Houstonia's 2017 Taco Loco

This post was done in partnership with Houstonia, who provided me with an event ticket, free of charge. I was not monetarily compensated for writing this Houston food post. All opinions are completely, 100% my own!

Happy Taco Tuesday!

Taco Tue...Wednesday. It's Wednesday. Taco Wednesday. But, please, like that ever stopped you!

This year I was invited to attend Houstonia's Taco Loco, and it was awesome. The event was held in Uptown Park and included a Taco Takedown between several restaurants, a Margarita Mixoff, live music, and even a lil' wine for yours truly!

The thing that I especially loved about this Houston food event was that there were two vegetarian taco options, and several of the restaurants were also able to make a substantial veg option when asked - One that didn't just consist of a tortilla, salsa, and cheese (welcome to my world). Like, Broken Barrel made me a taco on an incredible pineapple tortilla (THAT'S A THING, Y'ALL), topped with caramelized onions and peppers, HELLO.

And Bosscat Kitchen & Libations offered me their hearty breakfast taco, sans brisket - Delicious!

A popular spot was Field & Tides for their taco, which happened to be vegetarian (and insanely good). It had great textures and popping flavors.

But my personal favorite was the vegan taco option from Cochinita & Co. I topped mine with some of their spicy garlic sauce, and it packed some serious heat!

Oh, also there were lovely desserts from Cakes by Gina, and Jon lost his mind over the churro cupcakes.

And margaritas upon margaritas of course!

They were all great, but my favorite margarita was...

...wine. My favorite margarita was wine. Sorry, sorry, I'm not a margarita person, and I never pretended to be! BUT there were some super duper spicy margaritas floating around that I did really like, cross my heart. Pretty sure Ambriza Social Mexican Kitchen was my favorite, and I almost died from the spice, but as the kids say, you only live once! (And it was reeeeally good)

The votes rolled in, and here were the results:

People’s Choice, Best Taco: Broken Barrel
People’s Choice, Best Margarita: Ambriza Social Mexican Kitchen (seeeee????)
Judges’ Choice, Best Taco: Fusion Taco
Judges’ Choice, Best Margarita: Cyclone Anaya’s
Judges’ Choice, Most Creative Ingredient: Sammy’s Wild Game Grill

And there you have it! This year's Taco Loco was an awesome, delicious Houston food event, and I'm so glad we were able to go!

Taco Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Eeeeeveryday.

Leave a Comment dinner, drinks, events, food, houston, lunch, mexican, restaurants, taco loco, taco tuesdays, tacos, uptown, vegan, vegetarian

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Vacation Days: Austin, May 2016 (Part One)

The title of this post says "Part One" because even though I haven't been to Austin in 2 1/2 years, I will have gone twice in the span of seven days during May of 2016. Austin was a callin', and I answered!

The reason for my first visit to Austin was to attend the wedding of two of my dear childhood friends, Joel and Jeff. (Fun fact: I slept on Joel and our friend Diego's couch/futon in their Harlem apartment during the first two months I lived in NYC, free of charge. Just to give you backstory on the kind-hearted people we're dealing with here. Also, those two months were a total blast, obvs.) The wedding took place this past weekend in Dripping Springs, and it was so lovely and special. So I'll give you guys a little recap of the trip!

Jon and I hit the road Saturday morning, and we made two detours to drop our pups off at their grandparents' houses.

After we got rid of the gremlins, we rode on for a while before stopping at our uszh spot Buc-ee's, this one located just before arriving in Austin:

We made it to Austin in time for lunch. Our original plan was to grab food at Hopdoddy, but since it was UT graduation weekend (a fact we had not realized prior to the trip), the place was more slammed than normal. I called my sister Emily and asked her where we should go. She recommended East Side King. After tons of traffic, hitting every red light, and about 27 expletives later (Sorry y'all, Austin traffic is way worse than Houston inner-loop traffic!), we walked around the main drag off campus aimlessly, confused as to where East Side King was.

Joke was on us because it closed down!!!!!

So we walked over to Cain & Abel's, a spot I am well familiar with from Emily's college days, and had some solid bar food. Jon had a burger and fries, and I had a spicy veggie burger with a fried egg on top, and a side salad.

After lunch, we fueled up on coffee and drove to our hotel, the gorgeous Sonesta, located in Bee Cave (about a half hour east of Austin). Once we checked in we were provided with an awesome (read: lifesaving) gift bag from Joel and Jeff!

We got ready for the wedding, hopped on the party bus, and headed to Dripping Springs for the main event!

Snapchat: newishcityhou

Yes, Joel and Jeff somehow managed to get their own Snapchat filters because they're fancy like that!

This easily might have been the best wedding food I've ever had, because it was catered by Pappasito's! Um, hello, awesome much? And yes, what you're seeing above is AN AVOCADO BAR. I have officially died and gone to food heaven.

They also had a fajita bar set up, and were thoughtful enough to provide a vegetarian option, which was a plate of outstanding cheese enchiladas! Again, I died.

The venue where they had the wedding ceremony and reception is called Prospect House, and it is absolutely gorgeous. It has a minimalist, modern feel with ginormous windows, and the Hill Country views are beyond dreamy.

Here's a shot of the handsome grooms during their first dance.

Some of my other friends from my elementary/middle school/high school years who were also in attendance were Carla, Amy, Joe, and Carl. We danced the night away to Beyoncé and scored some fun pictures in the photo booth:

(You can see half of Joel's face in the top left corner. *sigh*, we tried.)

I also dragged my date in there:

The entire wedding was SO fun, and so love-filled, and such a wonderful celebration of two amazing people who make each other even more amazing!

It was SO fun in fact, that yours truly was a *wee* bit under the weather the next morning. So before we left Austin, we stopped at Tacodeli for some food in the form of tacos, aka my guardian angels.

I ordered the space cowboy taco (pictured above) and the bean and cheese taco, and I now officially see what all the Tacodeli fuss is about! Lucky us, since we'll be getting one in Houston soon!

All of our 24 hours in Austin were so wonderful (well, except for me dealing with the repercussions of one to many rosés), and I am so honored to have been a part of Joel and Jeff's special day. It was a jam-packed weekend, filled with reminiscing, catching up, eating good food, celebrating great love, and making wonderful memories!

See you in four days, Austin. *insert peace sign emoji*

Leave a Comment austin, bars, bee cave, burgers, dinner, dripping springs, food, food trucks, lunch, mexican, restaurants, tacos, travel, vacation days, vegetarian, weddings

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Visiting Houston: April, 2016

I love when people come to visit!

Not only do I get to spend time with out-of-towners who I love and miss dearly, but I get to show them what's so awesome about Houston! (umm, see above pic, re: going to the pool in April.). I started the "Visiting Houston" series in February, documenting the fun times we had (hint: there were lots of restaurants and LOTS of food involved) when my cousin Amber came down for a visit.

And now I have a new installment in "Visiting Houston!" Last weekend my visitor was none other than my best friend Courtney, who flew in from New York. We had a fantastic weekend of spending quality time together at fun spots around Houston and over awesome restaurant food. Here is how our weekend played out!

Friday

I picked Courtney up from the airport, and - with no time [and sunshine] to waste - we drove straight to La Grange to enjoy food and drinks on the restaurant's gorgeous patio.

Pictured above is the Carlos Danger cocktail - aka the only margarita I've ever truly loved - and their gooey delicious holy queso with guacamole!

After we were finished, it was time to hit up another fun Houston restaurant patio!

(and eat more food).

If you haven't enjoyed food and drinks on the patio at Boheme yet, you are seriously missing out. Courtney and I sipped on some wine and shared the restaurant's incredible Vietnamese fries (topped with hoisin, sraracha, garlic mayo, cilantro, and crushed peanuts), as well as the truffle mushroom pizza. The fries - which I firmly believe are some of the best in Houston - were incredible as always. The pizza had a different more textured variety of mushroom from what I've had there in the past. I didn't like it as much this time, but it was still certainly enjoyable. Courtney liked both, but I think she favored the pizza over the fries.

Next up, we dropped Courtney's bags off at our apartment, and picked Jon up for drinks at Lei Low.

If you are looking for a unique, strange, insanely enjoyable bar with fun drinks, Lei Low is it. This tiki bar is located in Houston's Heights neighborhood in a small, nondescript strip center that also houses a convenience store. The neon sign outside of the bar simply says, "RUM," and when you walk through the doors, you are transported to 1960s Hawaii. The drinks are always sweet, often on fire (literally), and sometimes feature a shark head eating a banana dolphin smoking a cinnamon stick cigarette (if you're lucky). I've had many messy nights there - one time I pretended to be a bouncer and carded everyone who walked through the doors, because I'm a classy broad - but it's always a total blast. Don't worry, I kept my 'ish together...this time.

Saturday

Saturday morning, Jon, Courtney, and I grabbed a bottle of champagne, and headed over to Kraftsmen Cafe for a good, hearty BYOB brunch!

The quaint Houston Heights bakery/restaurant is adorable and homey, the food was delicious as always, and if it's BYOB it's always okay in my book! We loaded up on big breakfasts (I ordered the same thing I had last time, the woodsman omelet) to prepare us for the rest of the day!

After brunch, we snuck in some pool time, cleaned up, then headed out to Minute Maid Park!

Photo: Courtney

Courtney is from Boston and is therefore a huge Red Sox fan, so we were excited to find out the Astros were playing the Red Sox at home that weekend! <~~(Just kidding, we *sort of* planned Courtney's trip around it). Even though the roof was open and all of us got what was just short of third degree sunburns, we had a total blast!

Next up, dinner:

Every time Courtney visits (and frankly, anytime anyone visits), we have to take her to El Tiempo because - as she says - their fillet fajitas have ruined all other fajitas for her. (I tried them prior to becoming a vegetarian, and I stand strongly behind her statement). We usually go to the restaurant on Washington Ave, but since we were downtown already, we ate at their EaDo location off of Navigation. The food (queso for the table, spinach quesadilla for me) was perfect as always!

Then we went home and watched The Incredibles because Jon had never seen it, and life's too short.

Sunday

Sunday morning Courtney and I went clothes shopping to a few cute Houston boutiques, but not before getting some important nourishment.

Torchy's Tacos' breakfast tacos really are fantastic. I ordered two of my usual suspects from the restaurant - The Independant and the Dirty Sanchez. I'm telling you, I consistently see stars when I eat them.

After that, we grabbed groceries to prepare for a cookout at our apartment with my parents. I was having too much fun eating good food, drinking good wine, and enjoying my family and best friend, that I completely forgot to snap pictures! But I did get a shot of the yummy oatmeal raisin cookies my dad made next to some snarky napkins my parents gave Jon for his birthday a few weeks ago.

It was a fun, awesome weekend, and I only wish it could have been longer! As I said, I love getting to show folks from out of town my beloved city of Houston and everything it has to offer - from fantastic restaurant food, to beautiful weather [ahem, most of the time], to fun events around town. Getting to do all of that with my best friend made it all the more amazing!

Snapchat: newishcityhou

^ Photo taken pre- the Houston sun turning my BFF into a lobster.

Leave a Comment bakery, bars, baseball, breakfast, brunch, byob, dinner, drinks, east downtown, food, heights, houston, mexican, montrose, pizza, restaurants, rum, tacos, vegetarian, visiting houston

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The 2016 Houston Press Menu of Menus Extravaganza + A Giveaway!

This post was done in partnership with the Houston Press, who provided me with VIP tickets to the 2016 Menu of Menus® Extravaganza, free of charge. I was not monetarily compensated for writing this post. All opinions are completely, 100% my own!

(psst, Houston residents, scroll down for an exciting Giveaway!)

So a big thing happened last week, and that big thing was the 14th Annual Houston Press Menu of Menus® Extravaganza! I had such a blast participating as a project partner last year, that I was super excited to do it again this year!

If you love food - particularly Houston restaurant food - this is an awesome local event to attend. 40+ Houston-area restaurant vendors provide samples of some of their best bites to hungry attendees, who vote on their favorite food item of the night.

There's also a fun "Iron Fork" showdown, where two local chefs face off in a cooking competition (Congrats to Lyle Bento of Southern Goods!).

Also, you can find plenty of booze for the masses (included with your ticket)!

Let's take a look at some of the awesome food that was there, shall we?

Orange blossom pistachio doughnuts from Doughmaker.

Arancini and tomato bruschetta from Mia Bella Trattoria (my favorite bite of the evening).

Nutella crepes from Coco Crepes (omg, my other favorite bite of the evening).

Fuzzy's Taco Shop

Freebirds (for all of your sakes I hope you never witness me devouring an ENTIRE Freebirds burrito in one sitting, which happens far more often than I care to admit).

Harold's peanut butter and jelly bread pudding.

SweetCup Gelato (the bourbon caramel flavor was the shiz).

Mala Sichuan Bistro

Meatloaf meatballs, mashed potatoes, and chili from Freezerlicious.

Impressive cheese display and refreshingly light couscous salad from Zelko Bistro.

Lots of vegetarian options at Bismillah Cafe.

Pepperoni's

Rosé spritzers from the place that takes a large percentage of my paycheck every month, aka Whole Foods.

Bagels on bagels on bagels from White Plate Art.

Plates of molecular gastronomy from eculent.

Fadi's Mediterranean Grill

State of Grace

Added Bonus: I bumped into my sweet friend Sarah!

As with the previous year, I had an awesome time at the 2016 Houston Press Menu of Menus® Extravaganza! It was nice having a VIP ticket this year, and getting to go in an hour early and beat some of the crowds, so I do recommend that option. It is still fun regardless, and the food is a force to be reckoned with. I can't wait until next year's event!!!

**GIVEAWAY!!!**

I'm also partnering with the Houston Press on their 2016 BrewFest, which will be held on Saturday, April 30th from 3pm – 7pm at Silver Street Station. All Tickets Include 8 – 3 oz. Beer Samplings, with additional sampling cards available for purchase at the event. One lucky Adventures in a New(ish) City reader will win two (2) General Admission tickets to the event! All you have to do is follow me on Instagram (if you don't already), and leave a comment on this photo, telling me what your favorite beer is. A winner will be randomly selected by the end of this week. Good luck!

And may the beer be ever in your favor.

2 comments asian, bagels, bakery, dessert, dinner, drinks, events, food, giveaway, heights, houston, italian, menu of menus, mexican, pasta, pizza, restaurants, tacos, vegetarian, wine

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