Houston Loves: Little Bigs & River Oaks

There are so many things I love about our fair city, Houston. Let's forget about the humidity and the traffic for just a moment and reflect on the many wonderful things here in H-Town. In the next few weeks (maybe months?), I'll post every once and a while about what I love about Houston. Up for today: Little Bigs and River Oaks.

If you watch "The Next Iron Chef" on Food Network, you surely saw and loved Chef Bryan Caswell from Houston. He did pretty well, but he got eliminated before the finale. Boo. Oh well, that just gave him more time to return to Houston and run his three, about to be four, successful restaurants. His first restaurant is Reef - a great seafood restaurant. Then he opened Little Bigs, sort of a "dive" specializing in sliders, and now he has Stella Sola, a "Texan-Tuscan" restaurant that we haven't tried yet but will soon. Now there's a brand new Tex-Mex place called "El Real" that just opened. It's like music to my ears.

Little Bigs has become one of our favorites. It's a tiny little building with big decks all around. They only sell sliders (mini-burgers). You can get a beef, chicken, and pulled pork. And french fries. And milkshakes. And that's all. But they do it SO well. Whenever I go and eat on the deck, I feel like I'm on vacation. Brent's birthday is Monday, so he is choosing what he wants to do this weekend. He chose Little Bigs for lunch and I could not have been happier. I had to do reading tutorials this morning, so I deserved a good lunch, don't you think?

After our lunch, Brent wisely chose to go for a walk. We drove to the best walking neighborhood in Houston: River Oaks. It's where the richest of the rich live, and I like to gawk. Judge me. You'll have to admit it makes for a great walk - wide streets, nice sidewalks, perfectly manicured lawns, and eye candy like this:

I meant the house and flowers, not me, but thanks for noticing that I look extra-nice in my t-shirt and walking capris. Appreciate it. Brent and I shamelessly stopped at some houses with our mouths literally open. We had the best time walking and talking. Great way to spend an hour!

Sometimes you can only see this from the street. Haters.

But then sometimes you see THIS!!!

Good job, Houston. I commend you for your sliders, celebrity chefs, and neighborhoods where a girl can dream.