New-American chefs dress meals in flavors that represent the nation's melting pot, studding southern meat loaf with Mexican chilies and weaving Italian angel-hair pasta into edible George Washington wigs. Gussy up your palate with today's Groupon: for $25, you get $50 worth of New-American fusion cuisine at Bistro 829, located in Katy.

Chefs at Bistro 829 harvest regional flavors from throughout the nation for mixing and matching on their New-American dinner and lunch menus. Whet appetites for delicious destruction with whiffs from an initial course of duck tamales in mango-garlic sauce ($8) or one of seven soups and salads ($5). Blending the best of the South and Southwest, kitchen magicians brine sarsaparilla pork chops in root beer and herbs before smoking them over pecan charcoal ($12 lunch, $22 dinner) and chicken-fry the house's slow-roasted prime rib before smothering it in rich poblano-chili gravy ($14 lunch, $23 dinner). A crisp coating of sesame seeds shields rare yellow-fin tuna from the attention of an overheated pan, preferring the company of cool pineapple salsa and skeptical jicama slaw ($22 lunch, $24 dinner).

An elegant, modern aesthetic hues the dining room, wherein white tablecloths bedeck open black tables and high-backed booths. On the chamber's far side, a mural of geometric musicians coats the space in the silence of a live performance stilled for all time.