In 1989, Oussie's was the best restaurant in Houston, and I will always love it for that. I like the new Oussie's ok, and am indifferent to the Bird and the Bear.
I always liked Ouisie's for the food, but not the atmosphere or (latterly) the prices. Under-cooked chicken aside, I was underwhelmed by my selections of crab cakes, oscar-topped* snapper and chocolate mousse. All were ok, but merely a shade above bland.
* Since when are mushrooms the predominant ingredient in an oscar-topping? It was marked on the menu simply as "seared red snapper oscar", which to mean means topped with crab and asparagus in a béarnaise sauce. There was a little bit of crab and a lot of mushrooms,
no sauce, and the asparagus was served, battered and fried, on the side. I don't care for mushrooms and am frequently irritated when presented with "stealth" mushrooms that - had they been disclosed on the menu - would have driven me to make a different choice. At least the ones here were so prominent as to be easily separated from the fish and the two or three chunks of flavour-free crab. Regardless, I think that the lack of the rich, buttery sauce was a major contributing factor to the blandness of the dish, and mushrooms are no cure for blandness, whether you like them or not.
