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Erin and I like to eat. Houston’s a great place for that. When we lived elsewhere, we’d visit Houston and eat our way through the trip. Now that we live here again, we can (and do) eat at our favorite places all the time. Not content to eat at the same places over and over, though¹, we occasionally venture out to the odd new eatery. We hit two today: DNR on Montrose, and Earl of Sandwich out in Sugar Land. Here’s what we thought; ratings are on a scale of −2 to +2 (each of us kicks in −1, 0, or 1 point to the total).

DNR: European FastFood

Address: 4621 Montrose Blvd, Houston
Website: dnrfoods.com
Rating: −1

Let me begin this review with the obvious: “DNR” is a terrible name for a restaurant. (They may as well have called it “Inoperable Cancer Café” or “Schiavo’s Shwarmas”.) The restaurant’s tagline, “Taste It—That’s It,” only adds to the horrible finality of it all.

The restaurant’s other tagline, however, “European Fast Food”, was oddly compelling, if only because E and I recently travelled to central London, where take-away cut lunches can be had for quite reasonable prices (for central London: about £3 for a sandwich and organic soda). Wouldn’t it be great if such a thing existed in Houston, I wondered? (Leaving aside that Picnic and Brown Bag Café already fill this niche pretty well.)

Plus, DNR is built on the graveyard of the last Butera’s location in Houston. The result was a completely emotional (and, hence, ill-advised) urge to try the place out. E acceded to this bizarre notion, if only to prove she’s not averse to new things.

The feeling of uneasiness doesn’t dissipate when you enter the restaurant. They’ve done nice things with the décor (although the lovely brick wall turns out to be wallpaper), and offer 802.11 and electrical outlets all over the place, but the menu is impenetrably terse. The overhead illuminated board offers only cryptic titles, like “DNR Wrap”, “DNR Sandwich”, and “DNR Pilaf”—making you wonder if “DNR” is some kind of mystery ingredient.

Surprisingly, terribly, it is.

According to the printed menu, each of these dishes seems to be based around something called “DNR meat.” At this point, “uneasy” gave way to “completely freaked out.” But there we were, and it was time to order, so E selected the baked potato (a safe-seeming choice). At the last minute, I spied a laminated card on the counter, explaining that “DNR meat” is a blend of shaved beef and lamb, grilled and spiced and whatnot. Newly dauntless, I ordered the DNR Sandwich.

The sandwich turned out to be the better bet, overloaded with onions but otherwise a decent shwarma-type sandwich (contrary to one of the many signs festooning the walls, proclaiming mottoes in tortured syntax like “What’s DNR? Is not shwarma, is not gyro, but delicious!” or somesuch). The potato, on the other hand, was so unlike our expectation of a baked potato as to be absurd, as it was covered in completely inappropriate vegetables like mushrooms, carrots, olives, and corn.

In the end, DNR is a bizarre, pseudo-Mediterranean sandwich shop that has a few decent items, if you can get past the overwhelming Soylent Green vibe. If you can’t, well, you’re not missing much. E gives it −1; my vote is 0, if only because my sandwich was fine, and because the french fries are actually astonishingly tasty.

Earl of Sandwich

Address: 1930 Highway 6 South, Sugar Land
Website: earlofsandwich.co.uk

Rating: +2

Started at Walt Disney World in Orlando and brought to the Houston market by Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan, Earl of Sandwich is high-concept. Really high-concept. Founded by the owner of Planet Hollywood and the actual current Earl of Sandwich (or, at least, his son), it is a thorougly Anglophile experience; the website and on-location signage expound on the history of the eponymous edible, and the menu offers a suite of sandwiches evocative of English naval power at its height: The Original 1762, Cannonballs!, The Full Montagu, Le Frenchy. You might even say that our visit was research for E, who is currently obsessed (in that way we encourage of graduate students) about British nationalism in the (long) 18th century.

These well-titled dishes held up to our expectations (by this point quite unreasonably high): the meats are fresh, lean, and hot, the breads crusty and toasty, the sauces exquisite (and evenly-applied). Deeper cuts from the menu include a “potato salad” that seems at home in a Medieval feast (potatoes; dill; light dressing) and a number of surprisingly excellent desserts (English trifle and brownie/ice cream sandwiches).

We’ll be back.