We love to eat, and we love to eat out. Our friends frequently ask us for dining recommendations, and we try to stay current with all the new restaurant openings. We aren't professional restaurant critics, and our day jobs have nothing to do with the food or restaurant industry. We pay for all our meals.
There's just two of us, so we may only have the opportunity to visit a restaurant once before writing a review. We won't have been able to try a number of the menu items, so we invite you to share your experiences.
Thank you for visiting our website, and happy dining!
We had occasion to lunch separately on two consecutive days at this Houston institution. Brennan's was one of the last places in town to require that men wear a jacket (supplying a jacket with the scarlet letter "B" on the lapel if you arrived without, which you only did once), but that appears to be a vestige of the past. The restaurant is as lovely as ever; in fact, in the 25 years since at least one of us first dined there, it doesn't seem to have changed much. We didn't eat in the courtyard but have always found it to be a very lovely setting.
The service was very good. On one day, it was slightly less than perfect but not a fatal flaw. It is a curious practice to replace water and iced tea with new glasses rather than simply do refills, although that avoids the age-old problem of having continually to readjust the lemon and/or sweetener balance.
With respect to the food, the turtle soup continues to be a very popular choice, with nobody avoiding the sherry even at non-drinking lunches. There were no food disappointments among a total of 14 diners. The crab cakes were particularly good; the crab and fried green tomato salad got raves, as did the fried oysters; the steak frites was a popular choice. The ever popular Brennan's dessert -- Bananas Foster -- continued to delight, as did the pecan pie parfait.
All in all, this is a great restaurant, well-deserving of the praise it receives. And, if you work downtown, it can't be beat for a business lunch -- an opportunity one should take since the prices, even at lunch, are up there.
