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AUSTIN RESTAURANT REVIEW: Nixta Taqueria

Austin has always been lil' bro to Houston on a number of levels, from sports to fine arts to – most prominently – cuisine (if you're wondering where Dallas fits into this analogy... it's not even in the same family). While I certainly wasn't doing

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Burger Bodega

Every Houston kid of a certain age (read: Millennial) has memories of late nights spent at House of Pies. Whether it was after a concert (who, aside from 99% of my readers, can forget the iconic "HOPE" balloon after an incredible Polyphonic Spree show in 2007?), a late-night

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Nobie's

In lieu of a traditional introduction, I'd like to give my overdue feelings on this year's Houston Chronicle Top 100 Restaurants list. It was unveiled a few weeks ago, but I thought that my recent New York reviews were an inappropriate venue to comment. This year

NEW YORK BAR REVIEW: Double Chicken Please

New York's alright (if you like art and jazz), but one thing that is absolutely maddening is the difficulty to secure a reservation at any remotely popular establishment. This is the case in other cities as well, but the Big Apple is one of the worst offenders. Seemingly

NEW YORK RESTAURANT REVIEW: Semma

People often ask me what is my favorite type of food, and I struggle to answer, because I like all the foods. But if pressed I usually answer Indian, because it's such a vibrant cuisine that features so many incredible spices and seemingly endless regional variations. Or maybe

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Lucille's

Southern food is not really one of my go-to cuisines these days; it's certainly not bad, I just generally prefer a different flavor profile, and the dishes often tend to be quite heavy and one-note. I don't love the term "comfort food", as, in

BAR REVIEW: Refuge

A quick(er) one today. It's been a few weeks since my most recent visit to Refuge, and my mental notes are starting to fade, but I know you are only relevant so long as you continue pumping out content, and I am nothing if not extremely relevant,

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Belly Of The Beast

Folks, I'm not going to bury the lede... this restaurant is FANTASTIC. Don't worry, I'll get to my usual expository bullshit in a second, but just wanted to say up front that this is one of the best Houston-area places I've reviewed

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Alora

A peculiar thing happened last November when the inaugural Texas Michelin Guide was announced... one of the Bibs Gourmand (not sure how this should be pluralized, so I'm going to treat it like coups d'état) was given to Nikki Tran of Kau Ba, a plucky little

BAR REVIEW: Diversión

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RESTAURANT REVIEW: Verde Garden

We in Houston are so incredibly spoiled for choice when it comes to Tex-Mex that we take it for granted (my sister who recently moved to Colorado is surely lamenting that decision, at least from a queso perspective). Just within literally an 8-minute drive from my house there are outposts

BAR REVIEW: Nickel City

As much as I downplay other Texas cities' culinary scenes when compared to Houston (which is BY FAR the best in the state when it comes to food and drink), I'll begrudgingly admit that Austin (Uchi/Uchiko/Loro, Hopdoddy, Pluckers) and even very occasionally Dallas (Rodeo Goat)

PIZZA REVIEW: Tiny Champions

I can say without question that pizza is my #1 favorite food, with quite the gap over everything else. Not only that, it's pretty hard to argue that it isn't objectively the best food: the ideal combination of starch, dairy, meat (unless you're a

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Perseid

For a while last decade, Chris Shepard was the undisputed king of Houston restauranteurs. From his flagship Underbelly, to more innovative ideas like One Fifth, and even the best bar in Houston, Hay Merchant, his concepts were all must-visit, and new ones continued to open year after year. However, when

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Oheya

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Houston's sushi obsession began, though Kata Robata's opening in 2009 is probably the genesis. However, Uchi came along in 2012, and along with MF Sushi later in the same year, really turbocharged the Japanese food craze. Since then,

LIMA RESTAURANT REVIEW: Maido (!!!)

It's estimated that there are over 23 million restaurants in the world, so an objective ranking of the finest is obviously impossible. But someone has to try, and fortunately the good folks at The World's 50 Best compile a register each year. Even though there'

BUENOS AIRES BAR ROUNDUP: Florería Atlántico, Tres Monos, CoChinChina

Buenos Aires is a city that's home to tons of great cocktail bars, perhaps not quite S-tier (probably only New York, London, and Mexico City truly qualify there), but certainly in the A-tier alongside Toronto, Hong Kong, Paris, Singapore, etc..). There are three that are consistently ranked among

BUENOS AIRES RESTAURANT REVIEW: Don Julio

There have been a handful of occasions in my life where I’ve eaten so much that I felt like I might die (who can forget the infamous Salt Lick experience when on the drive back I was certain I’d perforated my intestine?), and things were definitely trending in

RIO DE JANEIRO RESTAURANT REVIEW: Oro

When traveling to a new major city, it can be challenging and even a bit overwhelming when trying to decide where to eat. There are guides and rankings and lists, but often there’s only one shot at eating at a great restaurant, and you don’t want to screw

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Kitchen Rumors

The building off Washington where Kitchen Rumors is located has a special place in my heart, as it was formerly home to Xin Chao, one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in the city (and before that Beaver's, which was also solid). So despite shedding a tear or two

BAR REVIEW: Jethro's Cocktail Lounge

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RESTAURANT REVIEW: Winnie's

Things have been skewing fairly bougie in the first few months around here, but we don't only do fine dining at Adrian Reviews (remind me to come back and edit this if I ever actually come up with a proper site name). A recent rare Saturday night where

BAKERY REVIEW: Badolina

Striving to bring my legions of loyal readers more content (and address a genre that has been lacking in my Houston Restaurant Guide), I've been trying more bakeries of late. This cute little spot in Rice Village comes from the people who brought you Doris Metropolitan and Hamsa

BAR REVIEW: Botøníca

There are a lot of cocktail bars in Houston, but outside of a few Asian and Tiki-inspired outliers, there isn't exactly a ton of thematic variety. So when a heavily Latin-influenced spot popped up on the west side, you know I had to check it out. Botøníca is

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Musaafer

November 2020: Many months into the pandemic, and I still hadn't been out to eat at a restaurant (I still remember the last one in the before times, Bravery Chef Hall on the night Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID, shutting down the NBA and shortly thereafter everything