Artist Matt Manalo has made his mark on the Alief community – literally – through his passion for art and inclusion. In 2019, he bought a shipping container and set it up at the corner of Alief SPARK Park and Nature Center, next to the Alief Community Garden, at Beechnut and Dairy View Lane. He [...]
When some Asian food businesses along Chinatown’s Bellaire Boulevard bloom into popular crowd-pleasers, they open a second or third store near downtown Houston, mainly to appeal to new customers. Examples include Mala Sichuan Bistro and Kamalan Bakery & Cafe, which have expanded to locations on Westheimer Road in the urban Montrose neighborhood. Sherry Ngo did the opposite. Four [...]
Meet Kendrick Deon Thomas, assistant principal at Hicks Elementary School in the Alief Independent School District. The native of Shreveport, La., is on a mission to motivate and empower boys and young men of color to succeed despite obstacles they face in their daily lives. Thomas, 41, explained his journey with the International Management District. [...]
What’s for lunch? How about Beef Bourguignon — slow-roasted beef tenderloin in a demi-glace served with whipped potatoes, sautéed button mushrooms and warm baked bread, accompanied by freshly whipped butter? And for dessert, what about a simple “tarte au citron meringuée” (lemon tart with Swiss meringue)? Is your mouth watering yet? This was the recent lunch special [...]
It may be the Asian Year of the Tiger, but at Daboba bubble tea in the International Management District, you can come face-to-face with a bear. When you order your bubble tea from recently-opened Daboba, at the Universal Shopping Center at 11360 Bellaire Blvd., your drink comes in an adorable cup, the top of which [...]
Youngblood Intermediate fifth and sixth graders dig in the dirt to harvest sugar snap peas and red beets they grow from seed. For the last several years, Alief ISD school students have been hard at work planting, weeding and harvesting fruits and vegetables in the Youngblood plots of the Alief Community Garden, a 6.5-acre garden [...]
Debris and trash can take a toll on quality of life and the spirit of a neighborhood. Wouldn’t it be great if there were someone you could call or report these nuisances to? A team that could help us keep our neighborhoods and community free of the blight if and when the city Solid Waste [...]
Vy Tan Hoang Van Thinking outside the box comes naturally for Vy Tan Hoang Van, who has built a stand-out private school in Houston that rethinks the approach to motivating young people to succeed. In just a five-year span, Van Houston Academy, at 13618 Bellaire Blvd. in the International Management District, has grown [...]
Madan Luthra of Houston was a child refugee when he first learned about selfless service to others. Born five days after the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent, in what is now Jodhpur, Pakistan, Luthra lived in government camps in India. “In early childhood, [I saw] that when you don’t have anything, the only thing [...]
On a crisp, sunny morning recently, workers installed the first of many bright green and white street signs along Bellaire Boulevard to honor the roles of South Vietnamese army generals in the Vietnam War. The signs at major intersections west of the Sam Houston Tollway mark the new Walk of Honor, a project of the [...]
