Nosmo King: Restaurant: Haven

2502 Algerian Way
Houston, TX 77098

When Houston Restaurant Week came around, there was basically one restaurant that I was really excited about trying, and that was Haven. Following the trend of being a seasonal kitchen, the ingredients here are fresh, from local growers and the design of the building has been certified GREEN. I was also told by our waiter that none of the their meats are frozen. All of their meat is bought daily so when something runs out, then that's it. Finito. The restaurant is located right behind the Cafe Japon on Kirby and 59. Seriously! I had no idea anything existed behind there. You drive down this dark road and then BAM, gorgeous restaurant. Since Mochi was celebrating a huge bday that month, I arranged for us to have an intimate dinner together to celebrate her day and eat some good food. I already knew what I wanted. The pork chop. But Mister server guy sadly informed me that the last pork had been ordered just seconds ago. ARGH! So HRW menu it was. Even though I didn't get my pork chop, the rest of the food was AMAZING! The star of the night went to the jumbo lump crab cake. Everyone was raving about it and for the price you pay for HRW versus the price it would have been if ordered from the regular menu ($17), it was completely worth it. All crab and no filler. The best thing about Haven is that it doesn't skimp on the portion size just because it's from the HRW menu. You get full portions here! Since I didn't get my pork chop and a few others wanted to go back for the HRW crab cake deal, I got a few people together to dine at Haven on the last weekend of HRW. We were so hyped up about the food and when we finally started eating, for some reason, things weren't tasting as good as it did the first time around. The people that I had invited really wanted to try the crab cake cos we raved about it so much. They thought that Morton's had the best crab cake and after wards, they still thought Morton's was better. Darn. The pork chop was okay. I thought it was too salty and the flavors really didn't wow me at all. To top it off, they literally SQUISHED us into this table that was definitely not meant for a party of eight. Not only that, it was up against this wall so the folks on that side had about of inch of space between the table and their stomachs when their chair was pushed all the way back. We couldn't pull the table out either cos there wouldn't have been room for the waiters to walk around. Utter disappointment. I almost felt kind of embarrassed about dragging these folks to this place. How will they ever trust my taste buds ever again? I mean the place is good, but I haven't considered going back since then. We did however, make informal arrangements to go try the crab cake at Morton's. Haha. Aside from the food, our waiter the first time around told us that this is the best place he's ever worked at. They are treated really well and are even given their own business cards!

They passed around their free range deviled eggs, bread-n-butter pickle relish while we waited for our table. Even with reservations, we had to wait about an hour on our second visit. On our first visit, we pretty much got our table right away. I love deviled eggs. These were okay.

jumbo lump crab cake, squash blossom sauce, charred corn relish

shrimp corn dogs, lemonade, tabasco mash remoulade

wild head-on shrimp, shrimp demi, bacon, creminis, scallions, crescenza cheese grits

akaushi steak, red skin mash potato, mushrooms, country ham, green onions, red wine jus. This was another item that was really good the first time and faltered the second time.