Chicken Alfredo Pasta from Collina's Italian Cafe
(03/18/15 10:27am)
Chicken Alfredo Pasta from Collina's Italian Cafe
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Chicken Alfredo Pasta from Collina's Italian Cafe
Nestled in a strip mall on Richmond Avenue, Collina’s Italian Cafe looks as inviting as any Italian restaurant. Families and couples chatter over bottles of wine, cooks stir enormous pots of pasta and waiters bustle between the indoor seating and the tables outside on the patio. The affable service, homey red-checkered tablecloths and BYOB policy all add to Collina’s laid-back, neighborhood-Italian-joint atmosphere. It would be all too perfect if Collina’s cooks turned out food that matched their idyllic atmosphere. Unfortunately, Collina’s pastas are far from the heavenly spaghettis and linguinis of superior trattorias; the rustic chicken dishes miss out on the buttery charm that pervades quality Italian cooking. Even the pizzas, the centerpiece of Collina’s menu, seem bland in comparison to the bold and fresh flavors other pizzerias draw from their pies.
Parmesan fries from Dak and Bop, which opened last November in the Third Ward. Fries are tossed with truffle oil and served with spicy mayo.
Offbeat restaurant Moon Tower Inn delights with "hip" meat
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Chef Tyson Cole spices up the more traditional hamachi with segmented oranges and yuzu by adding jalapenos for an herbal heat.
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Among ads of cute puppies, human Pac-Man games and stampeding Clydesdales, Budweiser aired a new commercial during the Super Bowl proudly titled “Brewed the Hard Way.” The ad heralds Budweiser as “proudly a macro beer … not to be fussed over.” Bud drinkers are juxtaposed with glasses-wearing mustachioed men, who represent Budweiser’s take on microbrewed beer’s finicky hipster crowd. The ad continues by stating that Bud is “brewed for drinking, not dissecting,” and shows yet more hipsters before finally proclaiming, “Let them drink their pumpkin peach ale, we’ll be brewing us some golden suds.”
Aladdin provides tasty Mediterranean for the budget-conscious
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Since its opening in November, Tea Bar and Organic Fusion, also styled “TBO Fusion,” has made it clear that the operative word in their name is “Fusion.” The hip Westheimer location has a tea bar, and it does serve an extensive list of tasty milk teas and smoothies, but the real reason to visit is TBO’s affordable and creative takes on sushi, ramen and other Japanese specialties. The menu is dotted with unconventional and trendy additions like Taiwanese popcorn chicken, sous-vide short rib and sashimi with honey wasabi aioli and truffled ponzu sauce. Many of the experimental dishes are imperfect, and unfortunately, some of the menu’s most interesting inclusions are best left unordered. Nonetheless, the food at TBO Fusion makes for an exciting and eclectic meal.
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The national blog Eater announced the winners of its annual Houston restaurant awards this past Monday. The awards honored restaurants and chefs in six categories: Restaurant of the Year, Chef of the Year, “So Hot Right Now” (recognizing restaurants with a high level of trendiness), Bartender of the Year, Saddest Closing and “Stone Cold Stunner,” recognizing restaurants with especially impressive decor. Nominees were selected by local food critics and the final winners determined by votes from the blog’s readers.
Inexpensive sushi is too good to be true. Sushi isn’t a food that you can cut corners with. As a result, some bargain sushi spots can be nightmares, leaving customers hungry, unsatisfied and, in particularly unfortunate cases, ill. With this in mind, Oishii’s $1 per piece sashimi and $4 rolls seem suspicious. However, in reality, Oishii proves to be neither a hidden gem for cheap eats nor a place to completely overlook, especially by students on a budget.
Standing in a Third Ward strip mall, everything about Reggae Hut screams authentic. Whether it’s the dance hall music, the dreadlocked woman at the counter or the dingy but charming plaster walls, patrons here never seem to question that they’re getting the “real” thing.
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Since opening in 2012, Chris Shepherd’s Underbelly has arguably been the quintessential Houstonian restaurant. The menu, which boldly proclaims, “Houston is the new American Creole city of the South,” even won Shepherd a 2014 James Beard Foundation Award for its seamless integration of Houston’s many ethnic influences with traditional southern techniques. Shepherd is perhaps best known for his butchering and charcuterie which, at Underbelly, are embodied by an entire aging room and back-of-house butcher’s shop devoted to butchering, curing and aging the house meats. Shepherd’s expertise is nearly unquestioned in the realm of pork, beef and all things red meat. But in light of the growing number of gourmet diners and chefs moving away from the heavy use of red meat, I wanted to sample the menu without any la viande meats to see if Underbelly’s appeal could be as broad as its influences.
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