Tucked away in the shell of an old K-Mart in a west Houston strip center that defines the word "unassuming" is one of the city's best markets and -- dare we say it? -- the best salad bar around. There. The secret is out. Sandy's Market doesn't look like much as you pass it on Katy Freeway, almost lost in the shuffle of endless beige stucco buildings that line the city's roadways. But step inside......

Memorial and the west side of Houston weren't hit as hard by Hurricane Ike as most other areas of town. Nevertheless, the abundance of huge oak and pine trees in the area means that local residents are still digging out of piles of branches, limbs and leaves and attempting to remove the many trees that have fallen onto houses and into streets. Most of the area is still without power and most local businesses remain......

Plane tickets are expensive these days, especially plane tickets to Europe. Add in the cost of a hotel room, a Eurail pass, fancy walking shoes and money for last-minute souvenirs at Charles de Gaulle, and you're looking at a fat wad of cash. On the other hand, you could head out to Liebman's tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. for their Tour of Europe wine and beer tasting, for a mere $20 (plus tax). Still want......

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......

KPRC reported this weekend that mysterious cracks are showing up in the pavement of the Westpark Tollway — payback, no doubt, for everyone complaining so much about the Westpark peak pricing proposal. (No, not really.) One of the cracks is west of West Houston Center Boulevard, and the other is west of Synott Road, neither of them on a bridge or overpass. Both of them are about an inch wide and are located near the......

Hey, guess what? It rained again yesterday — and we mean a lot, in case you didn't notice. Not only was there a bunch of rain, but also high winds and hail of all varieties: "I got a lot of reports of hail — pea-sized, marble-sized, from Sugar Land to Tomball out toward Pasadena, Hobby Airport, League City — dime-sized hail is being reported there," KPRC meteorologist Frank Billingsley said. Most areas reportedly got 1......

A year after Houston welcomed more than a quarter million Katrina refugees, more than 100,000 are still here, and Houstonians aren't happy. West Houston residents who gathered Wednesday at Grace Presbyterian Church to talk about the increased violent crime rate in their part of town blamed evacuees for the problem, reports the Chronicle. Police Chief Harold Hurtt came to the church to discuss a new patrol division aimed at bringing the violence to an end,......