Mark's American Cuisine is inherently a hub of second chances. Situated on a strip of Westheimer that's just on the cusp of grungy to simply gay, the restaurant boldly re-envisions a quaint 1920s church into a bastion of romantic decadence.

Chef Mark Cox is himself a master of reinvention. A small town West Virginia native, Cox brought a degree from the Culinary Institute of America to Texas and rose to executive chef at Brennan's before revitalizing the lionized Tony's. After stints as executive chef at Anthony's, Grotto and La Griglia, he ventured out to create a restaurant all his own.

For this year's Houston Restaurant Weeks, I took a page from Cox' example of turning a new leaf. It was six years ago that I first sat in that hallowed nave, trying to salvage a botched friendship that had unraveled after I abruptly canceled filling in as an impromptu prom date. That period of 19-year-old meandering isn't remembered as a high point: Months before I had dropped out of art school and was wading through a lackluster shift at a gourmet grocer between shameful marathon sessions of watching DVDs of The OC in my childhood bedroom, all while avoiding the streaming content of friends' fun college lives on a new website called Facebook.

Anyway, clearly this girl was fairly upset with me for multiple reasons, and I knew it was time to clear the air. In an act of unprecedented chivalry, I swept her off her feet (in a now-discontinued Mazda 626) and we spent a memorable evening at Mark's, which was tempered after sauntering across the street to Poison Girl. (This was back in the days before they hired the no-nonsense deaf doorman.)

And so I effectively leveraged this gorgeous 1920s steeple and salvaged a fruitful friendship that has led to exchanges of art and reunions/run-ins with Southside Place cops.

It was with this celestial memory that I reentered Mark's to taste its Houston Restaurant Weeks dinner menu with a cadre of quality friends, armed with the palettes and proper identification to appreciate the suggested wine pairings.

I began by sharing a cup of expectedly rich lobster bisque with generous lumps of meat, along with an artfully plated seared Hudson Valley foie gras.

The foie gras (which apparently derives from ethically raised free-range ducks) almost took a back seat to the plate's centerpiece, a trio of serrano ham-wrapped bites of Texas quail. Prosciutto-wrapped anything frequently suffers from scant bands of meat dominated by stringy fat, but this course avoided that pattern. Scattered at the plate's edges were bits of bing cherry compote and sassy micro greens.

For all of its flourishes, Mark's also commands basic dishes with ease, as was the case with my seared tenderloin of beef with field mushrooms, roasted squash and crispy sweet "tater tots" — golden, starchy lumps with a texture akin to gnocchi embedded in a heap of mashed potatoes. This entree bled testosterone, as evidenced by the informal mushrooms (which looked picked from Kroger rather than an actual field) and slightly overcooked squash that bordered on a stewed mush. A spiced cabernet sauvignon sauce added a necessary enhancement to the hunk of meat.

A duo of surprise entrees snuck on the Mark's Houston Restaurant Weeks dinner menu that I hadn't previously unearthed online: a seared sea bass and seared ahi tuna served with a flash-fried zucchini blossom stuffed with crab meat beside shrimp and crab risotto. Together, that makes four seared plates that arrived on our table. I can only imagine that the reduced energy required in minimal cooking outweighs the questionable ethics of supporting the duck liver industry.

But who am I to say? Mark's hasn't been a church for 15 years now, and while I've gotten back on track from my 2005 state, I'm still no saint.