Food >>

• Best New Restaurant
  Voltaire
  Sometimes putting your money where your mouth is...doesn't taste very good. But not all the time. Sure, multimillionaire Scott Ginsburg has used his considerable shekels to assemble a world-class wine list (1981 Chateau Haut-Brion is served by the glass in the bar) and a stunning array of... More >>
• Best lesbian drink
  The Redheaded Slut at Sue Ellen's
  A couple of these sly concoctions of Crown Royal, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice will turn a mousy brunette into a scarlet temptress. The pinkish red color and the deceptive sweetness hide the puissant punch that quickly brings out the tart in anyone. Drink at your own risk. More >>
• Best quail
  Il Solé Restaurant & Wine Bar
  Il Solé's pan-roasted bobwhite quail with a truffled taleggio risotto cake is plump, juicy, and bursting with delicate flavors. The risotto cake edged the bird in racy cheese sharpness, putting the game in this game. It makes you wonder what kind of miracles they could perform with a parakeet. More >>
• Best Jack and Coke
  Bar of Soap Bar
  We like our alcoholic beverages the same way we like our panty hose, perfume, and boyfriends--strong and cheap. The process for making this barroom staple isn't hard to master. Put ice in a plastic cup. Pour in Jack Daniels. Hose in some Coca-Cola. Sure, it happens all over town, but here it... More >>
• Best pasta to go
  Corner Bakery
  If you're looking for a quick, inexpensive meal, check out the Corner Bakery in North Dallas. Take-out or eat-in, pasta is prepared fresh as you wait. Entrées include fettucine Alfredo, pasta with pesto, pasta with tomato, pasta with ragu, and pasta with marinara sauce. Each dish is served with... More >>
• Best breakfast
  Bread Winners Bakery & Café
  Now that the weather's cooled down--oooh, that 89 degrees gives us goose bumps--what better way to bring in the morning than by sitting on the Bread Winners' patio drinking a little java, eating some French toast (a real highlight), and reading the morning paper (we take The New York Times,... More >>
• Best place to buy a peach
  Hunter's at the Farmers Market
  Jerome Hunter's family farm in Gilmer produces the best peaches around--far better than those California croquet balls masquerading as fruit at the supermarket. Each of Hunter's beauties is a globe of tender, meaty pulp that virtually explodes when you bite it. Take a towel for your wrists,... More >>
• Best Place to eat alone
  La Madeleine French Bakery and Café
  The tables are filled with them: lone gnawers, grazers, and nibblers fiddling with cell phones, flipping through newspapers, or fumbling with Palm Pilots. With so many solo gourmandes taking down plates of Caesar salad, soups, sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, and daily specials (all obtained... More >>
• Best feta cheese selection
  World Food Warehouse
  What do you want? Bulgarian, French, or Greek? For those who make such distinctions, the differences are obvious, with the Bulgarian being the richest and creamiest. At this import shop, you can have your choice, and the proprietors will reach down into the water- and cheese-filled containers... More >>
• Best steak
  Pappas Bros. Steakhouse
  Strip and rib-eye steaks at Pappas are dry-aged prime, and it shows, though not on the plate. You won't find any vertical architecture emerging from the meat; no swirling threads of brightly colored, pleated sauces. The preparation here is unapologetically minimalist, with just a sprinkle of... More >>
• Best cheap dinner
  Bangkok Inn
  The last time we went out for pizza, we rang up a $30 tab splurging on four toppings. The price of cheap eats is going up, except, that is, at Bangkok Inn. Nearly everything on the menu is $6.95, and their curries--from mild yellow to spicy hot red panang--are some of the best we've had. How do... More >>
• Best rooftop patio
  Milkbar
  Maybe this place sounds like a happy hour hovel for the Pokémon set, a spot where udders serve as taps. But Milkbar is a take on the watering hole in A Clockwork Orange, which is why it has fake fir banquettes (they cause nasty hairballs), zebra-striped walls (they cause more dizziness than... More >>
• Best view
  Chaparral Club in the Adams Mark Hotel
  This thin-air refuge of exceptional cuisine is perched on the 38th floor of the skyscraping Adam's Mark tower. Here, it's easy to mingle among the shimmering mirrored and green luminescence of Dallas' skyline--a welcome respite from the Cheesecake Factory gothic-inspired architecture in Plano,... More >>
• Best barbecue restaurant
  North Main Bar-B-Q
  We'll give you the onion rings at Sonny Bryan's. We'll spot you the cole slaw at Solly's. We'll even throw in the beef at Red Hot & Blue. But put them together and what do you get? A helluva lot of driving around. Make one trip to North Main Bar-B-Q, the belt-busting, rib-hugging,... More >>
• Best Indian restaurant
  Swarna Palace Indian Cuisine
  The cuisine at this bowling alley-sized Indian dining room is lush, colorful, and laced with clean flavors. Virtually everything, from the spinach pakora (batter-fried spinach leaves) to the shrimp birani (shrimp with basmati rice) to the chutneys is brisk and tasty. Plus a huge TV screen... More >>
• Best interior restaurant garden
  Bread Winners Bakery and Café
  Even if you just order a cup of coffee, you can enjoy the lovely indoor flora and open ceiling at this place. The room is just the right size, with seating for about 25. A table for two in the corner can be quite a romantic affair. More >>
• Best salad bar
  Texas de Brazil
  It's a hideously decadent thing, and so delicious you can skip the prolific and endless skewers of red meat plus some paler varieties served here. A sprawling black marble bar in front of this restaurant's Brazilian grills contains some of the freshest, most sumptuous spreads of leafy, seedy,... More >>
• Best mussels
  Daddy Jack's Wood Grill
  Are you looking for a briny sweetness from your mussels, as our food critic always does? Or is that a sweet brininess? Your sacred seafood quest has ended. Daddy Jack's in Deep Ellum serves these mollusks up right. Besides being tender and, yes, chewy, each little fella is coated in a tangy... More >>
• Best fancy restaurant
  Abacus
  If chef Kent Rathbun's brilliantly orchestrated Abacus is anything, it's fancy. Its rich elaborateness is accomplished in thoroughly fresh ways, both on the plate and in the dining room. The food is complex with lots of influences meticulously merged in a loud, well-creased ascot sort of way.... More >>
• Best spaghetti & meatballs
  Raneri's
  The pasta is firm and tender. The sauce is tangy and rich. The meatball, shaped like a downed sparrow, is bulging with flavor. When you eat it your face gets messy, as messy as it does when you spill too much Chianti down your throat. More >>
• Best chocolate chip cookie (tie)
  J.D.'s Chippery & Great Harvest Bread Co.
  JD's cookies are big, crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, and warm from the oven. One of these suckers can keep you going on a sugar rush for an impressive stretch. Then, in the throes of a nasty jones, you'll come back and buy another one. The snickerdoodles aren't bad, either. The... More >>
• Best romantic restaurant
  Lola
  This ivy-covered frame cottage with mustard-colored walls, handsome wall sconces, and hardwood floors has the feel of an aging domicile embracing all of its coziness and lyric sparkle. Not only does Lola dish out inspired New American cuisine and well-priced wines, it does it in a collection of... More >>
• Best apple turnover
  The Mixing Bowl Bakery
  Finely fluted layers of delicate pastry encase a juicy apple stuffing far removed from the leaden, tough-skinned clumps on most bakery shelves. Do not attempt to eat while driving, or you will emerge a pastry-flecked frump. Better to have a seat in the small café and check out the collection of... More >>
• Best wine list
  Jeroboam
  Though it's written in French, the list at Jeroboam is one of the most intelligently organized and readable we've seen. The first eight pages serve as a table of contents, with wines categorized under regional headings along with bottle and by-the-glass prices. There is also a bin number that... More >>
• Best home cooking
  Traci's Restaurant
  We're constantly amazed to discover how many of our so-called friends have yet to eat at this charming restaurant, located next to Texadelphia. It really is one of the best restaurants in town, and one of the most cozy; it's one of those converted old homes that's lost nothing in the... More >>
• Best cinammon roll
  A&J Bakery
  It's hard to resist licking off the decadent half-inch of real butter cream icing before taking a bite of the dense, rich, cinnamon-infused pastry the size of a saucer. But resist you must to get the wicked, out-of-body experience when the icing fuses with the pastry in your mouth. More >>
• Best sushi
  Yokohama Sushi
  Love raw fish? We mean, do you really love raw fish, the kind so fresh it still wants to school? The sushi at Sushi Yokohama is so cool, silky delicious, and fresh, your neck will start fluttering like gills as it goes down. The tuna and hamachi lay across the rice pads like thick little wet... More >>
• Best stew
  Guinness Stew, Emerald Mist Restaurant & Pub
  Sometimes a pint of warm, thick Guinness is hard to get down without the aid of a raw egg. This is especially true in the sweat-hog thickness of Texas summer, when the sky steadfastly refuses to tinkle on our heads. But when it's simmered for hours with some beef, carrot, and potato, Guinness... More >>
• Best margarita
  Don Pablo's
  You've got to taste them to believe them. No mixes used. Fresh-squeezed limes, top-of-the-line booze, ample servings and reasonably priced. The food's not bad, either. More >>
• Best duck
  Citizen
  Citizen's glazed duck is nothing short of stunning, which normally is hard to do with a duck unless you dress it up in a sequined gown, fishnets, and stilettos, and watch it doze off on one foot. Instead of garters, Citizen uses a dazzling soy plum demi-glace over slices of moist duck breast... More >>
• Best Turkish atmosphere
  Café Istanbul
  The entire staff is from Turkey, and Turks not only know food, they have atmosphere nailed. Unique and authentic hookahs, rugs, and wine bottles adorn the walls and shelves. There is a library feel to this place in that everything feels so well-placed and so...cultural. They have a belly dancer... More >>
• Best dip
  Tramontana's Absolut pepper diablo sauce
  It comes paired with potato-crusted calamari. But in this case the dunking medium is better than what's dunked. The dip is robust, rich, and lively with smoothness rippled by big chunks of blanched tomato. It's so racy, you could make lingerie out of it. More >>
• Best fusion foray
  Chow Thai Pacific Rim
  There's a curvaceous bar with a top made of stained concrete. The sector containing the bar is separated from the dining area by a screen made of chain mail, which kind of makes you wonder what the staff does with the cutlery when the barflies get riled. Chow Thai Pacific Rim also has a natty... More >>
• Best ceviche
  Ciudad D.F.
  This is hands-down the best bowl of lime-seared seafood in Dallas. Scraps of tender, firm octopus, conch, and shrimp are crammed into a margarita glass with key lime, cilantro, diced tomato, papaya, pineapple, and mango. The flavors are prodded with vanilla and a little clump of pickled onion... More >>
• Best pancakes
  The Landmark at the Melrose Hotel
  Want the best pancakes? You'll have to go to a four-star hotel to get them. The 92-seat, award-winning Landmark Restaurant in the Melrose Hotel serves the best stack--tall, fluffy, and never mushy, with indescribably light and aromatic fruit flavors. To those further inclined, check out the... More >>
• Best seafood restaurant
  S & D Oyster Company
  Nothing fancy here, just basic ocean livestock. It's fast, simple, and indelicate. But it's the best fast, simple, and indelicate you'll find. The oysters--at just $6.95 a dozen--are clean and firm. Servers whip up a sauce right at your table with ketchup, horseradish, Tabasco, Worcestershire... More >>
• Best wrap
  Wall Street Deli
  The best thing about a wrap is that they are healthy (or so goes the perception). Bread has somehow become the enemy for dieters, and the flour or spinach wrap has taken its place as the vehicle for sandwiches. No one makes wraps as tasty (and, if you like, unhealthy) as Wall Street Deli, which... More >>
• Best gnocchi
  Mangia e Bevi
  In most places they come out like little gum grommets--or transaxle grease curds. But at Mangia e Bevi, they look like green little scallops (they're drenched in pesto). These potato dumplings are tender, fluffy, and consistent--like a brood of cloud puffs. Plus, they're safe for most dental work. More >>
• Best produce (tie)
  Farmers Market & Groceryworks.com
  The city keeps meddling with its venerable Farmers Market, trying to figure out ways to fix something that ain't broke, but those trusty farmers from East Texas and South Texas and Oklahoma just keep on truckin' in, bringing those great tomatoes, fresh-shelled pintos, pattypan squash, peaches,... More >>
• Best middle eastern restaurant
  Basha Mediterranean Restaurant
  This restaurant serves inspired saj (a thin, flaky tortilla-like bread), smooth hummus, refreshing tabbouleh, and tangy labni. Plus there's the "tent room," where you can sit on a low couch and stuff yourself with kabobs or maybe some sautéed lambs brains. Think about that. More >>
• Best burritos
  Chipotle Mexican Grill
  Now that we think about it, it might not be fair to call what Chipotle Mexican Grill serves as "burritos." It just seems to diminish the restaurant's bigger-than-a-baby's-leg concoctions, full Mexican dinners wrapped in a flour tortilla. Too-big portions of rice, black beans, steak or chicken,... More >>
• Best patio
  Patrizio
  In Dallas, restaurant patios are usually the places where the natives go to watch Michelins kiss parking-lot abutments. You can do that at Patrizio's too, if you squint. Furnished with marble-topped tables and padded wrought-iron chairs, Patrizio's patio is more inviting than the typical cement... More >>
• Best Chinese (tie)
  Caravelle Chinese & Vietnamese and Tong's House of Richardson
  That ubiquitous brown goo that's found on most of what passes for Chinese food is not welcome at Caravelle. Vietnamese firepots, whole baked fish, and beautiful spring rolls, all freshly prepared and served by the gracious staff, are what you'll find. Great for large groups, and when the kids... More >>
• Best late-night restaurant
  Fishbowl
  The thing you want to do most when nibbling late into the night is look. And here, there is a much look at, from the stylish nocturnal nuzzlers linking and languishing in lust at the bar, to the big red doors at the entrance, to the row of TV monitors rolling Japanese movies. (OK, maybe we don't... More >>
• Best Texas salad
  Cowboy Cobb, Star Canyon
  It's big, smoky, voluptuous, and colorful--too pretty to be a cowboy. It's filled with typical stuff like egg and lettuce, but it also has roasted peppers, charred tomatoes, and bright, clean, creamy avocado. The whole thing is smoked and spiked with bacon, smoked chicken, and jalapeño jack... More >>
• Best hangover recuperation spot
  John's Café
  Saturday morning at John's Café is a longtime tradition to nearly everyone in Dallas with basic motor functions. But it still deserves recognition from our panel of expert imbibers, who eschew Mueslix (doesn't mix well with a Crown and Coke aftertaste) for large helpings of eggs and sausage. The... More >>
• Best Chain
  Mondo's
  This small casual upscale chain from Iowa with clean, fresh food is a big culinary mutt of influences including Mexican, Italian, Asian, and New American. It's all generated from a two-story kitchen consuming roughly half of the restaurant's 17,500 square feet, and it prepares everything from... More >>
• Best Greek restaurant
  Kostas Café
  This Greek café is unpretentiously cozy and distinctively romantic with a roster of authentic Greek cuisine that's fresh, flavorful, and paraded past the nostrils via a host of sampler plates. This food is more comprehensible than...well, Greek. More >>
• Best ready-made party dip
  BLT at Marty's Cafe TuGogh
  Believe it or not, that's BLT as in bacon, lettuce, and tomato. The creamy dip (based on mayonnaise and sour cream) is smoky with bacon and piquant with sun-dried tomato. Grab a few packages of toasted bagel bits, and you've got an hors d'oeuvre that puts the old onion dip out to pasture. More >>
• Best biddy-gut appetizer
  Chicken-liver mousse, Charolais Steakhouse
  Sometimes it's hard to figure out what to do with the assortment of organs tucked into the cavity of fresh chickens. Do you make a hen gut tapenade for your pet ferret, or do you freeze them to use as accessories on this year's Halloween costume? No. You do what Charolais Steakhouse does and... More >>
• Best Thai restaurant
  Best Thai
  With a name like Best Thai, you better be great. And this place is: The fried corn patties are superb (never rubbery, never oily). The chicken dumplings are delicious (as is its accompanying sauce), and the shrimp pad Thai is spicy but never overwhelmingly so. We've never been disappointed by a... More >>
• Best ice cream
  Marble Slab Creamery
  Marble Slab Creamery More >>
• Best all-American diner/lunch spot
  Guthrie's Historical American Restaurant
  This fine restaurant, well known to City Hall workers and other downtown denizens, strives to recreate diners of old with its early 20th-century menu and ethos. The daily lunch "blue plate specials" range from pork loin (Wednesday) to lamb patty with mint jelly, but Guthrie's also has salads,... More >>
• Best smoothie
  Smoothie King
  Given as we are to indiscriminate corporate-bashing, it would have been a great joy to announce that the Smoothie King has not earned its crown. Alas, the good regent does sit best, if not cheapest. Smoothies, for the uninitiated, are tasty ice-based treats for those who crave sweetness but are... More >>
• Best dumplings
  Tabil spiced pork dumplings, The Landmark at the Melrose Hotel
  This little dish is a magnum opus in a bowl. Three little pork-stuffed pillows soak in a puddle of brisk citrus-sherry soy broth. The dumplings are plump and tender with well-seasoned specks of pork meat. They're covered with a delicious relish of leek, sesame seeds, and orange zest. This is a... More >>
• Best Manhattan
  The Bar at The Mansion on Turtle Creek
  The clubby, old school décor, the sophisticated tunes from the piano player, and the, um, of-a-certain-age crowd, demand that you order something other than "another cold one" or a Run, Jump, Skip, and Go Nekkid. Generous pours of first-rate bourbon in elegantly muscular glasses with the perfect... More >>
• Best po' boy
  Maguire's Regional Cuisine's Catfish Po Boy
  It's unremarkable, yet it works. A wide tongue of catfish with a crisp golden coating is slipped between a cleaved roll and crowned with fresh ruddy tomato slices and a smear of Creole rémoulade. The fish is greaseless, crisp, and moist with stratified flakes of flesh and not a hint of river silt. More >>
• Best hamburger (tie)
  Angry Dog & Jake's Old Fashioned Burgers and Beer
  We once worked at a restaurant that hosted a weekly half-priced burger night. As a result, for months we could not stomach a burger and came dangerously close to vegetarianism. Luckily, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and soon enough we were eating burgers again, doing our part to help out... More >>
• Best dressed-to-kill restaurant
  Avanti Euro Bistro
  Curved leopard-print banquettes, sequestered in gauzy curtains, resemble a sheer negligée over cat-pelt bloomers. Black lacquered chairs are cushioned with leopard-print padded seats, and tables are cloaked in black tablecloths, like a black slit skirt over shiny black stilettos. The focal point... More >>
• Best fried chicken
  Babe's Chicken Dinner House
  No fast-food assembly line or heat lamp warming here. Manager Don Oates doesn't buy frozen chicken, so everything's fresh. The crunchy crisp breast, wing, drum, and thigh that come with the dinner have been marinated for 24 hours before being battered and cooked. Forget the calorie count and... More >>
• Best crab (and otherwise) cakes
  Sweet Temptations Bakery & Café
  Sweet Temptations' wonderful crab cakes are served over salad or pasta in an intimate European setting. Their dessert selections are also awesome, including the Lake Highlands rock cake or the Godiva cake. More >>
• Best bong
  Royal Spice Thai Bistro's, Bong Bong Chicken
  It's searingly potent. Sewn with thick sheets of tender, supple rice noodle, Royal Spice Thai Bistro's bong bong chicken contains a simple combination of ground bird and Thai basil in a clean, spicy oyster and Thai bean-sauce blend. Yum, yum. Cluck, cluck. No smelly water to chuck. More >>
• Best lemonade
  La Madeleine French Bakery & Café
  If you're sick of the smog, the ozone alert days, the heat, and the general misery of a Texas summer that lasts into February, head over to La Madeleine for some freshly squeezed lemonade. Not too tart, not too sweet. As the immortal Tammy Faye Bakker once sang, "When life throws you a lemon,... More >>
• Best pho
  Pho Saigon
  Pho is a little like Buddha: It invites nourishing contemplation. A Vietnamese beef-broth soup, pho is often described as the national dish of Vietnam. It's a fundamental part of the day, a mind-clearing tonic steeped in ritual, often served for breakfast. It's an arduous, labor-intensive thing... More >>
• Best cake by the slice
  Dallas Affairs Cake Co.
  How many times have you ogled the layer cake at your favorite coffee shop, ordered a slice of the vertical wonder, and then sunk in disappointment at its day-old taste and fridge-ridden frosting? Cake by the slice is a risky choice, but not at Dallas Affairs, the Lakewood-area bakery known for... More >>
• Best cup of coffee
  Einstein's Bagels
  We hate to do this, if only because it seems so unfair giving this award to a chain (though that doesn't stop readers, who, until recently, were convinced that the best burger in town came from the Burger King "grill") when plenty of local coffeehouses serve their own brand of bean brew. But... More >>
• Best arena food
  Turkey leg at the Ballpark in Arlington
  Stadium food is a blessing and a curse. The best things about turkey legs at a ballgame are: 1. They are self-contained and easy to transport down steep steps; 2. They disgust large segments of the population, who are too squeamish to watch someone tear the meat on the bone like a cur, not to... More >>
• Best bagel (tie)
  Einstein Bros. Bagels & Gilbert's New York Delicatessen
  Yes, it's a chain. But when the quality control, selection, and freshness are this good, screw mom and pop. The blueberry and cinnamon-raisin varieties are some of our favorites--sweet and chewy, great smeared with copious amounts of butter. The coffee is on par with the garden varieties... More >>
• Best mojito
  Samba Room
  A mojito is an exhilarating blend of lime wedges and mint leaves bathed in rum, with a splash of soda and a stalk of sugar cane for garnish. It's the kind of drink that will turn even the most uptight WASP into a samba-dancing Latin lover. More >>
• Best Vietnamese coffee
  East Wind
  As good as the food is at East Wind--and it is good, possibly the best Vietnamese cuisine this side of a day-long plane ride, or maybe just Mai's--the Vietnamese coffee is even better, 8 ounces of happiness disguised as coal-black coffee and sweet, thick cream. A liquid heart attack? Probably,... More >>
• Best whole fish
  Fishbowl
  For roughly 10 bucks you can experience Fishbowl's sizzling whole catfish in sweet chile sauce. Though this sounds like a bottom feeder dolled up in a sequined corset with tassels gyrating from its underbelly, it's actually a fish covered in a sternly crisp sheath, seemingly deep-fried in the... More >>
• Best Italian restaurant
  Salve! Ristorante
  Its cool, slick Milano-inspired décor may be a bit much for some in Dallas to stomach (we think it's stunning). OK, although it looks like a cross between a bank lobby and a Shriner's dinette set, we admire successful crossbreeding. The food is even more stunning. With Salve!, restaurateurs Phil... More >>
• Best out of towner
  Casa Del Lago
  It's lodged in a circa-1946 duplex cluttered with family photos, stained-glass windowpanes, and antique furniture (all with little Minnie Pearl price tags dangling from them). It features delicious Southwestern-inspired items (lobster tacos) and dishes of other influences (Muscovy duck, seared... More >>
• Best sushi to go
  Tom Thumb Food & Pharmacy
  Why would a Houston-based grocery store chain have good sushi? For that matter, why would 7-Eleven announce it has entered the bait business or expect to compete in freshness? We don't know the answers, but check out Tom Thumb's selection. For about five bucks, you can acquire a sweet little... More >>
• Best neighborhood restaurant
  Suze
  OK, so this little restaurant is tucked into a strip mall. But it's outfitted to resemble a sophisticated country café, with lacy curtains that delicately refract light in a cozily assembled dining room that's tight but comfortable. It's casual but sharp, with a sweet caviar-in-the-rough feel.... More >>
• Best beer cheese soup
  Flying Saucer Draught Emporium
  What could be better than sipping your Shiner Bock with a piping hot bowl of this delicious concoction? Served in a large bread bowl with a convenient lid for dipping, this is perfect for chilly winter evenings on the couches in the beer garden. If you feel like being social, ask for a chess set... More >>
• Best Oak Lawn Restaurant
  Marco Italian
  This restaurant gets the nod because of great food at even better prices. Owner Mark Serrao's second restaurant (the first being the flagship store Vitto's in Oak Cliff) has been open only nine months, but it's already made a big splash with Oak Lawn-area patrons. The mood is cheery when you... More >>
• Best pub grub
  The Old Monk
  Most beer gulpers don't have a palate that ventures much beyond leftovers found between the couch cushions. But Trappist monks have always enjoyed good food to go along with their beer brewing--or so we've been told. That's why the Old Monk, a pub rife with Trappist monk imagery, has a range of... More >>
• Best crème brûlée
  The Green Room
  The Green Room, a small and very loud dining room tucked behind a Deep Ellum saloon, offers a variety of excellent fare, including the very best crème brûlée in Dallas. The perfectly balanced, deep smooth pudding beneath a crackly caramelized surface can make you oblivious to any... More >>
• Best martini
  Parigi
  Late Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Westbrook Pegler once said that a martini was the meanest, no-damn-goodest mess of rancor ever concocted. More fights and more people get their glasses broken and arrested and divorced on account of martinis than for any other reason. So head on down to... More >>
• Best ice cream flavor
  Coconut-banana at Marble Slab Creamery
  If you're going to eat ice cream, then damn the health concerns: Head to Marble Slab, which never disappoints. Pimply teenagers scoop the thick, rich ice cream onto a marble countertop, where the customer has a choice of ingredients to have mixed in. The hands-on process is slow but worth it.... More >>
• Best muffaletta (1 Comment)
  Crescent City Café,
  Ah, New Orleans--capital for all things salacious, sodden, and spicy. For a slice of that easy-livin' place, go to the Crescent City Café in Deep Ellum, where the food is Cajun and the risk of heartburn is high. The food is the gastronomical culprit, not only because it's spicy but because it's... More >>
• Best appetizer
  Abacus Spoons
  Four large, shimmering silver spoons are fanned over a reddish square plate. The spoon bowls hold fried oysters with daikon and a dab of wasabi cream topped with a sprinkling of tobikko caviar. They are cleverly presented, tightly packed bombs of explosive flavor. Pray that you're born with one... More >>
• Best frozen concoction that's not a margarita
  Cuba Libre's Island Mojo
  This will get your mojo working in no time flat. A luscious, not-too-sweet concoction of pineapple, coconut, and four kinds of Baccardi rums that makes you yearn for a beach and a turn at getting your groove back. More >>
• Best foie gras
  Voltaire
  It seems the height of cruelty to pull the liver out of a duck, leaving the bird with nothing to filter its Scotch, but it sure tastes good once it's out. Voltaire's sautéed Hudson Valley foie gras is a mean organ. It's scored with repeating diamond patterns across its surface, folded, and... More >>
• Best place to buy a vegan birthday cake
  Cosmic Café,
  The adjective "vegan" usually evokes visions of plates full of gray, squishy substances or tasteless products designed to resemble meat, not a big hunk of chocolate cake or a large, gooey brownie. But at Cosmic Café, the yummy Indian-style meals can conclude with desserts sans dairy products.... More >>
• Best gulab jamun
  India Palace Restaurant and Bar
  Short of hopping a plane to India, you won't get a better gulab jamun--cake-like fried milk balls in scented syrup--than at India Palace Restaurant. They make it to the proper consistency and temperature to prevent the mushiness that often mars this Eastern standard. A refreshing dessert after a... More >>
• Best restaurant for kids
  Purple Cow
  Maybe this '50s soda fountain-diner-burger joint with a purple train chugging along the ceiling with a preening purple cow in a freight car is a little much for those of us who act 6 but aren't. Yet this place is clean and bright, the food is good, and kids love it. Plus, they'll spike your... More >>
• Best salsa
  Mis Cazuelas
  The folks at Mis Cazuelas know all the hot and spicy stuff (in the right proportions) to make their salsa easily the best in the city. The key ingredient is the cilantro, which other restaurants around town skimp on (or omit entirely) in their salsas. At Mis Cazuelas, there's just the right... More >>
• Best dessert
  Salve! Ristorante
  Salve's Tartufo is a double-chocolate gelato truffle with lively brandied cherries that spark its creamy heft out of cloy range. This tight little dessert will arouse any set of sweet teeth. More >>
• Best bean dip
  Cuba Libre Café
  It's topped with diced tomato, cheese, and cream. It's smooth. It's creamy. It's got a little tang in there. Plus a little smoke. And the horns won't start for at least an hour. More >>
• Best falafel
  Café Med
  Spiced and fried balls of ground chickpea paste sounds less than appetizing. But for the aficionados of this Middle Eastern treat, any traveling distance is worth it for a bite. At this family-operated restaurant tucked into a Richardson shopping mall, the $7.95 platters of falafel satisfy even... More >>
• Best exotic restaurant
  Tei Tei Robata Bar
  There are a many things to love about this tiny room with an open kitchen and an ice pit where live lobsters twitch and quiver. First, there's the cozy bar with odd, sloped couches and great martinis made with sake. Then there's the chalkboard where all kinds of exotic specials are posted,... More >>
• Best lunch deal (tie)
  Nuevo Leon & Monica's Aca y Alla
  The $5.95 lunch special at Nuevo Leon, a Mex-Mex mini-chain, is not for the feint of appetite. Nuevo Leon's eight selections on its daily lunch special menu are nicely prepared with fresh ingredients, sauces that go well beyond the ordinary Tex-Mex glopfare, and generous portions. The plates... More >>
• Best tapas
  Café Madri
  Tapas and tarps have a lot in common. A tarp is a waterproof cover designed to keep things from getting wet. Tapas, which means "covers," came into prominence in Spain in the 19th century when barflies began topping the mouths of little sherry glasses with slices of cured ham or sausage to keep... More >>
• Best piece of meat
  Star Canyon
  Yes, the place gets a bit pricey as far as pricey places go, and, yes, it has a history of being a bit snobby as far as snobby places go, but look around and see what everyone is eating at Star Canyon. It's a big, fat, juicy hunk of rib-eye steak, and its been cooked with a tangy Southwestern... More >>
• Best french fries
  We Oui
  They're golden, crisp, well seasoned, moist, ample, and they make a terrific palate prelude to the "kiss of mint" condoms this place passes out at closing time. More >>
• Best Mexican restaurant
  Ciudad D.F.
  Everyone now knows that real Mexicans rarely eat a steady diet of nachos, burritos, stiff tacos, and Mescal worms. Real Mexicans eat limp tacos and veal short ribs braised in red mole--at least the haute ones do. Monica Greene's Dallas interpretation of Mexico City cuisine is at once intriguing,... More >>
• Best place to chill out
  Café Brazil
  In Lakewood, Deep Ellum, University Park, and elsewhere, the groovy diners of Café Brazil add character to neighborhoods and make for a great place to get everything from empanadas to blackened salmon and smoked turkey migas. Breakfasts are similarly excellent, and the French toast is a must.... More >>
• Best piece of catfish
  Texana Grill
  Sometimes it's hard to find a piece of catfish that doesn't taste like rank pond scum, or if it's farm-raised, like pond scum that's been to finishing school. That's why feline fish must be brutally abused and coated with assorted mixtures of grit such as granola or spicy birdseed before you... More >>
• Best queso
  Matt's Rancho Martinez
  As legend would have it, the Bob Armstrong Dip at Matt's was christened after the former Texas land commissioner of the same name because he came up with the recipe for the specialty item during his frequent visits to the original Matt's in Austin. Also known to insiders as Bob Dip, it is a... More >>
• Best new bistro
  Yumeya Sushi Bistro
  It's not a sushi bar, and it's not a bistro--at least not in the traditional senses of such establishments. It's more like a brisk, clean comfortable hybrid that serves decent raw fish and thrilling little exotic specials such as monkfish liver, grilled smelt bursting with tarry roe, and Yumeya... More >>
• Best fried shrimp for under $6
  Rockfish
  Never could a college student afford so much seafood as at Rockfish (maybe that should be a bumper sticker). This laid-back establishment has friendly, easy-going waiters, fast service, and good portions. Since its opening a year ago, the place has caught on with Richardson residents and... More >>
• Best place to get in a food fight
  EatZi's
  There is something horrifying yet natural about seeing vultures and hyenas fight over the scraps of meat clinging to a zebra carcass. It highlights the animals' desperation for survival in the hard African landscape. What's our excuse for the skirmishes that occur at eatZi's? Sure, the food is... More >>
• Best bell pepper
  Raneri's
  A bell pepper generally is about as sexy as a bunion, but Raneri's version is one mamma of a little appetizer. Sheets of green bell pepper are spread with fragments of ground meat, grains of rice, specks of onion, and gooey knots of cheese anointed with a rich tomato sauce. The flavors are... More >>
• Best doughnuts
  Mustang Donuts
  Though it seems impossible, fried dough with a sugar glaze becomes an ethereal treat of subtle nuance. Even the chocolate cream doughnuts rest so lightly in your tummy that you can eat two--or six, if you're like us. People-watching is especially amusing on Sunday mornings when the... More >>
• Best sandwiches
  Hungreez Deli & Pizza Pies
  We are not sure where the "grocery" is in this place, but the sandwiches sure are good, as is the pizza. You can get a regular meatball sandwich, but we recommend one of the more creative concoctions, such as the Cubano, a zesty, packed sandwich featuring beef, turkey, provolone, peppers, Cuban... More >>
• Best pizza
  Brother's Pizza
  You say New York pizza doesn't exist in Dallas? You say it's all in the Manhattan tap water, or in the way Italian-American males, who act like they are right off the set of The Sopranos, fling the dough high over their heads and beat the hell out of the crust until it surrenders its thickness?... More >>
• Best wait staff
  Maguire's Regional Cuisine
  The typical wait staff team has a range of characteristics: Either they are indifferent, dim, perfunctory, or overbearing, or they're dressed like pee-wee golf caddies. Maguire's gaggle of servers is so professional and self-assured, they're able to cloak their brutal efficiency in an air of... More >>
• Best brunch
  Ziziki's
  Brunch is a weird word, a mutant merging of successive events (breakfast and lunch). It's like merging beer with gut and coming up with butt, which is what years of beer guzzling will grant you, only it emerges in the wrong place and makes your belt fit funny. The brunch assortment at Ziziki's... More >>