THE YEAR IN BURGERS

Houston Chronicle restaurant critic Alison Cook graded 29 burgers from A to F during 2021. Here are the ones to try and others that didn't quite pass the taste test.

By Alison Cook | Dec. 28, 2021 | Updated: Dec. 28, 2021 12:14 PM

Say what you want about 2021 — and I could say plenty — it was another vintage year for Houston hamburgers.

In times of uncertainty, a good burger offers a certain timeless reassurance; a promise that old familiar pleasures still apply. I needed that this year. I'm guessing you did, too.

My quest for the latest and greatest took me to the four corners of the Greater Metropolitan Statistical Area and beyond, from Willowbend to the Northside, Memorial to Fifth Ward, Katy to Acres Homes.

And the quest never ends. Here’s just a taste of what makes Burger Friday worth celebrating in Houston.

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GRADE: A+

93 Til

Alison Cook/Houston Chronicle
And now for a Burger Friday that’s completely different: a paean to the only fried-chicken sandwich I’ve ever cared about.
Well, almost the only fried-chicken sandwich I’ve ever cared about, if you don’t consider the chicken-on-a-biscuit situation they used to serve at the late, great Morningstar.
I realize this is, nominally, a burger column. And no, I do not believe any hunk of protein inserted into a bun-and-condiments context constitutes a burger, whether said protein be tuna, tofu, fried chicken or otherwise.
A burger involves beef, and I’m not gonna argue about that.
However, this week’s scheduled burger experience came to a crashing logistical halt due to online ordering complications you really, really do not want to know about. I was disconsolate. The sun was setting. My day, not to mention my 30-mile round trip, had gone poorly.
And then, dear readers, I thought of it: the fried chicken sandwich I had eaten at 93 Til, the ultra-casual bistro and record lounge opened in December by co-chefs Gary Ly and Lung Ly.
The memory stretched across the miles and disappointment and impelled me to drive directly to the corner of Mandell and West Main, where massive live oaks conjure the spirit of Old Montrose.
I suppose my brain had been jogged by the much-buzzed-about debut of celebrity chef David Chang’s Fuku fried-chicken-sandwich delivery service this past Wednesday, and the fact that I had been thinking grumpily about the topic of fried chicken sandwiches as latterday fetish objects.
But mostly I just wanted to eat 93 Til’s fried chicken sandwich again. To see if I really liked it as much as I thought I did. With apologies and obeisances to the burger gods, here’s how that went.
GRADE: A+

Georgia James Tavern

I admit that I flinched a little when I saw a $25 Tavern Burger listed on the menu at Georgia James Tavern, the new downtown sibling of chef Chris Shepherd’s Georgia James steakhouse.
Prices for beef — and everything else — have climbed lately, so I’ve had to make some mental adjustments. In the waning days of 2021, just where does a burger price cross the line that makes me nervous?
Not so long ago, a $16 price tag seemed like the upper end of the category I think of as “chef burgers.” Those are the ones with carefully sourced beef, often locally or regionally raised; and fancy-ish trimmings, often made in-house; and a name-brand pedigree attached.
We’ve blown past that $16 marker now, and we seem to be heading into the twenties.
Within the past year or so I’ve written about Olivier Ciesielski’s $19 cheeseburger at the late Avalon Food & Wine, and the similarly priced Dry-Aged Beef Burger at Bludorn. Still, the prospect of paying 25 bucks for the Georgia James Tavern Burger filled me with unease.
This, I told myself, had better be good. No, make that “great.”
Here’s what happened.
GRADE: A+

Monkey’s Tail

It’s playoff season, and I was scouting a likely spot for readers to watch the Astros run for the pennant as I pulled into the parking lot at Monkey’s Tail.
The Fulton Street cocktail bar and beer joint is tucked into the southeast quadrant where Interstate 45 meets Loop 610, just above Lindale Park. In an area where new bars and restaurants have been popping up for the past several years, Monkey’s Tail was a ground-breaker.
It still matters, thanks to the talents of head bartender Lainey Collum and director of operations Steven Ripley, an experienced chef who has put in time at the Federal Grill and Helen Greek Food & Wine. I first ran into him 7 years ago on the patio of D&T Drive Inn, where he was running a really good Steak Night operation. (Yes, he does a ribeye version Mondays at Monkey’s Tail, with a baked potato, elote and chimichurri.)
Ripley has been running all sorts of specials during the ALCS. Today’s, starting at noon, will be dollar hot dogs and $18 Crawford Bock buckets.
And the patio setup is sweet, with lots of space and Day of the Dead banners, umbrella-shaded tables and an assortment of big-screen TVs. I could imagine myself watching the game here, and eating a Chango Burger or two. (Chango means “monkey “in Spanish, of course.) Allow me to explain why:
GRADE: A

The Butcher’s Burger

By the time I arrived at The Butcher’s Burger, they had already crossed out the lamb birria burger on their short menu. The burger anchored by a grilled slab of halloumi cheese had been eight-sixed, too.
It was only 30 minutes after the Post Houston food hall, newly opened in the revamped Barbara Jordan Post Office downtown, had opened its doors on Sunday. “Big Saturday?” I teased one of the staffers.
“It was nonstop from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m.,” she told me.
Fortunately the basic burger I had come to sample was still on offer. And although the dining hall was filling up fast at tables around the luminous central stairwell — it looks like a neon-limned chandelier in some intergalactic ice palace — there was no line at the burger spot.
I was drawn hither by the pedigree of proprietors Ben Runkle and Bryan Butler, whose nine-year-old Salt & Time butcher shop and restaurant in East Austin is highly regarded. They buy their beef, lamb, pork and fowl whole from Texas ranches that practice humane husbandry and environmental stewardship. Then they cut, age, cure, dry and smoke in-house, whence cometh the “Salt & Time” name.
I figured their Classic Burger ground daily from steak trimmings, a staple in Austin, was a must-try.
And it was. Here’s how my first visit to Post Houston went.
GRADE: A

Chuckwagon BBQ and Burgers

This week I ate a halal burger dressed in jalapeño ranch, while enclosed in a booth that looked like my own miniature Conestoga covered wagon.
Being able to write a sentence like that is why I love living in Houston.
Who could be bored in this sprawling megalopolis, where a winding drive across what used to be the Katy prairie leads, eventually, to a strip center where the occupants are a bao shop, a Vietnamese cafe, a gyros joint and Chuckwagon BBQ and Burgers, the domain of pitmaster Waseem Hilal?
I ask you.
Hilal is a graduate of the Houston Community College’s culinary program, and he compiled a wild resume (Hotel Granduca, Max’s Wine Dive, sous chef at Tobiuo Sushi) before buying Chuckwagon two years ago. Smoked meat runs in the family, because Hilal's father — who was working in the kitchen the day I visited — owned a barbecue spot called Charlie’s back in the day. The shop, in a district of broad-shouldered houses called Canyon Lakes at Cardiff Ranch, had a built-in clientele, which made it less risky for a first-time owner.
Hilal had the good sense to keep the charming, mini-chuckwagon booths that lined the space. Classic country music in a Grand Ole Opry vein fills the modest room, where a westward-ho-the-wagons mural adorns the back wall, and barbed-wire encloses the pendant lamps that hang from a high ceiling.
But Hilal has put his own stamp on the menu, which runs from the barbecue classics to the kind of exuberant, stunty mashups beloved of young people and their smart phones. He’s adopted the kind of new-wave specials young Houston pitmasters have added to our local repertoire — a smoked pastrami Reuben; beef-belly burnt ends; a brisket burrito; a “Dino” beef rib on weekends.
And he’s chosen to serve beef that’s halal, the better to serve the Islamic community woven into this affluent Western suburb, where the global mix of residents has spawned nicknames like “Katyzuela.” The beef is cooked and cut separately.
Hilal even has a “Secret Menu” that’s printed right out, so that it’s not really a secret at all, which cracks me up. That’s where items like the Hot Cheetos Burrito, the Mexican Street Corn and the Orange, Black and Blue Fries live. (Don’t ask.)
It’s also where I spied my Pico Burger. I ordered it with cheddar instead of the regulation pepperjack cheese. Here’s how it stacked up.
GRADE: Solid A

Feges BBQ

There’s enough ferment and creativity in Houston’s barbecue community right now to power a Blue Origin rocket.
One place to sample the latest and greatest is the sleek new brick-and-mortar home of Feges BBQ, which began its life in the Greenway Plaza Food Hall before adding this impressive location in Spring Branch.
The genius of Feges has always resided in the proprietors’ unique blend of talents. Here’s your modern Houston mom and pop: a decorated veteran, Patrick Feges, who’s also a veteran pitmaster; and a skilled chef, Erin Smith, who honed her skills and her wine knowledge in New York at Per Se and Babbo. At Greenway, Smith’s inventive sides were as much of a draw as Feges’ brisket and whole hog.
Together they’ve fashioned an opening menu that offers everything from a classic barbecue feed to a sit-down dinner experience, complete with a smartly chosen wine list.
I went for the double-double cheeseburger I’d been eyeing on various Instagram Feeds, especially after a Twitter friend declared it “an absolute unit of a sandwich,” and Feges confessed to having eaten three in one week.
My partner in crime dined on a fabulous porcini-crusted hanger steak, served precisely medium rare on a lively tumble of romesco sauce, roasted cauliflower and deeply caramelized onion. There’s a big, gleaming kitchen behind the semi-serve counter, and it is turning out serious food like this.
That burger, though. Here’s how it stacked up.
GRADE: A

FM Kitchen & Bar

Big fancy chef burgers are all well and good.
You know, the kind with whomping 8-ounce patty-slabs of pedigreed beef, and maybe some highly respectable (artisanal, even!) cheese on top. Not to mention a price tag in the double digits.
But having consumed a spate of these colossi lately, I was in the mood for what I think of as an everyday burger: compact and priced in the mid-single-digits, the patty weighing in at 4 to 6 ounces, the kind of sandwich you can wolf down in a flash with no juggling (let alone forks) required.
Such a burger should, in my cosmology, leave you feeling pleasantly sated instead of stuffed, so that you can enjoy some fries or onion rings, too, without having to be rolled out in a wheelbarrow.
Only a few years ago, I would have stipulated that such a burger be priced at around five bucks. But the prices have been creeping up, as prices do, especially when there is beef involved. One of my favorites of the everyday variety, the cheeseburger from Cantina Barba, now costs $6 for a four-ounce version. So it’s still holding the line.
Another fave, from Burger Chan — currently operating out of Click Virtual Food Hall as they prep to open their brick and mortar — now costs $9 for the 5-ounce cheeseburger. It’s teetering on the edge of Everydayness, barely.
The cheeseburger at FM Kitchen & Bar leaped into my everyday pantheon from the moment I tried back in the autumn of 2017.
It cost $5.89 back then, and it was made according to then-chef Ryan Hildebrand’s exacting specs, with an expertly griddled 4-ounce patty of brisket, chuck and sirloin and an invigorating “Sssssh Sauce,” a blend of mayo, mustard and ketchup kicked up with minced pickle.
Hildebrand moved on to life in Wimberley, where he’s soon to open his own restaurant. But when FM Kitchen launched a second location in Montrose five weeks ago, with an expanded bar and an updated menu of Texas comfort cuisine — yeah, I said cuisine, come fight me —I wondered if Hildebrand’s burger legacy had lived on.
Here’s what I found.
GRADE: A

Hangar Kitchen

I had Bulldog Sauce on my chin as I drove down Telephone Road from Hangar Kitchen, plus a grin I couldn’t wipe off my face.
It wasn’t just that I had taken a bite, then two, then three of an exceptional burger made by this six-month old venture alongside Hobby Airport, and that it had splooshed forth a the cheerful amalgam of mayo, mustard, ketchup and barbecue sauce that goes into the house sauce.
It was that the Hangar Kitchen proprietor turned out to be the effervescent young Dmitri Papadoupoulos— son of Anestis Papadoupoulous, who launched a brave but short-lived little Greek spot in my corner of the East End 10 years ago.
I had loved El Greco and mourned when partner trouble ended its run. I still thought about its supernal taramasalata wondered about Anestis when I drove by the storefront.
Well, here was his son, who told me Anestis often dropped by Hangar Kitchen near closing time; which explained the lavish, spectacularly fresh Greek salad I had spotted on the restaurant’s online menu and ordered on a whim.
That salad turned out to be ample enough to feed an entire modest-sized household. And I returned home not just caught up on the Papadopoulos family, but with a passel of fine housemade desserts, a cold can of Mini Boss from Eureka Heights Brew Co. and a brand-new favorite to add to my Houston burger panoply.
Here’s how it went.
GRADE: A

Night Shift

A great bar should have a great burger. That’s axiomatic.
Night Shift, the meticulous new East End cocktail hangout from Justin Ware and Patrick Abalos, checks that important box. The catch is that the burger pops up on chef Danny Leal’s menu on Mondays only — making it Burger Monday, if you will.
The burgers start sizzling when the doors open at 4 p.m., and they go until late-night, as in 1:45 a.m. … or sell-out.
At seven bucks, the cheeseburger is a deal in this era of ever-inflating prices. Not to mention that it’s an excuse to enjoy Night Shift’s convivial counter, moody industrial-look interior, or brand-new roof deck, with its downtown views.
You can even check out the gallery space next door where Night Shift will launch four-count-’em-four holiday pop-up cocktail rooms — each with its own tiki theme and décor — under the rubric Sippin’ Santa. It’s part of a nationwide phenomenon that began at New York City’s Boilermaker bar in 2015.
Night Shift’s version begins just before Thanksgiving, on Wednesday, Nov. 22, and it will be by reservation only, via Resy. And yes, there will be bar bites superintended by the talented Leal.
In the meantime, be sure to ask for his “Chef’s Burger,” because it has the bells and whistles that give this neatly packaged, four-ounce semi-smashy burger its personality. (There’s a regular ol’ classic burger, too.)
Here’s how my Burger Monday went at Night Shift.
GRADE: A

Peaky Grinders

When I first saw the name “Peaky Grinders” pop up among the food vendors at the new Railway Heights Market, I thought they were going to be selling submarine sandwiches. Where I grew up, in Vermont, “grinders” were what we called heroes or subs.
But no: Here, the punning name that plays off the British Netflix series refers to the house-ground beef patties that anchor their burgers — and to their house-ground hot dogs, too. I’ll allow it.
I was eager to see the airy two-story market hall that opened this summer in Cottage Grove, on a curve where Washington Avenue segues into Hempstead Road. The whole area is developing so rapidly that just getting there can feel like an urban obstacle course.
It’s a worthy adventure. The market hall with its second-story food and drink kiosks has been opening in stages over the past few months, and there’s an inviting balcony dining deck where you can catch the fall breezes and watch the sunset.
There’s a good mix of food options that’s ongoing, too. I spotted Ben McPherson of Bravery Chef Hall pasta-and-pizza fame, looking frazzled. He said he had just opened his BOH Slice pizza kiosk that very day. Then he dashed off as if he were going to put out a fire. Here’s how that worked out.
GRADE: Solid A

White Elm Cafe Bakery

The phrase jumped out from the burger description on White Elm Cafe’s website as if it had been written in 20-point red type: “bone marrow butter.”
Shortly thereafter — OK, very shortly thereafter — I sat in the bakery-cafe’s parking lot on the corner of Memorial Drive and Kirkwood with said bone marrow butter dripping down my chin.
I had just planted a whopping bite into a house cheeseburger that immediately leaped into my Houston pantheon. Beside me in the passenger seat, I had duck-fat fries and a flock of Francophiliac takeout items to get me through the weekend.
The sun was shining, making the cheddar cheese glisten gold from the burger’s perch on my dashboard, and I could see the straight-cut sides of the beef patty glisten with juice.
Life, for the moment, was good. Come west with me, to this good-looking bakery cafe run by Chez Nous chef-owners Scott and Stacy Simonson and their chef de cuisine, Jesus Salinas, and find out why.
GRADE: A-

Big Ben Tavern

Lest my dedication to Burger Friday be in question, let it be known that this week I drove 30 miles in a serious rainstorm to check out a $5 burger.
Originally, the foray wasn’t supposed to be about a $5 burger, that vanishingly rare chimera of American life. I was drawn to Big Ben Tavern in Sugar Land, near the manicured lakeside precincts of Telfair, by the promise of wild-sounding Desi ideas from chef Kaliamat Kallatt. He was, I was told, doing “Gulf Coast/Malabar Coast” fusion takes on everything from boiled crawfish to French fries, by virtue of his signature “Four Pepper Sauce.”
That sounded like fun. So did a burger I spotted on an online menu: the “Hot Mess Burger,” replete with “yellow curry sauce” and “spicy fries.” What’s more, the casual beer-focused tavern served up ideas like paneer tikka kebabs, featuring my beloved subcontinental pressed farmer’s cheese; and quesadillas stuffed with butter chicken, that most comforting of Indian specialties.
I was in. Come rain, come high water, come thunderbooms, all of which manifested during my epic journey.
Come along and see what awaited me at this Sugar Land hangout, with its improbable 19th-centuryish facade and its strings of white lights festooned across a front dining deck, its golden “Crawfish” banner flapping in the gale.
GRADE: A-

Love Shack

The sun was slipping below the western horizon when I found a parking space in front of Levy Park.
The weather was sublime, 80 degrees with a silky breeze, one of those final May days before serious summer heat sets in. The block-long park was alive with Houstonians — and their many, many dogs — enjoying the twilight.
The Love Shack kiosk stood out with its name in marquee lights at the northwestern edge of the park. Tall chairs in bright red metal clustered at the counter, and the surrounding patio was arrayed with lime green tables and chairs beneath a spreading crimson market umbrella.
Excited yips issued from the “small dog” section of the dog park next to Love Shack, and above the fence line, I could see furry bodies hurtling up and down the artificial green hills as their caregivers looked on.
Paved walkways curved off into the distance beneath big live oaks and cypresses, with tables and chairs and loungers stationed at the edges. On a gentle slope, a young man kicked a soccer ball.
To my eyes, the scene was as rich and juicy as a crowded Breughel landscape after my year of self-isolation. The fact that I was finally about to sample the eponymous burger from Tim Love, the famous Fort Worth chef who nabbed the contract for Levy Park’s three food-service outposts — which include a barbecue restaurant and a breakfast-and-snack truck— was just gravy.
Open daily from 11 a.m. to "close," which means around 8 p.m. when business slacks off.
Er, Love Sauce. It was just Love Sauce. Come check it out: especially the onion ring connoisseurs among you.
GRADE: B+

Watershed Restaurant & Pub

The hunt for burgers can lead in unexpected directions.
That’s because we live in an age when restaurants of all stripes boost their bottom line by putting a burger on the menu — it’s a no-brainer, really — where it can serve as a sort of pacifier while newbies get used to the rest of your repertoire, or a port in the storm for diners seeking familiar comforts.
Our Instagrammatic era of “takes” on familiar foodstuffs factors in, too. Just in the past year, I’ve chased epic embellished burgers of Filipino, Venezuelan, Mexican and Frenchified persuasions, often ending up with surprising sides or main dishes to take home.
The week my burger quest introduced me to the homespun German and Eastern European fare at Watershed, a beer-focused tavern in the neighborhood of Willowbend — which sits just to the east of Meyerland and Westbury, two restaurant-poor areas.
I liked Watershed’s burger just fine, but I was truly smitten with the cozy quality of its braises and sides, which got me through a dreary post-holiday slump. This is the kind of food that transports, stores and reheats really well. The kitchen makes just about everything here from scratch, and it shows.
Come along and check out the burger-and-then-some details.
GRADE: B

Boo’s Burgers at The Tipping Point

There’s something about a pop-up that appeals to the Secret Squirrel in everyone.
You’ve got to stay attuned to the grapevine, know just where to look on social media for the next announcement of a date and time. Houston came alive with pop-up food events during the pandemic, and the form has delivered everything from ube baked goods to Japanese-style egg-salad sandos to burgers, that civic obsession of ours.
That’s where Boo’s Burgers, currently a Saturday evening pop-up, comes in. Burger maestro Joseph Boudreaux dispenses his own special smash-style burgers out of The Tipping Point, the downtown coffee shop and vintage streetwear outpost where he also works as a barista.
I showed up right at the 5 p.m. start time last Saturday to check out his wares. This is not a wham-bam operation — Boudreaux’s burgers are clearly a careful labor of love — and my paper sack was produced at 5:24 exactly.
Here’s what the Secret Squirrel in me discovered inside.
GRADE: B

The Cuba Station

I took it as a challenge when I spied the phrase “Super Mega Cheeseburger” on the menu of The Cuba Station.
One pound of fresh ground beef on a long slab of toasty Cuban bread for eight bucks, with enormous tropical-fruit shakes on the side? I had to try it.
That’s how I ended up charmed by this 9-month-old sandwich shop tucked inside a Fuel Depot Chevron gas station in the heart of the East End’s Second Ward.
By the exceptional neatness and cleanliness of its setting, including the convenience store end of the space it shares. By the courtliness, care and good cheer of its proprietor, whose name is Rey, and whose batidos might be my new favorite thing. By the red-and-white checked oilcloth-covered tables set before the service window, where you can sit while you wait for your food to be prepared, watching the comings and goings of the neighborhood.
The tweens with masks on their faces and skateboards under their arms. The woman focused on her lottery numbers. The waif in Doc Martens and tattoos, putting money on one of the eight gas pumps outside. The gentleman with a nod of greeting as he makes his way to one of the video slot machines along the window.
It all feels like a low-key community center, humming along to its own rhythms. Come check out how The Cuba Station — and its Super Mega Cheeseburger, and its righteous Cuban sandwiches and batidos — fits in.
GRADE: B

Good Vibes Burgers & Brews

I overshot Good Vibes Burgers and Brews as I whizzed along East Broadway in far southeast Pearland.
I should have marked the restaurant’s tall palm trees wrapped in LED lights, but I was too busy marveling at how the stretch of highway right before Broadway turns to North Friendswood had changed since I last saw it. There was a new 888 Bistro, an axe-throwing business, a brewery called Bakfish.
Backtracking, I found I was early for supper at Good Vibes, a burger-centric restaurant headed up by chef Eric Nelson. His background is with upscale hotels (Ritz-Carlton in Florida, the Valencia Group in San Antonio), and as founding chef and managing partner of Number 13 steak and seafood house in Galveston.
Back in early March, I had been about to visit Good Vibes the week that Governor Abbott lifted the state’s mask order for businesses. I read online that Good Vibes was among the first wave of restaurants to go maskless for customers, so I decided not to go.
Now, inured to the seemingly endless pandemic cycle, I did some risk calculation and settled for an early dinner on Good Vibes’ covered patio, on a breezy late afternoon after a storm had blown through and the temperature was a brisk 87 degrees.
I entered the beach-shacky building wearing one of my trusty KN95s, to find none of the staff masked. During the hour and a half I was there, none of the guests I saw entering was masked, either.
But two giant swamp coolers blasted away on the patio, while a flock of ceiling fans churned overhead, and I felt safe-ish and surprisingly comfortable looking out at the tropical greenery. “Key West Time” burbled on the sound system. A preternaturally cheerful and efficient young man named Chris took my order.
I ordered a top-shelf silver Margarita and some queso, which seemed like the proper move. After all, here I was in a carefully wrought Margaritaville, and it was a few minutes before five o’clock.
As I surveyed Good Vibes’ extensive draft list and surprisingly interesting menu (oysters Rockefeller! Rosemary Gimlet!), I could feel the stress ebb from my perpetually clenched muscles.
And then — because Nelson’s fine-dining background means his burger repertoire boasts all manner of chefly touches — I did something I rarely do.
I ordered a fancy burger instead of the basic cheeseburger model I generally use as a baseline.
Here’s how that worked out.
GRADE: B

Hippo Burgers

My tiny Kia was surrounded by enormous big rigs as I unwrapped my burger in the parking lot of Hippo Burgers, somewhere between Willowbrook and Jersey Village.
The sun was setting over a nearby office park. I had just navigated Hippo’s drive-thru lane at this sprawling truck stop way out northwest on Beltway 8, where vast warehouses and the Sam Houston Racetrack loom. Hippo occupied a corner slot of a rectangular structure that also housed a big taqueria and convenience store, with many gas pumps out front and a weighing scale in back.
This was not the cozy joint I had been expecting when I started out for the Hippo Burgers that I calculated — oh, so wrongly — was closest to my house. I had eyed the small chain of Hippo shops circling the northern suburbs on Google Maps, from Humble to Atascocita to furthest Crosby, and my pandemic-addled brain zeroed in on the one that was just about as far away as Crosby.
Don’t ask.
Hippo bills itself as “a Humble, TX favorite since 2014, when two young men who have a passion for juicy delicious burgers opened the first Hippo Burger on Wilson Road.” A reader had tipped me that the half-pound Angus burgers had a backyard flavor, and that was enough to send me on my quest.
Here’s how it went.
GRADE: B

Jamaica Pon di Road

The name alone compelled me to set out on a pilgrimage to Jamaica Pon di Road: Insane Bolt Burger.
I chortled in delight at the wordplay that bounced off the name of Usain Bolt, the legendary Jamaican sprinter. Then, after a bit of Googling — was there a famous Jamaican road involved in the name of this food truck turned brick and mortar? — I laughed some more. “Pon di road” turns out to be U.K.-born Island slang for “on the road,” with shades of perpetual work and motion.
Perfect for a Jamaican food truck, am I right?
Slightly battered, having traversed many miles since 2017, the original vehicle stands outside the trim seafoam-green house in Acres Homes that now hosts the restaurant. Chef-owner Gareth Powell and his wife, Danielle, have created a charming spot — all soft limes and aquas, with a sleek inside counter, a deep dining porch decked out for autumn, and a big gravel patio in front for outdoor dining.
And the Insane Bolt Burger? Here’s how that stacked up.
GRADE: B

Killen’s of the Heights

Apparently I am on a Happy Hour burger bargains spree, because this week I felt compelled to check out the Cafeteria Burger at chef Ronnie Killen’s Heights-area outpost, where his menu collects some of his top hits with more down-home Southern ideas like meat loaf, chicken and dumplings and all things fried.
I admit that part of what motivated me was the prospect of eating my Cafeteria Burger with Killen’s colossal onion rings, which I have long considered to be among the city’s best.
Ha. Joke was on me, because when I arrived and looked at the printed menus for Happy Hour and dinner, the onion rings I had spied online were missing. I would have to content myself with fresh-cut fries instead.
I ordered a French 75 to compensate, and damned if it wasn’t the best one I’ve had in ages, with a buoyant lemon lift of the sort that’s too often compromised by over-sweetness. Here’s how the post-cocktail part of the meal went.
GRADE: B

The Naturalist Cafe & Lounge

There it stands, a pearl-frosted eminence glowing with twin strips of aqua light, as you enter the lobby doors at the InterContinental Houston hotel at the Medical Center.
It’s like something out of a science fiction movie. And it’s the second futuristic medical robot I have encountered while dining out in the past few weeks.
This particular refrigerator-sized presence is labeled “IVP,” and twin billboards explain it to those who pause to pay homage, as one must.
IVP stands for “Integrated Viral Protection,” and the sign asserts that it is “the world’s only biodefense indoor air protections system (TM).” And further, that it is “proven to destroy COVID-19 (99.999%), anthrax spores (99.9%), and other airborne pathogens.”
The inventor is name-checked as Monzour Hourani, whose countenance looms on another display that labels him, in big block capital letters, as “Virus Slayer.”
The InterContinental is the first hotel to have this technology, we are told. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t vaguely reassured by the machine’s luminscent presence. And if one glowing totem wasn’t enough, there was a second stationed at the entrance to The Naturalist, the lobby bar and cafe where I was headed to sample the burger.
OK, then. I found a seat at the end of the long counter, where green placards between the chairs advised “stay safe, 6 feet.” Just in case the IVP had let a stray pathogen get past.
I was here not only because I had heard tales of the hotel’s virus zapper, but also because every big hotel needs a respectable burger on its menu — even one where the menus have the healthful overtones of The Naturalist and its adjoining sister restaurant, Safina, which trades in “Mindful Mediterranean Cuisine.”
Here’s how my investigation went.
GRADE: B

The Nickel Sandwich Grill

Life is full of surprises, and one of them is the towering Nickel Burger at The Nickel Sandwich Grill, a classic burger-and-fried-food stand in the Fifth Ward.
The chalkboard menu in front of the walk-up ordering window has all the standards for the genre: the burgers and fries, the fried catfish and shrimp and chicken. Barbecue and soul-food sides, too, as well as the object of my eternal Quest: peach cobbler.
A tipster had clued me to The Nickel’s hand-cut fries, another questy obsession of mine, so I phoned in an order, because the stand is only doing takeout these days. Then I set out from my home in the East End, sailing up the industrial stretches of Lockwood to “The Nickel,” as the historic Black neighborhood of Fifth Ward is known.
When I unwrapped the foil swaddling my Nickel Burger and took a bite, my eyebrows shot up toward my hairline. Here’s how it went.
GRADE: Solid B

Suko’s Burger House

With its glass windows shrouded in brown paper, the facade of Suko’s Burger House always looked forbidding to me as I cruised by on Lockwood.
The burger fiend in me was curious, of course. But not curious enough to venture inside that grim outer wall, enlivened only by stick-on letters in red and blue touting “Hamburgers” and “Seafood.”
Then came the DM from an old friend. The burger was good, he claimed.
I checked some online postings (no, there is not a website), which showed that Suko’s was the kind of Asian-owned fried seafood, fried rice and burger joint that dots Houston’s historic wards from Third, through Second (where Suko’s resides, on a major industrial artery just before Canal Street), unto Fifth and beyond.
The prices were right, and there was a 1/3-pound patty option, which I find myself increasingly drawn to in this era of half-pound-and-up burger behemoths.
I noted that the fries shown online were crinkle-cut, which I avoid as a matter of principle. But there were onion rings on the menu, and the fried fish fillets looked promising, and I could snag some fried rice for breakfast at home.
I was in.
My visit reminded me once again — to my mortification — that you can’t judge a book by its cover. The eternal lesson, in restaurant writing as in life: open that door. Go inside. You just might be surprised.
GRADE: B

Urban Eats

A waxing gibbous moon hung over a Houston skyline picked out in lights. That was my view — and I had to pinch myself at my luck — from a high-top table on the rooftop dining terrace at Urban Eats, a market and bistro combo on the Washington Corridor.
The air was cool. The perch, unexpected perfection.
Downstairs, on my way up to the terrace, I had ogled the selection of baked goods and charcuterie and locally made foodstuffs and made a note to come back for a shop-through later.
Maybe a leisurely coffee and a pastry, too. I liked the looks of the bulb-strung patio in front of the handsomely rehabbed brick mercantile structure that houses Uban Eats’ market, its counter-serve cafe and its upstairs full-service restaurant.
I had been meaning to try the upstairs restaurant’s array of sliders for awhile now. Here’s how it went.
GRADE: B-

Brass Tacks

Here a laptop. There a laptop. On almost every table a laptop sat open when I walked into Brass Tacks on a weekday midafternoon.
The all-day cafe near the soccer stadium sits amid the clusters of midrise condos that have sprouted up in EaDo in recent years. Housed behind the nicely restored brick facade of a 1938 armature works, it’s the kind of industrial building that used to rule this rapidly changing part of the city.
Brass Tacks aims to lure in its young professional and student crowd with a highflown mission statement that natters on about work/life balance and an open-plan physical plant geared toward the digital. There’s high-speed Wi-Fi, semi-secluded cubbyholes that look like library carrels, plus dedicated meeting rooms. (The largest is called the Boardroom, if you please.)
Espresso drinks fuel the clientele from 7 a.m. onwards most days, and breakfast is followed by salads and sandwiches, seguing into cocktails for the happy hour and early-evening crowd.
Yes, there’s a burger, in the form of a Patty Melt, which lured me into the space at 2 p.m., a time when many restaurants go dead.
But lo, Brass Tacks was bustling with patrons who looked to be in their 20s to early 30s, max. They were bent over said laptops, staring intently at smartphones, working on projects in groups of two or three, ensconced regally on a balcony, up where pristine white air ducts and trusswork reigned.
Some patrons sat outdoors at an ad hoc mix of tables and chairs, most of them under an awning because it had been spitting rain.
I ordered my burger and took my up-to-the-minute butterfly pea-vine lemonade to a two-seater table in a front lounge area, where tall potted plants marked off the space.
That burger, though. Here’s how it went.
GRADE: C

Buns & Drafts

The idea was irresistible: a burger stand in a remodeled shipping container, smack in the middle of the Navigation Esplanade as the boulevard heads into Second Ward.
So I headed off to the new Buns & Drafts, which occupies a narrow, shady niche right at the head of the hardscaped median that hosts community events and a weekend farmers market.
Buns’ online footprint promised “craft burgers” that were “grilled in the moment,” a quaint turn of phrase. The menu offered a variety of clever topping combos for both burgers and hot dogs — choucroute and Japanese curry, anybody? — and the “drafts” tag had me dreaming of sampling the latest idea from one of our local breweries.
Here’s how the adventure played out
GRADE: C

The Kitchen

It was The Woodlands Amateur Hour as I rolled down the mellifluously named Research Forest Drive, tunneled in greenery. I flew past the intersections of Gosling and Cat’s Cradle without a care in the world, certain that the corner where Google Maps showed that The Kitchen sat would be plain as day.
Nope. Not in this master-planned exurb, where trees wall commercial development from view and signage is confined to low, tasteful murmurings for which one must look sharp.
Finally, most of the way to Tomball, I reversed course and eventually found the big, spiffy semi-serve restaurant guided by chef Austin Simmons, who is known for his high-level fine dining at Tris, further toward the freeway.
I had come to sample what The Kitchen’s website touts as “Gourmet Burgers,” specifically one with Simmons’ commissioned grind of Gyulais beef, a breed of Charolais crossed with Wagyu. I had tried one of the dry-aged steaks he was experimenting with back before the pandemic, and it blew my mind, so I was eager to try the burger patty he had come up with.
Especially since the $13.50 American Burger, a basic model featuring American cheese, dill pickles and red onions on a brioche bun, cost just eight bucks during the Happy Hour that runs Tuesday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
I saw that I could add fries for 99 cents, and pick a glass of red wine for 3 bucks, and I was sold.
Here’s how my adventure went.
GRADE: C-

Burger King

Four summers ago, I tried my first Impossible Burger, made with the plant-based meat substitute developed by Impossible Foods.
It did not go well.
Back then, in 2017, Impossible Foods had shrewdly teamed with high-profile American chefs like David Chang and Houston’s Chris Shepherd to introduce their product to the public — and to social media influencers who attended free tastings that had a whiff of glamour. (That wasn’t me.)
I came to the table at Shepherd’s Hay Merchant gastropub with cash, curiosity and an open mind. I left thinking the Impossible patty was tricky to work with texturally, the flavor vague. I wondered how the product and its marketing might develop over time, and whether it would catch on with a wider public.
By 2019, Impossible Burger was starting to go mainstream. Burger King trialed Impossible Whoppers in St. Louis and announced a roll out nationwide by the end of the year. McDonald’s introduced a plant-based burger from rival producer Beyond Meat.
Now Impossible Burger products are in supermarkets, and my local 24-hour Burger King is advertising its Impossible Whopper on prominent signs. They are swaddled in special aqua-green paper wrappings, the better to underscore the notion that eating them is helpful to the planet — compared to beef production, anyway.
I figured it was time to try again — and for control purposes, to compare the Impossible Whopper to the original Whopper on which it is modeled. Here’s how the experiment went.
GRADE: D

Canary Cafe

I was so taken with the earnest, young “let’s put on a show!” vibe at Canary Cafe that I almost don’t want to tell you about the burger I encountered there.
But Burger Friday stops for no man, no woman, only for a winter deep freeze or a hurricane. Maybe a flood, too.
So here goes.
Canary Cafe is a five-month-old neighborhood coffee shop set in a trim new wood-faced structure on Fulton just north of Cavalcade, facing Metro’s Red Line tracks. It was a natural outgrowth of owner Joey Paffel’s Cadenza coffee-roasting business next door, and they serve a roster of pour-overs and espresso drinks from early in the morning until 5 p.m., when they switch over to their dinner menu.
The first thing you notice, stepping through the door, is the baked-goods case: a series of cakes plates balanced on clear dedecahedrons. (Yes, I had to look that up.) On display are fissured conchas sparkling with pink sugar, a nod to the Latino roots of the Near Northside. Fat blueberries wink from lemon muffins; cinnamon rolls curl and hulk, as latterday cinnamon rolls tend to do; and an array of oversized cookies — some of them vegan, a recurring option here — gleams in glassine envelopes.
Just gazing upon these treats made me feel festive, as did the sight of the cafe’s new Kic Pops freezer, holding a rainbow of Houston-made all-natural popsicles.
After last week, I needed (nay, deserved) all the sugar, I decided. But first, I was bent on trying the mysteriously named Roy Reid Cheeseburger, along with various items from Canary’s lunch and dinner menus. Here’s how it went.

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Credits

Restaurant Critic

Alison Cook • alison.cook@chron.com  • @alisoncook

Travel and Food Editor

Jody Schmal • jody.schmal@chron.com  • @jodyschmal

Features Digital Manager

Julie Takahashi • julie.takahashi@chron.com  • @Julie_Takahashi

Web Producer

Jordan Ray-Hart • jordan.ray-hart@chron.com  • @JordanLRay

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