Slipped into the spanking new Bangkok Room last week for a late lunch. A little too late it seems for the staff.

According to the restaurant's Web site, lunch was served until 3. When I arrived about 2:25, I was relieved to see there were several tables of people still eating. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the restaurant's entire staff. Both a server/hostess and the cook left their meals to attend to the annoying lunch straggler.

When I ordered the pad basil with shrimp, the waitperson shook her head with displeasure. "That's really hot." Ah, that's what the two red peppers on the menu represent. Can it be modified, I asked. No? Well, then I'll take my chances.

The lunch-sized portion came out of the kitchen minutes later, and the cook and server resumed their abandoned meals. The pad basil was no where near as spicy as the menu and server warned. And while it wasn't bad, it should have been much livelier.

I look forward to trying one of the Bangkok Room's bento box lunches sometime soon. But next time, I'll try to time it when the chef isn't distracted by his own lunch.

Around the city

• Fleming's Prime Steakhouse is vying for best happy hour with its "5 for 6 'Til 7" deal. The steakhouse, which as three locations, is offering a combo of 15 appetizers, wines and cocktails for $6 each. Among your choice of cocktails are an Appletini and a Diamond Rita; wine choices include Solaire chardonnay and Five Rivers' cabernet sauvignon. The $6 appetizers: tenderloin carpaccio, sweet chili calamari, seared tuna, barbecue shrimp and crab cakes. The deal is good in the bar until 7 each night.
• Crawfish season boils on. Family friendly O'Cajcen Seafood Restaurant in Pearland is offering mudbugs for $3.99 a pound all day Saturday and on Tuesday evenings from 4 p.m.-9 p.m.
• H Town Chow Hound has nothing but nice things to say about the Italian fare at La Baraonda.
• Bistro Le Cep is offering a newly discounted four-course dinner featuring grilled lamb chops for $26.95 plus tax and gratuity.

Around the country

• In the it's a tough job category ... Alison Cook had to eat her way through a James Beard Awards reception in New York. Among the chefs working the room was Houston's Monica Pope of T'afia.
• What's the oldest restaurant in the country? Here's a look at 20 that have outlasted their trendy competitors. It fails to mention my favorite: 150-year-old Tujague's in New Orleans.
• How one reporter fares in Hell's Kitchen.
  The show's fifth season concludes tonight on Fox.