Finn and Porter restaurant (Austin, Howe: wedding, price, food)

[Mckellyb]

My wife and I went here last night, May 20th, for our wedding anniversary.

We were searching for a steakhouse, but one with seafood, potentially, and the reviews on Finn and Porter came back well, almost unanimously.

The entrance is on the south side of the Hilton, downtown, on 4th street. I can't believe it, but there was one parking space on the entire street, literally, in front of the doors.

The atmosphere isn't romantic as the ceiling in the main area of the dining room is open to the second floor, which appears to hold some type of lounge. I know I could hear sports-related televions noises at times, but it wasn't oppressive. The area is loud, mainly because there is almost a complete lack of soft surfaces, save for the carpet.

Our menus arrived with 'Happy Anniversary' on them, personalized, which was a nice, and unanticipated, touch. Our waitress, Pearl, was quick, informative, and knew exactly when to attend to our table. To me, too much attention is almost as bad as not enoThe champagneeugh.

We ordered a bottle of champagne, and appetizers. My wife had the lobster bisque and I ordered French onion soup. Her lobster bisque was good, save for the stringy, decorative green vegetable 'stuff'. It wasn't up to Stratosphere Las Vegas standards, but that place is borderline amazing, food- and environment-wise. My onion soup was flat-out wonderful.

In order to not be positively ravenous by the time we were to eat, reservations were for 7:30, we each had some salad-like stuff around 3 PM.

Apparently we had too much, as after appetizers, we were full. We thought we'd kill a half hour, drink the rest of the champagne, and see how we felt.

Turns out, we were still not hungry by about 8:15. However, that didn't mean we weren't going to eat something.

We went straight to dessert. My wife had a three-item 'combination' of mango sorbet, a chocolate doughnut, and creme brulee. She said it was all quite good.

I had a serving of three (3) 'doughnuts'. They're not what you'd expect, and given the time and freshness, they were made-to-order.

We considered descriptions, and the best we could do was a chocolate dumpling. The interior was a warm, thick chocolate...almost fudge-like in texture. Surrounding this was an almost sopapilla-like cocoon which was then covered in cinnamon and sugar. There was a topping included, but honestly, I can't tell you what it was besides good.

Initially, I felt 'bad' not having dinner, as we went there for good steak, but after having dessert, any bad feelings melted away in a nice sugar rush.

Again, the setting isn't romantic, per se, but the food is amazing.

As a bonus, my wife's dessert was comped by the waitress as an anniversary gift. Her service was downright wonderful, and she earned every cent of the 30% gratuity I left.

[atxcio]

Thanks for the review!

As an aside, I know what you are talking about re: the Stratosphere restaurant... it's great! Some of the best lobster I've ever had and the view is of course, amazing. I'll bet Vegas is one of the best places to have lobster, they probably ship in tons of it every day.

[Mckellyb]

No problem. I'm more than happy to provide a review if either the information is difficult to find, or doesn't exist, or worse, the reviews appear to conflict with each other to a large degree. That's just frustrating.

There were a couple of things I wanted to add, but a stick of memory went on safari on me, so....

Vegas is one of the largest consumers of seafood in the US. A disturbing amount gets flown in daily.

We've learned champagne with large amounts of sugar is a questionable combination.

The food at Finn and Porter is reasonably priced for the atmosphere, quantity and the quality. A couple can get out of there for under $120 yet be very happy with dinner.

[readymade]

I went there during my & my husband's trip to Austin. VERY good food, and we made friends with our waitress who turned out to be from the same town in Illinois as my husband. She gave us her number and told us to look it up when we moved. Sitting in the Finn & Porter and marvelling over how friendly Austin was, my husband and I looked at each other and KNEW that this was the place for us.

Incidentally, I've had dinner twice at the Stratosphere, and the view IS amazing. The food, for us, was hit-or-miss. The first time, it was just OK. The second time (we went with friends who really wanted to go) was delicious. I think I got pasta the first time and steak the second. Expensive as all hell, but you're really paying for that view.