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......

::Aaron Parazette at McClain Gallery:: Aaron Parazette's elegant paintings are a typographer's dream: he stretches, elongates and reshapes the letters of a word to make a stunning abstract tableau. The color palette is both retro and utterly of the moment, making the lines of his letters pop against each other. His "word paintings" often quite large in scale and the words he employs are all surfing terminology; Parazette grew up on the coast of......

Ah, Nielsen's Deli - home of Houston's most luscious, and best ever homemade chicken salad and one very mean deviled egg. For over 55 years, Nielsen's has been the Afton Oaks area's source for deli sandwiches and salads, homemade desserts, stuffed jalapenos, luncheon trays, finger sandwiches and homemade soups. This lunchtime jewel is located on Richmond Avenue, just inside Loop 610, near the Galleria. It's convenient from downtown too, peeps! Open 7 days a week,......

Worried that you'll show up to the company holiday party in the same boring black dress as the boring payroll chick who sits next to you? Don't fret. Old is new again at Cheeky Vintage. Show up with a one of a kind. Tonight from 6-9pm, join the (relatively) new vintage clothing boutique, located on Richmond near Greenbriar, as they highlight some of their most recent finds for you to show off for your holiday......

Good morning, Houston. We admit that we have a thing for interview shows, so we thought we'd take a second to note that NBC's Meet the Press, the king of Sunday morning TV news, made its television debut 60 years ago today. Meet the Press began life as a radio show in 1945 and moved to TV a couple of years later, and it hasn't stopped since. Now, MtP is the longest-running show on......

Cara Barer—The Book Project DeSantos Gallery Beginning with just a found soiled copy of the Yellow Pages, Cara Barer created The Book Project, and eventually had volumes of new sculptures resulting from old books. As book lovers, our first inclination was to scoff at the idea of destroying old books for the sake of art. But then we saw the sculptures. This is one of the Houstonist's favoritist things we've seen in a long time.......

Good morning, Houston. There's a new weapon in the battle to make Houston the most beautiful city in America: Beginning next week, commercial property owners will have to hide their Dumpsters behind a building, wall, fence, berm or shrub. Officials said they hope the rule — which City Council approved six months ago — will help increase property values and make properties safer (and, of course, prettier). Anyone who violates the ordinance can be......

::Cheeky Vintage Debut Trunk Show:: Looking for a new place to find something old? Check out Houston's newest vintage clothing shop, Cheeky Vintage. A friend tipped us off to this style haven, and we're dying to check it out. Tonight, Barbara Davis Gallery (4411 Montrose) hosts a Debut Trunk Show featuring Cheeky Vintage designs. We're headed there to check it out. Stay tuned for a full report, fashion mongers. Or, just meet us there.......

So the Draft Environmental Impact Study for Metro's proposed University light rail line has been released — a lot of information that a lot of people will be poring over. Fortunately, Christof at Intermodality has a summary of the DEIS for the line's western segment already, and here's what he found: There are three alignment options for the Main-to-Hillcroft segment of the University Line: Richmond to Cummins to Westpark, Richmond to Greenway to Westpark, and......

So all day yesterday, we heard people complaining about about the Harris County commissioners' proposal to raise the cost of using the county toll road system — and we even added our two cents. But is the rate increase a done deal? No, according to KHOU, which reports that commissioners approved a "toll-setting policy" on Tuesday, with the actual toll increase decision still to come in another vote. Or yes, according to KTRK, which says......

Good morning, Houston. If you haven't gotten a speeding ticket in the city lately, consider yourself lucky — a lot of your fellow Houston drivers have. According to a report from the National Motorists Association, Houston is the third worst speed trap in the nation (up from fifth place last year). The ranking was based on the number of Houston-related posts to the NMA's Speed Trap Exchange — which, by the way, is definitely......

There was a hearing yesterday on a request from a Richmond Avenue resident and business owner to order Metro officials to testify about its transit expansion plans, but there was no ruling — yet. Daphne Scarborough, an outspoken opponent of proposals to run a light rail line down Richmond, filed the motion in mid-April seeking information about the University Line alignment, Metro's substituting buses for trains on some of its proposed new transit lines, how......

Correction: The legal motion Scarborough filed was not a lawsuit, as some media outlets reported, but rather a motion seeking information from Metro officials. Ubiquitous Richmond Avenue rail opponent Daphne Scarborough has pulled out a new weapon in her fight against the light rail expansion that she says would destroy her livelihood and her street: Scarborough has sued Metro, claiming that the transit agency has broken a "contract with the voters" established by the 2003......

Good morning, Houston. The Internet has become such a part of our lives that it's hard sometimes to step back and see just how pervasive it really is — but the folks at Domain Name Wire came up with an interesting way to do that: They counted the number of URLs advertised along Highway 71 and I-10 between Austin and Houston. The grand total? More than 68, including the whopper qualityconcreteandswimmingpools.com (which doesn't seem......

We've heard a lot about opposition to Metro's planned University light rail line, but it's not the only one that's generating controversy: Yesterday, a group of northside residents marched on City Hall, following the route of the proposed northside GRT line, to oppose what they say is Metro deviating from ballot language and condemning property like crazy. Sound familiar? "They misled the community by having North Hardy on the ballot," protester Mario Umanzo told......

Via Off the Kuff, it seems some residents along West Alabama are wondering when they're going to get their old street back — you know, the pre-Spur 527 reconstruction version, sans contraflow lane and with the old bike lanes back in place. Alabama between Spur 527 and Shepherd, you may remember, was reconfigured to better handle increased traffic expected while the spur and parts of the Southwest Freeway were under construction. Originally, the street had......

And so we have some final-ish alignment options for Metro's University light rail line: All of them would begin at MetroRail's Wheeler Station on Main Street and head west along Richmond Avenue for some distance, and all would avoid Afton Oaks, which has been a loudly squeaking wheel in the planning process. But that's pretty much where the similarities end: • The first proposal would turn south on Montrose Boulevard, then west on an elevated......

Houstonist had to get our "burger on" after our first birthday party - had to. So, we phoned in some bacon cheeseburgers and rings for ourself and a co-worker from Pete's Fine Meats on Richmond Avenue. Normally, a "go burger" is kinda listless by the time you get to where you're going with it - this one was not super hot, but still warm enough and juicy. The onion rings were not homemade, however, they......

A jury sentenced a teenage white supremacist to life in prison today for beating a Hispanic boy with a pipe at a party in April Two more ex-Enron executives, Michael Kopper and Mark Koenig, were sentenced today: Kopper got three years and one month; Koenig, 18 months HISD's enrollment is down by 7,000 this fall; the district blames the drop on more charter schools and people moving to the 'burbs Can anyone ever really replace......

Post-election, there's a potentially interesting situation shaping up on the transportation funding subcommittee of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee. That's the group, remember, that OKs federal transit funds — it's the one U.S. Rep. John Culberson sits on, and it is his membership in that subcommittee that allowed Culberson to deal a strong blow to Richmond light rail plans this summer. But here's what may be interesting: With Democratic control of the House, newly elected......

Love it or hate it, we'll bet you know where the Taj Mahal is. No, not that one — we're talking about the former HISD administration building, which will be history within a few days, to be replaced by ... a Costco. No kidding. HISD had its headquarters in the building at 3830 Richmond Ave. from 1969 until the district moved to new quarters off 610 and 290 earlier this year. The big, white......

At Houstonist, we enjoy a good mid-century modern house. So we're really excited about Houston Mod's new exhibit Booming Houston & The Modern House: The Residential Architecture of Neuhaus & Taylor. Neuhaus & Taylor was one of Houston's premier architectural firms in the 1960s and '70s — their designs include the "Taj Mahal," the former HISD headquarters building on Richmond Avenue (which probably won't be around much longer), Galleria I and the towers of......

Not surprisingly, U.S. Rep. John Culberson's announcement last week that he won't support a proposal to run a light rail line down Richmond Avenue has sent Metro into something of a tailspin: The agency has now pushed the date it expects to recommend an alignment for the University Line back a few weeks while it conducts cost and ridership estimates for a variety of routes that would take the line from the Third Ward......

Would any of our weekends be complete without a major construction-related traffic jam on the Katy Freeway or the West Loop? Fortunately, we don't have to waste any time considering the possibility of a jam-free weekend: Big traffic problems are expected on the West Loop this weekend as new pavement is opened between San Felipe and Highway 290. The move means two alternate lanes of the northbound Loop between Richmond Avenue and 290 will be......

The eastbound lanes of the Katy Freeway were closed this afternoon at the West Loop after a truck hit an overpass and lost its load An HISD proposal to close Kashmere High School next summer if the school doesn't improve its performance is drawing fire from the community Metro said it won't discount a Richmond Avenue light rail alignment even though U.S. Rep. John Culberson asked the agency to do so yesterday A former Magnolia......

U.S. Rep John Culberson won't support running the University light rail line down Richmond Avenue, he announced this morning at a news conference under a tent near James Coney Island at Richmond and Shepherd. It's an announcement that's long been expected by some, though Culberson said earlier this month he was keeping an open mind. Today, he said his decision was based on "overwhelming opposition" to building a light rail line on Richmond: "I will......

The Chron's Rad Sallee takes a look today at the question of right of way in the Richmond rail debate, focusing on comments from Metro Chairman David Wolff about some property owners along Richmond Avenue "stealing" the public right of way. What Wolff meant was that some people have put things — lawns, parking spaces, driveways — on the right of way, which usually isn't a problem until the land needs to be used for......

It looks like Metro might not have won critics of the proposed University light rail line's Richmond Avenue alignment over last night at the first of three public meetings on the project: KTRK and the Chronicle report that the people who oppose having the rail on Richmond still oppose it, even with a "compromise" unveiled this week that would switch the line from Richmond to Westpark at Greenway Plaza. "None of this is any......

There's news today from the Chronicle on Metro's proposed University light rail line: Metro Chairman David Wolff met with the Chron's editorial board this morning and said he could "live with" an alignment that would take the line from Main Street west along Richmond Avenue, then south at Greenway Plaza to Westpark. It's a Metro compromise between keeping part of the line on Richmond and avoiding Afton Oaks and residential areas between Greenway and the......

Metro officials went to Washington yesterday to talk up their plans for the University light rail line to U.S. Rep. John Culberson — and though they said the meeting didn't result in much of anything, there's talk that Culberson's opposition to the proposed line could mean it won't get built. To clarify, Culberson has said he opposes plans to run the University line down Richmond Avenue. The line is planned to begin at the University......