Taste of Texas — Restaurant in Houston

My husband and I have been coming to this restaurant for well over a decade, visiting multiple times a year. We've celebrated countless wedding anniversaries here and have a collection of photos to mark the memories. It’s also been a favorite spot to celebrate my mother-in-law’s December birthday, where we always enjoyed the warm ambiance and beautiful holiday décor.

Unfortunately, over the past few years, we’ve noticed a gradual shift that feels less like a family-run business and more like a corporate operation focused solely on profit. The complimentary soda, chips and salsa, and popcorn during long wait times are all gone. The cozy waiting area we once enjoyed has been replaced with rentable space. While we understand the need for businesses to evolve, some changes have chipped away at what made this place special.

Tonight’s visit left us especially disappointed. As someone who doesn’t eat red meat, I’ve always appreciated their salad bar. My husband and I both ordered the salad bar with a side of protein—salmon for me, chicken for him. I had a small first plate of salad—just some tomatoes, mozzarella, greens, and fruit. By the time my salmon arrived, I got a second small plate of salad, enjoyed a cheesy roll, and ate about half my salmon. I was full, and so was my husband.

When we asked for to-go boxes, we were told we could only take our protein home—not the leftover salads. My husband had already mixed his chicken into his salad, so it wasn’t easily separated. The server was kind but firm, saying it was policy. A few moments later, the manager, Michael, came by and asked how everything was. I told him it was delicious, and he smiled—until my husband asked for clarification on the to-go policy. Michael's entire demeanor changed. He cut my husband off multiple times, repeating that we would have to pay for two additional salad bars (about $18 each) if we wanted to take any salad home.

The tone and delivery were unnecessarily confrontational and embarrassing—as if we were trying to cheat the system. My husband offered to pick the chicken out of his salad, but Michael insisted on cooking a new chicken breast instead, which missed the point. We weren’t trying to get anything extra—we were just trying not to waste food we had already paid for.

What’s especially frustrating is this: if I had ordered a large dinner salad from the menu (if they offered one), I would have been allowed to take leftovers home. Yet two small salad bar plates—the same amount of food or less—were not allowed to be boxed up. That makes no sense. My plates weren’t heaping, and this was my dinner. My salad bar and salmon cost $30. Why is it acceptable to throw perfectly good food in the trash but not let a paying customer take it with them?

We ended up sitting there longer than usual, trying to eat more just to avoid waste. Ironically, if we had been allowed to box our food, the table could’ve turned over more quickly for the server. Michael’s rigid, almost militant handling of the situation felt wasteful, disrespectful, and unprofessional. A more thoughtful response would have been to kindly explain the policy (which he claimed is posted, though obviously not clearly visible) and make an exception this time with a note for the future.

We’ve supported this restaurant for over ten years, but tonight we felt more like rule-breakers than valued guests. For a place that charges premium prices, this policy—and more importantly, how it was enforced—felt needlessly petty and off-putting. Sadly, it may be...

We had two families (4ppl & 3ppl) with a dinner reservation. We had a relatively early reservation, 6ish. There was plenty of parking in their primary parking lot.

The staff at the front desk were helpful, friendly, and quick. The atmosphere is kind of a celebration of Texas history. There are a lot of Texas history memorabilia on the walls and small statues/static displays with placards. There is a small gift shop with shirts, spices, cups, candles, food items, etc (see picture). The overall restaurant is HUGE; luckily it is broken into several smaller rooms so it doesn’t have a cafeteria feel to it.

As the party of 3, we ordered the children’s cheeseburger with pineapple juice, the cowboy steak, Brussels sprouts, loaded baked potato, crab cake app, chocolate cake, snickers cheesecake, apple dumplings, the red wine flight, and an old fashioned.

The red wine flight is preset and was very good and was still in a similar price point to a single glass. Worth the flight.

The ToT old fashioned was above average, not exceptional, but above average. Thankfully they use luxardo cherries (as they should - but not all places do).

The kids cheeseburger is huge. It must have been a half-pound. It was pretty average, seasoning was decent - not special. Just an average burger. It comes with steak fries that were a bit under seasoned.

The crab cakes were good, not exceptional, just very good. They erred on the soft rather than crispy side if that is something that is important to you. They were reasonably well seasoned.

The salad bar came with the steak. Im not sure what the allure of the salad bar is in so many of the reviews. There were about 4 different types of “lettuce” (e.g., spinach, iceberg), standard salad add-on (egg, tomatoes, bacon, mushrooms, quinoa, etc), melon, watermelon, pineapple, several dressings (ranch, Italian, etc), 3 different types of bread (dinner roll, cheese roll, jalapeño roll), 2 cheeses you can slice yourself. That is the entire salad bar. It is a good salad bar but the reviews really made me think there was going to be something really memorable here and there isn’t. There are fewer things at this salad bar than most Whole Foods salad bars (and Im not talking about the entree bars at WF). Again, good but not exceptional in any way. Just a salad bar.

The Brussels sprouts and loaded baked potato were both good.

Pick your steak: “going to pick your cut” from the reviews and from the server seemed like you would walk into a butcher shop type atmosphere. This is NOT the case. You walk into a room with a refrigerator with pre-plastic wrapped steaks and you would select from that. It was nearly identical to the refrigerated steaks in the gift shop. I write this to cage your expectations. The cowboy steak came out well overcooked. We had to send it back. The staff were very attentive and quick about this but the idea that we came to a STEAKHOUSE - with SOOO Many 5* reviews - and had a steak delivered that was 2+ temps over ordered and for the price listed…not acceptable.

The desserts were all good. VERY large portions. Nothing to write home about.

OVERALL: This was a good meal but by no means of measurement was it exceptional. When considering the price point (we paid over $300 for 2 adults and a 4yo) this is not worth the money. We don’t regret going but the cost is not worth the overall product. We have been to high-end steakhouses all over the country (it’s a thing for us) and I would not list this in any of our “do you remember” or “repeat” or...

Taste of Texas always feels like a treat. It has a fancy atmosphere, but the dress code is pretty open from what I have seen people wear.

I've been here at least six times in the past, but always to get a soup bowl and the salad bar. The salad bar is the best. Everything is super fresh, and I love that they have huge blocks of cheese that you can scrape yourself. They also have delicious flavored butter to go with their various rolls and breads. Even just getting their salad bar feels pretty worth it, at $12, because it is a quality salad bar.

This was my first time trying their steak. We went for my boyfriend's birthday. To treat him, we ordered their most expensive steak to share. It's a 38 oz tomahawk steak with a huge 14 inch bone included for just under $80, including a side and unlimited trips to the salad bar for one person. It was nice that they split the steak onto two plates for us. We ordered medium rare. My boyfriend took the piece with the huge bone and was very happy as he ate it. He said it melts in your mouth. When I looked at my half, I was a little concerned by how not-pink it looked for a medium rare steak. And as I ate my first four bites, it definitely tasted like more of a medium - chewy and a little under flavored. For how much the steak was priced and for how popular this place is for fancy steaks, I was very underwhelmed.

BUT what redeemed it for me was their service. I hate complaining to restaurant staff, but I didn't want to pay that much for a not-enjoyable meal, so I informed my waitress that the steak was too cooked. She was so kind and accommodating. She took the steak back and offered a 16oz new ribeye to replace my half, with a new side dish. The new one came out about 10 minutes later (encouraging me that it was cooked fresh and with care), and it was delicious and perfectly cooked!!! The manager also came out during my wait for the new steak to apologize, which was nice.

For birthdays, they bring out this huge dessert display platter with all their desserts (their real desserts, not fake ones!) and let the birthday person pick one. They bring a fresh one out later with a cool sparkler candle. All their desserts are delicious. They also take a photo of you with your dessert and print it to give you in a nice little Taste of Texas paper frame.

It is a pretty popular place, and their dinner time often has a wait. It wasn't too bad when we went, though. We went on Tuesday at 7pm and it took about 15 minutes for a group of 9. The awesome part about that is their waiting lounge. They have a large room to the side by the restaurant entrance, with many tables. The room is stocked with a soda machine, a popcorn machine, and hot fresh chips with salsa - all complimentary.

Another neat part is that you get to pick your steak. After we ordered, the waitress took us on a little field trip to the back. She took out a few steaks from each cut that we ordered and let us choose our desired steak, with...