Houston Reviews (thank you for suggestions)

Thank you for all the suggestions from this board.
We went to Houston for the weekend...quick reviews:

Uchi: We had very late reservations to Underbelly so we did happy hour here. We had about half the small plates menu...everything we had was very good. I think Kanno's tasting menu is very comparable though. EXCEPT the Ham and eggs roll which is awesome. Fried pork belly with this egg custard sauce...this was the dish that I expected from all of the hype. The waitresses were mostly model hot....my wife even commented several times.

Underbelly: We had the ham appetizer, the pork chop, market veggies and a very good dessert I cannot remember. Had a really great Barolo since our next trip (after a DC/NYC trip) will be to Piedmont...Ham was just ok....pork chop was great as were the veggies and dessert. What am I missing though...this is not a transformative restaurant. THis would so clearly not be a top 10 restaurant in NOLA....is this a case of overhyped like Cochon? With that said, it was still a great meal and I would go back.

Now to the best day of food:

Mala Sichuan: There are a few restaurants I have been to around the world that I wish I could clone and put in NOLA. We ate at two of them this day. Mala was incredible...cumin beef and chengdu shrimp were great....sichuan dumplings with red chili oil sauce and the Dan Dan Noodles were beyond excellent. The Dan Dan noodles were even better than that.

Hugo's: I can't go to Houston without going again. I chose this for my birthday night because I love the place. Started with a good Chablis with squash blossom quesidillas and this grilled octopus....superb. Then we had a nice Barolo again with the Rack of Lamb special with a red mole sauce, homemade lamb sausage links and wild mushrooms tamales...wow. Finished with a great tres leches. This is one of my favorite restaurants anywhere.

El Timepo: Maybe tex-mex can only be so good. While the food was very good...it was not a step up from el mesquite or case garcia.

Pondicherri: We drove all the way to Himalayas for a very authentic experience to find they were on summer vacation. Having already been to Indika, we went to Pondicherri. Very very good. I would rank the Indian I have had as Rasika (DC) then Indika then Saffron Nola then Pondicherri then a huge drop off.



Houston is deifnitely the best food city in Texas....its strength is in ethnic, but the restaurant scene as a whole has picked up a bunch even since the last food trip 14 months ago. We are going to try to go back over thanksgiving or christmas. We had a really great time. I like the weekends here with no traffic.

Just the way I see it (never been to L.A.):

NYC
huge gap
San Fran (if you count wine country, etc)
Chicago
New Orleans
Houston/D.C. metro