MIKE RICCETTI
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  • The best of Houston dining
    • Best Values
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    • Mexican
    • Middle Eastern
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    • Tex-Mex
    • To Take Visitors
  • Musings on Houston Dining
    • The best new restaurants to open in 2023
    • Houston's Italian restaurant history
    • Restaurants open for lunch (or brunch) on Saturday
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    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2022
    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2021
  • The margherita pizza project
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MIKE RICCETTI

Mostly food and drink...

...and mostly set in Houston

An early look at Stuffed Belly: smashed burgers, tasty tots and almost nothing green

10/24/2023

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Though there hasn’t been anything approaching the considerable buzz about it as the sensation that is Trill Burgers, another new burger joint featuring smashed burgers, Stuffed Belly in Spring Branch from the folks at the well-regarded Blind Goat and Xin Chao restaurants, is certainly worth a visit. The small, mostly drive-thru concept sits like a box, usually with cars in its queue, in the parking lot off Long Point in front of the redone strip center that houses Blind Goat.
 
The burgers at Stuffed Belly begin with two smashed all-beef chuck patties – there’s not a single patty option – and are fitted with caramelized onions, duly melted American cheese, quality pickles, the mayo-centric house Stuffed Sauce, all in between a toasted potato bun that was pulled from a bag of Martin’s Famous Sandwich Potato Rolls. The pickles are the only thing green to be found at Stuffed Belly. The caramelized onions provide a note of differentiation to the burgers. The burgers do taste a lot like those at Trill, which are also really good, but with the slight distinction of those onions. The dull American cheese or cheese-food, as always, does not add very much, but burgers can be fitted with provolone or cheddar for an additional buck. Though that’s really the only change you might need, the burgers can be modified in a number of ways. That might be much easier to do when ordering online rather than in the drive-thru, though.
 
From two, you can go to three, four and six patties, with three slices of American cheese. The last is likely overkill, especially for the soft buns. And these are messy burgers to begin with, even messier than most.  There’s also a couple of patty melts, if you want Texas Toast instead of a potato bun.
 
Somewhat oddly, no fries here, but tater tots. But these are much better than typical, certainly much tastier than the tater tots served recently at Wild Oats, for example; even better when dipped in some of the Szechuan mayo ordered for an additional 50-cents, though there’s just some of the “la,” the heat, and no “ma,” the tingling sensation in that.
 
As a new spot, some kinks still need to be worked out. The packages of ketchup thrown into your bag are of a cheap brand, the napkins are the barely helpful cocktail napkins, and on one of my visits, the onions were not caramelized and so the burger was not quite as tasty.
 
If a burger is not in order, there is also an egg sandwich, the Tuna Crunch – tinned tuna with creamy egg, red onion, celery, crushed potato chips, crustless Texas toast – a chicken sandwich with buttermilk fried chicken, Sichuan mayo, pickles. And cookies for a sweet finish, seemingly from Pudgy’s, though some days there might only be one type.
 
Stuffed Belly
8133 Long Point (just west of Wirt), 77055, (832) 224-5422
stuffedbelly.co
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    Mike Riccetti is a longtime Houston-based food writer and former editor for Zagat, and not incidentally the author of three editions of Houston Dining on the Cheap.

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