A Bird in the Hand. . .

Ok, good grief. I ate at this place like 2 weeks ago and am just now getting around to posting.  So whole department went off site for lunch at The Bird and The Bear.  No idea what that means.  It's a sister place to another restaurant in H-town called Ouisie's.  I didn't get the decor.  There were chairs suspended from the ceiling?  I'm obviously getting old or very uncool.

So- started with gumbo and then had the shrimp and grits.  Gumbo was the right color.  A nice rich brown.  A tad too salty and somewhat sweet tasting, but not like sugary sweet.  See, I should have done this post same day b/c now I can't entirely remember what the deal was.  I ate it all though so must have been good. 

Shrimp and grits as a dish tasted good.  However as shrimp and grits I thought it had too much stuff on it.  It came with gravy and mushrooms and scallions and I think something else too (bacon!).  The gravy was pretty rich (a brown gravy) so it really undermined the fundamental flavors of the dish--say it with me--the shrimp and grits.  Shrimp was done to right level, not overcooked.  I tried to find some grits that didnt have gravy on them.  Only managed one bite.  Not real cheesy.  Again, if you are going to call something cheese grits then I do think it should taste discernibly like cheese.  I'm on the fence about it.  It was too rich to eat much of it. And again, it was good, but it just wasn't good shrimp and grits.  Does that make sense?

yes that is upside down, and no, I don't know why.  Stupid Blogger

 

Our whole table ended up getting desserts.  We had some lemon meringue, um some other stuff I don't recall and I had a pot du chocolat.  My dessert was fantastic and b/c it was in a little bowl, best of all no one wanted any of it!  All the cake and pie people had to trade bites with people.  The lemon meringue was good.  The meringue was so creamy it was almost like a whipped cream.  Restored my faith in meringue. Dessert was overall better than the entrees I think.

ok starting in foreground, a pear tart, the pot au chocolat, lemon meringue and a chocolate cake banana thing.

I'll give it a 4 and a recommended.  Other people seemed to like their entrees for the most part.  Someone got a dish called the Damn Eggplant and said it was fabulous.  So there you go.  It wasn't uniformly awesome but good enough that I wouldn't rule out ever going there again.