Date Night: Houston's Best

My story will require a bit of background information:

1. Ross & I go out for "date night" about once a month, where we try a new restaurant that has been highly rated in Texas Monthly magazine.
2. From our restaurant experiences we have put together "Houston's Best Meal", which is our favorite appetizer, main course, and dessert from all the restaurants in Houston.

Alright, we're all up to speed now. So we had a date night planned for Friday night but Ross wouldn't tell me any details, which is highly unusual because most of the time I do the reservation, etc. All week I had been trying to guess because he told me he would tell me if I guessed it. I must have guessed 30+ places before giving up.

Last night Ross came home from work with a bouquet of flowers from a FLORIST not a GROCERY STORE!!!

We got dressed up and he took me to Goode Company Seafood and I immediately knew we had started our "Houston's Best" meal night!! The appetizer is called a Campechana. It's basically a salsa/pico parfait with lump crab meat that you scoop onto tortilla chips. Behold.

Crab Campechana.

Next, Ross took me to Ibiza downtown. Now, we haven't officially picked the best main course, but we did pick Ibiza for best risotto, so that's where we went. Sidenote: the head chef at Ibiza actually competed on Iron Chef of America and made this risotto! I had fresh Amberjack, grilled simply with lemon and sea salt, and risotto of course! Ross had beef tenderloin with a cheese sauce and bacon infused risotto. so good!

Amberjack.

Beef.

Now, for my favorite part of the whole meal, dessert of course. I have pretty high standards for desserts because I have an extreme sweet tooth, but Pappas Steakhouse wins. Hands down. Warm, gooey, pecan pie with a caramel topping and more candied pecans than you know what to do with. Tastebud bliss.

Pecan Pie with caramel ice cream.

I love pecan pie, but more importantly I LOVE THE ROSS!!