In honor of the newly-extended two-week Houston Restaurant Week (what? you hadn't heard?), Houstonist celebrated the end of a long week and the beginning of another at Le Mistral, one of the many restaurants that participated in the first week of this year's Houston Restaurant Week, which benefits the End Hunger Network. As fate would have it, however, we didn't end up ordering from the Houston Restaurant Week menu at Le Mistral at all. We......

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if there is an Ethiopian restaurant in a city, it will be called "Blue Nile." Houston, no stranger to universal truths, has its very own Blue Nile, tucked away in a strip mall on Richmond on the west side of town. Our Blue Nile has long been an outpost of exotic Eritrean and Ethiopian food, despite the fact that most Houstonians are blithely oblivious to its existence. And......

Houstonist headed out to Washington Avenue this past Sunday afternoon to try the newest Italian restaurant cum grocery store, Raia's Italian Market. With an untested location in a brand-new building and the time-tested juggernaut Nundini's only a few blocks away, it would appear that Raia's has a lot to overcome if it wishes to succeed in a market already saturated with Italian restaurants (Candelari's, Spaghetti Western, Star Pizza, Collina's, Patronella's, and Cavatore are just......

French restaurants have been very kind to Houstonist. They reside in quaint little locales, offer crusty bread and real butter, and cook up delectable and delicate fares. We were delighted to learn that a new french restaurant opened on Colquitt just two weeks ago. The owners and chefs of Au Petit Paris, Eric Legros & Dominique Bocquier, have created a 'casual' neighborhood restaurant with a distinct Parisian feel. Though the restaurant lacks the pretentiousness of......

Yea yea, so there are plenty of websites out there that offer reviews, rankings and information on Houston restaurants. But the problem for Houstonist is that we have to go to more than one to get the information we want. We've finally discovered a website that we actually like. Check out Urbanspoon, a new website covering Houston area restaurants. Like the –ists, Urbanspoon covers many cities around the world. As one of the best food......

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own. Phillyist thinks that readers recommended this post the most because "most of our quieter readers (probably) agree with us that rude commenting sucks." Know what else sucks? Philly's not getting the Olympics, but they are getting thinner.......