Is this the best bite in Houston?

For long moments after Annam's stuffed squash blossom landed before me, I just stared. Regal on shiny white porcelain, the $9 morsel—yes, you read that right—looked too gorgeous to eat.

I took in the airily bubbled crust that matched the plate's golden rim. I noted the gleam of pooled nuoc cham, the classic Vietnamese dipping sauce; appreciated the green dots and squiggles of sauce and microgreens; homed in on a bulbous snippet of scarlet chile pepper.

Still, I wasn't prepared for the burst of flavors and textures when I hoisted this blossom by hand—it seemed only right— and bit in. Airy fried batter met a soft, vegetal slide of squash flower, filled with a pillowy-smooth shrimp mixture that registered as a fluff. The sweet/sour/salty/hot kick of expertly made nuoc cham focused it all; and herbal twinges of tiny celery sprouts and basil-avocado oil made it dance.

I'm not ashamed to say that my palate and my brain reeled. "I could eat a dozen of these!" I declaimed to friends who had joined me at Annam's cool, sophisticated bar counter. Then I did the math, and realized that was a pipe dream.

Annam, the three month old project from sushi guru Chris Kinjo and his longtime front-of-the-house stalwart Dung "Lang" Nguyen, is not cheap. Located in the upmarket Autry Park mixed-use development, alongside such fancy venues as Annabelle's, Butcher's Block and the round pavilion housing Kinjo's own MF Lobster & Ceviche, Annam is the kind of ambitious project that was guaranteed to irk Houston chowhounds convinced Vietnamese food should be democratic and inexpensive. (They're over on Reddit, and elsewhere, complaining bitterly and arguing about colonialism since the restaurant's earliest days.)

I gulped at the menu prices, but I respect Kinjo's talents so much that I was determined to find a way to enjoy his latest restaurant on my current budget. Sitting at the bar for a small plate or two and a glass of wine—both of which are points of pride in Kinjo and Nguyen's Vietnamese "tapas" initiative—seemed like a good first taste of the place.

My friends and I never got near the pricy entrees that inhabit the bottom of the menu. (Indeed, our biggest splurge was those $9 apiece squash blossoms.) But our this-and-that meal was exciting enough to leave me eager to return.

Annam is every bit as glamorous as you'd expect of a Kinjo venue. His keen visual sense has shaped the pristine cool of his flagship, MF Sushi, and the airy loveliness of his round pavilion, MF Lobster, right across the street from Annam. So it's no surprise to see Annam's beautiful tilework skirting the pale, black-etched expanse of the upfront bar; or the ornate, stylized arches leading back through ranks of chandeliers in the high, nave-like dining room.

Each plate was composed with a similarly sharp eye. A lambent little soup was all grace and assurance, brimming with transparent slices of pale green opo squash and a bubbled shrimp fritter ($9). A hearty, shareable salad of peppery watercress, to toss with exuberantly seasoned beef flaps and wedges of softly boiled egg was lively stuff ($18). It could make a perfect supper for a warm evening.

Bahn xeo, the turmeric-tinted Vietnamese pancake that is a longtime favorite of mine, arrived folded into a giant taco shape, bristling with herbs and pickled vegetables that hid morsels of pork and shrimp. The pickles made it a bit too sweet for me, but I found the textures entrancing.

My sole disappointment was the pretty, leaf-swaddled shrimp spring roll ($8) that was hard to eat: cut into short lengths that were too big to down as a single bite, their cool, moist skin pulled and stretched and sent the contents flying. Loved the purity and herbal freshness; lamented the mess.

To my surprise, I even enjoyed a floofy pandan and coconut mousse dessert that was only subtly sweet. And the least expensive white wine on the "Old World" side of the two-page wine list—a Nals Margreid "Berg" Pinot Bianco from Italy's high, cool Alto Adige—offered enough bright acidity, lively fruit and grip to go well with everything we ordered, at $32 a bottle. It even stood up to the spicy beef salad.

The service was nice, too, from the helpful bartender, to a solicitous hostess, to the soft-spoken Nguyen making his constant rounds of the room. So my dream of sliding into this handsome bar, with its alluring greenery-and-sunset views, worked out well at a price I could afford.

Oh, yeah, is that stuffed squash blossom really Houston's best bite? Currently, in my world, it is.