Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

NEWS 2/17/11 6:00pm

Relish: Big Red Cock is what's for dinner

By Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

We're pretty into President David Leebron and his Vision for the Second Century, so we went to eat at the Biosciences Research Collaborative last weekend. It was a poor choice. Dan swallowed something in a flask and had to be hospitalized, while Siegfried got lost in all of the empty office space. To cheer ourselves up, we grabbed a whole bunch of dudes and went to check out a different BRC, located in the Washington area, which was in the New York Times once, so it has to be cool. The BRC, which stands for Big Red Cock (ha!) is not a gay bar - it's a gastropub! Gastropub is one of the pretentious words you learn when you pretend to be a food critic for your school's paper, and it means "a place that serves really nice (expensive) burgers and fries and stuff." While the BRC is a great gastropub, it's comparable to similar restaurants in the area, and it wouldn't be our first choice among them in terms of food, although the service is by far the best we've had in Houston.Upon arriving, the host asked us if we had any reservations. Not expecting to need any, he told us we would probably have to wait about half an hour. Suddenly he said "Hold on a minute, let me see what I can do," and briefly disappeared. Before Siegfried could inform our party that we might have to wait, the host had managed to find a table for all six of us. We also had an extremely pleasant waitress, who was helpful, funny and knowledgeable.

NEWS 2/10/11 6:00pm

Relish: Lankford Grocery no longer tasty

By Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

You know when that sitcom you really, really like starts getting crappy? Like when Jim and Pam got married on "The Office," or when Jessica Biel moved out of her house on "7th Heaven"? We experienced a moment exactly like that when we decided to go review Lankford Grocery, a burger place located in a secret corner of Montrose. Having been there several times before, we were excited to share the experience with the dudes we pay to live with us because we have no friends. Yet, for reasons we don't understand, Lankford wasn't at the top of its game last week. Lankford Grocery, not to be confused with Langford Market (that place that sells women's clothing in The Village), is a hole-in-the-wall burger joint located in what appears to be a condemned house. With floors that curve like waves in the Pacific breaking on the beach in front of you during a beautiful sunset, walking around the restaurant feels a bit topsy-turvy. The overall vibe is like you've been placed in a Norman Rockwell painting, if Rockwell dropped enough acid one day to decide he was M.C. Escher. Actually, the warped floors are a little disconcerting the first time you visit, but after a while they're all part of the charm of this decidedly ?unhealthy establishment.

NEWS 1/27/11 6:00pm

Relish: Hot dogs that are made of real meat

By Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

Haters gonna hate. But not on Moon Tower Inn, an exotic meat hot dog establishment that looks like someone's huge-ass backyard. Featuring a fantastic, affordable beer selection and incredible hot dogs made of exotic meats such as pheasant, elk and duck, Moon Tower Inn is totally worth a trip out to the second ward.We parked a few blocks away from the restaurant (for no particular reason), and watched the neighborhood slowly gentrify as we walked between row houses and trendy condos. We know Rice kids get super sketched-out by words like "ward," "second" and "trendy," but don't worry; we overcame our middle-class backgrounds to buy hot dogs from hipsters. Our least favorite former Thresher arts and entertainment editor was so scared, he decided to stay in the car while crying on the shoulders of a certain Wiess College president and listening to the Smashing Pumpkins (that suck) on his Zune.

NEWS 1/20/11 6:00pm

Relish:NYC food like Houston's but with more expensive Mexican food

By Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

And so we decided to embark on a journey to the urban cesspool that is New York City. After a three-day car ride with brief stops in Arkansas, the Maker's Mark distillery in Tennessee, and West Virginia (where bars are open until 3 a.m.!), we arrived in glorious Chatham, New Jersey. Chatham was certainly the coolest place ever, but this is a column about New York City, so Chatham will have to wait until another day. Full disclosure: We were only in New York for two days, so we totally know absolutely everything about it. Our editor says that in order to make this relevant, we need to compare New York to Houston, so we'll provide y'all with a handy Texas analogue to each restaurant we visited.

NEWS 11/11/10 6:00pm

Relish: Late Night Pie mediocre

By Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

There comes a point in everyone's college career when they really, really need some pizza at 2 a.m. After a long night of teaching each other how to dougie, Dan and Siggy decided to reward their hard work with a visit to Late Nite Pie in midtown. Late Nite Pie is a rather hip place, so they gathered up their hipster friend (appropriately named) Austin and headed out to get some fairly standard pizza in a pretty neat venue.After driving onto a gravel parking lot that's likely to take out one's muffler, one is immediately attracted to the extensive artwork that covers the outside of Late Nite Pie. The entrance features a large, light blue Ren and Stimpy-like happy face, sure to make anyone in the 18-30-year-old demographic simultaneously nostalgic and creeped out. The art doesn't stop when you enter the place, either: We sat at a table underneath a picture of five scary-looking alien things. The best thing about Late Nite Pie is its local, underground vibe, and the artwork definitely compliments that. The place has three areas, divided in order of brightness: light, dark and outside dark. The dark room has a defunct pinball machine, along with a stage for their weekly live music. We were going to look up when exactly they have bands over, but their website doesn't work.

NEWS 11/4/10 7:00pm

Relish: Max's Wine Dive appropriately classy, has delicious gourmet comfort food

By Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

Sometimes when you're a senior, you feel like you need to do real-ass adult stuff, like wearing something that isn't even a Rice Athletics T-shirt or going on super hot dates to places that aren't even in the Village. Last Saturday, we decided to fulfill these urges by going to Max's Wine Dive, a moderately classy wine bar located on Washington Avenue. Max's does two things very well: It makes some really solid gourmet comfort food and it costs way more money than either of us will ever have. Upon entering Max's, the first thing we noticed was the light fixtures made of wine bottles hanging from the ceiling. The restaurant's red brick interior and "industrial chic" aesthetic made us feel like we were so not in a dive. There was a massive wine collection on display near the entrance. While the selection seemed impressive, we were shocked by the total lack of both wine in boxes and fortified wine. This, coupled with the hip young urban professional (read: yuppie) crowd, made us feel like we were finally in the company of super high rollers like ourselves.

NEWS 10/7/10 7:00pm

Relish: Beaver's icehouse-style barbecue is 'dam' delicious

By Siegfried Bilstein and Dan Nelson

Beaver's is not a strip club: This cannot be emphasized enough. Beaver's is more like going to a friend's house for a barbecue, if that friend's dad happens to be a world-class chef. Holding true to the menu's claim that "Fat equals Flavor," Beaver's is an indulgent place to get your fill of icehouse-style dining with expertly crafted food. When we arrived at Beaver's, we were greeted by the combination of the smell of barbecue in the air and the sound of The Decemberists on the radio. The music playing continued to be excellent yet too mainstream for us KTRU fans, so a waitress led us and a few of our friends to a picnic table outside. The atmosphere was casual, and the crowd around us was full of people of all ages. Our waitress was friendly and kicked off the night by asking us if we wanted the special: fried shrimp, New York strip steak and 80/20 mashed potatoes, which are 80 percent mashed potatoes and 20 percent butter. It sounded tasty, but we're pretty bad at math, so we ordered some appetizers instead.