Dining Out

Galleria Gourmet

Houston's shopping center has everything from Japanese and Mexican food to Neiman's tea room and hamburgers on the ice rink. We tried them all.

by Felicia Coates and Harriet Howle

September 1973

(Page 2 of 2)

Three nights a week—Monday, Thursday, and Friday—the Mariposa Room serves dinner buffet style. The price is right ($4.75) and the food abundant and imaginatively prepared. Three meats (one evening they were leg of lamb, lobster thermidor, and veal roast), several fresh salads (no wilted, brown­edged lettuce here), vegetables (such as sweet potato souffle), and desserts from a cart are available. We recommend that you go early so that you will have time for seconds. The food is removed promptly at 7:30 p.m.
2600 South Post Oak, adjacent to the Galleria 621­7100
Lunch: four seatings daily: Mon.­Sat.
11 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 p.m., and 2 p.m.
Buffet dinner: 5:30 p.m.­7:30 p.m.
Mon., Thurs., Fri.
Closed Sun.
Moderate at lunch; fixed price at dinner: $4.75.
Reservations imperative
Bring your own wine: $1 corkage fee

PACESETTER CLUB AND RESTAURANT

Architects will like the Pacesetter's easy contemporary mood effected by clean lines, pebbley walls, suede upholstery, and splashes of vivid color. Carpenters will enjoy the carefully crafted wood detail and furniture. Sports fans might be interested in the perpetual sports­oriented slides that are flashed on the walls.

In a seat by the window you are at Galleria rinkside, watching the skaters and the efficient ice­sweeping machine that comes up and down periodically via a huge lift right beside you. The Club (now public) is cozier, dimmer, and usually more crowded. A trophy­size Marlin oversees the goings­on through luxurious false eyelashes. In the evenings, there is low­keyed entertainment.

Dinner features a reasonable array of simple choices—steaks, shrimp, etc. The lunch menu features reasonably priced "down­home" specials that are a boon to the traveler or business man who yearns for a well­balanced meal. Crawfish étouffée, fried oysters, jumbo shrimp, liver, and ham and cabbage are all well prepared. You have a choice of several vegetables which vary from day to day and season to season—fried okra, turnip greens, zucchini, blackeyed peas, sauerkraut, etc. Mothers, vegetarians, and scurvy victims will love the vegetable plate at $1.50.

Several other dining choices are only a dangerous intersection away and the additional shopping prospects (Sakowitz, Rive Gauche, Joske's) alone make it worth the gambol. Few shoppers can call it a day without crossing Westheimer or Post Oak at least once.
First level 626­0660
Restaurant: Mon.­Sat. 7 a.m.­10 p.m.
Major credit cards
Club (open to public): Mon.­Thurs. 11 a.m.­midnight
Fri.­Sat. 11 a.m.­1 a.m.
Moderate

JOSKE'S HERITAGE ROOM

In many respects, the Heritage Room is like most department store restaurants—tastelessly decorated and afflicted with mediocre food. One evening a week, however, the Heritage Room is special. On Thursday nights, fresh lobster, boiled or broiled, is yours by reservation for $5.95. Joske's apparently orders several dozen weekly, each weighing about one­and­one­quarter pounds. (We have found other fresh lobsters around town to weigh a little more, one and one half to one­and­three­quarters pounds, but they cost from $9.95­ $12.95 each.) Although not large, Joske's lobsters are well prepared. Undistinguished French fries, slaw, and dressing make up the rest of the meal.

Joske's is an oasis for an afternoon tea break. The Heritage Room offers six varieties of tea at 25 cents a cup.
4925 Westheimer (at Post Oak)
Lunch: Mon.­Sat. 11 a.m.­3 p.m.
Dinner: Thurs.­Fri. 5 p.m.­8 p.m.
Closed Sun.
Cocktails/Wine
Reservations necessary for Lobster dinner on Thursday night
Inexpensive to moderate

SAKOWITZ

Located in what appears to be the attic but is euphemistically referred to as the third floor, the Old Colony offers quiet—if slightly claustrophobic—surroundings and excellent food to its primarily female clientele. The menu is limited, but each item has been proven worthwhile over a period of many years. You can choose from salads, sandwiches, and light entrées. We can recommend any of the magnificent salads, especially the picture­perfect fruit salad with its scoop of raspberry sherbert, and the turkey mornay is a good choice if you want something hot.

For a quick lunch, try the Crazy Calorie Sandwich Shop perched on a mezzanine overlooking the Gourmet Shop. The decor is pop art afterthought—not award winning but not bad. There are only 13 tables, an abbreviated kitchen, and a self­service area. The menu includes "Sakwiches," beverages, and desserts. The sundaes are spectacular. The Crazy Calorie is the best bet in the Galleria area for a quick sandwich or hamburger.
5000 Westheimer 224­1111
Old Colony
Lunch: Mon.­Fri. 11 a.m.­2:30 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m.­3:30 p.m.
Tea: Mon.­Fri. 2:30 p.m.­3:30 p.m.; Sat. 3 p.m.­3:30 p.m.
Dinner: Mon. & Thurs. 5:30 p.m.­8 p.m.
Cocktails/ wine
Moderate
Reservations taken
Crazy Calorie
Tue.­Fri. 10 a.m.­8 p.m.
Mon. and Sat. 10 a.m.­5 p.m.

TWO­K RESTAURANT (2­K's)

Granted that colored water in assorted apothecary jars, a player piano, and a cashier in a kiosk do not an ice cream parlor make, good ice cream does, and 2­K's is an ice cream at its best: rich, creamy and vividly flavorful. The chocolate, in the opinion of most chocolate­ophiles, is the best in town. It is deep dark brown and tastes of cocoa. The raspberry sherbet is equally praiseworthy and just tart enough (a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of raspberry is an ambrosial combination). Gooey combinations and weird concoctions are the house speciality. Put your ten­year old onto a "Touchdown" (he hunts the chocolate­covered Brazil nut which lies buried in ice cream) or your eighteen year old onto the "Houstonian" (five different flavors of sundaes living together in one dish at $1.25).

Lunch and dinner are also served from a menu that include steaks, sandwiches, hamburgers, salads, and eggs—certainly nothing to ruin your sweet tooth over. Service is quick, however, and this is one of the few places in town where you can get ice cream and beer!
5016 Westheimer (adjacent to Sakowitz parking lot) 622­5760
Mon.­Thurs. 11 a.m.­midnight
Fri.­Sat. 11 a.m.­1 a.m.
Closed Sun.

MELANGE

Melange est omis divisa in partes tres Melange I is a restaurant; Melange II is a wine shop; and Melange III is a discoteque.

Originally, Melange I was a "sidewalk cafe" that featured luncheon only. Dinner was served in the quite elegant Melange III. Currently, however, both lunch and dinner are served in Melange I, and Melange III is only for cocktails and dancing. The menu has changed also, and no longer features as much haute cuisine as it once did. We don't miss the mediocre ceviche, but we are sorry that the exceptional bouillabaisse is no longer available. The present menu offers a much wider range of prices ($2.50 for half of a broiled chicken to $22 for Chateau­briand for two) and a variety of relatively straightforward dishes, although several rather elaborate house specialties are executed in chafing dishes à la table. With each entrée comes a salad, which you assemble yourself at a salad bar, and your choice of potatoes—baked, au gratin, or French fried.

Shrimp Melange, sautéed in wine and herbs as you watch, is delicate and delicious. Steak Paul, tender morsals of beef sautéed with whole water chestnuts in soy sauce and wine, has an interesting tang. Prime rib has been worth recommending.

Service is exceptionally accommodating. One evening an order of Steak Paul proved intolerably salty due to a surfeit of soy sauce. Our waiter, upon noticing our discomfort, instantly and most graciously whisked it away, brought out all his cooking paraphernalia, and prepared another order for us. The result was superb, and we left well pleased. Of course, this is the way service should be, although it seldom is, and we are most eager to applaud it.

Melange I's principal flaw is its openness. Set will back against the west wall of the third level of The Galleria, it has two sides completely naked to the mall. At noon, this gives the feeling of a sidewalk cafe as you watch the pedestrians coming and going. In the evening, however, as you sit in the softly lit restaurant, sipping vintage wine and eating Chateaubriand, you stare out on a mall almost deserted save an occasional adipose window­shopping matron in curlers and shower thongs who gawks at the diners as she ambles by. You feel as though you are in a restaurant diorama. Hence, we heartily recommend that you ask to be seated well back into the restaurant.

Melange is a suitable place to dine before seeing a movie at one of the Galleria cinemas or before doing a little serious discotequing at Melange III.
Third Level­The Galleria 626­2171
Lunch: Mon.­Sat. 11 a.m.­3 p.m.
AE, BA, MC
Dinner: Mon.­Sat. 6 p.m.­midnight
Cocktails/ wine
Moderate

[endnote] Felecia Coates and Harriet Howle are the authors of the forthcoming Texas Monthly's Guide to Houston, a paperback bonanza of information on restaurants (Tony's to The Havana Cuba), shopping (handmade puppets to southern sugar maple), doing things (Planned Parenthood Book Sale to Charity Cat Show), joining things (Hemerocallis Society to the Houston Designer Craftsmen), and sports (rugby to trained buzzard acts).

 

 

 

 

Pages: 1 2