Mark's

It's been so long since we ate at Mark's that I'm compelled to keep this review very short and sweet. Overall, the experience was very pleasant, though a little on the pricey side. Let me break it down for you:

1) Atmosphere: Mark's is housed in an old church. The wine is stored where an organ used to be; the floors are rough-hewn wood; stained glass windows are still apparent on the walls. A very welcoming and calming space, and a beautiful repurposing of an old building.

2) Service: Impeccable. Our waiter offered to take pictures for us (it was my birthday) and gave us plenty of time to enjoy our cocktails before offering dinner menus, and our dinner before offering dessert. He also made lots of suggestions. The only thing I didn't like was that he pretty obviously tried to steer us to more expensive selections, even when they didn't really meet our needs. For example, he told us flat-out not to order the assorted chocolates for dessert, and talked us into a much larger (and pricier) item, even though I told him I really wasn't that hungry. If the chocolates are bad they shouldn't be on the menu. I don't want my choices to become a jumping off point for negotiations.

3) Food: expensive, but worth it for special occasions. The foie gras appetizer was delicious, second only to the foie we had at August. For dinner, I had one of the chef's specials (above), and was treated to a platter of fresh seafood and various vegetables. What's interesting is that this dish was almost identical in ingredients to a meal I had at Capital Grille just a few weeks earlier, but it was much better. The seafood was fresher, the side dishes seemed better seasoned, and the whole plate was just a nicer composition than the one at Capital Grille. Little differences that added up to a much better dinner.

RDG + Bar Annie

We went to RDG+Bar Annie with a large group of my coworkers. One of them recently started a new job, and this place was his choice. I have to say, it wasn't a bad one. RDG is great for celebrations, with its luxe interior and very large drinks menu. But, as should be obvious from the website, it's a nice place. It lends itself to a quiet, adult type of celebration only -- something we understood, but some other patrons did not (more on that later).

We started with the Bar Annie nachos with red chile beef. These nachos looked a lot prettier than your standard bar fare, but they still offered all the meaty satisfaction of regular nachos. They were fun to eat and there were plenty for everyone at the table to enjoy. Recommended.

For dinner, I had the chef's special snapper. This was also a very pretty and satisfying dish. The fish was perfectly cooked and arrived with very good mashed potatoes and green beans. No complaints here.



Service was standout. Our waiter was polite, friendly and extremely professional. He had lots of helpful suggestions and obviously knew his menu well. Check-plus-smiley-face for that.

So with good food, nice decor and impeccable service, you might wonder why I'm not more excited about RDG+Bar Annie. The truth is, it's not really the restaurant's fault. It's that the people at the table next to us were EXTREMELY intoxicated. I'm talking loud speeches, ladies-falling-out-of-their-shirts, men-yelling-curse-words intoxicated ... and they arrived that way. The problem was, no one at the restaurant seemed to want to do anything about that, and there's where they lost me.

RDG+Bar Annie is decorated and staffed like a fine dining restaurant. Their prices certainly are on-par with other fine dining restaurants. So, I think, patrons have the right to expect a fine dining atmosphere. A fine dining atmosphere usually doesn't include loud drunk people making announcements to the entire dining room. If RDG wants to be a "fun" bar and allow people to act like that, that's fine, but they should market themselves that way (and drop the prices considerably). If they want to be "The Best Steakhouse in Houston" then this kind of behavior should not be tolerated.

Special Out of Town Edition: Garrett's

I want to preface this post by saying that I love Waco Texas. It's where I went to law school, where I met my husband, and where some of my best friends (the folks we ate with at Garrett's) live. I love the idea of a "Waco Renaissance" and I love supporting new businesses -- especially small businesses -- that move to Downtown Waco.

All that said, I didn't love Garrett's.

Garrett's motto is that "fine dining is finally affordable." And Garrett's was affordable. It's whether it was truly "fine dining" that's disputable.

Our table started with a plate of hummus. What arrived was a very, very orange scoop of dip with pita chips. It tasted fine, but it didn't look like any kind of hummus that I've ever seen before. It wasn't enough to make discourage me (yet), and I ordered the seared ahi tuna for dinner.



That is where things got bad. Look, I understand that Waco is nowhere near the ocean, and that therefore fish has to be shipped in frozen sometimes. That's fine. Unfortunately, this fish did not taste like it had been properly defrosted, probably because it was sliced so thickly. That's not fine. The texture of the tuna was completely off. It was hard to cut and even harder to eat. The rice served with the tuna had a wonderful flavor, but was overwhelmed by the slightly-odd sauce beneath it. Overall, I just can't say that I enjoyed this dish.


For dessert we tried the "chocolate peanut butter lasagna" (really just a chocolate-peanut butter layer cake), which was similarly unbalanced. The flavors were good, but the layers were stacked so high that it was hard to eat it without tipping it onto it's side, and the peanut butter filling was so rich that it would be impossible to finish. In this instance a smaller portion would have actually been better.



Service was friendly, but green. Our server accidentally removed our knives after the appetizer and didn't replace them, leaving us to steal knives from the empty table behind us. There were many employees gathered around the bar area with seemingly nothing to do, and they could -- and should -- have helped our server to ensure those kind of minor snafus didn't happen. Oh, and there was a fruit fly in my water. Not exactly the kind of fine dining experience I was hoping for.

The real pity here is that downtown Waco is in desperate need of cool new gathering spots. Garrett's might come around in time, but if it doesn't improve, I just can't see it lasting long. Until and unless it gets better, I suggest trying a less-fancy but delicious alternative while in Waco: get yourself a burger.

Special Out of Town Edition: 901 Postoffice

One word for 901 Postoffice: disappointment. I had heard and read so many good things about this place. Maybe we caught it on an off night. Or maybe it's just ... not that good.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't terrible. The building (an old house) was kind of neat but half-empty. When I told the hostess that we had a reservation, she gave me a look that can only be described as nasty. Right off the bat I knew that she didn't like me, I didn't like her, and I wasn't sure why.

We tried an appetizer of smoked Texas sausage with quail egg. This was actually pretty yummy. The sausage was slightly crispy and paired well with the warm, soft egg yolk. We finished it easily.



For dinner, I had grilled gulf snapper with crab wontons. The snapper was fine, but the wontons were too heavy and the filling too sweet. It coated by palate and made it difficult to taste the fish. I only ate half of it.



Dinner for 4, with two bottles of wine and one dessert, came to a little over $300. I guess that's a good value for fine dining, but I wouldn't spend it on this again. Our server was very friendly and competent, but it was so dark in there that we never did get a good look at him -- one more little peculiarity about 901 Postoffice that did not add to the experience.

PS: the next morning we had breakfast at a little dive on the seawall. For just a couple of bucks, I got an amazing breakfast, a HUGE mimosa, and to watch dolphins swim in the ocean, all in a laid-back (and well-lit) atmosphere. My point? When you're at the beach, embrace your inner beach bum. Let fine dining wait until you're back in the city.

Capital Grille

How's this for romantic? My husband and I celebrated our first anniversary last Sunday. On Saturday night we ate dinner at The Capital Grille in Houston, the same restaurant that we ate at in Washington DC the night after our wedding. I know, I know, I'll give you a second to do it.

AWWW!

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, let's get to the food.

We started with the carpaccio, a starter we enjoyed last year in DC. This is really one of the most delicious appetizers I've had anywhere. You can taste every flavor clearly: the delicate Waygu beef, the tart lemon vinaigrette, and the spicy arugula salad. The best thing about this carpaccio is that it tasted EXACTLY like the one we had a year ago, so that brought back some great memories. And it's pretty too!



I tried something new for dinner this year: bone-in Kona crusted sirloin with a caramelized shallot butter. The waited recommended it because it is very popular, and the dehydrated shallots in the butter remind him of McDonald's burgers (um...OK.). I didn't let that dissuade me, and I actually really enjoyed this steak.



The meat was cooked PERFECTLY and the Kona crust added a nice smoky flavor and slightly crispy finish. The sauce tasted nothing like a McDonald's burger, but was salty, savory and just a little bit sweet. My only complaint was that the meat had a bit more gristle than I like. Oh, and my husband's order (the porcini rubbed Delmonico) was better. But he ALWAYS orders something better than me, so I wasn't surprised.

We had two side dishes (mashed potatoes and creamed spinach) and a bottle of wine (a 2007 Spanish red, I believe), all of which were predictably wonderful. We also had the berries and cream for dessert, which was a light, fresh, perfect-for-summer finish to our delightful meal.

As for service: our waiter was friendly and accommodating, but he was a large step down from the server we worked with last year in DC. Part of it may just be that we were on our honeymoon last year, and there are lots of good feelings associated with that. Another part of it is that we asked our waiter to check on something for us (whether they had a particular side-dish that we really enjoyed in DC) and he failed to follow through. It may be because we looked pretty young compared to other patrons that night; I feel like servers sometime think younger people can't or won't tip well, or don't know the difference between good service and bad. That may be true of many young people, but it's not true of my husband and I. We were there on a special night, we spent a lot of money, and we expected really good service. That we didn't quite get that is the only (minor) complaint I have about an otherwise really good meal.



Oh, and by the way, hi Davis.

Special Out of Town Edition: August

My husband is doing a training in New Orleans this week, and I decided to tag along. I'm a huge John Besh fan from Top Chef, so going to Restaurant August felt natural. It turned out to be an excellent choice.

August is housed in a neat little building that was built in the 1860s. I got to check the place out while I wandered around looking for the bathroom (word to the wise: it's on the second floor. If you reach a point where the air conditioning shuts off, you've missed the bathroom and you're in the attic). It's a cool place, and serves as a perfect backdrop for the food.

The meal started with an amuse that consisted of some kind of fishy-egg custard, served with caviar inside an egg shell. Of course, the waiter explained it in much more detail, but too quickly for me to comprehend anything but "don't let your husband eat this, since he's allergic to seafood." I had to eat both of them (darn!) and although they were pretty to look at, I found them to be a little salty, and not necessarily something I'd want to try again.

Our appetizer was foie gras three ways. What a nice presentation!



The striped one is foie with oxtail (the least successful of the three), the middle is served with sausage and champagne gelee (YUM) and the last, and best, was plain old foie with a wonderful raspberry jam. All three were great, but they paled in comparison to the best foie of the night, which was still to come ...

For dinner, I ordered my favorite fish, red snapper, with Meyer lemon aioli and a warm salad of artichoke, potatoes and tomato. I like how Chef Besh treats his fish like a protein, and the seasoning on the potatoes was wonderful. Another pretty and delicious dish.



However, the best thing I ate all night was actually on my husband's plate. He ordered the sugar-and-spice-rub duckling with grits and foie, served with fresh strawberry jam. I don't like duck, but I LOVED his foie. He was kind enough to allow me two small bites, which is actually quite generous, considering it was probably the best thing either of us has ever eaten (and no, I'm not exaggerating). Paired with the jam, this foie managed to be savory, meaty, and sweet. It literally melted in my mouth.

For dessert we had a very good banana and rum cake with white chocolate icing and coffee. My husband mentioned that it was the first time his meal has ever been richer than dessert. It was still tasty though.

Service was exemplary, which is exactly what you would expect at a restaurant like this. Several servers worked with us, and all of them seemed very knowledgeable about and proud of the products they were serving. It was nice to see so many people working together as a team.

Everything at August was predictably wonderful, with one exception: the foie gras on my husband's plate. That was ridiculously wonderful. Like the creamed corn at Capital Grille or the creme brulee at Pappa's, that foie is something we'll be talking about and trying to replicate for years.