Most Popular
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Doctors vs. Parents: Who Decides Right to Life?
Following surgery, Sabrina Martin's condition went south. And then, her family says, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital set about arranging for her demise.
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Cleaning Up Foreclosed Homes After the Mortgage Crisis
Junk haulers expand their business in the wake of evictees leaving behind houses in terrible condition
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Mental Anguish at Texas West Oaks Hospital
Go to this private psychiatric facility, and you might be helped. Or you might be shut in a room all alone and end up like Amanda, with a broken arm. Or dead.
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Nuevo Inca-Mex at Inka South American Cuisine
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Sex at Rice University, Indicted Politicians, McGrady vs McCready
The South Main campus is Virgin Central
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An evening with perennial Houston street hustlers Big Body Click (11)
Square Business
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Mental Anguish at Texas West Oaks Hospital (11)
Go to this private psychiatric facility, and you might be helped. Or you might be shut in a room all alone and end up like Amanda, with a broken arm. Or dead.
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Doctors vs. Parents: Who Decides Right to Life? (11)
Following surgery, Sabrina Martin's condition went south. And then, her family says, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital set about arranging for her demise.
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Do You Have Multiple Personality Disorder? (7)
Years after Sybil, the debate continues
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College Immaterial for High School Students in Vocational Training (5)
Good paying jobs, no huge loan burdens, exciting course work — the new vo-tech attracts more and more hi-tech students
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The Pain in the UH to Tier I Process
12:05PM 05/16/08 -
Weekend Music: Setting Things Straight
04:33PM 05/16/08 -
Astros-Giants: Biggio Attacked? Hold Up.
10:06AM 05/16/08 -
To Do: Empty Bowls and Edible Art
06:06AM 05/16/08
What we are writing about
- Altar Boyz
- Backroom at the Mink
- Cactus Music
- Chantal Akerman
- Continental Club
- Cuban immigrants
- Erykah Badu
- Frozen
- Houston art
- Houston local music
- Houston music stores
- Houston theater
- McGonigel's Mucky Duck
- Meridian
- Ornament as Art:...
- PlayStation
- Proletariat
- Roger Clemens
- Rudyard's
- Sig's Lagoon
- Sound Exchange
- southwest Houston
- Sugar Bean Sisters
- The Menil Collection
- There Will Be Blood
- Vinal Edge Records
- Walter's on Washington
- Warehouse Live
- Wii
- Young and Fertle
Recent Articles By Margaret L. Briggs
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Our Daily Bread... And More
Located in a student chapel, Autry House wins converts with a humble homestyle menu
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Currying No Favor
The Classic Tandoor is anything but
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Moving Up the Food Chain
East End dive no more, Ostioneria Puerto Vallarta is a polychrome palace where seafood and Elvis are king
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Eighth Wonder of the Cajun World
Cavernous as the Dome, Rodeaux shouts for attention with a funky menu that wants to be all things Deep South
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Love at First Bite
Da Marco woos one over drinks, seduces with menu
National Features
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SF Weekly
Viva Farolito!
Former pros from Latin America help make an "amateur" soccer team unstoppable.
By Lauren Smiley -
Village Voice
The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo
A nutty polygamist pastor rebuilds his church--with help from New Yorkers.
By Maria Luisa Tucker -
Miami New Times
Love is No Contract
A Florida man sues his girlfriend-for dumping him.
By Isaiah Thompson
The Not-So-Grand Canyon
Continued from page 1
Published: October 30, 1997Perhaps the Canyon Cafe used a computer to generate its entire menu: Feed in a list of cliched Southwestern ingredients, click the "Churn" button and out spew endless variations of garlic-smoked, jalapeno-garnished, chile-mashed fill-in-the-blanks. I've heard the Mexican government used similar software to create Cancun.
Or, speaking of Cancun, perhaps the Canyon Cafe is cynically playing the big-city game of "get the tourist." Hotels engaged in this wily gambit spend all their decorating dollars on the lobby; you sign in amidst marble and brass, thick carpets and smoked glass, then discover that your room is a bare broom closet next to the clanking elevator. In the restaurant version, the owner contrives to capture a prime location, on the ocean, say, or the boulevard or the wooded peak. That's all he need do: Tourists flock, drawn by the venue. It doesn't matter what he feeds them; they'll never come back anyway, and there are always new tourists off the next flight.
Even if I never return to the Canyon Cafe, and even if no one from inside the Loop ever sets foot in the place, I'll bet the place stays in business. There are plenty of people too intent on seeing and being seen to notice the food, and some who actually like jack cheese on pasta. And there will always be more out-of-towners -- dazzled Galleria shoppers from Peoria or Newark; expense-accounters or tipsy Chicago conventioneers -- to fill the tables.
After all, you can't miss it.
Canyon Cafe, 5000 Westheimer, 629-5565.
