Most Popular
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Movie Pirates
That couple in the back row — they're making out big time, but not in the way you think
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It's Hip to Be Square at Masraff's
Continental cuisine is over, so why would anybody want to eat at this retirees' hang-out on South Post Oak Lane?
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Breakfast Enchiladas at Mi Sombrero
At this old-fashioned Tex-Mex joint on North Shepherd, the huevos are served all day on weekends
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Barack Obama and Me (259)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (26)
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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What's the Problem Houston? (6)
The city's skuzzy alt-rock scene thinks it is dying
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"The Big Show, 2007" (29)
The curator of "The Big Show" does the job right
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X-Clan's Brother J Drops Some Knowledge (4)
Revolution Through Evolution
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It's Hip to Be Square at Masraff's
Continental cuisine is over, so why would anybody want to eat at this retirees' hang-out on South Post Oak Lane?
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Breakfast Enchiladas at Mi Sombrero
At this old-fashioned Tex-Mex joint on North Shepherd, the huevos are served all day on weekends
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Great Gado Gado at Noodle House 88
A nondescript noodle shop on Bellaire is serving some of the best Indonesian food in the U.S.A.
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La Nouvelle Recession Cuisine at Au Petit Paris
Your dollar buys a little less at this new French restaurant on Colquitt
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Tiny Boxwood's Cafe, Voice at Hotel Icon and Cafe Zol
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What I’m Thinking About When I Think About Films From the 1980s
06:06AM 03/28/08 -
Drenched in Blog: Emo Kids Getting Attacked in Mexico
12:59PM 03/28/08 -
Play Ball: John Royal’s Predictions for the Houston Astros
12:12PM 03/28/08 -
High Price of Crawfish
11:57AM 03/27/08
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 Robb Walsh
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On Top of Spaghetti
At Antonio's Flying Pizza, we ponder what cheese pizzas and cheese enchiladas have in common
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Mom's Hand Restaurant
Inside the Komart store on Gessner, you'll find Korean food like Mom used to make
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Red Basil Thai Fusion Cuisine
New York Thai
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5 Wines That Will Blow Your Mind
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Sandy's Produce Market
One healthy meal at Sandy's Produce Market will wipe away all of your high-cholesterol sins
National Features
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Miami New Times
Perez Hilton: Exposed!
Can a "crazy, flamboyant dork" from Miami find happiness as a Hollywood mudslinger?
By Francisco Alvarado -
Nashville Scene
Chip Off the Old Rock
Songwriter Justin Townes Earle has struggled with addiction--just like his proud papa.
By Michael McCall -
Phoenix New Times
"Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy"
Have they become the magic words when a state wants to terminate parental rights?
By Megan Irwin -
SF Weekly
Out of the Woodwork
Union carpenters describe a little slice of Jim Crow smack dab in the middle of America's most PC city.
By Lauren Smiley
La Nouvelle Recession Cuisine at Au Petit Paris
Continued from page 1
Published: March 27, 2008"Tightened belts will be no bad thing for the hospitality business. It will remind them what hospitality actually means," London restaurant critic A.A. Gill wrote in a recent review. "It will wash away the cynicism and the sham, the cooks who flog their names and consultancies rather than sausage and mash."
I wish Gill were right. If an economic storm is approaching, it would be nice to think that there was a silver lining in it for the Houston restaurant-goer. But the current recession doesn't seem to be wringing out any excesses. In fact, restaurant prices are actually getting higher.
But don't blame the restaurants — blame $100-a-barrel oil. The higher price of transportation, fertilizer and power is pushing food costs higher. Meanwhile, the fall of the dollar against other currencies is making imports like wine, olive oil, cheese and spices much more expensive. The costs of building a restaurant to begin with are way up, too. Welcome to the era of higher prices and lower expectations.
It wasn't all that long ago that we were sitting in a leather booth in the gorgeous multimillion-dollar chocolate and blue interior of Houston's best French restaurant, Bistro Moderne, eating Philippe Schmidt's ethereal bouillabaisse and stunning avocado and crabmeat bombe. Alas, Bistro Moderne has closed its doors.
Au Petit Paris is Houston's French restaurant of the moment. The food is a huge step down from Bistro Moderne's, and the atmosphere is downright shabby by comparison. But the prices are about the same.
Deal with it.
