Things to do in Houston
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Indika
One of the best Indian restaurants in Texas, or maybe in the whole South. OK, we’ll fess up – we have a crush on Indika. The alluring dining room sets the tone for the sublime Indian food here, a fusion of authentic tastes and adventurous preparations, such as crabmeat samosas with papaya ginger chutney. Great happy hour and Sunday brunch.
reviewed
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Tila's Restaurante & Bar
Tila's stands out from similar Houston establishments by combining Central-Mexican recipes with interesting ingredients, resulting in unusual dishes like brie and pear quesadillas. The dining rooms have a rustic, faux-painted flair and there's a patio just perfect for that pre-dinner margarita.
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Haven
Houston’s first LEED-certified restaurant cooks up farm-to-table cuisine that’s so fresh your grandma would slap it. An adventurous menu puts a mod spin on Texas comfort foods, such as free-range devilled eggs, peanut-crusted soft-shell crab with okra and Hill Country wild-boar chili.
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Hobbit Hole Cafe
You don’t have to be a Lord of the Rings fan to geek out over this adorable woodsy hideaway with enticing veggie options. What would Frodo order? Probably the Gandalf sandwich or the curry chicken salad, guaranteed to fortify against orc attacks.
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13 Celsius
With an earthy-sexy European enoteca feel, it’s the only bar in Houston to keep a temperature-controlled wine cellar. Knowledgeable bartenders offer friendly guidance to enophiles and the clueless alike.
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Goode Co BBQ
Belly up to piles of beef brisket, Czech sausage, smoked duck and gallon ice teas in a big ol’ barn or out back on picnic tables at this local institution.
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Landmark River Oaks Theater
This fancy vintage cinema shows a mix of the indie and mainstream flicks.
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Johnson Space Center
While manned US space missions such as the Apollo and shuttle programs have their high-profile launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the planning and most of the training happens at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), just outside of Houston.
The glory, guts and cigarette butts of the NASA experience have been theme-park packaged as Space Center Houston, the tourist gateway to the JSC. Heavy commercial sponsorship has led to exhibits featuring Saturn automobiles with 'space age plastic components' and a collection of Lego rockets (with kits for making them available at the giftstore).
Despite all the hype, however, you can find some actual evidence that the sp…
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Orange Show Center for Visionary Art
Beer cans, welded-steel oranges and plastic flowers as folk art? Conservative Houston has a wacky art streak. The late Jeff McKissack molded his house into a junk-art tribute to his favorite fruit until his passing. Today it's the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, off I-45 S, which fosters the folk-art vision by offering tours and keeping up the 50,000-can exterior of the Beer Can House (222 Malone St), off Memorial Dr. The center can give directions to other arty houses around town.
The Foundation also keeps up the Beer Can House (222 Malone St, off Memorial Dr), a house, or is it a sculpture, covered with more than 50,000 aluminum cans.
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Galleria
Grab your platinum card, and leave your frugality back at the hotel, dahling: the Post Oak (also known as Uptown) area was made to max out a credit card. As the largest mall in Texas, the Galleria anchors this upscale extravaganza of a neighborhood. Whatever your views on capitalism, it’s a madcap place to experience true American consumer excess in all of its dubious glory. Think chain hotels, chain restaurants and chain stores: in other words, it’s the perfect place to wake up in a Hilton and throw on your Abercrombie jeans that seem tight after last night’s indulgences at the Cheesecake Factory.
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Discovery Green
Houston’s latest and greatest downtown park is a legitimately cool, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)–certified attraction for all ages. What looks bizarre from a distance – a vast swath of grass raked on a steep diagonal over a parking lot – is impressive from within, with oak-shaded walkways, sculptures, gardens blooming with native Texas plants, and a small lake which transforms into a skating rink in winter. There are plenty of diversions for kids yet adults won’t feel left out: there’s even a swanky restaurant, Grove.
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Holocaust Museum Houston
This superbly curated museum strikes the delicate balance of providing a sobering yet poignant homage to the casualties of the 20th century’s greatest tragedy. The permanent exhibit offers an in-depth education on the context, history and aftermaths of not only the Holocaust itself but of Nazi Germany’s terrifying rise to power. Other exhibits trace the lives of European Jews from before WWII through the post-Nazi era, as survivors tried to rebuild their lives.
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Onion Creek Café
As a sign on the sprawling, ultrachill patio proclaims, it’s 186 miles to Austin. But why make the drive? This cafe rocks a Hill Country atmosphere: from Austin-themed specials such as the ‘Hippie Hollow Burger’ (yes, named after the capital’s infamous nude beach) and ‘Cheap Ass Beer’ for $1.25. Actually, the best things here have little to do with Austin: the palm-shaded patio, the ‘Bad Ass Hot Dogs’ (veggie ones, too!), the bacon and cheddar waffle and the frozen mimosas.
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Museum of Printing History
This carefully curated museum is an often-missed gem that has rare and unusual printed works such as the Dharani Scroll, which dates from AD 764 and is one of the oldest printed works in existence. The vast collection of daily papers printed on historical dates – the Titanic disaster, JFK’s assassination and the invasion of Pearl Harbor – are as poignant as they are historically fascinating.
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Texas Junk Company
Head over to the Texas Junk Company where Robert’s been outfitting locals in preworn cowboy boots since before country got cool again? For three decades, this collection of Texas memorabilia and vintage ephemera has remained a Montrose fixture, where locals lounge outside with coffee and local advice. Be sure to call ahead in the summer months: Robert might be closed for remodeling…or off at Burning Man.
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Ruggles Grill
Houston’s original green restaurant is a dietary-restriction-friendly Montrose phenomenon. Local, organic ingredients shine in creative dishes such as butternut hemp ravioli and agave-glazed pork chops. The answer to one of life’s most agonizing questions, ‘Do you want dessert?’ should be a resounding ‘Yes’ here. (Chocolate crème brûlée, red velvet cake and a low-fat tres leches.)
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Rothko Chapel
A temple of contemplation, a really empty yoga studio, a church or a nuclear bunker? All places you might pray, and at first glance it could be any of the above. The point is, the one and only Rothko Chapel is whatever you want it to be. With 14 large paintings by American abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, it’s a perfect place to sit and do something radical: just be.
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Brasil
Fresh soups, such as sweet potato and fresh thyme, paired with salads and pizzas. Decadent cheesecakes and nightly drink specials. Oh Brasil, what don’t you offer? Retreat to the shaded back patio for an artsy scene full of writers, professors, and bright-eyed dilettantes engrossed in their laptops, cigarettes, and red wine. Watch for offbeat movies that screen most evenings.
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Houston Museum of Natural Science
The tactile pleasures of this museum entertain the kids; the educational and aesthetic experiences woo the adults. If you’re over 16 and you find yourself thinking, ‘Science museums are actually sorta cool!’ you’re not alone. Full-grown adults have been known to audibly ooh and aah their way from the giant diplodocus skeleton to the Gemstones and Minerals Hall.
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Baba Yega
Grilled salmon and fruit blintzes overflow the Sunday buffet brunch (a bargain at $18.95) in this pretty garden bungalow cafe that’s named after a witchy character in Slavic folklore. Plenty of TLC for vegetarians – such as a veggie meatloaf with garlic mashed potatoes – balanced with good burgers and homemade peanut-butter pie mean that all appetites will happily coexist here.
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Empire Café
A classic fixture of the Montrose neighborhood and one of the best all-day breakfasts in town, the Empire’s a jack of all trades that manages to excel at everything: coffee, lunch, evening cocktails… We like to sit on the shady patio with a slice of luscious lemon poppy cake – or maybe the Chocolate Blackout. With half-price cake night on Monday, why not order both?
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Houston CityPass
Varies (Departs Houston, Texas)
by Viator
Enjoy Houston’s premier attractions at one amazing low price! See the Space Center Houston, Downtown Aquarium, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston Zoo an…Not LP reviewed
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no tsu oH
A favorite haunt of the alternative brigade, the name is actually ‘Houston’ spelled backward. As its website proclaims, ‘people are here to get drunk…the place is full of liars.’ If that intrigues you, check out this late-night place that features dancing, nude figure-drawing sessions and chess. Free wi-fi and plenty of weirdness. Yep, an enigma.
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Agora
A jukebox and a vast selection of wines by-the-glass in a coffee shop? Yes, please. OK, so not everyone’s discussing Greek philosophy here, but the student/boho vibe is indeed old school. Sit on the front patio or on the quiet second-level balcony, where movies on a flat-screen TV woo would-be savants away from their studies.
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Menil Collection
Abstract- and modern-art haters, be warned: we dare you to hate this museum. Local philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil’s massive private collection form the core of this adventurous whirl through the medieval to the surreal, with whole rooms devoted to mind-bending René Magritte and Max Ernst.
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