Restaurants in New Braunfels

A potpourri of flower arrangements and interior decorations elicit cheery exclamations, which drift to the ears of patrons crowded before The Owl's Nest’s café-style lunch fare. Customers gather personalized bouquets or test out sweet-scented jar candles by burning floppy discs from estranged computers in them beneath the cubist spread of the shop’s array of frames. Against the baritone burble of cauldrons of soup, custom T-shirts definitively end debates about who is the greatest grandpa. Boutique apparel from designers such as Bella Taylor informs the world of the wearer's fashion sense, and ornaments and home accents from lines such as Willow Tree beg to add endearing flourishes to domiciles.

Chefs at the recently opened Seguin Seafood and Steak House turn to a variety of cooking methods to prepare surf 'n' turf dishes with Cajun roots. Seafood ranging from shrimp to whole red snapper acquires stylish grill stripes to give knives a sense of direction, or arrives at tables steamed, boiled, or fried with flavorful sides such as grilled vegetables and dirty rice. The culinary crew can also cook a 16-ounce T-bone steak to order or ladle out a spicy bowl of crawfish gumbo. The restaurant is locally owned and family operated, and boasts a bright-blue exterior that welcomes guests more cheerfully than a giant smiley face hovering over a pep rally.:m]]

To chef and owner Andrew Gonzalez, the crisscrossed charbroiling on the charbroiled salmon may as well be the markings on an open palm: they both predict a diner's future happiness. He takes his beef very seriously, pairing steaks with a selection of fine wines and turning only the highest quality certified Angus patties into half-pound burgers before covering them with jalapenos and placing them on a homemade bun. In addition to handcrafting buns for burgers, Gonzalez bakes pizzas with freshly made dough. He hand-batters shrimp for frying and serving with coleslaw, or pan-sears them to decorate beds of pasta with spicy tomato sauce.