Underbelly in Houston, TX

One of my good homies, Mat, is moving back to Seattle so I decided that his going away dinner would be a perfect opportunity to try out one of Houston's hottest restaurants, Underbelly. It's part of a set of 3 restaurant/bars that are focused on creating the best of what they make. Underbelly focuses on locally sourced meats and dishes that revolve around them. Anvil focuses on specialty cocktails, and Hay Merchant focuses on micro brews. I've been to both Anvil and Hay Merchant in the past and I was definitely impressed with the quality of product they were serving, so Underbelly was a must. We decided to get a bunch of dishes and share them all so we could taste as much as possible. Since our reservation was late, a few of the items we wanted had already sold out. Here's what we ended up ordering:

Korean Braised Goat and Dumplings, a far and away winner of the night, it's soft and crunchy, sweet and spicy. Me= blown away!

This is lamb with red cabbage (it's no longer on the menu so I don't know the exact description) after we had eaten most of it:

Blackfish with Butternut squash puree and chopped chard (fish was good, but the winning segment of this dish was the butternut puree):

Finished up with a goat cheese cheese cake with salted carmel (suuuper good because the goat cheese made it less sweet than cream cheese and the salted caramel really set off the flavor): 

Over all it was a huge win. As I look over the current menu while writing this post there are several new dishes I'd like to try. If I lived closer, I could see this being a place I visited on a weekly basis, it's that good and they vary their menu that often. This is a must visit in Houston! And if you don't trust my taste buds, check out some professional reviews: Robb Walsh Patricia Sharpe Bon Appetit Houston Eater