federal american grill

great food great service. try the burger and friedchickenon thursday

one of the ten restaurants that i take out of town visitors to, in order to give a representation of what houston has to offer for dining. this is comfort food in a very nice place with a waitstaff that is friendly and attentive. i always feel good when i dine here. on the most recent visit, there was a good tortilla soup and achickenfried steak with a crispy crust atop mashed potatoes. the bacon in the mashed potatoes took over as the flavor component and i would probably investigate something else next time if i wasn't in a bacon mood. but one would be hard pressed to find a dud on this menu. at the time of this writing they have retired their friedchickenentree. but when it comes back on the menu, i recommend it.

maybe the deficit is behind the high prices. like the government, the food here seems one-dimensional, mostly salt, but priced at truffle levels. thechickenfried steak ($18) was pretty small for the price, but was somewhat tasty beef. the breading, however, was big and mostly fell off the steak - not good! the accompanying mashed potatoes offered no relief from the salt. and the brussels sprout side ($6) was unexpectedly also fried and salty and came with a bonus french fry. with the expensive appetizers ($12 and up), expensive salads ($15-$22) and very expensive entrees ($16-$42), i will take my palate elsewhere for more multi-dimensional food.

my gf and i each had one of their salads and we weren't impressed at all.chickentasted a bit undercooked, and it seemed like the lettuce was straight out of a bag. price was too high for the salads as well. i would recommend getting something else on the menu!

this was my second visit to branch water tavern. the first, at lunch on a very slow day, was tasty even though the waiter told me he would rush an order for salad topped withchickenbreast as there was only one more serving ofchickenbreast left. and this was about 11:30 am. tonight it took nearly 1.5 hours for the seven of us to order. meanwhile, others came, ordered and left. the mangolista lardo was cold and worthless, no matter where the pork was raised. the shrimp-wrapped in bacon and venison medallions were equallly cold and not worth the wait or cost. when we mentioned our disppointment with the slow service and cold food when requesting the check to the waiter, he took a hike and didn't show us his face again (thin and with a stubble of a beard). someone else finished our service. we will not go back again: poor service, cold food and a very noisy dining room. the biscuits are excellent, however, there are many better choices in houston.