gfxdave99 Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 I'm going to be in Houston all week for work... I'm sure strip clubs will get old after awhile, anything else interesting to do down in houston in the evening? If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KartRacerBoy Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 Quit your job. Avoid that city at all costs! Buttugly place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfxdave99 Posted August 13, 2006 Author Share Posted August 13, 2006 Quit your job. Avoid that city at all costs! Buttugly place. Ive been there several times... Doesnt really bother me I only have to travel once so far this year so I'm not bitching... I'm just wondering if theres any cool like live music or something interesting that doesnt involve me waving singles, not that I dont plan on visiting some of those establishments but 5 days of strip clubs would kill me If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KartRacerBoy Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 Oh what a horrible death. Death by lapdance. "Officer, he was here the last five nights and his face just got more and more pale each night. I don't think any blood was reaching his brain. I wonder where it went?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfxdave99 Posted August 14, 2006 Author Share Posted August 14, 2006 Okay I'll take it by the lack of replies that its titties FTW If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KGreb Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 What area of town are you in? We need to narrow down the venue unless you feel like driving all night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfxdave99 Posted August 14, 2006 Author Share Posted August 14, 2006 What area of town are you in? We need to narrow down the venue unless you feel like driving all night. Gallaria area, working in Williams Tower If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrownBoy Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 You should come out to our local NASIOC chapter's HH on Thursdays. PM for info on it. I'll give you my number also. There's actually alot to do in the Galleria Area. There are several nicer restaurants/bars in the area also... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrownBoy Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 Quit your job. Avoid that city at all costs! Buttugly place. wow. somoeone must have dropped you off in the wrong part of houston, or maybe you got robbed here? LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilycat Posted August 15, 2006 Share Posted August 15, 2006 The Galleria area is nice. So, good choice for a start. Food is a big deal here. If you're on travel and you have a nice per dium, how about Mark's? Chuy's on Westheimer is always busy, has good food, is affordable, and near the Galleria area. Rice Village is a good place to walk outside and shop. The shops close early, but the bars and restaurants remain open. There are quite a few pubs in the village...start out on Morningside between Rice and University. Downtown has all sorts of new bars and restaurants along the train line. I suggest the Mexican/Cuban taqueria, El Rey. Market Square's La Carafe is always a nice stop to look at an old building (odd in Houston) and view the skyline at night. Warren's makes a mean martini and has a great jukebox selection. The museums are all good. (Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Museum of Natural Science (bodyworlds III)...just search the net). I suggest checking Houston Restaurants - B4-U-EAT. It is a local restaurant review site that I use all the time. It is really the best resource online for Houston food and it has that local perspective. I also suggest checking out and posting on: Houston Architecture Info Forum - HAIF® (Powered by Invision Power Board) With more specific ideas, you'll be pointed in the right direction. Also, check the Mucky Duck. They have a nice live music venue, but check the selection to see if it meets your style. The Houston Press will have listings for things to do around town by day of the week. Ignore the ads in the back or don't as per your preference...the information on stuff to do is still good. I hope you have a good time. It is a hard city to figure out (mostly b/c it is huge and almost sans public transport), but it has everything...you just have to know where to look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfxdave99 Posted August 16, 2006 Author Share Posted August 16, 2006 Thanks bro... If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KartRacerBoy Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 wow. somoeone must have dropped you off in the wrong part of houston, or maybe you got robbed here? LOL Flew into Houston and drove to Galveston for a conference, so I really saw very little of it, but I like cities with more Zoning laws! And I am not a fan of that part of Texas. Not too scenic. And it's just frigging HOT down there. I sweat too much. There. TMI, I'm sure. And now, back to our topic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twisted Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 DINNER AT FOGO DE CHAO....price fckin less....actually more likr $60++ but so worth it.... Welcome to Fogo de Chão OR Welcome to Fogo de Chão Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KGreb Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 Flew into Houston and drove to Galveston for a conference, so I really saw very little of it, but I like cities with more Zoning laws! And I am not a fan of that part of Texas. Not too scenic. And it's just frigging HOT down there. I sweat too much. There. TMI, I'm sure. And now, back to our topic! Galveston is on the rebound, but it pretty much was an armpit for the last 30 years. If you think it was bad recently, you should have seen it ten years ago. They actually closed the shopping mall due to gang activity in the 90s. Restored Victorian homes next to crackhouses were pretty common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongHiway Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 I liked to go to Goode Company (2 locations, one near Rice, the other in the burds) for Bar-Be-Que - a fun place, great brisket all types of meat and poultry. But, good Bar-Be-Que is like religion, everyone is faithful to their own house of worrship. End of summer comes a Rodeo, big event for the town. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfxdave99 Posted August 16, 2006 Author Share Posted August 16, 2006 I liked to go to Goode Company (2 locations, one near Rice, the other in the burds) for Bar-Be-Que - a fun place, great brisket all types of meat and poultry. But, good Bar-Be-Que is like religion, everyone is faithful to their own house of worrship. End of summer comes a Rodeo, big event for the town. See i wasnt really impressed with Goode, I still like the BBQ places by chicago better. If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongHiway Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 I respect devout followers of all faiths. Chicago have the tangy side sauce? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilycat Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 Pizzatola's on Shepherd is my favorite BBQ place. It isn't much to look at, but it is the real deal. The sausage is from a small family-owned sausage maker located in the Texas hill country. Their ribs are great. I like the hickory they use rather than the mesquite. The waitress will remember your name. Here's the food critic from the Houston Chron's take. I think it is pretty accurate: Don't let looks fool you Pizzitola's plain exterior belies standout fare By ALISON COOK Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Nothing beckons the passer-by into Pizzitola's Bar-B-Cue on Shepherd Drive. Battered, off-white siding encases a blank facade, and burglar bars reinforce the message: Stay out. There is no welcoming woodpile in sight. Over the door, issuing from a naked socket, a pair of orphaned electrical wires twist toward the sky. The look is not just anonymous — it's actively grim. Yet inside this unpromising exterior resides a charming and highly detailed universe, one of the richer surprises in a city full of them. Pizzitola's paneled, midcentury dining room displays a magpie's ransom in miscellanea on every square inch of wall, from vast glass bottles crammed with marbles to dangling fishing rods with an eloquent photo of a customer's rib-eating cockatoo attached. That cockatoo is smarter than I am. I've zoomed by this barbecue joint hundreds of times, a prisoner to my mistaken assumptions that the place had to be as bland and character-challenged as its looks and that — barbecue gods, forgive me! — someone named Pizzitola wasn't likely to turn out distinguished 'cue. Wrong on all counts. Owner Michael Jerome Pizzitola, known to his loyal regulars as Jerry, is a barbecue curator at heart. He's a native Houstonian who grew up tagging along with his dad to the great black barbecue joints of the 1940s and '50s — Matt Garner's, Lockwood and John Davis' Shepherd Drive stand among them. He imprinted the flavors and textures and smells as surely as a Ridley's sea turtle cleaves to its beach of origin. In 1983, after Davis had died, Pizzitola persuaded the Davis family to lease him the Shepherd Drive barbecue shack, which had a 48-year history at two locations. He resisted the temptation to slick the place up. To this day, Pizzitola cooks his meats over hickory wood, orders his deliciously rough-textured sausage from Czech brothers in Cistern and serves up a marvelously tangy, red-peppery, thin barbecue sauce, just as Davis did before him. In the back, breathing hickory smoke, hulks a big, old, brick barbecue pit that has heaved and rippled like an ancient stone wall after many freezing winters. From this venerable pit issues some of the finest barbecue in Houston. In fact, taken as a whole, with its delightful from-scratch sides and its consistently excellent meats — not to mention the insidious sauce — Pizzitola's may very well average out to be the best barbecue joint in town. Certainly there is no place I would rather eat brisket. The stuff I love is carved from the fatty end — "inside top cut" is what they call it here — and it is moist and pebbly, practically falling apart, with an emphatically smoky, salt-and-pepper-rubbed crust. The leaner, tighter-textured beef cuts, which slice more cosmetically, are just as good in their own way, endowed with a charred, in-your-face exterior. Either version is good savored alone or dipped into one of the little pitchers of warm sauce that come with each order — or snugged into a hank of floppy white bread and consumed with a hit of sweet-sour sauce and crisp white onion. These are the flavors and textures for which many Texans live, and I am among them. I dote on the spicy, dancingly red-peppered beef-and-pork sausage slices, too, which have a way of making your entire mouth feel alive. And the ribs — which look almost too manicured — are meaty and smoky and popping with coarse salt and pepper. I always thought I liked funkier, messier ribs, until I met Pizzitola's museum-quality specimens and was won over in spite of myself. There's chicken, too, even a newfangled boned-and-hacked-up fajita-style form, but it is no match for the beef and pork. And there is a surprising sandwich of mixed brisket and sausage links, piled as high as a delicatessen extravaganza on a soft onion roll. It's pricey, and it's worth it. Perhaps even more significant, there is lovely, mustard-tart potato salad bristling with crunchy pickles and unburdened by sugar, a rare pleasure. Snappingly fresh cabbage slaw is weighted down by neither gobs of mayonnaise nor more than a gentle tinge of sweetness. Most side dishes in these trying times may be saccharine commercial swill, but at least there is one place in town that gets them right. OK, the plain pinto beans could use some soul. But order them with pico de gallo and cheese, and you'll be so charmed you won't even notice. And once you proceed to Pizzitola's homestyle desserts, you will become a gibbering idiot. Who can resist mom-alicious yellow coconut cake layered with tart pineapple? Or creamy, fluffy banana pudding in a clear plastic cup, its vanilla wafers flying high? They are actually made by Pizzitola's mother, who is often in attendance at a table near the cash register. To go with all this there is subtle, real-deal lemonade and big tumblers of iced tea. Cordial good-ol'-girl waitresses will replenish your glasses at will. They represent the heart and the soul of this admirable small business, rare among barbecue joints for its table-service ethos. You sit. You order. You are pampered and cajoled. You even get a steaming-hot linen napkin with which to clean yourself up at the end. You feel like a human being. And at the enticing off-hours of midafternoon, when the dining room is all but deserted, you are free to inhabit this idiosyncratic world fully and luxuriously. With Dr. Phil exhorting bulimic drug fiends on the suspended television, you can swap wisecracks with the waitresses while thunder cracks outside, sealing the restaurant into a timeless bubble. Inside that bubble, there is time to think. That a book should not be judged by its cover. That a name doesn't begin to suggest the complications within. More to the point, perhaps, that we are all in this entity called "Houston" together, contributing to its evolution, urging both change and preservation, and that a barbecue joint called Pizzitola's may capture our very essence. Pizzitola's Bar-B-Cue: 1703 Shepherd Drive Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays Prices: dinners with 2 sides, $9.95-$10.95 Credit cards: all major Reservations: you must be kidding Noise level: quiet to moderate Smoking: 6 tables set aside Hot tip: Don't miss the mom-style desserts. Call 713-227-2283 for more information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongHiway Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Gotta go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilycat Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 End of summer comes a Rodeo, big event for the town. The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo is in February. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongHiway Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 It's been about 6 years since I've been there, was the Rodeo always February (I gotta believe yes)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilycat Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Yes -- for as long as I can remember. And, the beginning of rodeo, the trail ride, almost always brings nasty wet cold weather. There is another rodeo in the area...somewhere outside the city...it happens more often and is more rural. You could have gone to that one. The big one happens at the Astrodome/Relian Stadium and features big name musical acts. You would remember the difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongHiway Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 definitely, Astrodome. I was going down regularly so the times ran together. Coming from Massachusetts, February weather was fine.. I do remember a few days of black ice which was surprising since the day time temp was "warm" (for Feb in MA that is). Thanks, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProjectS15 Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 most of the houston LGT owners, well Texas LGT owners i know are on TXIC on nasioc...liquidIQ,me,DriftMonkey,Robsontuning, etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franklin Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Pappas brothers steakhouse. Hopefuly you have an expense account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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