UPDATED REVIEW -- JANUARY 2009

We made our annual new year's celebration trek to this wildly popular steakhouse.  Same great service and food makes this one of our favorite Houston steakhouses.  Although we don't appreciate that our reservations have never been honored on time, and we're always sent to the bar for at least a half hour wait.  To the waitress's credit, we got no dirty looks when we sat without ordering a drink.

Pappas Brothers has a very deep wine list, with more older vintages than most restaurants.  This is our annual wine splurge.  With the help of the sommelier, we picked a 1990 Bordeaux with the decidedly deep, earthy flavor that we enjoy.

We tried a couple appetizers this time -- crab cakes and shrimp remoulade.  The crab cakes were chock full of crab with a tasty lemon butter caper sauce, topped with a mass of fried potato strings.  The highlight of the shrimp remoulade, other than the large, fresh shrimp, was the delectable sauce, spicy with caper overtones.  We tried to resist the hot sourdough bread, so we'd have room for the New York strip that we shared.   One of the things that Pappas does just a notch better than the other steakhouses is the sides.  We have the same ones every year.   At least one of us cannot resist that old steakhouse standby -- creamed spinach -- loaded with cream with the added benefit of bits of smoked ham.  And the potatos au gratin are even richer and cheesier than you could imagine, also benefitting from the addition of bacon.  The Pappas folks agree with Emeril that "pork fat rules."  We'll be back again in about a year.

FIRST REVIEWED -- JANUARY 2007

We celebrated New Year's Eve a night early at Pappas Brothers Steakhouse, well-recognized as one of the top steakhouses in town.  As usual, the place was hopping; surprisingly to us, given the prices, there were a lot of families with (fortunately, well-behaved) children.  Seems like Pappas is quite popular with the out of town crowd, in Houston over the holidays to shop at the nearby Galleria.

We begin this review by noting that we really splurged on both the wine and food.  While the service at Pappas has always been very good, our server, Adam, was particularly gracious this evening, as were the sommeliers.  We started by sharing the Australian lobster tail, which Adam nicely cut in pieces.  It was delicious but not value dining at $100.  Our only gripe is that the melted butter could have been warmer.  The ceramic warming dish with a votive candle didn't really do the trick.

We shared the 18 ounce New York Strip which was appropriately cooked (medium-rare) and presented sliced by Adam on a serving plate.  We had two sides -- creamed spinach and potatoes au gratin.  Both were fabulous and decadent.   Even the sourdough bread, served warm and crispy, was great.

We didn't indulge in dessert.   After offering us after-dinner drinks and hearing at least one of us note that she isn't a big fan of dessert wines, even the priciest versions, the head sommelier brought over a couple of his favorites for us to try -- a 1948 Madeira and a slightly bubbly Italian dessert wine.   The Madeira still didn't work for Ms. Anti-d'Yquem,  but the Italian wine was surprisingly good and not too sweet.

We had a great meal, with wonderful service.  Although we may have been particularly well treated this evening, we've never had indifferent service or a disappointing meal at Pappas.  We also like Vic & Anthony's and Flemings, but something about Pappas, one of the first of the now many steakhouses in Houston, has special appeal.

5839 Westheimer
713/780-7352
http://pappasbros.com/