Gerald Hanks
Houston is known for its wide variety of dining establishments. If you can name a cooking style, cuisine, or nationality, Houston has a restaurant that serves it up hot and fresh.
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With all of this variety available at your fingertips, the question becomes this: where do you take out of town guests for the quintessential Houston dining experience?
Sports Illustrated writer Andy Staples created his own very short (and very delicious) list of his recommendations for the best restaurants in Houston. This list represents the tastes of the SI crowd, rather than those that prefer to read Forbes or The Wall Street Journal. While it doesn’t focus on a traditional “fine dining” experience, this list still contains some of the finest dishes in Houston.
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BB’s Cafe
2710 Montrose Blvd #A, Houston, TX 77006
BB’s Cafe is famous for its unique East Texas fusion of traditional New Orleans dishes with a dash of Tex-Mex in a style known as “Tex Orleans Cooking.” In addition to Cajun favorites such as crawfish etouffee, BB’s menu offers grillades and grits, macaroni and jalapeno cheese, and a mix of jalapeno poppers and chicken breast called “pollo bullets.”
Carniceria Aguascalientes
2809 Broadway St., Houston, TX 77017
This Mexican restaurant is hidden inside a grocery store. A literal “hole in the wall,” Carniceria Aguascalientes serves up the finest gorditas in Houston. The cornmeal shell is cooked on flat tops in full view of the customers. Customers can choose from al pastor and cheese, beans and cheese, or carne asada and cheese, all for just slightly more than Taco Bell’s knockoff of the same name.
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Moon Tower Inn
3004 Canal Street, Houston, TX 77003
Moon Tower Inn offers one of the most unique dining experiences in Houston. First off, the restaurant has no indoor seating, so diners must take in the Great Outdoors of Houston, and all the heat, humidity and insects it offers. The trademark dish is its elk, bacon and cheddar wiener on a pretzel bun, covered in stone-ground mustard.
While Houston has so many different restaurants to choose from, these three can make for a great start to your culinary exploration of the Bayou City.
