Jasmine Asian Restaurant

9938 Bellaire Boulevard
713.272.8188

This location is cursed, but the food might be the magic potion. Jasmine Asian Cuisine is tucked into the corner of a strip mall next to Sinh Sinh on Bellaire. Previous to Jasmine Asian Restaurants, three other restauranteurs had tried and failed. This attempt might be the charm. It's run by the same people who own Saigon Pagolac, the seven-course beef masterpiece on the back side of Dynasty Mall (just two blocks away).

The concept for Jasmine Asian Restaurant is the same as Saigon Pagolac: great decoration and great food. Like Saigon Pagolac, Jasmine offers a seven course meal, but with fish as the main feature rather than beef. Not a bad choice since Saigon Pagolac makes the best grilled whole fish this side of the Pacific.

Since it was just me and Rekha, we opted out of the too-much food seven-course meal and instead tried the twice cooked pork (too dry) and steamed fish. The Steamed fish was a flounder or some other thin fish that had too much oil and so the fish tasted overcooked and oily.

We also had the insane bad luck to go so early in the life of the restaurant that they weren't fully staffed. That caused a half-hour wait to order the food, a 45 minute wait for the food and my having to get our drinks refilled. For now, I'll forgive them the service issue since we generally have decent service at Saigon Pagolac, but the bad food makes me weary. I can only hope they get better and improve to the quality of their sister restaurant. If so, watch out Kim Son.