Today marks my first day as Texas Monthly’s Barbecue Editor. I haven’t actually eaten any meat yet, but it’s only 10 a.m. Give me time. For my first official act, I’m pleased to announce the date of this year’s Barbecue Festival. If you're serious about Texas barbecue then you'll want to be in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, November 3rd. That’s right, Sunday, November 3. Just enough time to get the Halloween candy out of your system to make way for the very large and excellent offerings of smoked meat from the bevy of pitmasters who will be in attendance.

Of course, we can't tell you exactly which pitmasters will be in attendance because, for the first time since Texas Monthly launched the Barbecue Festival three years ago, the event will reflect a brand new Top 50 list. In the June issue, we’ll unveil a new round-up of the state’s top joints, and along with that list comes a whole new group of invitees. So expect a few new faces along with some of the old friends you may have made at past festivals. The Texas Monthly barbecue tasting team has been hard at work for months compiling this list, driving down every country road, kicking up every cow patty, tearing through countless cheap napkins, and sampling more good, bad, and ugly barbecue than ever before. So you’re not going to want to miss this year's festival.

Again, the special date is November 3. Tickets will be available soon (continue to check in here for more information), but we know you'll want to save this date. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find some barbecue.

New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells (who recently captured lots of attention for his comical review of Guy Fieri's Times Square eatery) featured Houston's Underbelly and Oxheart in his dining column this week.

Calling Houston "one of the country's most exciting places to eat," Wells praised Justin Yu's Oxheart and Chris Shepherd's Underbelly.

Both restaurants have been conjuring up a lot of local, statewide, and national media praise in recent months. Texas Monthly's own Patricia Sharpe included Oxheart  and Underbelly as two of her Pat's Picks last year.

Below are a few of the notable quotes from the review. (To read the whole piece, visit the New York Times dining section.)

Oxheart

Oxheart is one of the growing number of places around the country that are rearranging our notions of what fine dining means. It is also an example of the growing ambition of the Houston dining scene, and one of two places that lured me here to kick off this occasional series of reviews of restaurants outside New York City.

And:

Utility Research Garden supplies the carrots for an Oxheart dish that makes use of several varieties of them at different stages of life. Some are shaved and sprinkled with two kinds of coriander leaf; others are roasted and set in a sauce made with coconut milk, Moroccan spices and even more carrots. From this one humble root, Mr. Yu had extracted fleet, herbaceous flavors; deep, meaty ones; and several others in between that I never knew carrots had in them.

Wells continued:

Some things about Oxheart… reminded me of other new restaurants that emphasize the personal and the handmade. The naturalistic look of Mr. Yu’s dishes, too, is familiar. But every course of my meal showed an instinct for the delicious that is rare in any city. Encountering it, even in a restaurant as often praised as Oxheart, is always a discovery.

Underbelly"

Not all of Mr. Shepherd’s cooking coincides with how outsiders see Houston. He isn’t fixated on enchiladas and steaks. But his tributes to the city’s more recently arrived Asian populations were among the most memorable things I ate at Underbelly. He has an absolute winner in his Korean braised goat with dumplings. He must know it, too, because the dish has not gone off the menu since Underbelly opened a year ago...

And:

I loved some of Underbelly’s 'non-fancy desserts,' like a tender half-moon fried strawberry pie and a wedge of vinegar pie, a relic of a recipe from an age when lemons weren’t sold year-round.

Wells continued:

Most of all, I respected Underbelly’s confidence in deciding which native traditions to champion.