03/16/2008
This place just opened up in Kingwood and it looked pretty charming so we decided to give it a try. It's a big restaurant that doesn't feel big...the lighting and the decor do a good job of toning down the largeness of the mostly open room.
The menu isn't huge, but every single thing on it sounded fantastic (which is rare). There's also a pretty extensive wine list (although I was disappointed to see so few by-the-glass offerings--maybe one or two in each category). The dinner menu had a wide variety of proteins and food styles--chicken, pork, lamb, seafood, and steak all made an appearance, as did European, Asian, and American influence. Even the salads looked inventive.
I settled on a mesclun salad with walnuts, goat cheese, and green apples, and a crab-stuffed flounder with lemon butter sauce. The salad was quite good--a nice marriage of flavors and just the right size. The flounder was also very good--perfectly cooked (moist and flaky and very light and fresh) and the crab stuffing was VERY generous and mostly crab. I did add some capers from my mom's dish to the lemon butter sauce because, well, I like capers with my lemon butter sauce. Also served with it were some roasted broccoli and carrots, which were perfectly cooked and well-seasoned (no steamed veggie afterthought here).
I also tasted some of my mom's crab cakes and bibb lettuce salad--also very good, the crab cakes were perfect--and my dad's corn and chicken chowder (VERY flavorful and comforting) and Mediterranean chicken with olives and mushrooms (whatever wine they used for his sauce was excellent). I was happy to take home his leftover chicken for lunch tomorrow.
For dessert we all shared the bread pudding--I though it could have been cooked a bit longer (the middle was a bit undercooked) but it was topped with caramel sauce and apples which added a very nice flavor.
I was disappointed that the bread we got before our salads was dry and a bit stale. The whipped butter with it was nice, but it seems like it's a pretty basic thing to make sure you have fresh bread once a day.
Overall, though, the experience we had was quite nice, the service was perfect, and although a little pricey for everyday dining, I think we'll definitely be back when we want a nicer evening out. Plus it's just nice to have a new non-chain restaurant in the area that serves good food with some thought put into it.