New Dining Blog

1 Touch Reservations will be discontinuing our Houston Fine Dining blog.  We have created a new U.S. wide dining blog, The American Patron, which is hosted at m.1touchreservations.com.  The current blog will remain for the next few months but, will all new posts will be at The American Patron.  We look forward to seeing all of our visitors at our new blog.

2012 Dining Journalism Resumed

1 Touch Reservations has resumed our dining journalism with our first wine and food pairing article of 2012. Last year we started our "Recipe of the Year," which was our best prepared entrée and or dessert.  This year the recipe will most likely be a combination of dessert and entrée, which is a fudge brownie chocolate cheese cake and a unique version of Bologonese that incorporates the idea of Braciole in the Bolognese sauce.  The article is posted at our dining website, www.finedining.ws.
Recently dined at restaurants, with a focus on meat and the Northwest part of town, starting with Peli Peli, a fine dining restaurant that rivals the best of Houston restaurants but, in the Spring area.  Not sure exactly how to describe the cuisine, "Peli Peli (also known as Piri Piri or Peri Peri), which means Bird’s-Eye Chili, is a spice found by the Portuguese in the 15th Century on the plains of Southern Africa. The spice rapidly became popular when used to prepare sauces and marinades for Portuguese and African foods." (from PeliPeli.com About page)  The only warning is to budget for visiting the restaurant for it is a little expensive, that is for the Spring area but, not compared to fine dining in Houston.  The price is well worth the money for the ambiance and food is some of the best fine dining I have tried in even the best known culinary cities.  The lighting, the design of the restaurant, the table space, everything makes the dinner extra special including the service.  Just down the street on Louetta from Peli Peli is Raoul's Italian Grill, www.raoulsitaliangrill.com, which some has said rivals the best Italian restaurant in Houston.  I am not certain I can pin point anything on the menu that stands out because every menu item served by Raoul's Italian Grill is incredible but, maybe, their desserts is their highlight.  If not, their ambiance and piano nights make dining there extra special as well.  Recently, I sent a couple friends there and they said if was the best Italian food they have dined at a restaurant.  
Meat lovers and or barbecue lovers truly need to try Larry's Barbecue off of the Northwest Frwy near Beltway 8.  The restaurant is a BBQ buffet and that is not the best part.  The best part of Larry's is the taste of the barbeque and the selection of food.  Well worth the visit and relatively inexpensive, I recall about $11/ person for dinner.  Their website is www.larrysbbq.com.  Heading North, Guri Do Sul is a worthy mention, a Brazilian steakhouse with a similar theme to Fogo De Chao.  Definitely go hungry and personally, I enjoy the food but I look forward to comparing to Fogo De Chao soon.  We dined for the first time at Hubble and Hudson's but, we have shopped there many times.  We were on our way to meet family and Ryan's in Conroe, so we just stopped in for an appetizer.  We tried their Flat Bread appetizer, which is baby arugula, shaved pecorino, house tomato sauce, hubbell & hudson evoo.  That was practically addicting for we were trying not to eat much since we were going to Ryan's.  Now, Ryan's, that is the story for us.  My wife, Carla is a southern girl, raised on a Texas ranch.  Although Conroe is a little far to drive for Houstonians, Conroe is a good choice for a weekend getaway and Ryan's steakhouse is the place to go if you are a meat lover.  The sirloin steak was outstanding and grilled as requested plus they have roast beef, ham and many other choices to dine.  So, those in Spring who are looking for good restaurants, traveling to Houston is becoming less necessary to find a the best of restaurants.
1 Touch Reservations is close to completing the restructure from Star Banquets and Travel as we have consolidated over 30 of our websites and are operating mainly Trips.ws, Fineding.ws and Menus.ws for PC/Laptop viewing and 1TR.Mobi for mobile.  Some of our Houston websites will remain such as HoustonReservations.info and HoustonRestaurants.ws.  Holiday websites have been consolidated to ThanksgivingRestaurants.info and ValentinesDayRestaurants.com.  We will most likely keep this blog up but, that is not for certain.  Our new national blog address is TheAmericanPatron.BlogSpot.com and we hope to launch by August, which will also include the launch of our newsletter, The American Patron.  You can sign up for the newsletter at www.1touchreservations.com. 

1 Touch Reservations Mobile Website

1 Touch Reservations has completed the initial construction of our mobile website, www.1tr.mobi after six months and over 1,400 hours from three programmers.  We have a long ways to go with just over 80 cities and towns available, which is only covering about 20% of the U.S. in 13 states.  The large cities have the sort option by, area, name, zip code and sort by cuisine is available for the Texas pages.  Sort by cuisine for all posted cities will be completed this year.  The small towns will all soon have the cuisine type listed.  Many of the large cities also have book marks for large lists so to quickly navigate on a smart phone.  Miami is the first city that is sub divided for quick navigation and San Francisco is next due to the number of restaurants listed.  All functions on the website are designed for smart phones with the exception of the menus, which we are pushing restaurants hard to convert their menus to a mobile format.  This includes air reservations, hotels, restaurants, bus (not available on the Black Berry) and auto reservations.  The last function to the website before we consider adding more cities (accept for L.A., which is scheduled to be added this year) is mobile reviews from Yelp and Trip Adviser.  The website is designed to be used with one hand with one touch calling, GPS controlled directions to restaurants and hotel reservations (displays hotels within the vicinity of your smart phone) with the option to choose a different location and online restaurant reservations.  The icons are large enough to select with your thumb making the navigation very simple and convenient.  The website is free to consumers and business travelers and no registration is required.  Once the reviews are added to the website, we see 1TR.Mobi being the best mobile reservations system in the country.
1 Touch Reservations does offer PC/ Laptop based websites with www.menus.ws, www.trips.ws, www.finedining.ws and www.vacationsnationalpark.com  Menus.ws is the converted 1TR.Mobi without the hotel reservations function.  FineDining.ws is a collection of wine and food pairing articles, recipes, restaurant reservations, wine and dine vacations and video cooking instructions.  Trips.ws and VacationNationalPark.com are our vacation planning and reservations websites.  Both are extensive and offer much for vacations.  Trips.ws offers all travel functions from hotel, air and train to bus, adventure vacations, all-inclusive vacations and restaurants.  1 Touch Reservations' company website, www.1touchreservations.com will soon be restructured to offer easy navigation to all of our dining and travel websites.

Houston Sunday Brunches

Fine dining is not centered only on Friday and Saturday nights, especially in Houston.  Houston still leads the world in amount of times citizens dine out per population but, not only dining out but, fine dining in Houston is also big business.  This focus on Houston fine dining is Sunday brunches.  This article is broken up into buffets we have tried, the best menus and divided between different areas of Houston.  Brunches and buffets are two different things as a buffet is often defined as all you can eat and a brunch is simply a meal that often combines lunch and breakfast.  Manyof the brunches, especially in Houston, are fine dining but, if you are into other such as a country buffet or maybe a Sunday pizza buffet we have those covered as well.  Sunday brunches though are not just for theholidays, so plan on checking out  some of these wonderful restaurants for Sunday brunch as a change from the routine restaurants who only offer their daily menu.

The OpenTable.com Diner's Choice winners are listed on 1 Touch Reservations mobile, www.1tr.mobi, which all offer Sunday brunches.  These restaurants can also be viewed via PC/ Laptop at www.menus.ws and 1 Touch reservations has written here their best choices for Sunday brunches.  Starting with Spring Sunday brunches, Strack Farms on Louetta and Candelari’s off of 290 we have tried and are both good.  Strack Farms we have dined at many times on Sunday and strongly recommend therestaurant for non-fine dining but, A+ rated food starting with breakfast items early on at 9am and adding barbecue while continuing the breakfast items at around 11am.  The brunch is very worth of a trip in fromHouston for the price.  None of the Houston brunches will get you so filled for the price.  If buffet is of interest and you have a taste for Pizza, Candelari’s, www.candelaris.com is worth the trip from Spring or Houston.  Another restaurant we have dined at several times is the Potato Patch.  Although they do not offer a Sunday brunch, their daily lunch menu is awesome and a very good choice for a Sunday brunch, especially for the price.  The Sweet Tomato we have dined at but, not their Sunday brunch.  The menu looks good but, they only offer a Sunday breakfast until noon.  The Sunday breakfast is a typical breakfast of eggs, the meats, Belgian waffles, pancakes and on.  You can visit their site at www.sweettomatoes.com.  Just north of Spring in The Woodlands offering Sunday brunch is Hubbell and Hudson and America’s.  We have not dined at Hubbell and Hudson but, we shop there on many occasions and enjoy their market very much.  The review I read on Yelp about America’s Sunday Brunch beside that it is very good is that not many people know about it so, no wait exists.  I could not find any menu or info about their Sunday brunch.  You can visit their website at http://www.cordua.com/americas.  The Hubbell and Hudson Sunday brunch menu I did find at their website, www.hubbellandhudson.com and the menu is quite extensive and appetizing.  Another choice restaurant forSunday brunch in The Woodlands is Perry’s Steakhouse, who seems to me on a Benedict kick for Sunday brunch.  The menu is small but, appears to be appetizing.  You can view their site at www.perryssteakhouse.com.  They have a location in Champions, which ads another location to SpringSunday brunches.  So, for North of Houston, the Spring, Woodlands and Cypress area, those are some of the Sunday brunches we are aware of but, the bulk of Sunday brunches appear to be in Houston.

The Houston area I must admit has some awesome choices for Sunday brunch and for those in Spring, a drive every once in a while cannot hurt for a change in Sunday brunch.  Before jumping into the Houston Sunday brunch choices,  we want to touch on Clear Lake for our favorite buffet and Sunday brunch is in Clear Lake and that is at the South Shore Harbor Resort.  They have a buffet on Wednesday nights as well and Chef David Melgar changes the menu each week.  The food is so outstanding we strongly suggest even a weekend trip to the area and dine at and or stay at the South Shore Harbor Resort.  The photo on this page is of their buffet desserts.  More information, hotel promotions and online booking is available at our reservations site, www.houstonreservations.info or call our agency direct for more information.   Perry’s Steakhouse has alocation in Clear Lake, so that is another choice for the Clear Lake area.  Star Fleet Yachts is another good choice for a Champaign Sunday brunch and details are available at www.starfleetyachts.com.  The best ofHouston Sunday brunches from OpenTable.com are as follows: Bernardo’s @ Hotel Galvez (Galveston), Brady’s Landing, Benjy’s in the Village, Max’s Wine Dive – Houston, Café Benedicte, Birraporetti’s Downtown, Hubbel and Hudson, Rainbow Lodge, Churrascos – West Chase and Brennan’s of Houston.  The Rainbow Lodge seemed to have one of the best menus for Sunday brunch.  Direct links to all these restaurant are available on the home page of HoustonRestaurants.ws.   Visit Houston for Sunday brunches but keep in mind the value of the North areas.

Top Houston Fine Dining

A few months ago I was at a promotional event and met a well known Houston TV Foodie.  I had mentioned to her that I had a couple restaurant clients that were willing to participate in the promotion and her first, initial reply was that they only deal with fine dining but, corrected herself quickly in saying that Spring restaurants never participate in their promotions.  If her reaction is A typical of Houstonians in that Houstonians believe that good restaurants can only be found in Houston, is that a fallacy in thinking?  I was actually stunned at hercomment and is the motivation between writing this article.  My goal is not to prove that better restaurants exist in Houston or that Houstonians should drive out of the city to find fine dining or for special occasions but, to prove that fine dining does exist in Spring, The Woodlands and south of Houston in Clear Lake. 

Fine Dining can be interpreted many ways and is most often dependent on how affluent one is, their pallet, ambiance and some just simply believe that spending money makes them feel like they are indulging in finedining.  Some of the best food I have dined of is not necessarily fine dining per say.  Occasionally, Houstonians want a nice dinner and in Houston and or Texas, that can mean barbecue.  The best barbecue buffet we have found that is available all week is Larry's Barbeque in the Cypress/ Fairbanks area off of Hwy 290 at Fairbanks-North Houston RD.  So, 100.00 a plate restaurants may not be of plenty in Spring but, some restaurants you can get rather close to a $100.00 bill per guest without beverages such as at Perry’s Steakhouse.  Is if the cost though that defines fine dining in the mind of Houstonians?  I am not sure but, I have always said that Houstonians are more interested in ambiance and service than in good food.  Looking for some kind of definition, I found a blog on FobBoh, The Restaurant Network, www.fohboh.com, where Harry Constantinescu asked the very question.  An answer by Michael L. Atkinson states, “I think fine dining is something special...a rare gift delivered by some of the most talented and professional FOH and BOH staff. It's expensive. It's fantastic and it's elegant. You feel regal and well fed. You feel pampered and special. You have an opportunity to relish in a world of tribute to food...and wine...and superior customer service. I define fine dining as a 5 course meal and a wine paring.”  Do restaurants in Spring and or The Woodlands not fit that definition?  The real question is, who in Houston is defining “fine dining,” is it defined by the consumers or by the media marketing companies?  Which ever the case, 1 Touch Reservations plans on fixing the problem with our new website, FineDining.ws.

The Woodlands just within in the last five or six years has been gaining recognition for fine dining and is the only location outside of Houston listed on Google for fine dining although that is different with Yahoo. Clear Lake and Kemah have massive listings on Google and considering that Google corners the market a bit at around 58% usage, Google and the restaurant marketing companies are defining Fine Dining.  OpenTable.com does not even list Spring in the their Texas cities.  The leading Houston restaurant reviews site lists one restaurant in Spring under fine dining and that is the White Flamingo.  They have listed an Asian Grill restaurant, the Waza Sushi & Robata Grill on FM 1960, which I consider close enough to Spring to call it a Spring listing.  Having access to the profile page of Raoul’s Italian Grill, since we handle much of their Internet marketing, I noticed that the category fine dining is not a choice for the restaurants to pick on this reviews site, thus they must be defining fine dining themselves.  Myself, I am a food lover, not an ambiance lover so the first sign of fine dining to me is the experience and staff of a restaurant.  Lets take Gratzi’s for example, which is the photo to the left for this article, owner Richard White has had an incredible career, “As a graduate of the Cambridge Institute of Culinary Arts in Massachusetts and a former intern of the world renowned chef and restaurateur Todd English, Richard had the strong educational background to vault him into a successful career as a chef at some of Houston’s finest dining establishments. After working in the kitchens of such well-regarded restaurants as Nino’s and Stables, Richard moved on to become the co-owner of Campioni Italian Restaurant, where he worked to further hone his culinary flair for ten years.”  www.gratziitalian.com  Last month, good friends of mine from high school visited Raoul’s Italian Grill for 

the first time and said the food was the best Italian food they have ever had dining out.  I personally shot two videos at Raoul’s Italian Grill of their table side flaming Greek salad and one of their piano players, both posted at www.allhouston.net.  You can be the judge yourself on their ambiance.  The Yellow Pages is the only company I found on Google listing Spring fine dining.  Lets take Babin’s, in Willowbrook, which is close enough to Spring for me to call a Spring restaurant has an incredible ambiance and some of the best seafood in Houston in my mind.  They are owned by Landry’s, and if Landry’s restaurants are not defined as fine dining, I am not sure what the world is going to.  Spring does have fine dining restaurants even worthy of Houstonians taking the drive and we hope to assist in listing those restaurants soon. 2012 will bring new light to Spring restaurants if we have anything to do with it but, Spring restaurants will need to put their two cents in as well.  Through the grapevine, some Houston marketing companies have told me that Spring restaurants do not want to participate in raising money for causes.  Many Spring area residents need help just as much as Houstonians do.  1 Touch Reservations is discussing with severalrestaurants and a couple churches to organize such a method.  Continuing on with the subject of fine dining, Valentine’s Day is not too far away, which is one of most sought after fine dining days of the year.  Mother’sDay is definitely next in line as we all like to take our mothers to the best of restaurants or fine dining.  So those reading this who live in Spring, we encourage you to go to www.houstonrestaurants.ws and send us an email of any restaurant(s) in Spring that you believe should be classified as fine dining.  We will research each restaurant and will try to create a criteria to define fine dining.  Those restaurants who may not fit our criteria will be listed in the same location under the category of something along the line of “Top Spring Restaurants” or “Worthy of Mentioning.”  Let those of us in Spring start to make a name for Spring as a city of good restaurants and fine dining and for the restaurants, lets say how much we care about Spring, Texas, for it is a city.