Pappadeaux in IAH. Not gross airport food.

It's 9:53, about two hours after I landed, and another hour to go before my next flight takes off. I've bought a couple of amethyst fragments for my girls, a Scharfen Berger tiny little chocolate bar, and a cup of *$ espresso. But the one perk of an unnaturally long layover in Houston is Pappadeaux.

Houston used to be a really severely crappy airport. Not old Detroit crappy or current Memphis crappy, but it was the standard fare low ceilings and maze like walks to get from one gate to another. Then, about the time I started flying regularly, maybe 97 or 98, they opened up Terminal E, and stuck an actual decent restaurant down by E7.

I've been there maybe a dozen times over the years, and they've done an admirable job keeping the place together through what must be thousands of people a day. The menu is relatively simple - choose a fish, choose a style, choose a sauce; or go with one of a handful of New Orleans themed entrees. Nothing I've had there is earth shattering, but at the same time, everything seems remarkably fresh, and well prepared. Tonight I had a salad and a couple of crab cakes. I have no idea if this is relevant for everyone else but my first impression of this stuff is knife work. Whoever prepped the tomatoes and little cubes of cucumber in the salad did so with a real actual knife, and did so with care and precision. And not that long ago. The crab cakes too, were surprising - served on a bed of spinach and crawfish with a "light" butter sauce, that was delicious and light relative only to hollandaise. There was even some neveau froo froo garnish on top and fresh parsely sprinkled around the perimeter.

Before I gush too much, let me say that this is a long way from inspired cuisine, it's just inspired for being in an Airport. There's still some glaring failures - the plastic utencils clash mightily with the brass and dark wood feel of the place. The service is great but infrequent. The food arrives very slowly, and the layout of the place provides no space for waiting for the inevitable 15 minutes it takes to get a table. Still - if you've got time to kill, and a bit of per diem left, it's a great way to kill 45 minutes in Houston and forget for a minute that you're stuck in an airport.

Closed: Kameels: Wierdly good mall food in downtown Atlanta

You know why Atlanta is cool? It's cool because you can get curried goat in the mall food court. I didn't actually get it, but opted instead for the Schwarma from the surprisingly good Kameel's Cafe at Peachtree Center. When I grew up the most exotic food at the mall was the supreme pizza from Sbarro's. I like this lots better.

The original plan was to meet up with an old client and friend at Dailey's. There were 3 of us, then one pulled out (sick), and another (sick kid), and then it was me. I actually went by Dailey's but the thought of sitting down alone to a expertly prepared power lunch at an iconic local business haunt seemed sort of depressing. I'm not sure why, but table service is a bunch more lonely than going through a cafeteria line. Still Dailey's looked good. I may grab a novel and head there for dinner.

So I walked a few blocks further, unable to settle on anything in particular (Ray's Seafood? No. Faux Irish Pub? No. Hooters? Good lord no.), and ended up in the mall. I'd actually seen Kameel's on City Search, so I know it was either decent or had enough money to pay for the user-reviews. Turns out to have been the former. Kameel's is in many ways, just what you'd expect from a middle-eastern themed, homey, local food court vendor, except significantly tastier. The Schawarma is turkey (in itself a little wierd), but it's cooked on big gyro-style rotesseries, and the sandwhich is loaded with lots of fresh cucumber, lettuce, tomato, and a tasty, subtle tahini-based sauce. The pitas are giant and vaguely sweet, and the portion is gigantic. They've got all the standards, baba ganouj, hummus, falafel; and they seem to do them all pretty well. I had a cucumber and tomato salad as a side item. Altogether it was double what I could eat.

The ambience is, well, its a food court. I sat down with my styrofoam food container in a molded plastic chair at one of a long row of tiny tables pushed together and was struck full force with how much this was just like 8th grade. I was braver then. In 8th grade, I'd probably have gone for the goat.

Momo's - You can't possibly imagine the size of this calzone

Momo's makes big pizza. I mean really outlandishly, 3 times the size of any other pizza you've ever seen giant pizzas. An Extra Large momo's pizza is 30 inches across - 700 sq inches of gooey goodness. Calzones? Also big. That's a normal size knife and fork in that pic. So size is the gimmic here, but the real trick is that the pizza is just outstanding.

I said earlier that Tallahassee is not a food town. Momo's illustrates the one clear exception. Pizza here rocks. Even the very-cheap-open-late-greasy places like Hungry Howies are a step above. And places like Momo's and Decent Pizza are as good as I've had anywhere.

The Momo's I ate at this evening was on Market St near Timberlane and Thomasville road. There's another, much seedier and marginally more fun location on Tennessee near campus. My Calzone was Artichoke, Spinach, Ricotta and Mozzarella. Out of some attempt at moderation, I only ate half the thing, though at this very moment, the remaining half beckons, wrapped in foil, sitting on the other side of the desk. The crust is thin with this tiny edge of crispness, and the cheese is perfectly proportioned. There was also a "side salad" (also huge), and a couple of little tubs of marinara. The whole deal is homemade and awesome.

There's a vibe at Momo's. The staff isn't unfriendly exactly, but it's not exactly customer centric either - there's a certain cool-kid confident aloofness to the whole lot of them. They seem to be having a good time with each other - the pretty girls that work the register and the tall scruffy guys that make the pizza. To be honest, its kind of nice - the vibe works, and it all comes together effortlessly. Hanging around all those skinny college kids makes me feel really old, but that's a occupational hazard of eating all but the blandest corporate crap in Tallahassee. Actually that's not true. Skinny college kids work at the bland corporate locales as well. Youth here is inescapable.