Hands down, my favorite restaurant in Houston. I come here at least once a week, and I'm not even…read morevegan. The food is just that good. The servers are very nice and recognize me since I come so often. I recommend going there to eat because the food is not as good doing takeout (the takeout container traps the heat which cooks the food further and changes the texture). You can do their buffet if you want to try several of their dishes, but I usually order off the menu since I already know what most of their stuff tastes like. My favorite dish is the Cauliflower stir fry, they use Chinese cauliflower which I prefer. It's a healthy, simple dish, but perfectly cooked every time. Other standout dishes would be: Salt and Pepper Tofu, Spicy Dry Pot, and the Bok Choy + Mushrooms. The place is not too big, but there is usually ample seating. Casual and chill vibe, their music is a piano playing recognizable songs. Veggies are good for you and good for the planet. Vegetables dishes can be delicious when prepared properly. Come here to see how it's done!!!

This would be the 'hidden gem' I'd love to share with friends (or perhaps just gatekeep). The…read moreselection is quite varied, and has a lot of favorites, mostly Chinese/East Asian cuisine. Even though everything is vegan, there's plenty of saucy and spicy flavors to make it quite delicious! The sauteed green beans, salt & pepper tofu, hot & sour soup were my favorites. There's also dessert of coconut, fruit, and jelly (I ate so many bowls of it!). The staff were so sweet, and picked up our used plates fairly quickly. The pricing for the buffet is quite fair, at $16.50 per adult and $8.50 for kids under 4 feet. Hours are good, though there is a gap between 3pm and 6pm Mon-Thu, so keep that in mind. Also, you can order a la carte! They have quite a few delivery orders come in while we were there! My only note is to come closer to the busier hours. I think we came a little too early so the food wasn't quite as fresh, but they replenish the food throughout! I'm so glad I get to live so close to this place! Being across the street from Costco makes this quite dangerous for my wallet, but at least it's healthy!

This is my old school favorite restaurant to go to regularly in Houston. The service is wonderful…read more The food is incredible. The ambience is so calm and inviting. If you've never tried Ethiopian food, you are missing out. Take advantage of the vegetable and the meat platter, which they will combine. It is a food feast for the eyes, and the senses.

I had a pretty good experience at blue Nile. The food was pretty delicious & the ambiance was nice…read more It was a little expensive & I thought the service could've been a little better We got the family platter - the Ethiopian traditional family size special. It was a lot of food! We had a group of 7 people & it +appetizers was the perfect size for everyone. It was really fun to sample everything too - there were definitly some standouts like the door wot and the beef kibbe. The sambusas were also delicious! Definitly a standout. The honey wine was good too. Ambiance was very nice. It felt intimate and small. I do think service was a little slow. It took little bit for the food & towards the end of the meal we had to flag down the waitress a few times. Overall a good experience though. Definitly worth a try

My mother and I had the pleasure of enjoying two delectable meals at True Food Kitchen today (Aug…read more 1, 2026). I ordered the vegan double cheeseburger with a kale side salad (minus the parmesan). My mother ordered vegan blueberry pancakes with a blueberry compote (minus the greek yogurt) and a side of sweet potato and onion mash. Omar, our waiter, took such great care of us. He anticipated our needs and knew the menu very well. He even knew how the food was prepared. He truly elevated our experience. This was not our first visit to True Food. We have had great food and great service each time. The staff is always excellent. We will be back!

I was excited to try True Food Kitchen because the pictures online looked amazing, but…read moreunfortunately my experience didn't live up to the expectations. I ordered the Jambalaya Pasta and it looked nothing like the photos online. The noodles were different, the texture was off, and instead of being a saucy pasta, it came out more like a soup. I ended up swapping it for the pepperoni pizza, which was better, but still nothing memorable. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the food I received to reflect. The atmosphere inside the restaurant is beautiful and the environment was great, but the food just didn't deliver for me and I wouldn't come back. Try at your own discretion

This place literally has the best sushi I have ever had in my life. The low-key lowki roll was so…read moredelicious that I felt like I traveled to heaven eating it it is the best sushi roll I've ever had in my life!

My family and I had heard about this place before in passing but we finally decided to give them a…read moretry. First off, this is NOT a restaurant. It's a one-man show. You order online hosted by hot plate and pick up at your scheduled time/date at their house. I ordered it but someone else picked up around 2 hours later. You get an automated text when it's ready and you text when you're there. For special requests, you can call/text the number as well; he was pretty helpful and responsive and mentioned to my brother in law that he personally made sure everything had no alliums at pick up. As a note: my family consists of allium-free vegetarians (with one vegan) so we asked ahead of time what our options were before we went for it. He (I really should have gotten his name) gave us a list of rolls that could be made allium free and we chose from them so you could say they do have an allium free menu upon request. We pretty much got almost everything on his list. For 5 adults, we ordered a total of 10 rolls: LOW-KEY LOKI (2) CLASSIC SPICY TUNAH (2) NIKCO ROCK N ROLL SPICY MAMI, HOT TAMALE SPICY DRAGON FIRECRACKER (2) When we opened the boxes, it turns out that he included an extra roll of SPICY MAMI, HOT TAMALE as well as a small container of seaweed salad which I thought was really nice of him! Or maybe we spent too much or there's some buy 10 rolls get 1 free promotion I was unaware of, haha. It was an unexpected surprise. I also have 2 kids but one has multiple food allergies and the other one is picky. She wanted a sweet potato roll, but it's not on the menu so we rolled up some seaweed rice rolls for them ahead of time so they weren't left out. I didn't bring up my kids because we wanted to ease in with the allium free request and go from there. Plus, one of the food allergens is avocado and that was found in almost every roll. On that note, there's an option to make it gluten-free on each item's page, which is pretty awesome. There's also an option to use soy paper instead of seaweed and to add extra ingredients at additional cost. My family shared everything so my plate was a mix and I honestly lost track of what I was eating at the time for personal notes. But honestly? Everything was delicious. Sushi was the last thing I gave up before becoming vegetarian and I'm picky with the sushi I eat now. These are very good and I must say if I lived in Houston, I'd order again. I do wish there was a place to sit or picnic nearby, but this worked as well. (We all congregated at a house.) There was one roll that definitely had a kick to it. Oddly enough, SPICY MAMI was not it. My nose tends to run with spicy food and I didn't get to that point but it was close after that one spicy piece. Overall, a great experience. Our rolls were $8 to $17 each, 8 pieces per roll. It was around $27.20 per person before tips and tax/fees from hot plate ($7.35). They were nicely packed complete with edible orchid flowers, and personal cups of ginger and wasabi as well as chopsticks and soy sauce packets. We finished everything. This certainly wasn't cheap but when is sushi affordable enough to be a daily thing? I do wish there weren't service fees added on top, but I guess the platform needs support too. Delicious and something to try whether or not you're vegan. I hope to order again our next time in town. Many thanks to the chef for the excellent experience and his help!

I finally had a chance to try Coltivare, ever since I heard of them back in 2014 , not sure why it…read moretook this long. Anyhoo, Houston Restaurant Week (Month?) brought me to them finally, and the quest was finally completed. Reservations are a bit difficult for the weekend, at least for HRW, but I managed to snag a 5pm spot. We had to find parking in the neighborhood. We got seated immediately. The tables are a little close to each other but I don't think I could really catch conversations too easily. The food was quite excellent. For the first course, we had the corn ribs and calamari spiedino, both were fantastic, with lots of flavor. 5/5 for both. For the second course, we got the pan-roasted trout and bucatini. The fiancee liked her trout, as they got the skin nice and crispy. The bucatini was tasty, perhaps could be a little more al dente, but pretty yummy. I would say 4.5/5 for both. As for the dessert, we both got the fig leaf panna cotta, 5/5, solid. Overall assessment, food was very good, seems very chef-driven, local, and seasonal. Good flavor, and good use of veggies and herbs. Pricing is pretty fair for the type of restaurant. I would expect a non-HRW dinner to cost $30-50pp for appetizers and mains. One miss I have for the restaurant was the use of their space. The ice and silverware station(s) are way too close to guests, we were 3 tables away and the clinking sounds are loud and travels given the floors are basically concrete, fairly unpleasant to hear those sounds constantly throughout our meal. That said, we'll be back! Hopefully, it won't be in 2038!

EXTREMELY loud. Tables are close together. Wine list is large, but not impressive. The marinated…read moreolives have a slight bitter after taste. The mix drinks all have issues. Maybe stick with the lackluster wine list. The prosciutto with cheese appetizer is good. This place is highly overrated - not to mention they had a few flies buzzing around the tables.

The interior is very cozy and community-centered, just like its mission. The furniture is very…read moreantique-like and there are couches, high chairs by the window, and small square tables. It would be really great for a study spot! The coffee menu has a good amount of specialty drinks. I got the pistachio latte, which is ground pistachio with cardamom, and I got it with vanilla syrup. Every first Tuesday of the month (don't quote me on this, check their instagram!) they have free drinks covered by Frost Bank, which is very nice. Lines can get long though so come quick, right at 8!

Doshi House is a popular coffee shop and cafe located on Emancipation Ave. I finally got the chance…read moreto stop by in the morning for a coffee before work and was surprised to find it almost completely full, many of the customers being students. Not quite sure what to expect, I was pleased to see that it's completely plant-based including the pastries and no extra plus charge for alternative milks (praise!) I ended up ordering their pistachio latte which had a really rich, bold espresso note and a sweet cardamom finish at the bottom of the cup. I would definitely get this again but might try to stir it before drinking for a more even flavor distribution. In terms of the setting, there's lots of small tables and couches to work and study with either a small group or alone. They also have a back patio with additional seating, board games, and even a printer which can be hard to find in this day and age. Overall the vibe is relaxed and casual. Finally, while I had to wait about 30 minutes to order and receive my drink, I had some time to watch their workflow and would offer some suggestions for improvement to speed up their service. The staff all clearly put a lot of care into preparing each drink and were doing the best they could to move quickly, but the layout of the back counter area is fairly inefficient. To start, the ice well for cold drinks is on the complete opposite side of the register away from their espresso machines. This added a lot of steps for the staff to prepare iced coffee drinks. Secondly, the straws were also quite a reach for the staff across the counter, also by the ice well. Finally, the order retrieval process is not the best. There are no names written on the cups and customers are sometimes in the bathroom or outside on the back patio when their order is ready. It can be hard for the staff to locate the right customer or if the drink gets left on the counter, it's hard to know what it is and who it is for. Overall, a pleasant (plant-based!) discovery but hoping they might consider a few steps (pun intended) to reduce the strain on their staff.

The world is full of Mexican restaurants…read more Most are some version of Tex-Mex in a family-friendly, relatively similar environment. Nothing wrong with that. Mexican Sugar breaks that mold completely. This is the most legit, wonderful, bougie, over-the-top Mexican restaurant I have ever been to, and I mean that as the highest compliment possible. This was my second trip to Mexican Sugar. The first was in Grapevine. After this visit to the Montrose location, I have officially decided that when I am in Texas, I will seek these places out. They are that good. First, dress up. I doubt there is an actual dress code, but this is not the place where I am showing up looking like I just finished mowing the yard. Come here to be seen. Come here to show out a little. The place is beautiful and has that kind of vibe. Second, the drinks. Hell yes. Fancy, creative, excellent, and impressive enough for even the person who has seen every ridiculous cocktail presentation imaginable. And then there is the food. My God, the food. The salsa and queso are legit AF. The street corn is heaven in a bowl. Get several orders. I am serious. One is not enough. The carne asada was amazing. Honestly, I could keep going, but at some point this review is just going to become me yelling about how much I love Mexican Sugar. I LOVE MEXICAN SUGAR. OK, YOU GET THE IDEA. WHY AM I YELLING? BACK TO THE REVIEW.... Service was excellent too. The place is huge and was absolutely packed, but our server stayed attentive and the food came out surprisingly quickly. Make a reservation. Park in the nearby garage. Dress nice. Order the drinks. Get the street corn. Then get more street corn. Who is ready for another trip to Houston? I'll book the reservation at Mexican Sugar.

This was my second time at Mexican Sugar and I loved it just as much as the first! Johnny was our…read morewaiter and he was phenomenal, super attentive and even refilled my drink several times without me having to ask. Sonia was also incredibly sweet. My daughter dropped some food and made a bit of a mess, and Sonia was so kind about it and cleaned everything up without making us feel uncomfortable at all. The food was amazing. I highly recommend the steak and eggs and the pancakes, both were delicious. Great food, amazing service, and another wonderful experience. We'll definitely be back!

I've never been to Morocco and yet I can tell they are doing something special here at Zoa. The…read morestaff service is extremely nice and professional and the flavors are far more robust that Cava... i said it sorry ! You won't be dissatisfied unless you are one of those people who go to Outback while on vacation . No judgement

I was looking for something different to eat for dinner and I noticed this place next to where I…read moreget my snap kitchen. I feel like I have seen it before a long time ago somewhere else. Upon walking in two young ladies greeted me and throughly explained the process of creating a bowl/sand-which etc. they also offered as many samples as I liked after learning this was my first time. I opted for half and half of rice/ couscous and beef/chicken. My favs ended up being the beef tagine and saffron rice. They also provided samples of the desert and house made drinks. I felt like I was fully informed and satisfied with what I chose. The place was clean with ample seating!!! Also the marble cake was really good! They offer their tea hot and cold. Very great customer service ladies!!!

So glad I came here. Food was so fresh! Definitely coming back. Staff is super nice and the place…read morehas a cool vibe and super clean too.

Solid fast casual Vietnamese restaurant. They offer half price drinks during happy hour. Food is…read moretasty and the layout is nice. You have a partial view into kitchen so can see and feel the intensity. Drinks were ok and food was very good. Prices are mid-range, on par for what you would expect for this type of restaurant. Service was ok but was there around time some folks were getting off shift so that probably had an impact. Had the chicken curry and a citrus and mint cocktail. Forgot to take photos but it was just a standard looking dish and drink. Usually don't order curry at Vietnamese restaurant but I was in the mood for it and this one surprisingly was very good. Typically for a curry I'll go to a Thai, Indian or Jamaican restaurant. Their curry was very similar to Thai style but it had a Vietnamese flair to it. Hard to describe. Hint of some Vietnamese spices with the traditional Thai style curry flavor that changed it up a bit in a good way. They also mixed some vermicelli noodles into the curry which added something new. The chicken was quality chicken and cooked well. I've found lately not all chicken is equal so worth noting it was high quality chicken. Overall I really liked the curry and would definitely order it again. Had the curry with the sticky coconut rice instead of regular rice. I didn't care for it at all. The coconut rice was hard, very chewy and sort of rubbery. It wasn't sweet at all, more in savory side so it worked with the curry dish. The wait staff had suggested sub'ing in the coconut rice for regular rice for an extra $2.99. So I was game to try it. The flavor was not bad but the rice texture was off. The rice was also browned on the outside like they fried it. I will probably stick with a Thai place when I order sticky rice in the future, pun intended ;) Cocktail was so /so, they didn't mix it well and everything was on the bottom. So first part of the drink was watery and flavorless and last half was heavy. Think the drink would have been good if they stirred it. My friend had the pho soup and he said it was good. I'd originally planned on pho but changed my mind when I saw the menu. In summary, nice fast casual Vietnamese place that has pretty good energy. It's very clean and prices are standard for that category. No comment on my cocktail as the mixed drink wasn't mixed. Curry was excellent but the coconut rice is a hard pass.

We had the best time at Toasted Coconut! Super cute fun bar! Amazing Service! The burger was so…read morefresh and amazing! The cocktails were well balanced and fresh!

Passed by this place multiple times and finally decided to stop in for drinks and appetizers…read more The ambience grabs your attention just walking into the restaurant they have string lights along the walkway and low amber lights as you go inside. They have an outdoor eating area, a bar area, and seating in the very back. It's very spacious, comfortable, and intimate. The theme of the restaurant is seen all over from the moment you enter, to the music, the menu and the restroom. They paid close attention to detail with decorating. We had an amazing server, delicious drinks (a must try), and ok food. We ordered four drinks the painkilla, vamos à la playa, captains grog, and the Hemingway daiquiri. All were great drinks and we loved how they give you flavor characteristics of the drinks on the menu. The appetizers that we ordered were the sweet and sour cauliflower and the pork dumplings, which is why I gave this place four stars. The presentation of both appetizers were excellent. However, the pork dumplings were disappointing. They came with only six dumplings for $17, were served cold, and are very bland. In my opinion, they weren't worth the price. On the other hand, the sweet and sour cauliflower was our favorite and is definitely a must-try.