Where can you get amazing Vietnamese food, BBQ and TEX-Mex? Houston of course.
Here are three places I ate at in Houston, that I believe, are a good representation of the local food.
Roo Star (Vietnamese) – According to research I did online, Houston is home to the second or third largest (depending on source) Vietnamese population outside Vietnam (after San Jose and LA). It is natural then that the city is home to some delicious Vietnamese food. One we decided to check out while there is Roo Star. With various locations in Houston, the place takes pride in its product as shown by the story on this napkin holder, my kind of place.
I went with a bahn mi sandwich, spring rolls (ask for the lettuce) and a matcha drink. The bahn mi was super delicious and the spring rolls were good (wrap the rolls in a lettuce leaf and dip in the sauce):
I would gladly get this again!
Paplo Maercado (Tex-Mex) – Tex-Mex cuisine is an American cuisine that is heavily influenced by Mexican cuisine. One popular dish is Queso which is a cheese dip and its delicious. We also had the elotes (street corn) which were good and we tried one each of a chicken, brisket and pork belly taco. Everything was pretty good and the meats were cooked well (super tender and flavorful).
The Pit Room (BBQ) – While in Texas, you have to have BBQ and so we chose the Pit Room. My advice is to get there around 11AM to avoid lines. We got there around then, and the line was huge within 5 minutes. We got brisket and jalapeno/cheese sausage.
While the beef was tender and had some flavor, it was not as good as the BBQ I had in Dallas (place 1 and place 2). The sausage I would not get again. The cheese was not melty.
Overall, these were good places to get a wide variety of food typically found in the city. As were were only there overnight, we had to cram everything into a short period of time. If time permitted, I would have tried different places of each type of cuisine to compare, especially the BBQ. I would go back to all the above except the Pit Room (there are many highly rated BBQ places in Houston).