Duck Con­fit Leg

I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to review Cata­lan — it’s one my favourite restau­rants in Hous­ton and I’ve been there numer­ous times. I think it is because each time I go there I feel like there is so much to the restau­rant for me to get to know. On my recent visit, our friend Ethel from Los Ange­les was vis­it­ing us in Hous­ton for New Years. We had been think­ing about going out of town to Austin or San Anto­nio, but we fig­ured we’d have a bet­ter time just stay­ing in town in Hous­ton — so the restau­rant search was on. Book­ing a New Years din­ner a week before is a chal­lenge, so it’s also the time I am thank­ful for the Amex Plat­inum. Every year I try to con­vince myself to get rid of this high fee beast, but then I find some rea­son to hold me back. Well… Amex came through this year and got us the book­ing at Catalan.

Cata­lan is one of those restau­rants that suc­cess­fully rein­vented itself from what it started off as. Orig­i­nally it was a tapas/Spanish restau­rant; this was when Hous­ton was going through it’s tapas fad. This fad was des­tined not last very long in a city where peo­ple like their plates BIG. To help things tran­si­tion, entered for­mer Brennan’s Sous-Chef, Chris Shep­pard. Like his buddy and for­mer Brennan’s Chef, Randy Evans, Chris is very much into the local farm­ers mar­kets and sourc­ing ingre­di­ents close to home. So expect to see many sea­son and local ingre­di­ents in the dishes. Chris’ Brenna’s back­ground is eas­ily notice­able in Catalan’s menu.

Black Drum Gumbo

The new menu retained many small plates to allow din­ers to sam­ple var­i­ous flavours in tapas size along with some of Houston’s best wine selec­tions. Big Texas and south­ern flavours now pro­lif­er­ate the large plates to please the local palates. Con­stant favourites on the menu are the shrimp with goat cheese grits, Berk­shire pork chop, and roasted bone mar­row. If you see “sweet potato gratin” in any form on the menu, be sure to get it. Sweet pota­toes and cheese are flavours I would have never thought to com­bine at home, but this side is but­tery sweet good­ness at its best -  slightly sweet and salty. You would want to order it again as dessert.

The night we vis­ited the duck that Ethel ordered was the best dish. It was a seared con­fit leg and thigh — per­fectly briny and a lit­tle sweet. My wife had the “black drum gumbo with hush pup­pies”. It had a dif­fer­ent name on the menu, but basi­cally it was a gumbo. The roux was robust with taste of oregano and file,  browned and tasty, but just like any other dark roux it could and did become a lit­tle too much for a night’s meal. My dish was a seared red snap­per fil­let over a sweet corn chow­der. The chow­der was in the nat­ural corn’ starches, and not creamy, which was made for a lighter, more corn tast­ing dish.

Snap­per over Sweet Corn Chowder

The desserts are very focused on local nuts and fruits. With pecans’ being in sea­son at this time the sweet potato crème brûlée with pecan com­pote, Texas apple tarts, or Pecan tarts with espresso will not dis­ap­point. Dessert here is on the expen­sive side, but all are orig­i­nal, made in house and most of all — delicious.