Food Fight 24/7! Biba's vs. Katz's

Biba's One's A Meal lands right in the middle of lower Westheimer, taking on not just one, but two, neighborhood heavyweights.

What's not to love about Biba's One's A Meal? It is, after all, a Houston institution. John Katsimikis has been serving up gyros, pizzas, pancakes, opinions, and personal advice to generations of families, hipsters, neighborhood miscreants and drunken party-goers for what seems like forever.

Of course the W. Gray location was showing its age for some time. The announcement that Biba's would be moving to 812 Montrose, in the old Rouge restaurant space, was met with great anticipation by Biba's many regulars.

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It seems to be a successful move. A recent Saturday morning visit found John presiding over everything and the tables filled with regulars.

The new location, when considered by itself, looks like a great move. Montrose and Westheimer is a great place for a 24-hour diner. But when taken in context, the location proves to be quite interesting. Not 200 feet away, of course, is the 500 pound gorilla of 24-hour Houston diner/delis — Katz's. Is there enough of a market in this area for two 24-hour diners side-by-side? Probably. Anyway, it should be interesting to watch this competition play out.

But Biba's is not just a diner, it's also a Greek restaurant. And again, the new location is provocative to say the least. Not 2 blocks away is the 500 pound gorilla of Houston Greek restaurants — Niko Niko's. Is there a big enough market for 2 Greek restaurants in such close proximity? Very probably, considering the ubiquitous long lines at Niko's.

Update 11/17/08: Today Alison Cook added Biba's chili cheeseburger to her ongoing list of burger reviews.

Link Feast: 11.14.08

The High Price of Cheap Food - Ironically, high food prices makes Americans fat, not skinny.

Chocolate-covered Bacon - 'nuff said.

Chocolate in the Boondocks - This has foodie road-trip written all over it.

Best Seafood Restaurant: Reef - So says Bon Appetit. They decided. And an excellent decision it was.

Houston-area Restaurants Tightening Their Belts - Pun intended?

Stealthy Shrinking of Containers Keeps Prices from Rising - Just confirms what many of us suspected already.

Grotesquely Overpriced Bunny-food Emporium - Hilarious, Brit-style send-up of Whole Foods.

Sartin's gets a shout-out from the Dirty South

Errr, I mean the "New South" as defined by the provocatively titled Garden & Gun Magazine.

When I got a tip about an interesting new Southern lifestyle magazine called Garden & Gun, I immediately envisioned big...haired women in American-flag bikinis posing with assault rifles. But to my surprise it was a nicely-designed website with professional features and copy. Promising.

Of specific interest was a feature called 100 Southern Foods You Absolutely, Positively Must Try Before You Die. It's a groovy interactive map of the South spotlighting foodie joints. And not just the usual, expected highlights of Southern cuisine, but some real unexpected finds.

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Of personal interest to me was one of 3 entries for seafood in Texas: Sartin's in Nederland, home of the all-you-can-eat Barbecue Crab platter. For anyone who grew up in deep Southeast Texas, the name "Sartin's" has a special meaning. Starting with its slogan "Giving people crabs since 1971," the often colorful and always delicious history of Sartin's belies a dedication to a unique culinary art that originated in the tiny town of Sabine Pass, Texas.

A "Barbecue Crab" is, of course, a misnomer. There is no smoke or grilling involved. Back in the 1940s a cook at Granger's Restaurant in Sabine Pass had the inspired idea to take a cleaned blue crab — plentiful along the Gulf Coast — smother it in a dry rub traditionally made up of Sexton's Alamo Zestful Seasoning, and then deep fry it to crispy perfection.

Many years later, in the 1970s, Sartin's Seafood restaurant in Sabine Pass took up the cause and perfected the BBQ Crab with their own secret rub. From there, Sartin's restaurants opened throughout Southeast Texas, including Beaumont where I grew up and came to love the heapin' helpin' of all-you-can-eat BBQ crab.

In the ensuing years, hurricanes and family squabbles have divided Sartin's into the Nederland Sartin's and then a number of Sartin's around Beaumont and Houston. Not unexpectedly, litigation ensued over the Sartin's trademark (if any city has more lawyers than Houston, it's Beaumont).

The original Sartin's Restaurant in Beaumont on the Eastex freeway was toppled by Hurricane Rita in 2005. Many memories of my misspent youth were toppled with it. I remember the long picnic tables decorated only with rolls of paper towels, paper plates, and plastic bibs, with the young waitresses in t-shirts and shorts carrying towering trays of BBQ crabs to your table. Of particular note: this is where the plan for my first business was hatched on November 26th, 1994. Sketched up on the back of a paper plate (rather than on the back of a napkin — it's a SE Texas thing), the presentation didn't exactly impress any VC's so we ended up bootstrapping it. That business is still around today.

If only the original Sartin's could have lasted as long.

New Foodie Destination: Lone Star Culinary

This self-proclaimed "spice market" is a great new resource for Houston's foodie culture.

Lone Star Culinary
2503 Link Rd. (at Airline, across from Canino's)
Houston, TX 77009

So I was walking back to my car at Canino Market this weekend and glancing across Airline Drive my eye caught the words "spice market." For a foodie, the words "spice market" are always a good sign. Visions of frankincense and myrrh, Marco Polo and the spice road, the Grand Bazaar in Instanbul, spice-laden camel caravans in Yemen all come to mind. OK, this wasn't quite so romantic, but Lone Star Culinary, as this spice market is called, is a great new destination for vicarious foodie travel.

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Once inside, one whole wall of the store is given over to powdered spices. It's an impressive lineup. The store has only been open for about a month so some of the containers have yet to be filled, but the breadth and depth of this spice collection is great.

The opposite wall of the store is home to an encyclopedic collection of dried herbs, spices and teas. What wall space that's left over is filled with a flat screen TV tuned to the Food Network. Nice touch.

The center of the store has shelves containing interesting foodie gewgaws and knickknacks, many of an Hispanic and Mexican-American variety.

I encourage all my fellow Houston Foodies to patronize Lone Star Culinary. This is a great addition to the Houston Foodie scene.

Whole Foods gets a bailout; Luby's doesn't - yet

Not unexpectedly, the economic tough times are taking a toll on high-end supermarkets like Whole Foods. But there's always someone willing to throw good money after bad.

Whole Foods had a bad quarter. No big surprise. Fortunately a sugar-daddy stepped in with a wad of cash to provide the "financial flexibility to manage through these difficult economic times." We'll see.

For a hilarious take on the Whole Foods phenomenon including the recent troubles, check out Tim Hayward at the Gaurdian. He actually called Whole Foods a "grotesquely overpriced bunny-food emporium." And I thought I was hard on Whole Foods!

Meanwhile, Luby's reported a 3.7 million dollar loss for the quarter. Ouch. I guess the price increase hasn't kicked in yet.

Link Feast: 11.7.08

Eat and Tell - Lengthy article about Yelp but nothing we didn't already know.

Regis Philbin as Gordon Ramsay? - One of the more bizarre foodie videos you will ever see. Hey Reg, you could at least use a British accent!

A waiter's tips to New York - Some things never change: Scarfing down a Bistro burger after a late night waiting tables in NY.

Presidential Polling Through Food and Drink - Rumor has it that these polls were more accurate than Fox News polls! Ha!

Campaign Cuisine: See Obama And McCain Eat... A Lot - Can you look presidential while eating porkchop-on-a-stick?

Foodie Movies: Big Night

Few movies speak to the inner-most passions of the true foodie like cult favorite Big Night.

In addition to being an insightful and entertaining film, Big Night, the story of Italian restaurateur brothers in 1950s New Jersey, is loaded with memorable quotes.

"Bite your teeth into the ass of life!"

"A guy works all day, he don't want to look at his plate and ask, 'What the f--- is this?' He wants to look at his plate, see a steak, and say 'I like steak!'"

"Give people what they want, then later you can give them what you want."

All of these quotes and many others help to define the many plot twists, themes and messages of this classic Foodie Movie.

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This movie does not reinvent the wheel when it comes to plot and story. It addresses the usual subjects: human relationships between siblings, lovers, husbands, wives, artists, businessmen. However its genius comes from the way it represents those relationships — always within the framework of food, cuisine, cooking, and by extension happiness, pleasure, and passion.

The eclectic but perfectly chosen cast includes the legendary Isabella Rossellini, a then-unknown Marc Anthony, pre-Monk Tony Shalhoub, and the incomparable Ian Holm.

Foodie Favorite: Yes