Editor's note: James Beard Award-winning critic Alison Cook is taking a break from full restaurant reviews while she puts together her 2018 Top 100 list, which publishes in September. Side Dish will be her outlet for whatever's on her mind as she continues to dine around Houston, uncovering new spots and revisiting old favorites.



I am not the sort of diner who says, "I'll just have a salad."

Well, mostly. But during the cruel hot months of midsummer Houston, I transform into something of a salad fiend. I return to restaurants like Giacomo's, La Table and Nancy's Hustle where I know that these cooling plates of greenery are done with verve. And I troll hard for new favorites like these:

Quick, before peach season ends, check out Coltivare's lively mesh of arugula and spiky pale frisée, threaded with pickled sweet pepper rings, skins-on peach slices and flaps of duck breast. With a scatter of toasted pistachios for crunch, this salad has just the right balance of tart, sweet and savory.

At Weights & Measures in Midtown, they're doing an unusual salad of grilled King Trumpet mushrooms with arugula and big thin tiles of shaved Pecorino cheese, plus a little lemon zest, all tossed in a preserved lemon vinaigrette. The clarity of the lemon flavor is gripping.

You might get lucky, too, with one of Weights & Measures' weekend salad specials, like a delicate, perfectly tuned hillock of compressed yellow watermelon, English cucumber and cherry tomatoes in a citrus vinaigrette. It was sharpened with ginger root, scallion and toasted panko crumbs, so that the flavors and textures popped.

At Emmaline, I fell for a Salade Niçoise variant that's a refreshing meal in itself, with slicks of cured salmon subbing for the usual tuna, and a host of well-chosen vegetables to round things out. French breakfast radishes, skinny haricot-style green beans, cherry tomatoes, green olives and fingerling potatoes are all great for dipping in the buttermilk dressing on the side. So's the gold-and-white half of a 6-minute egg.

Pax Americana has been known for vivid small vegetable and salad plates since founding chef Adam Dorris ran the kitchen. Two chefs on, they're serving a marinated summer squash very much in the Dorris spirit: studded with unexpected gooseberries (they're like golden tomatillos) and surprise blips of Shropshire blue cheese, with a creamy mint puree holding things together. Okay, I could have dispensed with the blueberries, but the overall effect is light, herbal and highly seasonal. And at this time of year, that's a gift.

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