024 — Houston, TX

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Hunting for happy hours

(03/21/18 5:07am)

I love Willy’s Pub and Valhalla as much as the next guy. The cheap craft beer and convenient location of both bars make it hard to justify schlepping off campus and ponying up $10 a drink at any “more fashionable” off-campus bar. Still, missing out on the enormous array of cocktail bars, ice houses and dives that make up Houston’s bar scene would be a real shame, and for those willing to hunt, a number of excellent bars nearby offer happy hours cheap enough to stay within your beer money budget.


Dramatic closings ring in a new year for Houston food

(01/11/17 9:21pm)

In 2016, “the worst ever” dumpster fire of a year, Houston’s restaurants seemed to follow suit. It’s not as if the city’s entire culinary sector vanished, but the sudden closing of 59 Diner, the announcement of the closing of Houston’s reigning top ranked restaurant Oxheart’s and numerous other closings, including mainstays like Zelko Bistro, Kubo’s and Christian’s Tailgate, all cast a pall over the food scene.


Frank Ocean Releases Long Awaited Album

(08/25/16 1:55am)

At long last, we had a new Frank Ocean album. Or did we? On the opening track, “Nikes,” Ocean’s voice croons through heavy distortion until the third minute, when Ocean drops a melodic rap over looped acoustic guitar and woodwinds. Three minutes might not be long to wait, but after the near-hysteria surrounding a number of rumored but unrealized release dates, it was enough to make me doubt, if only for a moment, whether “Blonde” was really the anticipated album I thought it was. Further listens show “Blonde” to be similarly deceptive all the way through. Nothing is as immediate as “Thinkin Bout You,” let alone earlier Ocean songs like “Swim Good,” but beneath the lolling tracks, Ocean delivers the same complex, personal lyrics that made “Channel Orange” such a success.


Four quirky Valentine’s Day date ideas to break the clichés

(02/11/16 12:43am)

Valentine’s day is tough. Even if you’re in a relationship, dates can quickly end up feeling overdone, cliché and just plain awkward. That being said, cynically moping around on “Singles Awareness Day” by yourself sounds even worse. Regardless of where you land on the relationship spectrum — hanging out with friends, a date or actually trying to make the day special — take the day to do something fun and maybe even just a little romantic…if you’re brave.


Eating Cheap and Offbeat at Pugon De Manila

(02/03/16 3:19am)

The food at Pugon de Manila isn’t quite as diverse as one would think from their extensive menu. The menu, which boasts 50-some preparations of vegetables, fish, pork, beef and chicken, is really more like a catalog from which 15 to 20 dishes are available per day for guests to choose from. The dishes in heaviest rotation are pancit, a fairly generic stir-fried noodle dish, barbecue chicken and sisig, a dish made from broiled pork marinated in citrus and vinegar. The trio actually makes a great starting point for first-time visitors. The pancit, with a mix of fried noodles, soft noodles and carrots for texture, and the moist barbeque chicken are both exceptional and likely be familiar to those uninitiated in Filipino cuisine. The sisig ventures more into the territory of “acquired taste” with a brilliant but pungent marinade of vinegar and juiced calamansi, a hybrid of mandarin oranges and kumquats. Other common menu items like the lechon kawali (fried pork belly), fried whole tilapia and peppery egg drop soup are also safe bets, but tend to be too oily with less nuanced, fragrant seasoning than the barbecue, sisig and pancit.


Burger Joint serves familiar fare with mixed results

(10/25/16 12:28am)

When the Burger Joint opened last November, few people would have said Houston needed another burger joint. The market already saturated with the delicious patties coming from low-key shacks like Bubba’s and Moontower Inn, owners Shawn Bermudez and Matthew Pak faced a definite challenge in carving out a niche for their new restaurant. The location didn’t help either. Located at 2703 Montrose, the Burger Joint is practically across the street from the Hay Merchant, another extremely popular fast-casual restaurant known for its burgers. Yet, since the beginning, the Burger Joint has risen to the challenge by offering consistently well-made burgers and enough interesting variations and side dishes to distinguish itself, if only slightly, from the rest of the burger-flipping pack around Houston.




Hearsay Lounge balances uneven food with creative drinks

(09/09/15 8:25pm)

There’s something strange about Hearsay Gastro Lounge. Dim decorative light bulbs and a chandelier are the only lighting aside from candles, making for a particularly dark dining experience. By the stairs to the second floor, articles on the building’s historical importance line the walls as if they’re part of the mystique to promote the historic walls of a room you can barely see. The clientele sends a bit of a mixed message as well. There’s no age limit or cover like one might find at a pub, but the customers are almost exclusively affluent 20-somethings hitting the bar, which stays open until 2 a.m. The cocktails do steal the show, but Hearsay maintains a satisfying, if uneven, menu on all fronts. With good food, great drinks and fairly modest pricing, it’s certainly a place to try for students looking for a night out downtown.





Zelko Bistro satisfies with ethically sourced comfort food

(08/27/15 5:24pm)

“Simple, responsible comfort food” is as common a mantra for Houston restaurants as it is rare in reality. Plenty of hip cafes check one or two boxes, serving southern-style comfort food with locally sourced ingredients only to drown out the natural strengths of their dishes by squeezing every trendy flavor possible onto the plate. Likewise, “responsibly sourced” food all-too-often becomes a marketing ploy, with many restaurants doing little more for sustainable farming than talking about how much they do.  Enter Zelko Bistro, a longtime favorite in the Heights known for what chef Jamie Zelko and Manager Dalia Zelko describe as “new American comfort food.” 



Afghan Village serves Middle Eastern specials

(04/22/15 12:17pm)

With all the good Middle Eastern food around Houston, it seems unlikely that Afghan Village, a small Afghani restaurant in a Gulfton strip mall, could be a standout. The quiet dining room is mostly filled with families and regulars. Larger crowds occasionally appear for the lunch buffet, but for the most part, a unique calm pervades the restaurant. It’s the kind of place where, when the waitress asks, “How did you hear about us?” she seems genuinely curious. But if Afghan Village’s vibes cause any misgivings, the food will come as a pleasant surprise. Serving consistently good mainstays of Middle Eastern cooking, as well as a number of dishes unique to Afghani cuisine, Afghan Village is a hidden gem and a great addition to Houston’s portfolio of Middle Eastern restaurants. 


Indian fusion soars at Pondicheri

(04/15/15 2:50pm)

Parts of Pondicheri’s menu seem like they could only be a breakthrough hit or a disaster. Replace the fried dough wafers in a papdi chaat with semolina crackers and you get either a healthier, hipper version of the original, or a mealy multigrain imposter.  Adding a pumpkin bun to the black garbanzo bean veggie burger could be a stroke of genius or a mark of overzealous experimentation. Luckily, the chefs at Pondicheri are serious about their fusion cooking. With influences from French bakeries to South America’s produce, Pondicheri is all about laid-back twists on Indian favorites. Though the curries and other classics can be underwhelming, the attention paid to innovations like the masala burgers and Madras chicken wings make Pondicheri well worth a visit. 


Fantastic Wines and Where to Find Them

(04/08/15 10:13am)

Tired of beer? Freaked out by Franzia? According to a class-action lawsuit filed last Thursday, student favorites Franzia and Charles Shaw may have up to five times the amount of arsenic the EPA allows in drinking water. So given the alternatives, now seems like a better time than ever to highlight some of top low-cost bottles available at the local Spec’s, HEB and even Target.



Khun Kay offers affordable vegetarian-friendly fare

(03/25/15 10:20am)

Supartra Yooto and Kay Soodjai have experience when it comes to serving Asian food in the Houston area. The Thai sisters-in-law opened their first restaurant, a popular Chinese spot called the Golden Room, on Montrose in 1982. When it came time to renovate in 2008, they simply tore it down and returned to their roots with the “fast casual” Thai restaurant Khun Kay. The website claims the restaurant offers “most of the Golden Room’s menu with the same superb quality, but with reduced prices.” With pad thai as cheap as $7 a plate and a plate of excellent curry for only $8, reduced prices are certainly a plus. But beyond the low prices, Khun Kay’s extensive vegetarian menu and rotating list of specialties set it far above other counter-service Asian eateries.