Healthy and Hungry in Houston

By Robb Walsh
August 15, 2013
Credit: Photo courtsey of Phoenicia Specialty Foods/Doris Ting
Now's the time to taste how the city's global fare is merging with creative new takes on local food and cooking.
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Healthy Houston Dining

Credit: Photo: Ryann Ford
Houston is famous for fajitas and barbecue, but it's also one of the most diverse American cities. Take the average salad: Within a block, you'll find a Vietnamese "summer delight," a gyro-topped Greek, and an Indian chaat—all a tasty change of pace from the familiar chef, Cobb, and Louis. Dining around H-town is now a modern multicultural adventure.

Pictured: Chef Bryan Caswell of Reef

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Reef

Credit: Photo: Jody Horton
Chef Bryan Caswell has taken a leading role in the Gulf's sustainable-seafood movement by turning underutilized bycatch into delectable ceviches, salads, and entrées. His restaurant, Reef, was also one of the first in Houston to offer reef-specific Gulf oysters. These include hand-selected bivalves from once-legendary Galveston oyster appellations like Pepper Grove and Ladies Pass and rack-raised oysters from the new experimental oyster farm at Point aux Pins in Mobile Bay. Try them in Reef's Baked Oysters with Swiss Chard, Lime Pickle, and Asiago Breadcrumbs. Caswell is also experimenting with mahimahi roe bottarga, an homage to the famous Sardinian dried salted fish roe.

Pictured: Oysters at Reef

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Underbelly

Credit: Photo: Julie Soefer
The menu at Underbelly celebrates the city's wild mix of flavors—and its intersection of farming, ranching, and fishing cultures—filtered through a New American lens, courtesy of chef Chris Shepherd.

Shepherd does all of his own butchering and charcuterie, and you'll find his cuts peppered among local farm fare. Gulf bycatch (fish like rainbow runner, sea bream, and tripletail that often get mistakenly caught in commercial nets and thrown away) are matched with Southern chowchow or okra masala.

After dining, pick up a jar of the restaurant's house-made preserves or pickles on your way out.

Pictured: Chef Chris Shepherd of Underbelly

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The Pass & Provisions

Credit: Photo: Ralph Smith
In a repurposed vintage brick building, two New York City chefs have built two distinct eateries sharing a single ultramodern kitchen. The Pass is an elegant fine-dining restaurant featuring nightly tasting menus. Provisions has a casual bar with a community table, an inviting outdoor space, and a wood-burning pizza oven. The menu offers thoughtful, technique-driven food while highlighting the deliciousness of simple ingredients. The chilled pea soup is a standout on the vegetable menu—it's served with curried yogurt and mint.

The chefs, Terrence Gallivan and Seth Siegel-Gardner, teamed up at Gordon Ramsay's Maze and have worked for a long list of big names (Scott Conant, Charlie Palmer, and Marcus Samuelsson among them). The location is a coming home for Siegel-Gardner, who grew up in the Montrose neighborhood, just a few blocks away.

Pictured: The Pass & Provisions' lively bar

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Pondicheri

Credit: Photo: Jill Hunter
From the hot and sweet popcorn snack to the mustardy Granny Smith apple pickles that top sandwiches, there are delicious surprises at every turn in this sleek Indian café.

James Beard Award nominee Anita Jaisinghani named her new restaurant "Pondicheri" after the southern Indian town (now called Puducherry) that she frequently visited as a child. The cuisine reflects a love of a wide range of flavors from all over India, focusing on snack food, or chaat. The barley salad with beets, walnuts, and mint is stunning, and vegans love the Vishnu thali (sampler platter) with a kokum fruit, curry leaf, and coconut curry; Brussels sprouts; smoked eggplant; daily dal; sambhar; and carrot paratha.

Pictured: A sampler platter at Pondicheri

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Phoenicia Specialty Foods

Credit: Photo courtsey of Phoenicia Specialty Foods/Doris Ting
The downtown location of Phoenicia Specialty Foods occupies two floors of a block-long building, offering food lovers a Willy Wonka--like setting with 15,000 items from more than 50 countries. A deli houses dozens of varieties of olives, feta, and charcuterie. Salads include anything from octopus to four kinds of roasted eggplant, and there's herring and sprats along with salmon and white fish in the smoked-fish case. When it's time for dessert, the bakery has a dozen varieties of baklava, as well as éclairs, fresh bread, Danish pastries, and espresso.

Pictured: Lamb shanks at Phoenicia Specialty Foods

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