Oporto (Midtown)

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Well...what can I say...it's gorgeous inside!  I already had a great opinion of Oporto Richmond, but this one...eye candy!  Absolutely beautiful.  We were sat in a booth, love the booth!  The interior had a mid century, retro modern look to it.  Super handsome interior.  I thought the menu was a little hard to read, so we let our server drive, which we would have done anyways.  He seemed super excited about that and ordered the following items in order of the pictures above...Bife a Portuguesa (hangar steak/fried egg/potatoes), $14.  Pao com Tomate (wood fired grilled/tomato pulp/sumac), $6.  Queijo de Cabra (goat cheese/walnuts/basil & tomato sauce/garlic bread), $10.  Crab & Avocado Crostini, $14.  I recommend all of these dishes, they were great.  I was surprised the crab had a nice freshness too.  I don't prefer crab, but here it was great, with a little sprinking of lemon.  The Queijo de Cabra, Avocado Crostini and the Pao com Tomate were my favorites.

Of course we also got dessert, his recommendation was the lemon pastry and the bread pudding, in that order.  So, we got both.  I didn't care so much for the bread pudding but the lemon pastry was nice.  I probably could have had 2 of those to myself!  Sorry, no pictures of the desserts, as we gobbled them up!  Great service, great food, love the atmosphere!  Another quick mention...I didn't realize the food here was Portugese, and didn't know the other Oporto was as well.  I figured it was all similar to Queen Vic, which it is not.

Urban Eats (Washington)

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On my first visit last week, I was really impressed.  I liked how the interior was set up, not sure if anyone actually buys the grocery items.  These kind of stores seem really hard to sustain, but I hope they do well.  I love the decor, very industrial, rustic,  handsome, it has a really nice feel inside.  There's so much to look at, I think I could be here for an hour and still not be done exploring.  They have shelved items, cheesse, smells like there could be cured meats somewhere, and obviously baked goods.  So much to look at!  There's a more casual sitting area downstairs, but upstairs is where the restaurant is.  Nice looking patrons here, maybe the hipster crowd?  It's a full house for lunch.  We sit down and I ordered the tuna salad and Jimy got the chicken salad.  He also ordered the eggplant appetizer and an order of french fries.  I thought everything was good, but I didn't finish my salad, which is kind of rare.  I liked my whole experience from the food to the atmosphere.  Staff was great too, very helpful!

My next visit, I took a friend, his first time.  This time I ordered the tuna sliders since he was getting the cowboy.  I was impressed that the tuna sliders didn't taste fishy at all.  I find most don't get a tuna burger right all the time.  I enjoyed it.  Again, I enjoyed it and Jay liked his burger.  They have a great outdoor patio with a great view of the skyline, which would be geat to use these days because the weather is awesome!  Also, one more tid bit, the parking is kind of a pain.  But overall, I like it and it's a great lunch spot.

Dak & Bop (Museum District)

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As I mentioned some weeks ago about my ending my mission to find the best fried chicken until the next fried chicken joint popped up...well, that time has come.  Dak & Bop is a Korean inspired fried chicken restaurant.  It's a small shop.  Long wait.  Lots of cool, young, hip people eating Korean Fried Chicken.  They have basically 3 options: wings, drumsticks or tenders.  I was confused by the "drumsticks" and thought that would be like wings but the legs.  Needless to say, we had a extremely large order.  We got the combindation 14 wings and 8 drumsticks combo with half and half sauce (soy garlic and spicy), $30.  Then we got an additional 6 wings soy garlic wings, $8.  We also ordered the Kimchi fries, which wasn't on the menu.  And we got the mac & cheese and the asian coleslaw.  I thought all the sides were ok.  And you end up eating them all because it takes so long for the fried chicken to come out, you basically devour all the sides and don't really have much room for the main course.  I had about 6 wings.  So did the guys.  The wings were actually pretty up there on taste.  Not your average fried chicken.  The skin is nice and crispy and sweet.  Tehy were pretty good, but there was no way we were going to finish it all.  We took all the drumsticks home and the next day, they were even more tasty!

So overall, I thought it was a fun experience.  The true test to all of these fried chicken places is if I go back for seconds!  We shall see...

Drexel House (Highland Village)

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I had visited Drexel House for the first time months ago and totally forgot to blog about it.  So here it finally is!  We visited on a Saturday for a mid day snack after reading an article on their revised menu.  On arriving we really liked the atmosphere.  It was a little cold and seating inside was full so we were directed outside and it was just a little uncomfortable, but ok for the most part.  We thought the service was pretty bad.  We were rotated through 3 servers and finally the third server actually brought out what he said he was going to bring out.  We did like the Kale salad and the cheese plate.  The bread was ho hum, but I did like the selection of cheeses.  Overall, I did like the place and will be back.  

Houston Marathon Sunday & City Dog Park!

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Went out to root on the runners.  It's always a favorite event of mine.  Usually, I like being apart of the race, but due to an unexpected illness I could not make it.  These guys pictured here were so great.  They really pumped up the runners by creating this tunnel and chanting "beat that hill, beat that hill!"  What great cheerers!  The best I have ever seen.  And great job the runners!  Oh and this guy...what a super nice cheering crowd, he saw this runner on the side trying to stretch out his calf an went over to him and asked he needed his calf massaged.  I'm telling you, Houston has one of the best cheering crowds!

On the way there, I learned that the new 1.5M city dog park is officially open!  It has a large and small dog section.  It was really cool to see it all completed.  It's really nice isn't it?  Literally, I blinked and it was suddenly there!  Look at this cute pup!  I have never seen this breed.  It's a chihuahua and poodle mix.  He was super duper cute!  And look at how nice Buffalo Bayou look this weekend!  So beautiful!  I love this city!  It's becoming more beautiful by the day.

Selma

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In honor of MLK Day, I went to Sundance Cinema to watch Selma at 130pm in the afternoon.  The entire theater was packed!  The good thing about Sundance is you can purchase your ticket and pick your seat in advance!  Back to the movie...wow, what an inspiring story!  MLK Jr. has always been one of my biggest heros and this movie just reminds me of his human and courageous resolve.  Loved the movie!  Go watch it!

Woodbar (Montrose)

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From the owners of Shade and Canopy.  They have a small bar bites menu and I was told a dinner menu, but we just stopped by just for wine and cheese.  Doesn't this cheese plate look awesome?  The cheeses were ok, the bread was fantastic as well as all the other fun items, jam, nuts, honey, grapes, super great and delicious.  I got the Red Passione and loved it!  Super full bodied and fruity, I loved loved it!  It's a cute place, they also have pastries and coffee during the day.  Also, Woodbar is connected to Canopy.  I do plan to revisit for the daytime goodies!