Funnel Cake is the most popular food at the rodeo.
For the past three years, the best of the various foods offered at the Houston Livestock Show are honored with the Gold Buckle Foodie Awards.  Contrary to popular belief, rodeo food isn't just funnel cakes and BBQ, although you'll find plenty of examples of both.
Here are 2011's winners:

Best Breakfast Food:
1st: Stubby’s Cinnamon Rolls’ Big Stone Breakfast Sandwich
2nd: Yoakum Packing Company’s Bacon Blast
3rd: Texas Sized Pizza by the Slice’s grilled breakfast burrito

Best Taco/Burrito:
1st Freebirds World Burrito’s carnitas burrito
2nd Tad’s Bodacious Burrito’s garlic chicken burrito
3rd Texas Pride Grill’s fajita taco

Best Seafood:
1st Berryhill Baja Grill’s crispy shrimp taco
2nd Sudie’s Catfish House’s duo of fried shrimp and oysters

Best Baked Potato:
1st: Harlon’s Bar-B-Que’s super baked potato
2nd: Ranch House Pork Barn’s pulled pork super potato
3rd: Crown Cinnamon Rolls’ Just-Do-It Baked Potato

Best Burger:
1st: Holmes Smokehouse’s angus, bacon, cheese mushroom burger
2nd: Paradise Burger’s ½ lb bacon cheeseburger
3rd: Texas Sized Pizza by the Slice’s cheesy burger bites

Best Food on a Stick:
1st: Granny’s Cheesecake & More’s chocolate covered bananas and strawberries
2nd: Ranch House Burger Barn’s jalapeno & cheese sausage on a stick
3rd: Burton Sausage’s Rodeo K-bob

Best BBQ:
1st: Big Bubba’s Bad BBQ’s pork spare ribs (RCS Carnival Midway)
2nd: Ranch House Pork Barn’s pulled pork bbq sandwich
3rd: Ranch House Burger Barn’s bar-b-que pork ribs

Best Fried Food:
1st: Sweet Cheeks’ deep fried moon pie (RCS Carnival Midway)
2nd: Bear Mountain Bison’s Buffalo chips with The Works
3rd: Texas Sized Pizza by the Slice’s Tornado Potato Fries smothered and covered

Favorite Food:
1st: Granny’s Cheesecake & More’s chocolate dipped cheesecake
2nd: Sill’s Funnel Cake Hause’s funnel cake
3rd: Saltgrass Steakhouse’s ribs and chicken platter

Most Creative:
1st: Sills Funnel Cake Hause’s fried Snickers
2nd: Texas Sized Pizza by the Slice’s Juicy Lucy Cheeseburger
3rd: Bum’s Blue Ribbon Grill’s pulled pork sundae

Best Dessert:
1st: Sills Funnel Cake Hause’s banana split funnel cake
2nd: Stubby’s Cinnamon Rolls’ cinnamon roll with “The Works”
3rd: Cobbler Café’s pecan cobbler with soft serve vanilla ice cream

Best New Flavor:
1st: Zac Brown’s Southern Ground Grub chicken, sausage and shrimp jambalaya
2nd: Crown Cinnamon Rolls’ Lava Flow Smoothie
3rd: Paradise Burger’s fried brownie bites

Best Gourmet:
1st: DGZ Chocolates & Fudge’s Toffarazzi (toffee)
2nd: The Caramel Candy Co.’s pecan caramel
3rd: Kettle Korn of Texas’s ribeye sandwich

(via Delicious Mischief)

I like burgers. I love good burgers. I adore great burgers. When I heard about Smashburger, I said to myself, "Self, another foreign (i.e. from out of Texas) burger chain has invaded Houston. Maybe it'll be OK, but I don't have high hopes. It's a chain, so it's going to be lame."

I was dead wrong.


Smashburger makes an excellent hamburger. It starts with a hand-formed patty (1/2 pound in this case) smashed fairly flat. It's topped with a slice of thickish American cheese, and remarkably fresh veggies -- we're talking truly crisp here. The assembled product is perched atop a fresh eggy bun, and the burger hangs over the bun about 3/4" on all sides.

Interestingly enough, this burger doesn't come across at all as an upscale burger. It's more of a traditional, down-home griddled burger, but prepared with remarkable balance and attention to detail.

How's it taste? Superb. The beef is griddled expertly, with plenty of ooze left. The cheese/beef combination approaches the Golden Mean; the combined flavor was about as dead-on as could be. The super fresh veggies added their flavors to the mix, but everything stayed distinct.

Christian's Totem, Beck's Prime, and the rest of the top notch burger joints in town now have a new, serious competitor. I'd have to give Beck's a slight edge for more flavorful meat (the mesquite taste is excellent) but Smashburger nails the beef/cheese ratio and the combined flavor is really excellent. I think this is the best chain burger in town. I still have to give the overall edge to Christian's Totem... but the mediocre experience that is Christian's Tailgate in Midtown demonstrates just how impressive Smashburger's consistent approach really is.

There may be better burgers in Houston, but I'd not fault anyone for naming Smashburger as his favorite.

(Update: A friend pointed out that I'd not mentioned the fries, and that is a mistake that should be corrected. The Smashfries are unique and delicious. It's cone of paper (artfully presented in an iron holder) filled with thinish, machine-cut fries, probably thawed and fried. The magic is in the execution: They're fried perfectly; crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and then seasoned with rosemary, olive oil, and sea salt. Very unique, and a wonderful counterpoint to the great burger.)

The biggest fault? The location. They're at Kirby and S. Main. Although I do see property values rising in that neighborhood now.

When's that Woodlands location opening?

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