Birraporett’s

Disappointed and will not set foot in there again.
Brunch buffet was varied assortment but it was sitting out for hours. The raw egg mixture at omelette station sat open for hours and drew flies.
Beef and chicken dishes looked attractive at first, but was actually dry and cold.
Grits, Eggs Benedict and other dishes sat out and were attracting flies
The staff is not aware of the deals the owners are using for marketing (ie avoid happy hour, Groupon or LivingSociial there as well)

This place is really nice but they served me undercooked chicken! Pink when I cut it in half. The waitress was not very attentive and the restaurant was almost empty. Never coming back here again.

Had dinner last night. The service was horrible. Ordered extra sauce and also bacon on a cheeseburger, Received neither but they happily charged us for these items. Saw the waiter when he dropped off our bill. Disputed these items and had the charges removed. Also saw they had added an 18% tip for our table of 5. Ridiculous! No bread served with the meal — waiter forgot. Food was good but nothing special. Will not return. Too many other restaurants in the area to go back to this one to be treated in this manner.

Bleh
We came here for the Murder by Chocolate Mystery dinner night. We stopped at the bar for a drink. $ 9 for a Mojito mix? bleh bleh bleh. Way to ruin the day! The bartender even recommended it.
This may be a bit of an unfair review — but if this places hosts something, they should at least try for repeat business. The food really wasn’t good, even for easy Italian! It was the most basic of basic lasagna, alfredo chicken, and salad. I just remember it being not anything special and super disappointed with the mousse. That also may be the «Murder by Chocolate» that threw me off for the mousse part.
I upped this place a star because I was here before and remember having a more bear-​able time for a normal dinner. I guess just stick with wine!

Had some yummy tiramisu here! My friends said the coffee here was pretty good too. It was pretty at night because of the the lights outside. I would like to come back and try some food.

Why oh why, you may ask, are you a regular at a restaurant that only rates 2 stars? Believe me, I ask myself the same question every time I catch a play at the Alley Theatre. And therein lies the answer. Attached to the same parking garage as Houston’s première theatre, this iteration of the Birra Poretti’s chain gets by, I am convinced, solely on location. It’s not that the food is bad, exactly, it’s that it utterly fails to be good, and yes, there’s a difference.
«A Italian Restaurant and a Heck of an Irish Bar» is how they market themselves. Notice the lack of qualifier on the restaurant. That’s deserved. The food is… workmanly. It suffices. How wrong can you go with pasta and sauce, steaks and salads? They’re not bad, just definitely not great, with moments of disappointing.
Case in point, the canoli dessert I ordered once – and only once: long on presentation, short on quality. The center of the fried tube is supposed to be FILLED with sweetened mascarpone cheese, guys, not just plugged with it at both ends. I couldn’t believe it. Check the photo.
The pastas are unremarkable. Don’t bother with anything that is supposedly «Alfredo.» I’ve had better sauce from the jars on the grocery store aisle. The tortellini are huge (you have to cut them more than once with a fork to get a reasonable mouthful) and the filling is just a lump of cheese – not flavored cheese, just a lump of cheese. Not great. I gave up on the pasta after these two dishes. If pressed, I’d go for the straw and wheat «imperial.» It’s Alfredo based, but at least there’s other stuff in it.
The steaks are OK… sometimes. My dining companion ordered a salad special advertised as being topped with tenderloin. It was beef, granted, but clearly not tenderloin. The tenderloins and other steaks I’ve tried there are OK, but for the price, not great.
Salads are OK. Not great, but OK. The almond chicken salad is probably the best deal – a full (double) breast of chicken grilled on greens with slivered toasted almonds. Worthwhile. Ditto the Caesar.
Fish is hit or miss. I enjoyed the thing I had most recently, an almond crusted Tilapia fillet. The shrimp I’ve had have always been overcooked and rubbery, which is why I quit ordering those.
The bar is decent. They’ve clearly worked with the wait staff to get them to up-​sell onto pricey imports by the bottle. I paid eight bucks for one that the waiter tried hard to sell me when I realized their draft selection was underwhelming, and it was good, but still, eight bucks for a beer? For that price, don’t I get some naked titties with that?
Pizzas – thank goodness for pizzas. Pricey given the size, but decent. You can live on pizza and some beer other than the one that costs eight bucks, sans mammaries.
I don’t know what it is, but every time we come there, we get the same waiter. We can’t decide if we think of him more as Forest Gump or the Rain Man. Bless his heart, he tries hard, and it’s not his fault the kitchen does so little with so much potential.
Pronto Cuchinino is a fast food take-​out restaurant with much better Italian food and they have a much smaller kitchen. It’s all in how you work it. Bottom line, Birra Poretti’s just doesn’t get it done.
El Rauncho Grande