E-Tao

If you ever end up on 2nd floor in the new part of Galleria by Nordstrom, you would've seen this tiny store front that said E-Tao. It's a Chinese place that is not too fast-food-ish.

They have dishes from Shanghainese, Cantonese, to just down home dishes. For afternoon, after a round of shopping, this is a good mid-point to fuel up. We ordered the dim sum platter, which has the Shanghai style dumpling where they have a decent amount of soup sealed in the dumpling and pork potstickers. Har Gow - shrimp dumpling, Shu Mai - pork dumpling; both dim sum classics. Of course, in the center is the chicken sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf. I would say that dumplings are really their thing, as the sticky rice was a tad cold in the middle. Hmmm...

Just in case that wasn't enough, we ordered my favorite dry beef stir fry. Not that the beef was dried or aged, just that it's not done with any soup or wet sauce. That was pretty close to what I get at Hong Kong Cafe.

Overall, for mall food, this is exceptional. You don't get snotty waiters from Gigi's, and you don't get mystery brown food at the food court. I would say that they needed more wait staff at E-Tao for sure, at times you can't find your server and when you see the manager and bus people have to step in left and right you know they're in need of people.

E-Tao

5135 W Alabama St #7295

Houston, TX 77056
(713) 965-0888

http://www.etaoasian.com/