If you eat at just one Tex-Mex restaurant while you're here, make it Lupe Tortilla. There are many locations around Houston. The fajitas, margaritas, and hand-made corn and flour tortillas are standouts. Don't miss this!
This is our favorite restaurant. It's close to the house, the food is great, the tea-house style drinks are the best in the industry, they know our names, and we like to play Connect 4 while we wait for our order. If you're in the area, go there! Try the mangonada, which is a sweet, spicy, salty and tangy concoction with Mexican roots. Get a Chinese entree with veggie fried rice on the side, or some fried fish, or some wings with Q sauce...can't go wrong.
California has In-N-Out; Texas has Whataburger (psst, it's better.) There are many locations; this particular one is where Lisa always goes after concerts at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in the Woodlands. Order a side of cream gravy to dunk your fries in!
If you want some barbecue, we recommend this chain.
No need to go to the Galleria when you're close to this huge shopping and entertainment complex. Lots of hotel choices, too.
If you want to go on an adventure, wander around this area packed with restaurants, stores, tea houses, karaoke bars (KTVs) and reflexology/massage joints. Eat Sichuan hot pot at FuFu Cafe or dumplings at San Dong Noodle House, take selfies at Sweet Memes, browse H Mart for Chinese groceries, or get the reflexology massage at JL Foot Spa. Retaurant-hop your way through 3 courses along Bellaire Food Street. Play a seedy game of pool at M.J. Pool House. Vegans can check out Pine Forest Garden. If you go to Chinatown and find something great, let us know!
Just down the highway from Chinatown is the Mahatma Ghandi District. This is the place for vegetarian foodies! Enjoy a vegetarian thali buffet that comes to you at Maharajah Bhog. Try the dahi puri, pav bhaji or masala dosa at Shiv Sagar; the fresh dhokla at Subhlaxmi Grocers; the chai and the samosas at Bengal Cafe. Lots of clothing, jewelry and housewares, Indian style, in this area. For a wonderful selection of everything from cheap bazaar to upscale designer, go to the Harwin Trade mall, at Harwin and Hillcroft streets. Even if you just window shop and people watch it's worth a walk around, but you can also up your accessory game with some bangles, unique slippers or a statement scarf.
This area has a little of everything (just check out the Googlemaps page); of note for out of towners is the bar and club scene. Gay bars galore, and they're friendly to straight people too. Check out a drag show at JR's Bar and Grill or the amateur gay strip contest at Tony's Corner Pocket; For the straight scene, get some beer at Rudyard's, Cecil's, or Avant Garden, where the patios are on point. Plenty of "Saw it on Food Network" restaurants in this area, like House of Pies, Barnaby's, BB's Tex-Orleans, Chapultepec, and Niko Niko's. If you want to burn off some calories, take a walk around Glenwood Cemetary (or rent a bike at the kiosk out front); it's a beautiful place with graves of notable figures like Gene Tierney, Howard Hughes and Texas revolutionaries. The museum district is in this area too. For anyone who goes to the Rothko Chapel, let us know what you think: moving, or nah?
It's the business center of Houston, the relatively small concentration of skyscrapers that constitute a city skyline; for visitors, it also has parks with restaurants, activities, art, and photo ops; we recommend Market Square Park and Discovery Green. There are also food halls like POST Market (we took our engagement photos there on the Skylawn). Shop for Mediterranean groceries at Phoenicia Specialty Foods grocery store and have brunch with live music at MKT Bar. Or have brunch and a drag show at Hamburger Mary's. This is also the area of town that holds big music, sports and arts venues.
This is the place if you're interested in a classic small-town main street experience complete with bed and breakfasts, antiques, mom and pop stores, and country cooking, Texas style. The area is undergoing refurbishment and is pretty new and upscale-looking, though we noticed that finding parking can be difficult.