WHERE WILL THE RAMEN BE? 
You can order ramen at dozens of places in Houston, but The Modular food truck’s Joshua Martinez’s Goro & Gun, declares Houston Press‘s Katharine Shilcutt, is going to be the first dedicated to the squiggly noodle: Doubling as a bar, Goro & Gun is set to open in about a month somewhere Downtown; CultureMap’s Tyler Rudick hazards a guess that 306 Main St. will be the new spot, but Martinez calls that story’s reporting “very inaccurate.” So where, then? Martinez and his fellow gaijin Brad Moore and Ryan Rouse aren’t ready to say, but Shilcutt does slip in a few clues: “The downtown restaurant which will house Goro & Gun hasn’t been home to anything successful in years. Its last resident was a sandwich shop, which closed almost as quickly as it opened.” And it’ll be in a “shotgun-style space.” [CultureMap; Eating Our Words] Photo: First We Feast
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: PLANS FOR HOUSTON “Houston didn’t develop organically. The original street grid was planned, the Heights was planned, Montrose and River Oaks and the Villages and Cinco Ranch, etc., all planned. At least 90% of the people who wax poetic about Houston’s ‘vibrancy’ and ‘free spirit’ probably live in a place that was very carefully planned. Our freeway system was the result of planning, and our organic twisty-turny roads were straightened out. Everything within 5 miles of Rice University was aggressively planned, and people love it. Property values in Houston are high in places that were planned, low in places that weren’t, which tells you what the market wants: Planning.” [Mike, commenting on ‘The Galleria Is My Idea of Hell’ and Other Houston Stories]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TATTERS TALE “. . . I rather like greater Houston’s add-it-as-you-need it layout. I mean, I definitely see the distinct advantages that other cities have in their planning, so I’m not knocking them, but I think Houston has advantages, too. I couldn’t ever put my finger on why until reading this article, but I like that Houston doesn’t seem like some piece of created artifice, regulated in such a way as to preserve it in a frame. A “mediation between private homes and the impersonal corporate world†feels like some sort of sop. Like, if the city looks like something I see on TV, then everything must be fine here. No place is perfect, and no one should be lulled into thinking it is. Some more beauty would be nice (I can remember when this town had a lot more trees, for example), but our citizens are so disparate that I’m not even sure we can all agree on what ‘beauty’ is. We’re not homogenous, which gives us some great advantages, but it makes our public spaces kind of bland, even while the private ones are eye-popping. The city (including its many suburbs) wears its elbow pads on the outside of its jacket, showing off the tatters. It keeps the valuables on the inside, in hidden pockets. That won’t change for a long, long time.” [Sihaya, commenting on ‘The Galleria Is My Idea of Hell’ and Other Houston Stories]
CENTERPOINT SAYS NO BIKE TRAILS WITHOUT ‘ADDITIONAL LIABILITY PROTECTION’ 
Houston lawmakers Sarah Davis and Jim Murphy have each introduced a bill to the state legislature that would have more bike trails built here along CenterPoint-owned utility rights-of-way, but the energy provider’s response seems to StateImpact reporter Dave Fehling a little overprotective: “a CenterPoint media liaison said it would permit trails ‘if — and only if — the Texas Legislature provides additional liability protection to CenterPoint from people entering its rights of way.'” Fehling adds: “What has resulted, though, are bills that would give what lawyers say is almost blanket immunity to CenterPoint Energy should someone get hurt on company property while using it for recreation, even if CenterPoint was ‘grossly negligent.’†[StateImpact; previously on Swamplot] Photo: StateImpact
COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXTREMISM IN DEFENSE AGAINST EXTREMISM IS NO VICE “Although I agree some of Ayn Rand concepts are a tad to the extreme, it is a necessary tool to combat the concepts on the opposite side which are even more extreme such as Carl Marx and the Occupy Movement. These days you cannot persuade people to your side by simply being centrist and laying out facts and figures, you HAVE to have a certain level of Theatrics and Overly Dramatized Dramatizations.” [commonsense, commenting on Comment of the Day: A Rand Retort]
IT’S NOT LIKE WE’RE DOING ANYTHING ELSE WITH THE ASTRODOME 
One of Houstonia magazine’s writers, John Nova Lomax, says that Houston, not Austin, ought to be the state capital; “Austin lacks gravitas,” he writes in a Texas Monthly essay this week, laying out his case and making a modest proposal to deal with one of each city’s landmark eyesores: “Slap a statue of Willie Nelson in the Goddess of Liberty’s place atop the granite dome and repurpose it as the Texas Pantheon. Fill it with statues, plaques, and exhibits dedicated to all those exalted icons who were truly Texas cool, and presto: a world-class tourist attraction,” he writes: “As for Houston, well, let’s not forget that it has long been home to a certain Eighth Wonder of the World, now just sitting there running to ruin. The Astrodome’s merits as a seat of government are limitless. It has rail service and ample parking and seating. It has skyboxes in which lobbyists, high above the scrum, could go about their deals. The old ‘exploding’ scoreboard could be reactivated, and we could make state politics a spectator sport. . . . Whenever a legislator started getting a little too grandiose up on the dais, an appointed sinecure (Nolan Ryan?) could power up that bawling, smoking-nosed bull that once thrilled baseball fans. C-SPAN ratings would be off the charts.” [Texas Monthly; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Russell Hancock
COUNTING DOWN TO 11:11 
Chef Kevin Bryant is renovating the former Bibas Diner at 607 West Gray for a new “casual fine dining restaurant” called 11:11 that’s expected to open in March; Greg Morago reports that the building (shown at left) is being updated to include a 100-seat patio and an 80-90 seat private dining section upstairs with a private terrace. The former Capitol at St. Germain and L’Olivier chef, reports Morago, is devising a menu “he describes as ‘Southern coastal.’ There will be an oyster bar, a raw bar program (sourcing East Coast bivalves), sashimi, lobsters, and a ceviche of the day. The restaurant will use Gulf seafood where appropriate, but source from all over.” [29-95] Photo: Allyn West
LEARN BY UNDOING 
Bellaire City Council voted today to spend an extra $8,000 to allow Habitat for Humanity to practice “whole house recycling” and, in lieu of the usual one-fell-swoop, whiz-bang demolition, “deconstruct” over a 14-day span this home at 5119 Jessamine, reports Robin Foster; the ayes argued that deconstruction can reduce the amount of wasted reusable material — but there remained at least one unconvinced nay: “‘Demolition is recycling, recycling is demolition,’ said [Bellaire mayor Phil] Nauert.” [West U Examiner] Photo: West U Examiner
IF YOU TYPED ‘POTHOLE,’ PLEASE TYPE ‘YES’ 
A spurting water main? One of your neighbor’s free-range hens clucking the ever-loving night away? There’s an app for that: today, the city is launching a 311 app that will help smartphone-equipped Houstonians report and track complaints: “‘Say you see a pothole on your street. Before you even leave for work you can walk over, launch the app and type in ‘pothole,’ [city spokesperson Chris Newport] said. ‘You have the option of taking a picture, punching in the address and answering two other questions before you hit send.'” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Chelsea Gomez (Oakes)
COMMENT OF THE DAY: I GOT YOUR HOT HOUSTON REAL ESTATE TIP RIGHT HERE “Hey, did you hear about that awesome new project happening over yonder? Too bad it’s misplacing that thing that some people like and others don’t. The architect/contractor/developer/use is still up in the air, but I’ll be sure to pass along any and all updates. Sincerely, Real Estate Insider” [RE Insider, commenting on A Terribly Vague Update]
A TERRIBLY VAGUE UPDATE 
“More to tell!,” says the Swamplot tipster who earlier in January shared some big vague news that something was going to happen to “a major (non-residential) Houston property” — and no, it wasn’t Macy’s — sometime this year: “It looks like some changes have come up. The part of the property to be demolished will retain some of the current façade and no notable architects will be brought in. However, a new structure may be built on another part of the property and that one is still very new in terms of recent developments, as in the past couple of weeks, so prominent designers and what-have-you aren’t entirely off the table. When it comes down to it, the property is going to have to fight to maintain its relevance in the new economic climate, and I don’t mean the recession and recovery. You might have guessed what it is by now, but I still can’t say it yet. . . . I just want to make sure you have the most recent information possible because it’s a Houston landmark even if I wish it weren’t.” [Swamplot inbox] Photo: Seth Bienek
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE HUNG BROWSER DEFENSE “I don’t believe that I did [run the red light]. And the alleged video that claimed to show my car going through the light never worked for me, as I never could get the video to load.” [Random Poster, commenting on Red Light Cameras No Longer Recording]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FOR THOSE OF YOU UNDER THE MISTAKEN IMPRESSION THAT PEARLAND IS FULL OF ZOMBIES “Ok, I’ll spill the beans, we don’t have REAL zombies in Southern Trails. What people have seen are the fake ones we put out at night. It’s a scheme dreamed up by our Neighhborhood Watch program that works on the scarecrow principle. We set them up around the neighborhood after dark, then before the next morning we rush out and pick them up. We take turns hiding them in different garages.” [Tim, commenting on Pearland Home of the Bloggess Is Guaranteed Zombie-Free. Sort Of]
ALL THOSE NEW ENERGY CORRIDOR OFFICE BUILDINGS “Among projects slated to begin construction soon are the 477,000-square-foot Energy Tower III from Mac Haik Realty Ltd. on the Katy Freeway, the 170,000-square-foot Enclave Corporate Center and the 230,000-square-foot Energy Crossing II, developed by Phoenix-based Opus West Corp. on the Katy Freeway. Currently, 13 new office buildings are being constructed in the Energy Corridor, according to the Energy Corridor Management District. Major developments coming online in the near future include the 300,000-square-foot Three Eldridge Place at 737 North Eldridge Parkway being developed by Dallas-based Behringer Harvard; the 447,000-square-foot Energy Tower II, which is expected to be completed this fall and will be occupied primarily by Technip; and Eldridge Oaks I, a 350,000-square-foot building at 1080 Eldridge Parkway being developed by Transwestern. In all, the market will gain an estimated 1.25 million square feet of new space, of which about 33 percent is pre-leased. Class A vacancy is expected to increase by about 50 percent this year, its highest rate in five years, according to market experts.” [Houston Business Journal]