Answering your questions about Clutch City.
On Oct. 24, I will be returning to my old Houston Chronicle stomping grounds to host the sixth annual Culinary Stars event, where I will be chatting with Alison Cook about her yearly Top 100 list and talking about some of the best dining experiences that the Bayou City has to offer.
Around 30 or so restaurants and chefs will be on hand serving sample portions of their signature dishes, and at the end of the event, Cook and I will unleash 2019’s list of the best 100 restaurants onto the city. It’s always a hotly contested list, and it’s been known to change the careers of those who make the top 10.
Each event ticket includes food and wine samples and a complimentary souvenir wine glass, along with being able to brag about rubbing shoulders with Houston’s foodie glitterati.
Getting some quality hangtime in with Ms. Cook is always a pleasure, too. Hanging out with her is like spending time with a punk-rock icon, but instead of music, she likes gourmet onion rings. She’s surly, funny, morose, and I wish she would write more about her youth.
This event will be special for me since I haven’t been back inside the old Chron castle since I left in December to join the team at the Houston Museum of Natural Science as their
social-media manager and media utility man. You’ve probably seen my viral videos on cleaning dinosaurs and the perks of being a museum member.
Will it be like visiting your old high school after you graduated? Is it still cool if I use my secret bathroom stall? Or the stairwell I used to vape in after a particularly trying editing sessions? Everyone has a secret bathroom stall at work, right? Surely it’s not just me. It was my sanctuary from the newsroom and where I did some of my best brainstorming sessions. Now, your questions.
Besides laziness, why do writers of all stripes always use, “Houston, (redacted for sanity)” for nearly every national story about our city? Adam in Clear Lake
Sweet dear Adam — it is indeed pure, uncut laziness.
Personally, I think it also points to the absence of a human soul, an unseen tether to the universe. These are vile husk people. Worst of all, it also shows a lack of creativity.
I have a Google Alert set up for any usage of the phrase on the internet and it never fails to ruin my day or make me question God’s intentions for mankind on Earth. Why not just delete that Google Alert and live my life unaware of this blasphemy? That wouldn’t be any fun. Would a just God sit idly by and let people use this phrase without repercussions?
I ponder this and other less important questions every Sunday as I take Communion, begging Him to wipe this phrase away from Earth. I also pray for the writers and editors who use the phrase, hoping that one day they will understand the hurt and pain they cause Houstonians on a nearly daily basis and refrain from mindlessly mentioning or merely questioning flippantly that Houston has a problem.
Is God doing this to make us stronger? That’s the only way I can explain it to myself with my limited emotional and even lesser intellectual faculties.
Is it possible to have fun in Houston without drinking? Jason in The Woodlands
Having fun in Houston without alcohol can be done, as I am finding out. Not too long ago, I decided to take a step away from drinking for health reasons — mental and physical.
Recently, I have embraced mineral water mainstay Topo Chico and Austin’s Rambler Sparkling Water garnished with cucumber and lime. It’s rather refreshing and the only side effect I have found is having to visit the restroom more than usual and being a little more gassy. I make sure and buy a few alcoholic rounds for friends to take care of my bartender friends.
Lindsay Rae, the owner of Midtown watering hole Two-Headed Dog, notes that plenty of bars in town are getting hip to putting mocktails — tasty drinks sans alcohol — on their menus for those who still want to fellowship with the night.
“It’d be ridiculous for anyone to get upset about people not buying alcohol,” Rae says. “Bars are fundamentally third places. We are apart of people’s lives, for good and bad.”
Understanding that bars don’t need to just be places to get heavily hammered is a new idea for many. Being comfortable around drunk people is a tougher sell when you aren’t partaking.
“Sometimes that journey for your customers is a sober one. The last thing anyone needs or should receive is inhospitable service because they don’t want to drink alcohol,” Rae adds.
There are plenty of fun things to do around Houston that don’t revolve around boozing. We have amazing museums and parks to visit, and restaurants with palate-expanding food. It may sound daunting, but you will be just fine.
I want to go to Numbers in Montrose. What’s the best night and way to make this magic happen? Evan in Houston
For decades, the place to be on Friday nights in Montrose for cheap drinks and a DJ spinning classic punk, new wave and dance music has been at the corner of Westheimer and Mason. Some younger Houstonians have looked at the marquee confused, thinking it was called “Hashtags” and soon getting schooled by the neighborhood’s wizened gatekeepers.
The club recently turned 41 years old, but the ritualistic Friday night party didn’t debut until April 1991 when DJ Wes Wallace began manning the boards.
Most everyone will say that Classic Numbers on Friday night is a treasured Houston tradition, including Houston Chronicle contributor and Numbers champion Jef Rouner.
“I mean, Classic Numbers is pretty much the defining Numbers experience,” Rouner tells me. “It's a timeless miasma of vague late ’80s, early-’90s everything, all dark and serious and frantic and humping on things.”
Rouner, though, spiritually prefers Underworld, the club’s somewhat-monthly night where Houston’s goth masses congregate.
“It’s just as timeless, but spookier and with more of a community built around creative individuals beyond just dancing and drinking,” Rouner says.
As a longtime fan of Numbers and those infamous Friday night parties, here’s a rundown of the quintessential Numbers Friday night experience, circa The Texican from 2003 until 2006.
Arrive at Numbers at 10 p.m. with your art-school girlfriend and immediately order a Long Island Iced Tea. Dance pseudo-energetically to New Order’s “The Perfect Kiss” and smoke a bummed menthol cigarette on the outside patio. Order another LIT and dance to The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” and take a detour to the restroom. Walk out feeling like you own the world to Front 242’s “Headhunter.”
Really get into The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette” for five minutes and think to yourself “I could live here.” Dance with an older woman who smells like your grandmother. Buy two more Long Island Ice Teas so you don’t have to wait in line at the bar again. Gawk at a guy dressed like George Washington. Smoke another bummed cigarette that tastes funny. Worry that it was laced with something.
Try not to freak out when that same older woman lunges in to make out with you as she slurs that you remind her of her oldest son’s best friend. Leave the club at 2:30 a.m. only to find that your car has been towed because you parked in the neighborhood behind Numbers. Fret over how much it will cost to get your car out of the tow yard.
(Inwardly thank your lucky stars that you didn’t do something stupid, like drive home drunk, potentially ruining your life and the lives of many others.)
End the night at a strange, dirty apartment with some new friends drinking lukewarm tall boys of Lone Star while listening to The Fall on vinyl. Watch the sun come up from their kitchen table, yawning heartily as you listen to someone yammer on about how “Joy Division was overrated.”
Of course, you could always just go and enjoy the music and ambiance after a nice Tex-Mex dinner next door at El Tiempo and be home snuggled in bed by midnight with visions of Siouxsie and Peter Murphy dancing in your head.