Houston Has A Great New Restaurant

We celebrated our 34th anniversary by eating last night at Navy Blue on Times in Rice Village. We chose it because we like the sister restaurant, Bludorn, on Taft, near our home. We have eaten twice at this predecessor and have enjoyed it.

The restaurant is owned by Aaron Bludorn, and his wife, Victoria, who grew up in Houston and is part of the Pappas family, which owns a lot of restaurants in Houston. I don't frequent those restaurants, but they have a good reputation. They have a partner, Cherif Mbodji, who worked with Aaron and Victoria in NYC at The Dinex Group, which is owned by Daniel Boulud.

I think that the Bludorns and Mbodji are doing great things. I have not met any of them, but I like that the Bludorns met in NYC, like Fran and me. They are working on their third restaurant, which will be located in Hedwig Village in the Memorial area.

The menu online was a bit different from the one last night. We started with Ora Salmon Tartare (I didn't take a picture!), and it looked very nice and tasted fantastic. We also split a gnocchi dish, also yummy (and rich):

Fran ordered swordfish au poivre and loved it:

I had scallops (with prosciutto):

Fran is a big fan of Prosecco, but she passed in favor of a glass of Assyrtiko Mylonas Attiki, and I had a glass of Austrian Grüner Veltliner Weingut Ingrid Groiss Weinviertel. I didn't take a picture of our dessert, but we shared a banana sundae (rum caramel, pecan mirliton, espresso cardamom gelato).

The restaurant, which opened in late 2023, looks very nice. This photo on the website shows the table we sat at (on the left):

Very good food in a nice place, but what made the evening especially nice for us was the service. From the people who greeted us to all of the people involved in serving us, the entire group was very helpful.

I am excited for Houston, which I believe already has a great number of very good restaurants, as this team is likely to keep growing their restaurants. They have done a very nice job so far!