Drivin' Adair by Bimmer 09: Texas Chow-down

When we think of Texas there are two signature foods that come to mind-Barbecued meats (often smoked) and steak. We are NOT vegetarians!

For dinner in a town we don't know very well I look to Tripadvisor.com and Yelp.com for suggestions on the best places to eat and TA had a highly-rated Steakhouse where seared meat is the specialty of the house-but you can get seafood also, mainly in the form of lobster and crab. Dinner in such an esteemed successful restaurant will cost at least $100 per person (if you don't drink a lot of alcohol). The restaurant that we found was called Pappas Bros (Brothers) and so using the computer we booked a table for two for 8.45pm as we like to eat "late" (by American standards, not European).

Houston is spread out and this restaurant was 13 miles away so we would have to drive there. Without the GPS system in the rental car I would have had trouble finding it in the dark.

Let me digress for a moment to explain why I have to elaborate on some things as I write.
Most of the readers of this blog come from the USA, Australia, the UK and Canada where concepts like Steakhouse are familiar but also reading are people from the following countries;
China, Malaysia, India, France, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Spain, Germany, Croatia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland (and more) and in some of these countries Steakhouses and Barbecue may not be common. Concepts like tipping waiters and people who park your car may also be an Anglo-Saxon thing. So bear with me as I try to be readable to everyone who logs into this web page...

So, we are here. And hungry. A beautiful 75 degree night in Texas.

For the review of our meal (if you are going to be going to Houston) see Tripadvisor.

Here are a few photos to give you the flavor (but not the taste) of our experience. The restaurant is dimly lit which isn't ideal for cameras without flash. I seldom use flash as it creates unwanted shadows.

Warm crusty loaf of bread from the oven is covered to keep warm. A glass of Merlot wine has been poured.

Carol has a bowl of spicy Turtle Soup in front of her

Crab cocktail- big lumps of tasty fresh crabmeat, with a cocktail sauce on the side in a little white jug.

Later, an 8 ounce filet Mignon steak arrives on a very hot plate

Soon he is joined by creamed spinach and potatoes with onion and bacon, fried in a hot skillet

We cook steaks at home from good quality Iowa corn-fed cattle but we don't have anything that can cook it at 800 degrees like Pappas Bros. What you see on the plate cost about $65 but as the food and the service was perfection we felt fine with paying that much. This isn't the sort of restaurant you would go to eat every night, more of a special occasion place.

The steak-cooked "medium", pink in the center and hot all the way through.

The restaurant is huge- this is just the back third of it we are sitting in. The "quieter" section

Waiters moving fast as the restaurant is busy on a Friday night

The brightly lit kitchen is open so you can see the chefs working

An amazing meal with a bill totaling $230 (which includes nearly $40 in tip for the waiter, who was superb) Valet parking for the car is free.

So after a wonderful meal we drove home to the Lancaster Hotel, had the valet park the car and went up to our room.