Houston Restaurant Weeks Debuts Its Full List of Participating Eateries This Week

Welcome to AM Intel, a (mostly) daily round-up of Houston’s hottest bits of dining intel.

Trying to stay on top of Space City’s endlessly vibrant dining scene? Keep up with the hottest new openings, essential eateries, and more by subscribing to the Eater Houston newsletter, and following us on Twitter and Facebook.

Houston Restaurant Weeks participants list and website launches tomorrow

The Houston Restaurant Weeks website for 2021, including the full list of participating restaurants and their menus, will officially go live Thursday, July 15. More than 250 restaurants participate in the annual event, which will kick off this year on August 1.

During the event, diners can sample tasting menus from participating restaurants, starting at $20 a meal, with proceeds benefitting the Houston Food Bank. The event has raised more than $16 million for the non-profit organization, the one of the largest food banks in the United States.

PostHTX announced more tenants for food hall

PostHTX, the ambitious development project going into Downtown’s newly-renovated Barbara Jordan Post office, has announced a slew of new food hall tenants, including some international new comers and local faves. According to CultureMap, the newly announced restaurants including international highlights like Golfstrømmen Seafood Market, from Norweigan chef Christopher Haatuft; Hawker Street Food Bar, the first American project from chef Laila Bazahm; and wine bar Saison Cellar, from San Francisco sommelier Mark Bright. Local favorites will include the third location of biochemist-backed cafe Blendin Coffee, Andes Cafe, and the first bric-and-mortar for West African pop-up ChòpnBlọk.

The food hall will also include two projects from embattled chef Paul Qui. Qui remains a controversial figure in the Houston dining scene and elsewhere following his 2015 domestic violence arrest following an incident in which he admitted to assaulting his girlfriend. Those charges were later dropped, but he was arrested again in 2019 for driving while intoxicated after two separate car accidents on the same night. Qui has stated that he is seeking treatment for his substance and anger issues.

Given the two projects at PostHTX, the development apparently has faith in the chef. In a statement to Culturemap, a rep for the project said that Qui had “made long strides in his commitment to recovery” since the incident.

Omakase returns to Kata Robata

One of Houston’s best omakase programs is back. Kata Robata chef Manabu Horiuchi has relaunched the program after spending the last year and a half focusing on takeout due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that takeout orders are deicing, Horiuchi is offering eight omakase services a night, focused on fish sourced daily from Japan. Price for the dinners range from $150 to $200.