What's Eric Eating

In this week's episode, Culture Map Food Editor and host Eric Sandler is once again joined by restaurant consultant Nathan Ketcham to discuss the news of the week from the Houston restaurant and bar scene including Hugo Ortega of Hugo's finally winning Best Chef Southwest at the 2017 James Beard Awards, the popular restaurant chain Dat Dog coming to the Houston area, and Chef Paul Qui opening his new restaurant Aqui in Montrose. Eric and Nathan discuss their Restaurants of the week. This week restaurants, Ramen Tatsu-Ya in Montrose, Dolce Neve in the Heights, and Tacodeli on Washington Ave.

Eric is then joined by Ronnie Killen of Killen's Restaurants which includes Killen's Steakhouse, Killen's Barbecue, Killen's Burgers, and Killen's STQ. Eric and Ronnie discuss Killen's Burgers being the hardest to manage of the group, the challenges when running a burger place, people's expectations versus what Ronnie wants to execute, what defines gourmet, Killen's STQ's success, and what he said to Houston Texans star J.J. Watt when J.J. called about a reservation at STQ. Plus Ronnie reveals some major info regarding expansion. Hint: a barbecue place somewhere other than Houston. Listen to find out!

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In the debut episode of What's Eric Eating, CultureMap Food Editor and host Eric Sandler is joined by restaurant consultant Nathan Ketcham to discuss the news of the week from the Houston restaurant and bar scene including a recap of the 2017 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards. Eric and Nathan also discuss their visits to the Restaurants of the Week, Helen in the Heights and Salmontin in River Oaks.

Then guests, Lee Ellis and Jim Mills of Cherry Pie Hospitality join the show to discuss what it's been like for the first year of Cherry Pie Hospitality restaurant group, their restaurant State Fare winning the CultureMap Tastemaker Award for Best New Restaurant, opening Star Fish Houston just one week ago, creating Star Fish Houston's menu to be seafood centric, whether they plan on replicating their success with restaurant openings in other areas, and much more!

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