Masraff’s

1025 S. Post Oak Lane, 77056.

It’s fine dining time! It took me a while to decide and then finally pick and go to this restaurant. First, it is not well known because it has no ties to a chain of any sort… it is a one of a kind place in Houston. But, there are plenty of reviews online for this restaurant. Finding this restaurant deemed a little tricky, I was not aware that S. Post Oak and N. Post Oak was in fact parallel streets…

Masraff’s is a casually elegant upscale restaurant with a Euro-American dining fare as well as ambiance. The building itself looked like a historical cottage, but very nicely decorated and spacious inside. Went to eat here on a Tuesday night, thinking that the restaurant would be rather empty… but there seemed to be a big event/convention gathering going on with lots of men in business suits.

The dinner started with complimentary bread, butter, and olives! I love olives and the ones that they served were top-notch and fresh.

For appetizer, the waiter helped us decide on a lobster dish. The lobster roll consists of lobster, roma tomatoes, cilantro and asparagus mousse wrapped in a roll then fried. It was served on top of D’Anjou pear puree and tomato beurre blanc sauce. The pear puree made this dish rather sweet. It was okay, but different. There was other things on the menu that I would have rather tried like foie gras and roasted quail.

For my main entree, I chose the caramelized diver sea scallops with Italian soft polenta topped with white truffle oil. You will see that there is a trend with me and sea scallops lately… the scallops were seared just right and they cut softly through. Now, polenta… I love this stuff, fried, cooked, whatever. The polenta was cooked in a white truffle oil and I can definitely taste the creaminess that is the two combined. It tasted like an extravagant gruel to me.

The other dish was the pan seared Chilean sea bass with creamy shrimp and leek orzo pasta, tomato confit, and saffron sauce. I got a little taste of it, the sea bass was fork tender and the cream/confit/saffron sauce was delicious. The orzo pasta looked pretty cool, definite not the usual bore.

For dessert we shared the bittersweet chocolate fondant, crème Anglaise, and vanilla bean ice cream dish. It was essentially melted chocolate inside a hollow cake. Once you cut in, the warm chocolate oozes out at you. Not too heavy or filling. They also offer a bunch of soufflés on the menu.

The only grip that I have with this restaurant was our waiter. I mean, he was polite, but he needed to pick up his service. Be more tentative to filling glasses and asking if things were to our satisfaction. Also, he had an accent, not going to try to figure out from where… but the accent got in the way of him describing dishes to us. I don’t care how authentic or sexy an accent can appear at upscale restaurants; you still have to make sure your patrons understand you. I had to ask him to repeat himself several times and in the end, I just said forget it. But other than that, this is definitely a recommended date, anniversary, birthday place on my list. Dinner entrees range from $20-$35.