Cottonwood — Restaurant in Houston

Cottonwood is English for Alamo. Pub inspired fare, Cottonwood (in Garden Oaks) is one of the best dives in the area. Part bar, part pub, part band venue, along with the best patio I've seen in a long time (fire pits, games, live music, etc.), this is a great place for a birthday celebration. This weekend, we joined our good friend, Suzy, to celebrate her birthday. This great party was the brainchild of her loving husband (and one of my burger buddies) Scott, who chose this place not knowing it was one of my favorite bar spots, having one of the best whiskey/bourbon selections in town!

But, Cottonwood also offers a great burger selection, and I've never had a burger here. Well, that is now in the past with my pure enjoyment of The Squirrel Master Burger (rated in 2013 as one of Houston Press' Top Ten Burgers)! Okay, let's set the stage, making a note that this is not the typical burger I usually order. This was a Poblano stuffed burger, with a jalapeno fried egg(!), pepper jack cheese, and bacon. After ordering, it seemed like it took forever for my burger to arrive. Part anticipation, part hunger, and part the busy and bustling crowd. But, once it came, I snapped my photo, cut the burger in half, and took the first of many bites.

The burger was perfectly cooked to order - medium. The taste was extremely good - a crisp crust on the patty with a pink center and juicy to perfection. The jalapeno fried egg added a great spicy kick to the burger, but did not overpower the flavor of the meat. To me, a great burger is one where the patty is the main attraction, and this is one of those burgers. The fresh baked bun, however, was totally tasteless up against the other flavors. While I prefer a bun that does not overpower the burger, I am fond of one that offers a little flavor contrast. When I took a bite of the bun without the burger, it had a slight sweet taste, but that was lost when taking a bite of the full burger. This is not a major complaint on my part, but more of an observation. The bun is a very important part of any burger I eat, but this bun did not impact my burger experience in either a positive or negative way.

For me, Cottonwood is definitely a destination. One can enjoy an awesome burger, a great whiskey, an amazing patio, and entertaining live music. I eagerly anticipate my next visit to try the other burgers on their menu. That jalapeno fried egg made this burger special, along with my Eagle Rare Manhattan! Cottonwood is English for Alamo, but should also be English for...

I came here to celebrate with some friends for their birthday. There's plenty of parking, the ambiance made you feel like you were at a backyard picnic. They even had an area so you and your guests could play Cornhole. They're wasn't a Hostess so we proceeded to help ourselves to the Bar. And as soon as we sat down the Baretender welcomed us. I ordered a Pineapple Margarita. And I only needed one so that should tell you something. The Pineapple Margarita was served frozen no salt only lime. It tasted exactly like a Pineapple. My friend ordered a beer it had Lilikoi and orange. Amongst those we chose they had an excellent beer, wine and spirits menu like an 8X11 with both sides full of tasty beverages.

The decor inside the building had a very rustic feel to it: The Chalkboard, good music and given the option to sit, high at a bistro table or low and outside. Our party chose to sit outside. They had fans and water to keep us cool and the patio had lights and stage I believe. I also sat inside for few minutes so I wouldn't kill myself sitting out their from the humidity and access to both were readily excessible.

I was instantly hungry and ordered a Ceviche Appetizer. The Ceviche had great flavor and a variety of seafood: shrimp, tilapia and scallops and served with some tortilla chips that really didnt taste much like anything but complimented the dish. I would've love some avocado with it but they didn't have any.

As we were waiting for more guests to arrive we were already sold on ordering the steak. On Tuesdays Steak Night is $16.99; they also ordered offered a few other drinks specials throughout the week so I would definitely call them and inquire about such specials. With all the people that came out our dinner didn't take very long. These Steak were monsters they had great flavor not to heavily seasoned and was served with some type of butter couldve been some bleu cheese immersed in the butter but the flavor wasnt overpowering at all. The mashed potatoes were top notch. Buttery, whipped consistantsy and tasty. Lastly served with seasonal veggies these were really good fresh green beans.

I did however reviewed the rest of the menu, they had a variety of appetizers, burgers, wings, tacos and sandwiches. They're highest priced entree was maybe $15. My overall experience was excellent. This place you need to visit in Houston. ...

Not a good experience at all. We had a large group of people come in after a funeral. We personally had never been here before so we had some questions and conversations with Mike who was taking our order. Pretty funny guy and interesting sense of humor. We had conversations about steak options. In the end we ordered two of the Filet options on the menu. $31 each. We also ordered gumbo which is on the menu as "Crawfish and Venison sausage" $12 Mike told us it wasn't on the menu, but it is if you use their QR code link to their menu. we also ordered a Deep eddy vodka and cranberry double ($20) When our steaks came out the first came out and was a ribeye. I thought maybe they gave us someone else's since we remember ordering two filets so I took it up to get clarification with the server. I caught the server with our other plate coming out of the kitchen and asked him what number table this was for because we ordered the filet. Mike came out of the kitchen and stated "no you ordered the ribeye" ok. My guess is that with all the joking and messing around there was a misunderstanding. I said that it was fine and I started to head back to the table and Mike said are you going to take this one referring to the steak the server was holding, I said "yea, i thought he was taking it to the table, sorry". I went to get the plate and then Mike said again "Oh no, he will take it to the table for you", but in this sarcastic tone where it made me feel like I was being some kind of pretentious jackass or something. After getting our steaks to the table, I was wondering where the gumbo was since we hadn't received it yet. I went up to the register to ask for the receipt and Mike came from the kitchen again and asked "what's the problem" I told him i wanted the receipt to check on things and see if we paid for the gumbo we didn't get yet. He said "oh i didn't put that in!" Let me go get one. He went back into the kitchen and grabbed one and I reached for it and he was about to hand it to me and then said "Oh wait, let me take it to the table for you" in reference to the earlier conversation. i think this was part of his sense of humor, but it came across as sarcastic. The gumbo had great flavor but literally two pieces of sausage (round slices) and no crawfish. It's cool to joke around some with customers but still gotta do your job right and make sure that your jokes...