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Leftovers

Sampler Plate: This Week in Food Blogs

2 Dine For: New food blog alert! You can now catch our own Christina Uticone over at new Houston food blog 2 Dine For (don't worry; she's still writing for EOW, too), where she and fellow writer Joshua Payne are tag-teaming Houston's restaurants and providing He Said, She Said-style reviews after each visit. The site also plans to launch in Nashville and Boston early next year.

Jack Around: Another new (to us!) food blog alert. Jack Highberger usually blogs about beer, but his latest post takes a trip to a pho place we've never tried (which, at the rate Houston is going, is about half the pho places in town): Pho 45. Highberger guides us through the concentration of Viet spots on Tomball Parkway, where Pho 45 has two great things going for it at once: pho and banh mi.

Almost Veggie Houston: If you've ever been given the once-over at Brennan's and told to return in less shabby clothing, you're not alone. As Ashli Michelle points out in her latest post, it happens to "preps" too.

H-Town Chow Down: Now for the most confusing blog post of the week: Albert Nurick has worked himself into a lather over El Real Tex-Mex Cafe's recent promotion, which provides a 50 percent discount to Montrose residents on Mondays. Nurick argues that "this smacks of the worst sort of price discrimination." He writes: "If you aren't fortunate enough to live in the right upscale neighborhood, you pay a higher price on Monday nights." Leaving aside for the moment that -- having lived there myself -- Montrose is not what I'd call an upscale neighborhood, I see nothing wrong with a restaurant offering a promotion or deal to its surrounding residents, i.e., the people that would normally patronize it on a regular basis. Restaurants do this all the time with targeted coupons in the mail, by offering discounts to local high school students or booster clubs, by offering discounts to patrons who bring in ticket stubs from neighboring theaters or sports arenas -- this is standard business practice to attract nearby residents, not discrimination. Your thoughts, readers?

J.C. Reid, Texas: If you've ever seen "foul" on a menu at a Middle Eastern restaurant and wondered what the hell it is, Chris is here to enlighten you: It's just beans. Delicious beans, like the ones served at Cafe Lili, which are even better at breakfast. (Side note: Try the foul at Sheba Cafe for breakfast one morning for an Ethiopian twist on the old standby.)



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Katharine Shilcutt