Saturday, November 20, 2010

RDG + Bar Annie

3 out of 5 Stars

Website
1800 Post Oak Boulevard
Houston, TX 77056
(713) 840-1111
 
If you prefer paying $20+ cover to go to a "see and be seen" club, you may very well LOVE RDG + Bar Annie.

Pulling up to the valet-only restaurant in my scratched Toyota Solara in the company of 7 Series BMWs and 2 door Benzs is always a pleasure (and by pleasure, I mean awkward).

The architects and designers for this spot were brilliant. The moment you set foot upstairs to the lounge and restaurant, you are no longer in Houston, and most definitely in LA or Miami (without any cheese factor). Unfortunately, this is the highlight of RDG + Bar Annie, as I came here to dine.

My meal began with a chopped wedge salad. The wedge was fantastic; delicious blue cheese dressing perfectly chopped, cool, and crisp iceberg lettuce with thick bacon shavings.

Impressed with my salad, I couldn't wait for my second course - steak tar tare. Now, I've enjoyed steak tar tare once before at Tao in Las Vegas. The dish came with several thin slices of flavorful, tender raw steak. LOVED IT.

Do you know what I don't love? A raw hamburger patty with a raw egg yolk on top. My friend forewarned me of this, but I assumed the steak would be of a certain grade or treated in some manner making it worthy of living on the menu of one of Houston's nicest restaurants.

RDG + Bar Annie charged me $18 for a raw unseasoned hamburger patty from the meat counter at H-E-B.

Maybe I'm not the foodie I thought I was.

My friend gave me some of her shrimp taco to fill me up. It was fine - nothing I'd ever crave.

Service was a miss for me too. While our waiter brought out everything super fast, he barley spoke to us. He made no attempt out of making an impression on our party of five and was practically a ghost. The downstairs toilets also reeked of sewage - don't know what that was about.

All in all, RDG + Bar Annie falls short for what's publicized as a five star restaurant.  I would recommend it for a drink date or perhaps a company dinner. I personally would only return for a martini on the upstairs balcony (so long as I arrived in someone else's car).

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