Dinner Club - a Review of the Restaurants

The following places are our Dinner Club picks since it's inception.  

October 2011 - Da Marco's - This is the best Italian food I've ever had.  Extremely expensive and I would recommend this restaurant only for special occasions, but you are in for a treat if you go there.  The italian food is as authentic to Italy as you will ever get without actually going there.  And the wine menu is superb and extensive, albeit marked up quite a bit.  Also, the Chef's Specials, written on a portable rolling chalk board so your waiter can bring it to you, is extremely expensive but also the best the restaurant has to offer.

The portable rolling chalk board

The best artichoke you'll ever eat

November 2011 -  Feast With the Beasts at the Houston Zoo - This is a great way to sample the best of Houston's finest restaurants.  There are hundreds of tents located throughout the zoo where you have the opportunity to try a small portion of a signature dish from each restaurant.  You will only be able to try a small fraction of the restaurant tents because you can only eat so much but there are plenty of choices and you have the luxury of being picky.  You also get two drink tickets with admission and the option to buy more drink tickets while you are there.

December 2011 - Feast - This restaurant is authentically European and, more specifically, English.  The animals, from which the meat is butchered, are raised locally and humanely, given room to roam and live a happy little life.  It serves staple dishes such as Bubble & Squeak and Bangers & Mash.  For the more adventurous American, it also serves black pudding, fried pork belly, and head cheese, none of which would even raise an eyebrow in Europe.  The wine and liquor menu is very European and excellent.  For dessert, there was cheese cake (unlike any American cheese cake you've ever tasted because it was not as sweet and the cream cheese flavor is MUCH more apparent) and spotted dick.  Yes, you heard me right and, yes, it's also pronounced exactly the way you think it is.  I asked.  The restaurant itself has the ambience of an old English restaurant with wooden tables, wooden chairs, & wooden flooring, as well as small, intimate dining rooms.  They don't do separate checks so be prepared to figure out how to separate your own bill if you come with a group of friends.  Be brave, be open-minded, and give this restaurant a try.  It is unique, pleasantly surprising, and eye-opening.

Bubble and Squeak

Bangers and Mash

Black Pudding

Fried Pork Belly

Head Cheese

Spotted Dick

January 2012 - Haven - The idea behind this kitchen is that all of the food choices are seasonal and organic.  A seasonal kitchen is one in which the food, both the meat and garden items, are sought out from local farms and only served when they are in season.  Thus, the menu is always changing.  It is also the first restaurant in Houston whose building theme was designed and constructed in a completely "green" manner, meaning it is ecologically and environmentally friendly (a liberal's dream come true).  The drawback is that we weren't thoroughly impressed with the food.  Maybe it was just the night we happened to be there, but the chicken was dry and my dish seemed to lack flavor.  Most of the rest of our dinner party seemed to agree; great ambience & great food presentation and plating, but the quality of food did not impress for the price.  We are willing to spend big bucks if the outcome is worth it.

February 2012 - Sammy's Wild Game & Poison Girl - This is a tiny little restaurant with a big punch.  You will see menu items such as python chili cheese fries and sausages on a pretzel bun with choices of meat such as buffalo, venison, antelope, pheasant, kangaroo, elk, llama, lamb, & ostrich.  Some of the meats are only available at certain times of the year.  And some of the meats are also hard to differentiate from other meats that we are already familiar with such as poultry, beef, or pork.  But it's interesting to attempt to note the subtle differences and try to place the flavors.  For example, the python chili cheese fries tasted much like beef chili cheese fries except the meat was more tender.  There is a beer and wine menu with mostly local microbrews of high quality.  

This is also the first restaurant outing in which we decided to try to hit up a bar, which is our usual M.O. now.  We tried two or three other bars before we ended up at Poison Girl.  This bar has a funky/eclectic feel to it.  The walls outside are painted hot pink, there are old-school pin ball machines inside the bar, and a giant statue of the Kool-Aid Man in the backyard garden.  It was pretty packed when we got there so we had to scout out and wait for seating, which didn't take too incredibly long.  It was a cool bar and I'm glad we tried it.

March 2012 - Backstreet Cafe & Anvil - I feel that the ambience of this restaurant wins (so far, anyway).  It has the feel of a French cafe.  We requested to sit outside under the shady oaks and the weather was perfect for it.  I was very impressed with the sommelier, Sean Beck. He was very helpful and informative. He helped me to find the perfect red wine. He asked a few probing questions about my wine preferences and tastes and then he recommended two wines that he thought I would enjoy. My husband and I bought a bottle and were not disappointed in the least. All of our friends thoroughly enjoyed their wine selections as well. Sean was also quite the personality! He took well to being teased and made us feel like old friends even though it was the first time we had met him. 

The appetizers, the entrees, and the desserts were all to die for! I highly recommend the fried green tomato salad for starters. I had the duck, which was outstanding. My husband and I shared two desserts, the trio sampling of creme brulee, pear crisp, and warm brownie with chocolate icing and the 40-year-old milkshake. What made it 40 years old was the 1971 sherry. It was unlike any milkshake I had ever tasted. It was strange and not for the closed-minded individual, but personally, I loved it. If you choose to get it, just remember it's not your regular old milkshake. You'll be scratching your head trying figure out the ingredients that you are tasting, because the flavor is unlike anything you can compare it to.

Anvil was the bar of choice this month.  Another really packed bar where we had to wait to find seating.  Fortunately, a table opened up quickly and we claimed it immediately.  The bar tenders at this venue are serious.  They are not there to socialize; they are there to make you an awesome drink.  They have a menu of complicated mixed drinks but if none of those selections suit your fancy, you can tell the bar tender what you are in the mood for (how strong, what kind(s) of liquor, the general taste) and he or she will make something that will surely blow your mind.  You are likely to see a bar tender making two separate drinks at any time (using the shaker in one hand and the stirrer in the other).    A MUST TRY!  

April 2012 - Glass Wall & Anvil again - The Glass Wall had a simple menu of a short list of traditional American dishes, like meat loaf and mac & cheese.  But these are not just your regular traditional dishes.  They've got their own style and presentation that makes this restaurant special.  

We chose to go to Anvil again to let more of our friends get a feel for it.  

May 2012 - Nabi & Hay Merchant - Nabi is a new and small Japanese restaurant that is almost directly across from Da Marco's.  Their sushi choices are great but not a whole lot different from any of the other nice sushi restaurants near Clear Lake.  The cooked Japanese dishes, however, were something to rave about.  These were authentically Japanese and extremely flavorful.  The dishes were priced right too.  

Hay Merchant is a microbrewer's dream.  It has a wide selection of beers on tap for every type of beer connoisseur.  This was another packed bar and we did not happen to find seating but we stood outside on the deck.  The evening weather in Houston is actually pleasant and this was a fine option.  

June 2012 - Hugo's & Melody Club & La Carafe - Hugo's is an excellent Tex-Mex restaurant whose executive chef and owner, Hugo Ortego, used to be the head chef at Backstreet Cafe.  Hugo's boasts a margarita called The World's Greatest Margarita Ever Sold for $28.  The waiter will come out and shake it in front of your table and pour it into your glass.  It's quite the wow factor.  The margarita itself is very mild tasting with a very orange (rather than lime) base.  Even though it tastes mild, however, it packs quite the tequila punch and one is more than enough.  They also offer a tasty sangria.  We shared many starters including squash flower and chapulin (grasshopper) tacos.  The flower was delicious and the chapulin tacos were also surprisingly good.  They tasted like barbecued popcorn and straw.  The flavor was delicious but they were a bit too crunchy for my taste.  Regardless, I feel liberated for trying something that is considered so taboo in North America.  The chef's special of fried soft shell crab legs did not disappoint.  They were fantastic.  We tried three desserts.  The winning dessert, by far, were the crepes which were drizzled in caramel.  The adult chocolate milkshake was also pretty good but it tasted like a shaken yoohoo and rum concoction.

The World's Greatest Margarita Ever Sold!

Chapulin 

A closer look at the chapulin

 Fried Softshell Crab

 Roasted Chicken

Next, we went on a hunt for salsa dancing lessons.  We arrived at the Melody Club, which has a secret backdoor entrance.  Walking inside, I quickly realized we were not going to be getting the kind of lessons I was expecting which would have been a place to learn the basic steps of salsa dancing with your partner.  Instead, we were to be learning a choreographed salsa routine to a latin song.  My gut reaction was to repeatedly say, "I'm not doing that."  However, we were already in and might as well just suck it up and get ready to embarrass ourselves like total gringos, which was exactly what happened, and IT ROCKED!!!  I would totally do it again.  In fact, it's now on my bucket list to learn how to salsa dance well.

Me and My Husband

Next, we went to La Carafe (pronounced like la giraffe).  I learned a new word and it turns out that the definition of a carafe is a type of jug used for serving wine and other drinks.  Anywho, the building in which La Carafe resides is about 150 years old and started out as an Indian Trading Post.  This bar is considered a dive bar (small, dark, old, and lots of regulars).  But what makes this bar interesting is the history.  Not only does it actually HAVE a history, it feels like you've stepped back in time to the 1800's.  There are paintings on the wall of historical figures, including Sam Houston, two giant dripping candles, an old-timey cash register, and, the kicker, THEY ONLY TAKE CASH.  This is the kind of bar you come back to over and over again.  Pretty soon, you'll be a regular too.