After trying for the better part of a few weeks to get out to a restaurant week dinner, we finally all decided on booking a late dinner Tuesday night at RDG-Bar Annie. It was a small miracle that we all made it there still considering Nancy didn't get out of the operating room until 8:30pm, Adrianne got a psychiatric crisis call from a patient, and Jason's tennis match went overtime. For once, I was the first one to arrive to a gathering.
I waited in the upstairs lounge area for the others to arrive. The restaurant is in a really cool space occupying two levels with glass walls, rich dark colors, and cool light fixtures. The area around the lounge had these dangling light bulbs that were thin and rod shaped with the wires visible inside the bulb.
When the others finally arrived, they showed us to our table in the main dining room. The restaurant was full of lots of fancy looking people; business types, River Oaks desperate housewives, ladies in stilettos and min-dresses. Not really my kinda folks but this was about the food not the people and RDG-Bar Annie has been called one of the best restaurants in Houston.
We all did the restaurant week menu which was 4 courses for $35 and offered a lot of attractive choices for each course. We all got some bread and butter at the beginning. The bread was nothing remarkable, but the butter was a rich unsalted delicious one.
Between the four of us, we were able to try most of the different options.
For the first course we got:
Creamy Polenta with Bolognese Sauce & Parmesan, Chilled Asparagus with Mediterranean Salsa Verde & Parmesan and House Smoked Trout with Spicy Egg Salad.
For the second course we got to try all of the options as well: Chilled Grapefruit Soup with Shrimp, Avocado & Jicama, Endive & Pear Salad with Walnuts & Spicy Blue Cheese, Caesar Salad with Parmesan.
For the third course, no one wanted to get the chicken entree but we tried the others: Grilled King Salmon with Ginger, Garlic & Napa Cabbage Slaw, Grilled Skirt Steak with Pan Roasted Hominy & Smoked Steak Sauce, Sweet Potato Enchiladas with Green Chile Sauce
Finally for dessert we got: Mocha Panna Cotta with Milk Chocolate Sauce, Caramel Walnut Cheese Cake with Green Apple Salad, Coffee Ice Cream Sandwich with Chocolate Cookies
I had really high expectations for Bar Annie-RDG because I had heard that it is one of the best restaurants in Houston. Their steak had been particularly lauded. Overall, I was underwhelmed. This is not to say that the food was bad, but it wasn't anything amazing. The highlights were the crisp asparagus appetizer with a refreshing yogurt sauce and the house-smoked trout (minus the mayo-laden egg salad). The bolognese polenta was tasty, but nothing special. I enjoyed the chilled grapefruit soup because it was really something different. My main, the sweet potato enchiladas were really nothing interesting. If I had paid the full price for that main outside of restaurant week, I would have been disappointed. The steak had a nice grilled flavor but was a bit overcooked for my liking. The salmon with slaw was the best one. We were excited about the cheesecake dessert, but the dessert winner was the espresso ice cream in the chocolate cookies. The ice cream was rich and creamy and full of coffee flavor. I guess I would say that I was a bit disappointed with the food but I think that is in part because my expectations were so high. I also think that Restaurant Week probably is not the best time to try a restaurant either. Although it is a good deal, I have a feeling that they "mass produce" the offerings on the restaurant week menu so they aren't as good as they normally would be. Maybe I will come back again, if I feel like splurging on $35 main courses....
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