What $7 gets you: A great meal for pocket change.

I opted for the #3, a flame-broiled hamburger with mustard, onion, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes ($3.80). Add a side of crinkly cut fries ($2) and a small soda ($.80) for a total of $6.60.

Recommended: Yes. The “flame-broiled” tag is true. From our seats in the dining room, we could see the flames shooting in the air every time a patty was added to the grill. (It was sort of like a poor man’s light show.) It makes for a down-home, clean taste.

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What $7 gets you: Some great tasting Spanish – not Tex/Mex -- food

Two of the three big TVs over the expansive bar are tuned to an Argentinean soccer demonstration. The other, in a nod to the prevailing Sugar Land culture, has an American football game going on. The surprise was how empty the place was -- it was the noon hour on a Saturday and there was only one other couple dining –so this was either going to be an undiscovered treasure, or a disaster.

Fortunately for us, it was the former.

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What $7 gets you: A good place for a quick refuel on a heavy day of work or weekend errand running

Lunch specials, which start at $5.25 and top out at $6.50, are served seven days a week here from 11:15 a.m. to 3 p.m. The service is fast, friendly and designed to move the food which gives you a more than decent ROI in terms of quantity and taste. It’s not exotic – more like comfort food – but coupled with several cupfuls of hot tea, it’ll keep you going.

Tucked away in a strip shopping center with several other restaurants nearby, Orient Café also delivers throughout the area, but most of its business is either pickup or dine in.

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Where: Mai’s Restaurant, 3403 Milam Street, 713-520-7684

What $7 gets you: Plenty full, plenty late.

I had the Cơm Tám Thit Nůơng (rice with BBQ Pork) for $6.25. My pork came well-done and was tasty. The rice was hot and fluffy. For being a simple meat-and-rice dish, it was nonetheless attractive.

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Where: Cecil’s, 600 West Gray, 713-527-9101

What $7 gets you: A slightly less painful hangover

We haven’t always been kind to Cecil’s over the years, but we can’t quit the place, mainly because our buddy has a dog that does well there, and also because of the pool tables. Not to mention the friendly staff, and the jukebox filled with what are basically classics by now, and the big patio for smoking if you got ‘em, and the…well, okay, we just like hanging out there.

And what we really like are the folks who come by and set up a grill on weekend evenings and cook up sausages and fajitas.

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Where: Chilosos Taco House, 701 E 20th Street, 713-868-2273

What $7 gets you: Three kinds of sausage and a lot of egg.

Much like the Anonymous Eater over at Food in Houston, I too had questioned whether Chilosos Taco House really exists. I drove by the place all the time, but I never saw any cars outside. I had begun to assume it was a tax shelter, or maybe the front for a top-secret elite commando unit…

But then – shameless plug, coming right up – I ran a little search on houstonpress.com and learned Chilosos is one of those breakfast/lunch places, which I rarely frequent, because, well, I work all day during the week and sleep all day during the weekend. But, as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said (or maybe it was Mark Twain, or Confucius), “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size,” so it was time for me to drag my butt out of bed on Saturday morning and expand my stomach.

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Since sometimes $13 is too much to drop on lunch (or dinner, or breakfast, or brunch), we now present the inaugural installment of our $7 series, where we tell you what seven smackers gets you at various spots around town…

Where: Chicago Italian Beef, 1777 Airline, 713-862-2828.

What $7 gets you: Super stuffed, especially if you keep your head down.

So I was walking down Heights Boulevard when I saw colorful cardboard flyers strewn all over the ground. Looks like some canvasser took the money and ran, I thought to myself.

I picked one up and discovered it was a coupon for some joint called Chicago Italian Beef, which was pretty damn descriptive, as far as names go. Buy any sandwich and get a free hot dog? I was there.

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