Alison Cook posted a first look at Pico’s Bakery and Taqueria, which has become a regular destination for me since it opened a few weeks ago.

I am slowly working my way through the menu, but breakfast and Katz’s Coffee is still the best reason to visit Pico’s Bakery, at least in the morning. Along with the chilaquiles and eggs platters at Gorditas Aguas Calientes about a mile away on Bissonnet they make for one of the best Mexican breakfasts in town.

 
The tinga and chilorio meat was as expertly crafted as the cochinita pibil at Pico’s the restaurant, but lack of anything other than meat in the burrito and the generic tortilla didn’t hold my interest. I suspect I’ll get more mileage from the tortas and tacos.

What Pico’s Bakery does exceptionally well at night are the desserts. Like Alison Cook, I am not the biggest fan of Mexican pastries, but the cakes at Pico’s can be truly outstanding.

For some reason Houston has a dearth of independently owned bakeries. For a while, Rustika turned out some of the cakes in town, but seemed to have lost it’s way a few years ago. Turns out there is a reason for that.

 
According to Arnaldo Richards, who owns Pico’s, the woman who did most of the baking at Rustika left around that time.  After some time away from a commercial kitchen, she has partnered with the Pico’s crew to open a bakery. And that’s how Houston got one of it’s best cake masters back.

If you see the chocolate tres leches, grab a few slices. It’s unbelievably good.

I was irritated with Frank Bruni. How could someone with so much insight about food be so obviously pig headed?

Bruni’s enthusiasm for Bazaar may have matched my own when he named it one of the best new restaurants in the country, but I was stunned when Feast became his next pick. I am huge Feast fan, but Houston is not entirely visitor friendly and many restaurants deserving national attention are often overlooked as a result. It was great to see NY Times venture outside of their familiar stomping grounds. The only thing that really bugged me was that Bruni pandering to his base when he described Houston as the “land of big steaks and bold Tex-Mex”. Is the elitist attitude really necessary?

Every time someone makes such a sweeping generalization, I want to show them what the real Houston looks like in just one part of the city – the new Chinatown. Not the usual collection of pseudo-Chinese restaurants and gift shops that occupy a tidy span of 7 or 8 city blocks, but an entire city where real people live and eat. A place where pho, pupusas, boiled crawfish, dim sum and beignets very naturally occupy the same stretch of the road.

Vietnamese and cajun cultures collide at Boiling Crab

Frank Bruni, in particular, could also use a visit to Rainbow Lodge, so he can see the formation of the wholly new brand of Gulf Coast cuisine created without the benefit of fanfare that surrounds young NYC wunderkinds like David Chang. Great food is becoming as much the foundation of this city as oil and much of it is grounded in the diverse cultures of it’s residents.

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Restaurants live and die by the personal ambitions of their chefs more than they care to admit. Some aim to be the best in the city, content with the reward of perpetually packed dining rooms, while others push on to compete on a national stage. Komi aims to occupy this space and Johnny Mannis’ obsession with perfect execution and purity of ingredients earns his restaurant the right to be mentioned in the same conversation with such names as Manresa and Vetri. While Komi is clearly a work in progress, few restaurants in today can make such claim.

Since opening in 2004, Mannis has halved the number of seats to 38 and doubled the prices. The cost isn’t extreme, you can easily spend twice the amount at Citronelle, but few can afford to make dinner here a regular affair. None of the changes, not even an economic recession or a new administration in the White House, has made a dent in the restaurants’ popularity – Komi is still booked solid weeks in advance.

Komi hopes to provide an elevated experience and the uneasy showmanship is perhaps the singular weakness at Komi. The candle lit dining room set in an old brownstone looks theatric (direct throwback to Vetri), but hides the visual dimension of the food. The wait staff warn that photos of the food are not allowed, lest they spoil the surprise for future diners. I find this trend of self-aggrandizing chefs dictating what I do with my food highly annoying. After sampling the food at the photophobic and photoloving restaurants alike, I’ll go out on the limb and say that the creations they are trying hardest to protect are not all that unique. Meanwhile, the unreasonable rules imposed by the restaurant leave more than a slight bitter taste in your mouth.

I stopped my whining as soon as the first few plates of mezzethakia, Komi-speak for a progression of small tastes before the main courses, began to arrive. I couldn’t figure out  why the two nearly identical sashimi ribbons of aji and kampachi seemed so familar at first. Turns out Mannis spent some time working for Michael Kraemer at McCrady’s, who uses the same preparation to this day at Voice.

Even if the intended arc of the mezzethakia doesn’t always come together, the individual parts can be outstanding. The two small quenelles of hanger steak tartar and black truffle ice cream are a nod to French Laundry and other European inflected, but decidedly American restaurants, in terms of flavor, form and flawless execution. The salmon tartare required a little editing to eliminate the overwhelming sweetness of the candied pine nuts, but the rest of the dish, finished with sea urchin vinaigrette and frozen shiso leaf sorbet, brought a remarkable dimension to one of the most overused fish varieties today. Similarly impressive were the sashimi of diver scallops served in two preparations, one with black truffles and the other suspended in gelee and finished with sea urchin, seamlessly blending the best tastes of the earth and the sea. The fried Caesar salad taken in one bite may not have delivered much of the anticipated anchovy or Parmesan flavor, but the steamed brioche with Meyer lemon mousse and trout roe was as ethereal as it was stunning.

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It’s odd to call someone with as much experience as Bryan Caswell a new chef, but that’s exactly what Food & Wine magazine did yesterday when they chose him as one of the 10 Best New Chefs of 2009.

I don’t take awards very seriously, but this one seems to be the real deal. The 10 Best New Chefs chosen annually by Food & Wine tend to have real talent and usually go on to have stellar careers for years to come. Most tellingly, Food & Wine editors somehow avoid the coastal trap James Beard Awards so predictably fall into every year (Caswell was bounced out from the list of final nominees to make room for chefs in Las Vegas who share the Southwestern region with Houston – WTF?) and go out of their way to find truly great food around the country.

Carnitas, cooling raita at Reef

In a lot of ways the “new” designation makes perfect sense. Caswell spent years working in the Jean-Georges Vongrichten empire, but Reef is where he really began to cook his own food. Reef channels Houston at it’s best – an effortless blend of Gulf Coast ingredients and cooking traditions inflected with international flavors found in all corners of this giant city.  Visitors may never truly get a feel for the real Houston the way the locals do, but restaurants like Reef, Catalan, Rainbow Lodge, Beaver’s and soon to be open Haven give them the best chance to get a taste. There are a handful of chefs defining Gulf Coast cuisine in Houston and Bryan Caswell is right in the thick of things.

Jalapeno mint jelly at Reef

Peel away the layers of national recognition and Reef’s critical acclaim and you find a guy who spends his free time in the Gulf Coast waters, obsessing about often overlooked local fish species. Or opening unassuming burger shacks that show an uncommon understanding of what really works in Houston.

Sweet potato and bacon ravioli, 
Oloroso sherry, green apple at Reef

Reef is a great place to eat, but few restaurants have become instant classics as quickly as Caswell’s latest venture – Little Big’s. The slider shack has only been open for a few short months, but on a recent night during March Madness a large crowd was gathered around a rear projection TV on the patio. It looked as if Little Big’s had been a fixture on Montrose for years. The night I picked up my very tired new puppy from the airport, Little Big’s seemed like the most natural place for a late night dinner.

Zoe’s first night at Little Big’s

The sliders at Little Big’s are a mirror image of the ones served at Reef. Given all the things to sample on the Reef menu, I never paid much attention to them until my company booked our holiday party at the 3rd Bar. I ended up eating four that night. I have always thought the concept of tiny burgers was a little silly, but for me the perfect burger comes down to good meat and the right beef to bread ratio. Little Big’s nails it on both of those counts with freshly ground beef and big yeasty rolls.

Little Big’s is almost universally loved – the only complaint you ever hear is that the beef sliders sometimes come out a little dry; most likely a side effect of the Big’s kitchen running at near capacity at all times. I found little to complain about on my first visit strategically timed at 6pm to avoid the rush. The fries are some of the best in town, walking a fine line between being crisp and hopelessly over fried. The chocolate milk shake was exemplary. The staff at Big’s were already overrun with orders that night,  but my sliders were  cooked to medium and still made a respectable mess.

Slider trio at Little Big’s

The beef was a bit more dry on the second visit, but even though I prefer burgers medium rare, the meat is of high enough quality that it tastes good even when cooked a bit beyond ideal temperature. I think at this point it comes down to figuring out just the right combination of toppings before these things are perfectly tailored my tastes. Jalapeno, Sriracha mayo and processed American cheese? If Big’s only served processed American cheese…

In any case. The Food & Wine blurb on Caswell mentions that his dream is to open to 2,000 sq foot oyster bar. Given his successful interpretation of Houston’s fast food with Little Big’s, I for one hope he takes on the taco truck next instead.

Today is the first anniversary for Feast. One year in business is rarely a special occasion for anyone but the owners, but Feast is a special restaurant.

Some months ago I was having a dinner at Moto in Chicago and got into a conversation with a couple from London who wanted to know if the food served at Moto was widely accepted in the US. I did my best to provide some context: Chicago may have the most progressive diners in the country, but even Alinea relies on a steady stream of visitors who specifically seek out a special occasion meal. Something they normally wouldn’t eat in their hometown.

The couple from UK was a good example. They were clearly knowledgeable about food and made it a point to arrange their travel itinerary around various restaurants. They were genuinely thrilled that Chicago had a whole street (!) full of Vietnamese restaurants and listened with a certain level of disbelief when I described Houston’s Chinatown. The food at Moto blew them away and they marveled at just how open minded US diners must be.

They were even more surprised to learn that I had been to a restaurant in their own neighborhood in London. Living in Smithfield they had passed by St John countless times, but never went in. I tried to convince them that British food is finally getting the respect it deserves, and while it may not be “new” it’s certainly new to most people, but they seemed to have their doubts. Fergus Henderson may have touched off  one of the most important cooking directions today, but even he can’t necessarily convince people in his own neighborhood that British food is worth eating.

This is what makes the first anniversary of Feast a special occasion. The restaurant isn’t merely surviving, they have a loyal and growing following in Houston -  a city with virtually no tourists. Good things are happening to the dining scene in Houston in the midst of a recession and Feast is just one example.

I have written about Feast many times  before and not going to wax even more poetic about their charms. I do want to show a couple of exemplary dishes I had at Feast last night that highlight why it’s such a great place to eat.

Rabbit Shoulders Confit

If you have had the duck neck at Feast before, you’ll recognize the the cooking method used here. This dish is easier to eat and works even better, because there is enough meat to develop a whole range of texture – from tender to fully caramelized – as it slowly poaches in oil.

Smoked Barracuda Tail

The smoked Barracuda tail is the first smoked fish to appear on the Feast menu, but its already one of my favorite items. The meat is firm, sort of like a cross between whitefish and swordfish, but the best part is that the tailbones are coated in a nice bit of gelatinous fish fat. If you see this on a menu, order it. It will be the best $3 you have spent in a very long time.

Eating the local cats

Several days ago Randy Rucker left this comment to my post about Manresa:

guess you just forgot about “us” local cats…

I am sure Randy is only half serious – two weeks ago I had dinner at Rainbow Lodge, not once but twice in one weekend. Still, I wanted to reply in some detail.

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