Over 300 of Houstonia's closest friends (i.e., you, our readers) crawled out of bed on a Sunday morning and joined us for a bloody mary crawl at GreenStreet in downtown Houston yesterday. The Sunday Bloody Sunday bloody mary competition saw many of the city's best bars stacking their cocktails high with garnishes from pickled vegetables and smoked sausage to entire cheeseburger sliders. The competition was fierce, with nearly all of the attendees casting a vote for their favorite.

In the end, votes were neck-and-neck for third and fourth place, with McCormick & Schmick's and Brick & Spoon taking those spots respectively (must be something to do with those ampersands). Second place went to The Houston Club, a dark horse in the competition. And winning first place—by a landslide—was El Big Bad, whose bloody marys came from bartender Sheridan Fay and a mystery man in a luchador mask (i.e., bartender Luis Villegas).

In addition to the bloody mary competition, plenty of downtown restaurants were on hand to make sure our guests didn't have too much of the hair of the dog, including Andalucia, Mia Bella, and Lucky Strike. There'll be even more food—and, of course, Deep Eddy cocktails—at Houstonia's next event: our Gumbo Throwdown on Saturday, November 15. We've already got your favorites from last year's Gumbo Throwdown lined up, including Cajun Stop and Fleming's, as well as some newcomers: Punk's Simple Southern Food, Paul's Kitchen, The Rainbow Lodge, and many more. Tickets are $25 or two for $40 and will be on sale soon, so stay tuned!