Quick! Houston Restaurant for Wife's 40th

M

MirrOlure

500+ Posts
We don't live in Houston, but visit (and eat) there often.

Some of our favorites that we have recently visited are:

Mark's
Ruggles
Brennan's
Damian's
Backstreet Cafe

This time, we're trying to find something "new" (at least to us), but high-end --- but not a Steak House.

We're staying in Galleria area, so either Inside the Loop, or darn near close to it, please.

From the "old guard", I've always wanted to try Cafe Annie and Rainbow Lodge. Also, I hear that Tony's is back up to its original status.

We'd also consider something new, hip, ecclectic, etc. --- Montrose area perhaps?

BTW, this is for tomorrow night, so please hurry!
 
My Houston restaurant knowledge is getting rusty, but my wife and I loved Da Marco, which is just down the street from Mark's. I highly recommend it.
 
For a new place, give Reef in midtown a try. I would call today though. We went last Saturday night and we enjoyed everything we had. The decor is not what I expected (looks almost like a diner inside) but the food is great and the wine list is large with a wide range of prices starting at or near $20 and up and up and up.

Reef

if wanting to stay near the Galleria, we usually default to Americas.
 
We went to Gravitas on Taft, near Montrose.

It was very good, IMO.

We were with another couple, and we had 1 crabcake and 1 steak tar-tar appetizer. The crabcake was ok, but the tar-tar was excellent.

I also had a spinach salad with a soft-poached egg and warm bacon dressing that was very, very good.

My main course was their salmon, and to me, salmon is always the litmus test for any restaurant. It was a very fresh, and perfectly cooked piece of fish. I was very pleased with it.

One of our group had the "hanger steak" which was very good -- she ordered it medium, so I can't really attest to whether it was "A+" or not.

Another had their almond trout which was 2 nice size fillets and it looked really good.

We splurged on wine (2003 Marryvale Pino Noir x 2 bottles; sentimental favorite from our last trip to Nappa) at $70 per bottle, but they had some good choices on the "regular" list in the $45-55 range. We didn't even consider the "special reserve" list. Two of us had cocktails, and we had 2 deserts, which were very good.

Total bill was right at $300 and the service was very good, so I bumped the tip up to 20% and got out for $360.00.

The only real criticism is that being in the Montrose area, I was expecting a little more "ecclectic" crowd as opposed to the "valet-parkers-park-the-Porsches-and-Bentlys-in-the-front-of-the-place scene. But inside it was loud (in a good way), open and comfortable. Nice vibe.

Then we returned to the St. Regis and went into the bar for about an hour and looked at some of the strangest looking people I've ever been around in my life --- in a "hi, I'm Ted and I'm a member of the Hair Club for Men" sort of way.



It was a fun night.
 
Hmmm... interesting. I'll give it a shot and see how we like it. It may be growing pains since they just opened. I know Gravitas had a bumpy ride at first... maybe they're working the kinks out but I may change my tune if the experience sucks.
 
I was making reference above to the Grove just to be clear. I have generally had good experience at Gravitas. The Grove on the other hand was a colossal boofoo. I seriously doubt I will ever go back. There best dishes are from what I have heard steak, and they cannot do it better than the steak houses we have in town. Their fish that I had couldn't touch Reef so what is the point?
 
b/c the wife wants to check it out and I'd like to try it, too. If it's no good, then we can at least say we ate there.
 
Our next "special dinner" in Houston will be at Shade in the Heights.

I understand it has a similar menu to Gravitas, but a litlle more laid back subtlety to it.
 
Mirr -- have you been to Da Marco? I think its probably the best restaurant in Houston right now. Also take a look at Ibiza and Catalan, both have great wine lists with very small markups. Example: The other night I had a great bottle of Turley Cedarman Zin at Ibiza for $37.

If you go to Shade, make sure to get a side of their mac n cheese. Its not always on the menu, but they usually have it.
 
"Quick!"?, "QUICK!"?, "QUICK!"?
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Nap ---

it's not as bad as you think........currently, we are (a) out of our house for remodeling; (b) I "sponsored" a big lunch for all of her girlfriends (c) we are neck-deep in kids' basketball, tennis, etc. (d) our 15th anniversary is next month, and we have big plans for it and (e) we had planned all along to go to Houston overnight, and had planned on eating at one of our favorites, but just before we went, she threw the "try something different" curve ball at me.

So I'm not as much of a dufus as you initially thought!
 
007 - I'm thinking it just must have been a bad night.

We had a great experience at the Grove. Service was not flawless but good enough - they even moved us to a different table when we didn't like our first seating (placed in the back dining room - we asked to be moved to the main dining room). Good cocktails (ginger margarita was excellent), nice wine list (pleased to see uncommon wines from Alto Adige on the list) enjoyed the Grove Picnic Basket as an appetizer and our food was delicious. My wife had the Grilled Salmon salad and I had the braised red snapper with a side of grilled sweet potatoes. We split an apple cobbler. My only beef was paying $2.00 for a side of olive oil that I could use on my wife's fennel (she didn't want it on her salad so I had them put it on the side). Otherwise, we enjoyed it and we really really liked the atmosphere - very impressed with the design of the restaurant.
 
Glad you had a better experience than we did. I think they will get it all worked out. I had that same braised snapper dish that you had. It was at best average. I will give it some time and maybe give it another shot. I do like the atmosphere and such there.
 
The back dining room, to me, leaves much to be desired... at least at night. It may be worth sitting there in the day time, though. Still, it was too echoey and cold. It took us about 15 seconds to ask for another table.
 
wife and I went to Mockingbird Bistro the other night for the first time.

food was excellent, but our waiter, while nice and attentive, struck me as not bright and I felt like a high school kid loose at a KoC dinner. I mean, I'm almost 40 and I felt really, really young.

Just not my kind of place, I guess.

For more "vibe", right now I think its hard to beat Ibiza and Catalan.
 
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