Bungalow Downtown Dining — Restaurant in Houston

I have been to Bungalow before on a date. At the time it had recently opened and was new to the Houston restaurant scene. I loved that visit and used it for comparison to this visit. 🫶🏾

My friends and I decided to dine here for HRW 2023. We chose 7 pm dining time on Thursday night so as to avoid a large crowd.

We had a party 5, originally 6. Reservation was easy to make online. We all arrived between 6:30 pm & 7:15 pm.

One of my friends & I are always earlier than our other friends, so we grabbed a spot at the bar to take advantage of the happy hour specials. We both had lemon drops that were around $9. The drink was mixed very well & was balanced; however, the bartender didn’t charge me the happy hour price even though I was seated at the bar & placed my order before 7 pm. A slight annoyance, but it was just a couple of dollars difference. 🫤

After the remaining 3 friends arrived, we went back to the hostess stand to be directed to our table. One difference between my original visit and this one, was that I did not receive a complimentary glass of champagne upon entry as before. This is a known staple so I was sort of disappointed about that. None of my other friends were offered a complimentary glass upon their arrival, and, as we were leaving the restaurant after dining, we noticed the hostesses giving out the complimentary glasses of champagne. Maybe Bungalow only starts giving out the champagne at a certain time, but this is inconsistent with my previous visit which was around the same time as this one. 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

One drawback of the table we were seated, was the arrangement of the seating. We had 5 people in our party, but we were sat along the wall to the right where there are cushioned seats for seemingly two, maybe three people at max. Our tables were right next to one another, but they were bolted to the floor & couldn’t be moved. There were no chairs but rather booth seating. We couldn’t arrange ourselves to be closer to one another for dinner conversation. It was just awkward having to talk louder than normal for everyone to hear and/or flat out missing what people were saying due to the awkward place they made our group fit into.

Our server was Drea. She was amazing! She was very friendly, upbeat, & knowledgeable about the menu. She answered any questions we had with confidence & made sure to ask about food preferences (okay with spicy, etc). One minor issue which I didn’t lower my rating for because it seems most restaurants participating in HRW are doing the same behavior is NOT HAVING THE HRW MENU either included inside the original menu or on the table. We had to ask for the menu or specify that we were there for HRW. It seems as if the restaurants want to see if you’ll forget & order from the main menu. It feels awkward to have to proclaim “we’re here for HRW.” Participating restaurants should just have the HRW menus available without the need to request.

Regarding my food, I was satisfied with my selections. For my appetizer I selected the spicy wagyu meatball. The flavor was to die for! I wish the offering would’ve been more than 1 meatball, but as it’s HRW, I understood. It receiving a full portion. For my main course I selected the 6 oz filet mignon cooked medium rare. The steak was very flavorful, moist, and tender. It came with potatoes. The potatoes were okay. Not bad. Just okay. Once again, my main course seemed to be of a lesser quality due to it being a HRW selection. I remember very well the quality, presentation, and portion sizes when I dined last year not during HRW, and there’s no comparison to the typical menu versus the HRW menu. Instead of using similar quality & presentation for HRW, it seems as if there’s probably a lesser quality food & presentation used for HRW. For my dessert, I chose the lemon meringue pie & it was one of my favorite parts of the meal! I love lemon meringue & this one was very good. It was the perfect size to end the meal. It wasn’t over sized to where you felt like you were stuffing yourself. Overall, Bungalow gets an average...

My husband and I went here for the first time based on recommendations from his coworkers. We were told the cajun ribeye was a must try, so we decided to give it a try.

We booked a reservation for 4:15 and when we arrived, we were seated at one of the lowest tables in the restaurant. My husband is 6’4 and I'm 6’1, so the seating arrangement was not going to work being so low to the ground. There were only 8 other customers in the restaurant, so we asked to be switched to a booth which was higher off the ground and more comfortable, and we were quickly moved. We ordered the pineapple jerk chicken wings and wagyu meatballs as appetizers. My husband ordered a gentlemen's jack and coke and I ordered a red wine blend. For the main course, we ordered two cajun ribeye steaks, a side of macaroni and cheese, and a side of mascarpone mashed potatoes. For dessert, we ordered the lemon meringue tart. The bill was $366. As far as the overall experience, I was initially planning to give the restaurant a 2.5 star rating, but before we left, management's poor customer service and failure to offer any resolution for issues with our steaks that we brought to their attention caused the star rating to decrease further. I'll start with the positives. The atmosphere was nice. The music selection was good. Our server, Kim, was very attentive and personable. The red wine blend I selected was great. The pineapple jerk chicken wings and wagyu meatballs were flavorful. The lemon meringue tart had a good crust and nice texture, but it lacked true lemon flavor. Now for the negatives. My husband's drink was watered down, and since it was not one of the happy hour specials, paying full price for a watered down drink was disappointing. The mashed potatoes were not good, the texture was too smooth, almost as if they were made from powder; they reminded us of KFC which is not what you would expect at an upscale restaurant. There was no complimentary bread like most upscale restaurants. Although 3 servers came to our table at the same time to deliver our main course, none of the servers put any of the side dishes that we ordered on our plate, like other upscale steak restaurants do. The biggest negative was that the steaks were dry and super tough. We were given gold butter knives by our server to cut the steaks, so we assumed this meant the steaks would be so tender that a steak knife would not be required. We were so wrong. After 4 bites, I couldn't take it any more, and I stopped eating the steak and just ate the macaroni and the rest of my wagyu meatball. The quality of the steaks was subpar and there obviously was minimal to no marbling because the steaks had no moisture whatsoever. My husband managed to finish his steak but mainly because he didn't want to waste it. I had the restaurant box my leftover steak so I could take a photograph to attach to this review. Additionally, my steak was noticeably smaller than my husband's, so I doubt that it was truly 14 ounces. At this point, we had already determined that we would never order steak from this restaurant again in the future, but we hadn't written the restaurant off completely. My husband and I both worked in the service industry when we were younger, so we have always made it a point to give generous tips. However, we were taken aback by this restaurant adding a 20% service fee to our bill, adding $58 to the bill. Although we know by law that we are not required to pay this fee, we paid the bill in its entirety. Once we paid the bill, our server asked us for an honest opinion about the steaks. So, we told her about the poor quality of the steaks. Before we left, the manager came to the table and asked us about our experience. So, we told her about the lack of marbling in the meat and how dry and tough the steaks were. She apologized and then said she hopes we come back. Why would we come back to a restaurant after paying almost $400 for lousy steaks, expressing dissatisfaction to management about the quality of the food and having them do nothing before we left to...

Bad service from Quinton This was my first time coming to this restaurant & I was super excited because I’ve heard great things about this place. First off we got sat at our table & our cups were dirty with what appeared to be chocolate which of course is no problem we will just ask for new ones. When I tried to ask Quinton he said I’ll be right back. Okay that was fine whatever. Then we got our food & didn’t get any steak knives. We didn’t get an opportunity to ask him because he didn’t come back to check on us so we ended up having to bother & ask another server. We ended up using our butter knives which kinda worked but took more work. By the time we got our steak knives we pretty much finished our food. My friend ordered a drink twice that she never got & every time we tried to get his attention he seemed to make eye contact with us & then turn around to walk away. When we asked for the tab he came back with 3 when we wanted to be on one tab. Which again we thought no problem we can just ask for everything to be on one. When we asked him he came back with all 3 saying there was no card. We asked again if it could be on one tab & he said well I was trying to save myself from making 2 trips. Hmmm okay. We said we were paying cash. He didn’t say anything & walked away. My friend who has been there before went to talk to the manager to give feedback because the service she got last time was amazing compared to this time which is why she wanted to bring us here! The manager offered to comp us for appetizers & drink. We didn’t ask for that the manager brought it up first & said he would do that for us which we appreciated. Quinton came back & we said we were paying a new tab because the manager is gonna comp us some of our meal. That made him aggressive & now he wanted to stick around our table. He started asking why why why. My friend said the service just wasn’t too great tonight. He was standing over us & started getting more aggressive! We felt really uncomfortable & he stormed off & started making a scene with the manager. We didn’t even get to pay yet. We walked to the front because we just didn’t know what was going on. Quinton threw his checkbook on the ground in front of us, other customers & the staff. He then stormed out of the restaurant saying stuff under his breath. We finally got taken care of by another staff member & we were able to pay. Even though the service wasn’t up to par we still stayed respectful the whole night saying please & thank you. Because of the prices of this restaurant we expected better service but the service we got was...