The stereotype for Houston is a white-washed, racist backwater but that offensive sentiment couldn't be farther from the truth. Houston has come a long way since its days long past and the city has long since become a roiling melting pot of diversity, cultural exchange, and forward thinking. The only thing left is to dispel the lingering notions that mar the city's reputation.

Stephen Klineberg polishes off a spicy lamb mint burger, mops his brow and recalls the Houston he moved to as a young professor in the 1970s.

"It was a deeply racist, deeply segregated Southern city," he says; an oil boomtown of black and white Americans.

There were no restaurants like Pondicheri, where Houston chef Anita Jaisinghani's hip take on Indian street food — and the air conditioning's battle with 100-degree heat — conspire to make the Rice University professor sweat.

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