Restaurant IPO

My husband, I, and our two young adult daughters decided to visit on a Friday evening after walking around Town Square and the rest of downtown to see all of the new and exciting things happening there. From the moment we walked in, we were impressed by the vibe. The furnishings, layout, artwork, and vintage music all give Restaurant IPO a fresh and comfy vibe. We felt as if we were in downtown Greenville or Austin.

We ordered both tapas-style dishes as well as entrees. The Bon Temps Shrimp was delicious, as was the corn and crab bisque and cane salad. We were all unimpressed with the gnocchi, but that may have been personal preference against a rich and creamy and rather mildly flavored dish. We had Asian Cajun tuna for our entrees and loved it. We sampled some of the Bacon Cajun Caramel Popcorn for an after-dinner treat, and it was really tasty though the portion was small.

Overall, we very much enjoyed our dining experience. The waitstaff was excellent - professional and yet very friendly. We loved the whole ambiance and plan to visit again, including anytime we have out-of-town visitors.

We visited from out of town during the marathon. Their sandwiches were excellent and were very hospitable to our toddler. Though they didn't have a kids menu they offered us a great bowl of pasta that was already cool enough for her to eat.

Had the pleasure of meeting Executive Chef Varnadoe and received red carpet service. The appetizers were absolutely fantastic featuring a mixture of rarely seen spices and garnishes all beautifully presented. I had the Beard House Debris and the beef was cooked to perfection and in the sauce was incredible.

I absolutely love this place. Beautiful environment. Staff is friendly. Clean restaurant. And the food is too good to be true! The chef here is an artist! I will definitely be coming back here! I recommend the duck poppers and the the bayou eggs!

These tapas are off the chain!

The foods good, the decor is nice, and the service is good but can be pretty slow. The few times I've been there it's seemed that they were running on a skeleton crew.

Had the MacDow burger and the blacken softshell crab silders. Very good for lunch!

Pretty good food. Pasta was good. Cool unique atmosphere

I have been wanting to try this place for a while. I thought it would be a fun place to take visitors from Houston since they always take us to interesting and delicious restaurants there. When I saw on Facebook that they were participating in Restaurant Week, I made reservations. Side note: I ended up needing to alter the reservations and the employee who answered the phone was very nice and welcoming.

They had a small but nice selection of beers on tap, highlighting the local microbrews. I was happy about that. I ordered a three course meal from the Restaurant Week selections. My cane salad was nice. The ingredients were fresh and well balanced. Little did I know that my experience had just peaked.

My entree, shrimp and grits, was unimpressive. It didn't taste bad, but it was very underwhelming. The shrimp were small and had been frozen. For a restaurant in South Louisiana that shouts about LOCAL, this was very surprising. They garnished the dish with rosemary which led to an overwhelming flavor of rosemary in the food that it had touched. The grits were okay, but a little on the stiff side.

For dessert I had the fried cheesecake. I'm not sure if this was a restaurant week special, but it was a little on the small side. I also found it to be a little lacking in flavor. I wiped all of the sauce off of my plate in order to get some flavor into the dish.

When the bill arrived, my beer had cost me $6.75! I'm glad I only had one! The most that beer would cost you anywhere else in town is $5, which is inflated. Most places have it for $4.

I had high expectation for this place and maybe that was my mistake. I won't say that I'll never go back, but I'm going to want some evidence that things have changed.

I've heard about this place for a while now, and decided to check it out this last Friday evening. The decor is nice and the waitstaff were helpful. We decided to stick with the Tapas plates because that's what was supposed to be so good.

We started with the Gator Ribs. They weren't bad, not too tough, but they were completely coated in a thick, tomato-paste 'sauce' which completely masked the meat. You could be eating just about anything and with that sauce you wouldn't know the difference.

From there it was the Carrot Soup. It was very thick and creamy, a nice consistency. Lots of pepper...but that's about it. It had a pale yellow color; I'm guessing they used yellow carrots. However it was very bland. It really tasted just like a thick blonde roux with pepper in it. Starchy yet flavorless sans the pepper.

Next was the Duck Crepe. Now this dish was impressive. The crepe was thick but it needed to be or the dish would have fallen apart. A very generous helping of Boursin cheese, tender duck and other veggies made this one a hit. By far the best dish we had.

We also had the Spagetti and Meatballs. We should not have bothered. The noodles were fine, the thick marinara that clung to them was less so. Honestly, again, it was almost like they opened a can of tomato paste and just used that for the sauce. Pretty disappointing. The meatballs were very dry and flavorless. I don't know if they purposefully added no seasoning or herbs or anything at all to the meat or if they just forgot, but the results were a bit too minimalist for my tastes.

Would I give it another shot? Yeah, I think so. I'm hoping I just got some of the 'bad' dishes. What they are going for is interesting, and there was at least one hit, but the misses added up and put a damper on things.

Not terrible, but not very inspiring. It's pricey for what it is.

Food was bland and flavorless. Would not recommend.

Still upset about @IPOrestaurant losing the reservation for my bday dinner and suggesting my guests and I find somewhere else. #badservice