"1"^^ . . "2017-03-01T00:00:00"^^ . "4"^^ . "3"^^ . "5"^^ . . . "You'll have to take this review with a grain of ocean salt since I've never eaten at the famed Oyster Bar at Palace Station. But having been thwarted by the long lines on the smoky casino floor several times and not wanting to lose any more vacation time to this, we gave up on trying the famous one and went to one of its lesser-known cousins. Based on reviews we decided to try the Oyster Bar at Texas Station. Though it closes earlier (or rather, at all) than the PS OB, they still seated us a half hour before closing on or near Christmas with a gracious (but weary) smile.\n\nThis location had a whole restaurant area with tables, as opposed to the single bar at PS. Also, the C-shaped bar here was at least twice the size of the PS bar. I don't know if it was because Texas Station is a lot less crowded than Palace Station, but it was a lot less smoky overall, and the restaurant itself was not smoky at all. (Also parking was much easier.)\n\nWe ordered the lobster pan roast (5 spiciness) with rice and pasta. At first they gave us just rice because the cook had pony trailed it but it was easy to get our pasta. The bread for dipping was meh, and the linguine was on the soft side, but the pan roast itself was delicious. It tasted exactly how I imagined. The spiciness level was not so hot I couldn't taste the other flavors, and the lobster was slightly underdone to keep it from overcooking in the boiling-hot bowl. There were at least 7 large chunks of tail and claw meat and lots of smaller pieces. One order was enough to be a full for both of us, with leftovers. (At home we added chicken, sausage, and our own pasta to the sauce to get a whole second meal out of it.)\n\nBoth the cook and the waitress were friendly and chatted with us through the meal, but weren't overbearing. Though they started cleaning, putting up chairs and doing side work while we ate, they still made sure our waters were filled and even told us not to hurry when we apologized for still being there after closing time. We weren't even the last ones to leave.\n\nBecause it was their error they didn't even charge us for the side of pasta. Between that and the cheaper prices compared to PS, we calculated that it would cost the same to eat at PS and leave a 20% tip as it would to leave a 100% tip here, so we did. Merry Christmas, y'all."^^ .