Best Restaurants in Meyerland, Houston

Meyerland's restaurant scene is short, deep, and unlike any other Houston neighborhood. The center of it is Kenny & Ziggy's Delicatessen on Buffalo Speedway, a 5,000-square-foot Jewish deli that opened in 1999 and is now one of the city's defining restaurants. Around it, the area runs heavy on kosher and kosher-style cooking, Vietnamese and Thai on Bellaire and South Rice, and a handful of strip-mall sleepers that locals trust.

This is not a steakhouse-and-sushi neighborhood like Galleria/Uptown. It is a where-do-the-grandkids-want-to-go neighborhood, where the Friday afternoon line at Three Brothers Bakery snakes out the door for challah and the Tuesday lunch at Khun Kay Thai is mostly Bellaire HS parents.

Kenny & Ziggy's Delicatessen

The flagship address is 5172 Buffalo Speedway, in the strip facing the Whole Foods. Ziggy Gruber's pastrami sandwich is the standard order, but the matzo ball soup, the cheese blintzes, and the chicken in the pot are the longer arguments. Portions are deliberately enormous. The space is loud, friendly, and reliably full at peak hours, so go before 12:30 PM on Sundays or expect a 30-minute wait.

A second Kenny & Ziggy's location opened in River Oaks, and it gets the visiting press, but the Meyerland original is where the regulars eat. Closed Friday at sundown for Shabbat in line with the founder's tradition; reopens Saturday night.

Khun Kay Thai Cafe

Khun Kay sits on South Rice Avenue in a strip-mall slot the size of a one-bedroom apartment. The pad see ew, the boat noodle soup, and the spicy basil chicken are the locks. Lunch specials run roughly $12 with soup and a spring roll, which is one of the better lunch values inside the Loop's western edge. BYOB; the wine shop two doors down keeps a small Thai-friendly bottle list.

Pho Saigon

On Bellaire Boulevard at the western edge of the neighborhood, Pho Saigon has been one of the better Vietnamese soup houses in southwest Houston for two decades. The pho dac biet with rare steak, brisket, and meatballs is the order; the bun bo Hue is the upgrade if you can take the heat. Cash-friendly, family-run, open until 9 PM most nights.

Saba's Mediterranean Kitchen

Saba's is the longest-running of the kosher restaurants clustered on Braeswood, a few blocks from Beth Yeshurun. The menu is Israeli-Mediterranean (falafel, shawarma, sabich, schnitzel platters) with a small but well-run grill program. Kosher-certified by Houston Kashruth Association. Friday closes early for Shabbat; check before driving over.

Three Brothers Bakery

Not a restaurant, but the best bakery in Meyerland and one of the oldest in Houston. Survivor-owned and operated since 1949, Three Brothers makes the area's best challah, rugelach, and pumpernickel rye. Friday afternoons are the rush; Saturdays are calmer. The 4036 South Braeswood location has flooded multiple times and rebuilt each time.

Hong Kong City Mall food court

Five minutes west, the Hong Kong City Mall food court on Bellaire is technically out of the Meyerland boundary but is the default cheap-lunch destination for almost everyone in the neighborhood. Banh mi, Hainan chicken, hand-pulled noodles, and bubble tea. Park early; the lot fills by noon on weekends.

Eating around Meyerland Plaza

The Plaza itself has the chain-restaurant cluster you would expect: Pluckers, Chuy's, Snooze A.M. Eatery, and a busy P. Terry's drive-through. None of them are destinations, but all of them are useful if you have kids in tow or need a quick weeknight stop. The H-E-B prepared-foods counter on South Rice is also a real option on a tired Tuesday.

Practical notes

Most of the serious kitchens close early on Friday for Shabbat and reopen Saturday night, so plan around that if you are observant or care about the rhythm of the neighborhood. Parking is plentiful everywhere except Kenny & Ziggy's on Sundays. For longer trips through the city's food scene, see the Houston restaurants overview on Houston.com and the Meyerland neighborhood guide for context on how dining fits the rest of life here. After dinner, the things to do in Meyerland roundup covers what to do with the rest of the evening.