Houston Restaurant Weeks: Oceanaire Seafood Room

Oceaniare Dining Room

This past weekend we celebrated my friend Leeann’s birthday at Oceaniare Seafood Room. If you recall, Oceanaire was on my list of places to go for Houston Restaurant Weeks so I was excited about this pick! We had a larger group so we were seated in a semi private area to the side of the main dining room.  The restaurant printed up personalized menus with “Happy Birthday Leeann!” for everyone.  They even put a ribbon on one and gave to my friend as a souvenir.  I thought that was a great touch!

Personalized menu for the birthday girl!

Setup: Oceanaire is actually inside of the Galleria mall.  The Galleria is always a zoo, but with the current construction going on at the mall, it is really a fight to get in that place and find parking.  There is a valet station conveniently located right outside of Oceanaire that takes credit cards! I parked in the underground garage right beneath the Oceanaire, which was also convenient and free! This was my first time actually inside Oceanaire after passing it a million times from the street and inside the mall.  I sat at the bar area while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.  It is a really cute area and apparently has a great happy hour that I will be trying soon!  The dining area is also beautiful with high ceilings and somewhat scenic views of the galleria area (i.e. cars zooming by on Westheimer).

View from the street.

The view of the restaurant as the sun started to go down.

The BAR.

Service: I try to give waiters serving large groups a pass, because it ain’t easy!  We were seated in a nook area and my seat was closer inside of the nook near the birthday girl. Our server never seemed to make it all the way to our end of the table.  We were like the orphan children!  The other end of the table would probably say the service was impeccable, us not so much.  When it came time for the three courses to start rolling out, it seemed that there was a hold up! It felt like we waited forever for our first course and then in between courses.  Again, I TRY to give passes for large groups, but there was a point that we almost fought over the last piece of bread!

Houston Restaurant Weeks Menu

Drinks: I skipped cocktails at Oceanaire, but my friends indulged for the sake of this blog, thanks ladies!  Both ordered second rounds, so we can say they were pretty good.

The Hendricks Gin Mule.

Food: This is a picture heavy post because I was with a large group that liked to share.  Those are the best groups! We all ordered and then ate family style, trying a little of everything.  I will go for fewer words here and let the pictures speak for themselves.  I think for the most part all of us found something that we really liked.  I will note my favorites below.

The bread! It was not amazing, but we were starving so we devoured it.

My first course, on HRW menu, clam chowder. It was decent.

Few other appetizers, mussels, spicy ahi tuna tower and calamari.  The tower was picture perfect and the calamari was on point taste wise.

The crispy sweet chili shrimp on the HRW menu. Also pretty good!

The Salmon appetizer.  Way better than I expected. Guess I have low expectations.

My main entree, salmon dynamite. It included crab meat, scallops, crawfish and mushrooms on top of salmon with some cheese. All of this was on a pile of noodles. Loved the seafood, but thought the noodles were an odd addition.

I ordered the family sized mac and cheese and shared it with others at the table. I really liked it, but reviews among our group were mixed.

The full red snapper looked amazing! Had to grab a picture of it even though it was not my dish.

Braised Short Rib and Scallops from HRW menu. The menu portions seemed a little small compared to everything else.

My friend ordered shrimp and grits off of the regular menu. Very good dish. In the background is the lobster risotto that was also great.

Finally dessert! I ordered the croissant bread pudding. Nothing about the taste or look said “croissant” but I liked it minus the raisins.

Oceanaire definitely gets my recommendation for Houston Restaurant Weeks! Great portions (other than the braised short rib), the $35 price plus plenty of good menu options!