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Chef Thierry and his son Franck serve breakfast and lunch and take-away pastries, candy, and preserves – a successful formula for more than 20 years. Quiche and several sandwiches are always lunch choices, along with two daily specials. Delights such as Beef Bourguignon and perfect Swedish meatballs make it difficult to save room for dessert.
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There are three steps in the traditional Houston restaurant success story. 1) Come from somewhere else, 2) Bring your family recipes, and 3) find an ugly strip mall location and wait for the city to fall in love. A French-trained chef, Belgian family traditions – what’s not to love? Savour generous bowls of fragrant stews, perfectly prepared tender steaks, and impossibly delicate crepes. Suburbanites drive in from Katy, Sugar Land, and Clear Lake for the mussels steamed in white wine. Caveat: if no one on your party orders moules-frites, the staff pouts.
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Under-pricing wine is an effective marketing tool and an excellent opportunity for patrons. Local seafood is presented in a rich Gulf Coast bouillabaisse, an upscale oyster po’ boy sandwich with a side of spicy coleslaw, and creative specials from chef John Sheely – a local boy. Lunching on a rainy day? Start with dark, dense, delicately sweet onion soup served with Gruyère.
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Edelberto Gonçalves managed to become a favourite chef in about, oh, four minutes flat. Well-dressed patrons crack open veal bones to savour the even the marrow, shamelessly. The lobster pot with North African spices also seduces people away from best behaviour – who can resist presenting the dish to fellow diners as though a bouquet and urging companions to experience the aroma?
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