Venetian Hot Plate — Restaurant in Port Aransas

Giving VHP a 5-star review for two main reasons: 1) the owner welcoming us in at 5:00pm without a reservation and saying he could seat us if we could be out by 6:45PM! and 2) our waiter Mike who was fantastic at accommodating our desire not to be rushed, and who had our check on the table at 6:35pm! Oh yeah, there is a third reason ... the food is great! We shared many dishes, the Crab Crostini, the Grilled Romaine salad, the Scaloppine Carciofi (veal w/ creamy artichoke hearts), the Lamb Chops special, and the Tiramisu ... all were outstanding! We plan on frequenting VHP on every trip to Port Aransas, you should too!

Update 11-28-2023

Off season in Port A, TX this week... not a whole lot of folks around the week after Thanksgiving, many of the people who are here were at VHP tonight, the restaurant was busy on a Tuesday night, when many other places in town had 1 or two cars in the parking lot... say no more! VHP consistently serves up one of the best meals in town!

Tonight's culinary adventure began with a bottle of 2020 Stefano Di Blasi Gold from Tuscany (when in Rome, right?), the bottle was from our cellar at home, so the modest $20 corkage fee was a bargain. FYI, when dining out, BYOW when you can... call ahead to find out about the corkage fee. If allowed, it's the best way to have great wine with your meal without breaking the bank!

The food parade began with an order of the Misto Mare, a delightful blend of shrimp, diver scallops, blue lip mussels, littleneck and chopped clams, steamed and served in a light garlic white wine sauce. The surprise is a little kick from the pinch of crushed red pepper... OMG good! The seafood was SUPER fresh, not a hint of "fishiness" from "yesterday's catch!"

We followed the seafood with one of our favorites, the Domingo's Grilled Romaine salad. If you've never had grilled lettuce, try it sometime, it's a game changer when to comes to getting your veggies in every day. The grilled lettuce was presented with a light balsamic reduction, a nice handful of fresh parmigiano cheese and crispy baked prosciutto... heaven on a plate!

The next act, the entrees, included one of the specials of the day, the lamb chops, and the Scaloppine Carciofi. The serving of lamb chops was HUGE and included enough for lunch tomorrow! Wonderful sauce under the lamb, with sides of garlic spinach and roasted potatoes. YUM! We ordered the lamb medium rare, and many of the chops were more rare than MR, we saved those chops for lunch tomorrow...

Not sure why I keep ordering the same veal dish (Carciofi), I should have read my last review! LOL I'm drawn to fantastic food! It was awesome as usual... perfectly cooked tender veal, smothered in a creamy artichoke, tomatoes and mushrooms sauce, with red potatoes (cut in the shape of mushrooms) and garlic spinach on the side. We easily brought home two pounds of leftovers. Everything was Delicious, with a capital "D."

We ended the meal with a wonderful piece of Tiramisu ... forgot to get a pic of that... sorry! LOL

Special shout out to our waitress, Karen, who did a fantastic job... attentive but not intrusive. Thanks Karen, job well done. The bus boys also did a great job (didn't get their names), including bringing our "leftovers" bag out to the car after we left it on the table (happens often).

One observation I will make about the process/procedure at VHP... a trend we're seeing more and more, was a 3.5% add on to the check AFTER the bill was initially presented and the credit card run. No notes on menu, no mention of the charge when picking up the bill to run the card, or even when presenting the final bill to the table. Ours was a debit card, so likely no fee incurred, but for the $6, I let it go.

Note to business folks... Many customers will take the charge out of the tip, which hurts your wait staff. Be upfront and not short-sighted!

Highly recommend Venetian Hot Plate, one of the most special restaurants in Port A, and worth the visit every time we're in town. ...

Upon entering we were greeted by a very nice friendly woman who seated us. Once we sat down we immediately knew something was off with the service from our waitress. She comes up to our table says hello and immediately asks what we would like for dinner. Did not ask us our drink options or if we wanted an appetizer. I told her we would like to start with drinks and some garlic bread. She came back with our drinks and asked again if we were ready to order (very rushed) so we went ahead and placed our orders. For each entree we ordered our waitress asked “and for your salad?” We were kinda taken back because we didn’t think a salad came with our meal, so we each tell her our salad option after she asks. We get our salad. Great. Garlic bread. Great. We then finish our salad and we are out of drinks. Our waitress is waiting to the two tables right next to us and one a little further. Not one time did our waitress ask if we needed anything else to drink or if we needed anything. While she was waiting the two tables right next to us. Each time (3) we needed something I had get the waitress attention. It was awful. We sat for 20 mins after we fished and not one time did she come back. The owner (the nice lady who greeted us upon entering) came up to our table to ask how things were. I said the food was great but the service is just not there. The owner then explained she was short staffed-understandable, but our waitress completely ignored us. It had nothing to do with being short staffed. The older lady who was our waitress immediately judged us as soon as we sat at her table. Because of our age? We were the youngest people in the restaurant. (30-40 y/o) The owner tells our waitress that we are ready for our check. We finally get it. We see we are charged $36 (assuming the salad) we realized it wasn’t included. The fish was lacking flavor and the mashed potatoes also tasted like fish. The tortellini linda pasta was great. The service from our waitress really put a sour taste. I recommend travel and restaurants for my job and the service alone will push me away from referring people here. I really wanted to like this place. And I do want to note. Everyone else in this establishment was extremely nice, besides our waitress- to...

Upon arriving at the Venetian hot plate our expectations were high. When we walked into the restaurant the ambience was very inviting but loud as most Italian restaurants would be. seeing that there were a lot of people seated we again became excited and hoped our expectations would be met. Unfortunately they weren’t just not met they weren’t even on the menu. The prices I felt were extremely high for such low standard Italian cooking. I have traveled most of northern Italy from Milan to Venice to Rome and all of Tuscany and I can tell you this was the farthest thing from good and even further from Italian food . Caesar salad was three leaves of lettuce store-bought croutons and a Wayover garlic Caesar dressing. The fact that I had to cut my own lettuce to eat a Caesar salad was laughable and extremely far from fine dining; however the ciabatta bread and dipping side where the only exceptional and tasteful . The two entrées that we ordered one being a lasagna and apparently mom’s recipe and the other was a seafood melody of shellfish on top of cold noodles and what appeared to be a butter sauce that was more canned clams water and garlic than what was described on the menu. Both entrées were nevertheless filling but in the wrong way as we were extremely hungry upon arriving and eating. This place is overpriced I say again extremely overpriced Olive Garden quality Italian food. if you’re looking for expensive and terrible dishes this might be your place but if you’re wanting to spend top dollar and take your loved one out for a special dinner that would be the last...