Food >>

• Best Breakfast (4 Comments)
  Breadwinners
  It's not so much that Breadwinners has the kind of coffee that could turn a three-toed sloth into a crazed New York commuter within three sips. It isn't even so much that Breadwinners has the kind of fresh-baked muffins, sweet rolls, cakes and fresh breads that make you almost fall in love with... More >>
• Best Sunday Brunch
  Greenville Bar and Grill
  Brunch is a natural for a venue whose first name denotes a street bar--a natural disaster, that is. But Greenville Bar and Grill, a white-tablecloth retrofit of a once gunked and grimed watering hole that's been hovering around Greenville Avenue since 1933, beats the odds. Greenville's eggs... More >>
• Best Seafood Restaurant
  9 Fish, Asian Fusion Sushi and Robata Bar
  Frisco is a long way to travel for good seafood. But hell, so is the ocean, and it's much harder on pickup trucks than the asphalt and browned prairie grass of the northern most reaches of the metroplex. 9 Fish, so named because the number means good luck in much of Asia, is a fascinating... More >>
• Best Sushi
  Sushi Kyoto II
  If clones are going to attack, let them do it with weapons of flaccid tuna slices, gooey uni and fluffy tobiko in shades that would make a Day-Glo palette wince. That's what Sushi Kyoto II does. A replica of Sushi Kyoto I in Coppell, the Kyoto clone along this SMU pavement strip bombards you... More >>
• Best California Roll
  Sushi on McKinney
  How simple. How healthful. How easy to like, even for those few souls who haven't been initiated into the ways of sushi. The California roll--tuna, avocado, rice and a light coating of roe--is sort of a basic building block of American sushi dining. This is starter sushi, as much American as... More >>
• Best Sole Food
  Organicity and Nikolini
  It could happen to you, and it probably has: You're shopping, you're trying on, taking off, and you haven't been successful. What's more, you are now in a state of shopping fever. Sweat has formed on your upper lip, your stomach is growling louder than you can and you haven't found anything... More >>
• Best Indian Restaurant
  India Palace
  Not many places in Dallas serve goat. Only one that we know of allows you to enjoy your goat (the bovid ruminant kind, not the leering lecher type) with a mango margarita. India Palace is such a place. But India Palace is more than just a herder's handiwork laced with tequila. It's a... More >>
• Best Fishmonger
  TJ's Seafood Market
  There can be no argument that the fish is fresh at TJ's Seafood Market--it's flown in two to three times a day from exotic ports of call. A regular United Nations of fish, you've got your Dover sole from England, your sea bass from Chile, your tilapia from Ecuador. Swimming closer to home are... More >>
• Best Place To Get Real Mozzarella
  The Mozzarella Company
  The Mozzarella Company's whole-milk mozzarella gives the gunk sold in grocery stores a really bad name. The company, located in Deep Ellum, is celebrating 20 years of making cheese. Grocery store shoppers may not generally know that the cheese that's sold in plastic bags with far-off expiration... More >>
• Best Chinese Restaurant
  Chef Hsu
  Dallas doesn't have a Chinatown. It has a Koreatown. And there's a Cowtown to the left. But no Chinatown, no parades with dragons and firecrackers. Perhaps that's why most Chinese cuisine in Dallas is forgettable: heavy, dry, greasy and sticky--with dumb fortunes. Chef Hsu busts that mold with... More >>
• Best Meat Market
  Kuby's Sausage House
  Without a doubt, Kuby's has always been the best of the wurst--the best bratwurst, knockwurst, even bloodwurst, if you're gutsy enough to try it. But their vast array of meats goes beyond sausage and incorporates some of the choicest cuts of beef found this side of the Rhine. Try the... More >>
• Best Hamburger
  Keller's Drive-In
  A Dallas institution, Keller's offers a hamburger dining experience like none other. The drive-in joint, in all its tattered glory, conjures up Happy Days memories with a grown-up twist. On a recent weekday evening, a line of cars formed in the drive-thru, where six-packs of Coors Light were... More >>
• Best Indian Lunch Buffet
  Madras Pavilion
  The traditional South Indian, all-vegetarian restaurant offers a lunchtime buffet that stretches the width of the restaurant, with both sides of the long, heated serving table offering dishes to sample as you circle it. This industrial utopia offers standard buffet items such as fruit and... More >>
• Best Vietnamese Restaurant
  Green Papaya
  The spring rolls at Green Papaya are like little pieces of heaven wrapped up in rice paper. Stuffed with vermicelli, lettuce and cilantro, these rolls come with your choice of shrimp, chicken or pork--known as goi cuon tom, goi cuon ga and goi cuon heo, respectively--and they're served with a... More >>
• Best Use of Spinach
  Taj Express
  Popeye's straight-from-the-can approach to spinach has nothing on Taj Express' creamed spinach, and neither does any other spinach dish we've tried. Almost always available on the buffet, this spinach creation isn't bitter or oily and is mixed with chunks of soft cheese. We prefer it slathered... More >>
• Best Steak
  Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar
  It isn't one of the swankier steer temples. It isn't showered in the kind of swarthy wood paneling you thought was only used in confessional booths. It's well lit so that you can tell the difference between the creamed spinach boat and the iceberg lettuce wedge without tripping over the fork.... More >>
• Best Lunch Deal
  Chef Hsu
  There's a lot of all-you-can-eat lunch buffets out there, the kind that let you dump ladle upon ladle of quick-set cellulite mix onto a plate and then go back for more after you've licked it to a sheen. The pity is that these places don't offer forklift service to your car when you've... More >>
• Best Early-early-morning Cup 'n' Crepes
  Café Brazil
  Café Brazil now has a half-dozen locations, but this location is our favorite spot to stop for a pile of crepes and a bottomless cup of coffee for those nights when you're not quite ready to go home after the bars close. Come 2 a.m., especially on a weekend night, the place is... More >>
• Best Cajun Restaurant
  Chez Willie's Cajun Hideaway
  It's a long drive at highway speeds (35 or so miles south of Dallas). But that pales when you consider how difficult it is to complete a New Orleans jaunt without a head hum and a humiliating struggle with a Tylenol childproof cap. Chez Willie's is in Ennis, home of the "ultimate drag racing... More >>
• Best Non-chain Sub Shop
  Cero's Heros
  Now in its fourth decade, this sandwich shop's longevity speaks to just how good its product is. Around the noon hour you can usually see a dozen or more people standing around drooling while they wait for their sub to be prepared. There is no indoor dining, but the shop provides school desks... More >>
• Best Restaurant for Kids
  Tin Star at the Village on the Parkway
  You are probably thinking Balls or Ez's or the Purple Cow--something more kid-driven than kid-friendly. But we are thinking food locales that may cater to kids but actually target the adults of the family, those over the age of, say, 5. The new Tin Star on Belt Line Road meets our criteria... More >>
• Best Late-night Restaurant
  Cuba Libre
  There's nowhere in Dallas to get a better hit of post-debauchery nutrition than Cuba Libre, a Latin rumba of pulsing pecs, flirty lips, slinky dresses and herbs and spices lewdly dispersed over various protein platforms hopped up on mom-approved vitamins and minerals (even prowling club... More >>
• Best Iced Cookies
  Celebrity Cafe and Bakery
  Throughout the year Celebrity Bakery does these great seasonal and holiday iced cookies, always fresh and moist, with delicious decorations for everything from Christmas to Bastille Day. Any holiday at all is a great excuse for biting into one of these little works of art. More >>
• Best Greasy Spoon
  Metro Diner
  Metro is an old roadside slinger within spit shot of Dallas' downtown skyline. It's an archaic, rudimentary grub hut, one whose only modern amenity is a jukebox packed with CDs. Griddle sizzle is the constant din; ice machine whirs the constant hum; smoke clouds and grill gusts the incontinent... More >>
• Best Bean Burger
  Legal Grounds
  It's not every day you come across a good burger. Much less a non-meat burger. Even rarer are the chances of it being a good burger if it's made out of beans. But we're here to tell you the best bean burger in the city limits, maybe in the state, is found at Legal Grounds. Served on a toasted,... More >>
• Best Margarita (tie)
  Blue Goose, Frankie's Margarita at Monica's Aca y Alla
  There may be better-tasting margaritas in town. There may be more authentic margaritas in town. But with a Blue Goose margarita, you will get 2 full ounces of tequila in your luscious, lime-kissed adult beverage, which means you will more quickly get lit--and that is, quite frankly, the point... More >>
• Best Waitstaff
  Maguire's
  Maguire's owner Mark Maguire laments that his North Dallas New American restaurant is a little too upscale for his tastes; his customers seem to keep pushing the check average up while he wrestles them by dropping prices. Maybe Maguire is a little off in that way. Maybe he doesn't understand... More >>
• Best Salsa
  Four-Chili Salsa at La Duni Café
  La Duni bills itself as the ultimate "Mestizo experience," a blend of "European traditions with Latin American soul," and nowhere is the blending more mysteriously seductive than in the chip salsa La Duni puts on the table. Made with fresh poblano, chipotle and serrano peppers and mixed dried... More >>
• Best Root Beer Float
  Prince of Hamburgers
  Prince of Hamburgers has a certain low-tech charm rarely found in fast-food restaurants, what with pneumatic tubes at Chick-Fil-A and TollTag drive-throughs at McDonald's. At Prince, you simply roll into a space, turn on your headlights for service and a carhop will kindly assist you. The menu... More >>
• Best Gyro Sandwich
  Z Café
  Better than a year-round Greek festival, the Z Café's gyro sandwich is amazingly pleasing, and well it should be. Owner Nicholas Zotos (he couldn't be Greek by any chance, could he?) apparently makes sure his gyro sandwich has the kind of texture and flavor that made people start loving... More >>
• Best Mexican Restaurant
  Ciudad
  Lots of spaces in Dallas ply the fused stuff, the culinary caulk known as Tex-Mex. A few places ply genuine Mexican food, some even going so far as to represent the varied and distinct cuisines from around that nation. But no one in Dallas creates Mexican cuisine with the dazzle and verve of... More >>
• Best Cocktail
  Stoli Doli at The Capital Grille
  Understand something: The best cocktail isn't necessarily the one we drink every night. Then the winner in this category would be "Whatever alcohol is brown, in our cupboard and you can pour over ice." No, this category is reserved for the sort of drink that men and women can consume and say... More >>
• Best Coffeehouse (Without the Coffee)
  New Amsterdam Coffeehäus
  Well, they do actually serve coffee here, but unlike the mass confusion of corporate coffeehouses, they've pared it down to five or six delicious choices. But you won't miss the coffee once you notice the fully stocked bar. New Amsterdam manages to maintain the relaxed intimacy of a... More >>
• Best Breakfast Deal
  Waffle Way
  No, it isn't the waffles, though they're damn good. It's this little killer deal known as The Hearty Breakfast. For $5.45, Waffle Way will stuff your plumbing with two eggs, bacon or sausage and all the pancakes you can hold without busting or turning a shade of green that only Andy Warhol... More >>
• Best Fried Mushrooms
  Snookie's Bar & Grill
  The fried mushrooms at Snookie's are everything they should be: plump, juicy and not too greasy. These lightly battered balls of goodness are also just the right size--not so small that all you can taste is the crust, and not so large that the 'shroom overpowers. They're served with ranch... More >>
• Best Date-on-a-Shoestring
  Taco Loco Express and Deep Friday
  So this may not be what she thought when you told her "dinner and dancing." But with prices like this, you can afford to buy her flowers, too. Dining al fresco, as is the situation at Taco Loco, is always exciting, especially on a bustling Deep Ellum street. Taco Loco offers 17 kinds of tacos,... More >>
• Best New Restaurant
  Mirabelle
  Mirabelle isn't exactly new. It was forged from the leftovers of Francois and Catherine Fotre's La Mirabelle. Though the name is a retread as is largely the interior, the food is not. Gone is La Mirabelle's French fare, and in its place is a New American hybrid (and what New American sortie... More >>
• Best Dining Al Fresco
  Celebration
  If only we had a placid lake or high mountain setting to linger over in Dallas, this category might be flooded with possibilities. But most outdoor dining here overlooks a parking lot or busy intersection, and oppressive heat and smog alerts cure even the most incurable romantics among us. One... More >>
• Best Home-style Restaurant
  Babe's
  Like Mom's cooking, Babe's doesn't mess with frills. If it doesn't fix gut plumbing like J-B Weld (Drill it! Grind it! Machine it!), then fry, boil or roast it until it does. In addition to fried chicken that could scare a body-fat scale into weather service, Babe's has sinfully rich pot... More >>
• Best Middle Eastern Restaurant
  Café Izmir
  Lots of eateries in Dallas capture the cuisine tucked between the near and far of East. But only Café Izmir does it with a dazzling display of poise. The wine list is broad but simple, with a handful of Greek and Lebanese wines included. Dolmas are fresh and supple. Salads are... More >>
• Best Guacamole
  Casa Rosa
  When the folks at Casa Rosa say their guacamole is fresh, they mean it. This tasty avocado appetizer is made at your table, before your very eyes, and the quality is undeniable. Compared with the typical cooler-wilted guacamole you'll find at many other Mexican restaurants, Casa Rosa's version... More >>
• Best Meal with a Marxist
  Goff's Charcoal Hamburgers
  Red Square McDonald's aside, we never expected to eat lunch with Lenin. And if we ever did, we expected it to be, of course, during some strange Bill and Ted-esque time-travel adventure. Yet, right in front of Goff's stands a life-size statue of Lenin, sternly glaring as you bite into a juicy... More >>
• Best Fancy Restaurant
  The Mercury
  It's a little confusing, this heavy metal bandying about by Mico Rodriguez (The M Crowd, Restaurant Life) and company. The Mercury used to be a casual fine dining experience in a strip mall at Preston and Forest. But that shingle got changed to Mercury Grill. The new "The Mercury" (a tribute... More >>
• Best Chili
  Highland Park Pharmacy
  What is it about a bowl of piping-hot red that enables it to create a culture all its own? Chili cook-offs, chili championships, chili parlors, chili with beans or without. What's the best chili, the hottest, the reddest, the meanest? Texas chauvinism aside, none of these is an easy question,... More >>
• Best Hair of the Dog with Hollandaise
  Bronx Restaurant & Bar
  When you're a tad disheveled from the night before and need a good breakfast, or brunch if you wake up when we do, head to the Bronx. It's safe to say you won't find better service or better food on a Sunday morning. The waitstaff is so on the ball you'd think they'd stayed at home the night... More >>
• Best Soup (2 Comments)
  Metropolitan Café
  It's the kind of mouthwatering soup that would make Seinfeld's Soup Nazi (admit it, you watch the reruns) jealous with rage. Only it's prepared by a soft-spoken, gentle mom (Christine Vouras), using family recipes that she once served at one of Dallas' swankiest restaurants, Chateaubriand... More >>
• Best Lesson on the Middle East
  Ali Baba Café
  Opened in 1990 by two brothers from Syria, Ali Baba has been gathering continuous good reviews for its rice, tabbouleh, hummus, falafel, dolmas and gyros. Meat lovers with $10 to spare can't go wrong with the Mashwi shish, a plate of marinated beef or lamb grilled with onions, mushrooms and... More >>
• Best Use of Tofu in Fast Food
  Tofu Delight at Lover's Eggroll
  Tofu is a scary thing. It's spongy; it takes on the flavors of the food it's cooked with. It kind of looks like chicken. It requires special storage. Nothing about it seems like "fast" or "food." But, in about the time one would spend in a drive-through at lunch, Lover's Eggroll can serve up... More >>
• Best Burrito
  Chipotle Mexican Grill
  The burritos at Chipotle look normal enough. Well, they do if you're used to a burrito the size of your thigh and a little bit heavier. But that's not what's so great about them, though, obviously, getting a complete Mexican dinner wrapped inside a delicious flour tortilla is pretty fantastic.... More >>
• Best Chinese Food Mainstay That Never Gets Old
  Royal China
  We'll admit it: We're partial to this place because it's one of the few places--OK, the only place--in town where we feel, well, a little special. Not that we are or anything (even our own mama tells us we're not daily), but Kai-Chi Kao, known to regulars as "George," has a way of making us... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Restaurant in Any Neighborhood
  Café Expresso
  We've been frequenting this place for a decade, and save for the turnover in waitstaff nothing changes; it's still owned by Dieter Paul, an elegant man running a swellegant Italian bistro, where the wine's as fine as the pastas you can mix and match with the sauces of your choosing (we prefer... More >>
• Best Crab Legs
  Big Shucks
  We couldn't contain our excitement when Big Shucks, the big brother of Aw Shucks on Lower Greenville Avenue, opened last year. As its name implies, the new location is bigger, offering more outdoor seating for cool nights and indoor seating during the dog days. The one thing that hasn't... More >>
• Best Wine List
  Steel Restaurant & Lounge
  Steel's Vietnamese/Japanese cuisine is not necessarily the easiest chow to mate with wine. But the 40-plus by-the-glass list (embracing sparkling, white, red and dessert wines) includes an easy reference guide with tasting notes and pairing suggestions to coach you through the dining... More >>
• Best Pappadam (That's Right, Best Pappadam)
  Buddha's Special at Cosmic Café
  Buddha's Special is possibly the most authentic dish at this Indian-inspired vegetarian restaurant on Oak Lawn Avenue. And it offers a sample of the more traditional dishes with a serving of basmati rice, a dish of curried vegetables (whatever is the day's special, but usually involving... More >>
• Best Appetizer
  Spinach and Artichoke Queso at Pappasito's Cantina
  The spinach and artichoke queso at Pappasito's Cantina is the best of two very different worlds. We've had some pretty decent spinach and artichoke dip, and we've had some pretty decent queso. But never, until Pappasito's added this appetizer to its menu, have we had the two served up as one... More >>
• Best Dish Name
  Square Meal at Dream Café
  This ain't no misnomer. You've got your brown rice; you've got your organic black beans. It's a virtual one-two punch of grains and legumes, providing the protein needed without using meat. Then there's the pile of steamed veggies, fresh and crunchy, satisfying the colorful part of the food... More >>
• Best Cachapas and Other Things Filled with Cheese and Caramel
  Zaguán World Bakery & Café
  Venezuelan Carlos Branger is an evil, evil man, and we love him for it. Since opening a few months ago, this Latin restaurant-bakery on Oak Lawn Avenue has become our go-to restaurant whenever we crave sweet corn tortillas filled with meat and cheese...and cheese; this is a delicacy called... More >>
• Best Use of Caffeine
  The Mochasippi at CC's Coffee House
  Unlike Starbucks, which seems to have a station on every other block, CC's Coffee House hasn't made much progress in the quest for world domination. But maybe the world hasn't tried the Mochasippi yet. This refreshing beverage is a frothy espresso treat that's perfect when you need a caffeine... More >>
• Best Fresh Beans
  Pat's Pea Patch
  It's just a fact: You cannot buy really fresh lima beans or speckled butter beans in a supermarket. Fresh, they have no shelf life. That's why we buy them here, from Pat Sherlock, a farmer/dealer who trucks fresh-picked beans by the bushel from his fields in Canton and sells them by the pint... More >>
• Best Fried Chicken
  Bubba's Cooks Country
  Opened in 1981 in a 1927 Texaco station, this fried-chicken sibling to the Babe's Chicken Dinner Houses in Garland and Roanoke is a no-frills art-deco temple to biddy crunch. And it's like no other. The chicken is juicy, firm, well-seasoned (but not too much) and greaseless (damn near,... More >>
• Best Hot Dog
  Angry Dog
  Considering that they named their restaurant for their hot dog, it had better be good, right? Well, it is good. Split in half and served open-face with mustard and piled high with chili, cooked onions and a heap of American cheese, the Angry Dog's Angry Dog is actually something that you'd... More >>
• Best Martini
  Terilli's Restaurant and Bar
  Martinis are clearly an acquired taste: You can pretty much expect to pay $6 to $10 just to acquire one of them. Even then, you have to get past their somewhat medicinal flavor, which in a badly made martini is something akin to rubbing alcohol. But if done right, they can be a cheap high... More >>
• Best Vegetarian Restaurant
  Food for Thought
  Meatless in Dallas is sacrilege; like letting your speedometer needle slip below 70 on the Tollway (55 mph is permissible only when pitching change into a toll basket). So vegetarian restaurants are few. Good ones are downright rare. That's why when seeking out meals void of elements that once... More >>
• Best Onion Rings
  Peggy Sue's BBQ
  Every morning, every day of the week, the onion ring guy in the kitchen at Peggy Sue's BBQ cuts the onions into rings, dips them in a special buttermilk sauce and batters them. Then all day he fries each order individually as it comes in from the waitstaff. The end product is the very best... More >>
• Best Greek Restaurant
  Ziziki's Restaurant & Bar
  Though it isn't strictly Greek--it's billed as "Mediterranean" with Greek and Italian influences--there are a number of Greek-bred standouts at Ziziki's. Lamb souvlaki, a tasty slew of juicy skewered meat medallions, is served in handmade pita bread with roasted new potatoes and sweet-onion... More >>
• Best Pizza
  Pastazio's
  Yes, we're Yankee enough to know what people are talking about when they utter the words "New York" and "pizza" in the same sentence. Thin crust. Big slices. Pizza expertise going back to the days when Uncle Dom came over on the boat. Dallas finally has someone from the old neighborhood making... More >>
• Best Place to Thai One On
  Thai Rose
  This strip-mall eatery off Marsh and Forest is deceptive; from the outside it looks like a vet's office, but inside it's as cozy as a down comforter in January (at least if you're willing to overlook the tiny television in the corner that always seems to be tuned to static). And, yeah, there... More >>
• Best Bloody Mary
  Tramontana
  The bar at Tramontana seems more of an afterthought, consisting of a few worn chairs interrupting a walkway to the back dining area, a modest liquor selection--hell, we're not even certain they have a bartender. Their version of the Bloody Mary, however, makes you exceedingly happy that a... More >>
• Best Cup of Coffee
  Bottomless Cup of Melvyn's Darn Good Coffee at Einstein Bros Bagels
  Face it: Anyone can singe a coffee bean until it smells like a car driven to Lufkin with the parking brake engaged. It takes deft to tease real coffee flavor out of those beans. Melvyn's does this by delivering piping-hot clean flavors that soothe as they flood the blood with those good old... More >>
• Best Barbecue
  Peggy Sue's BBQ
  Sweet and sour is the theme of the baby backs at this Park Cities establishment, which in 13 years has gathered enough adherents to be considered a barbecue shrine. On its ribs, Peggy Sue's smokes on a nice brown sugar crust, using all those mystical slow-cook methods that make good barbecue... More >>
• Best Samosa
  India Grocers
  We would venture that many Dallasites have never had the joy of a samosa (and no, it's not a Girl Scout cookie). Having only recently discovered them ourselves, we felt it our duty to spread the word, and with Texans' love of fried things, this Indian treat already has one point in its favor.... More >>
• Best Thai Restaurant
  Banana Leaf
  Banana Leaf, whose twin mottos are "the leaf that's delicious" and "to-go, or reservation," does all the staples--pad Thai, panang, satay, spring rolls--with skillful aplomb. But it also pinches you with less familiar but well-spiced creations such as waterfall beef (so molten it turns your... More >>
• Best Grocery Store Snack
  Salsa at Whole Foods Market
  Most people we see at Whole Foods are buying stuff, so we don't think anyone goes there just to snack on the free samples in the aisles. But around the pineapple-mango salsa bowl, sometimes you wonder. It doesn't stick around long. The unlikely combination of fresh fruit and heat/spice,... More >>
• Best Italian Restaurant
  Ferré Ristorante & Bar
  Parked in the West Village, where the tanned and tucked preen and leased BMWs breed like lab bunnies, Patrick Colombo's Ferré is an impeccably dressed Tuscan feedlot--razor-sharp. It's a collection of well-organized shapes and colors (amber mostly) with warming wood struts tempering... More >>
• Best Non-alcoholic Watering Hole
  Ifs Ands & Butts
  We've said it before and we'll say it again: Ifs Ands & Butts is the best place to wet your whistle without getting a buzz on. This shop sells specialty soda pop that you cannot find at the local grocery store, soda pop you've never heard of and soda pop your granddaddy used to buy you. We're... More >>
• Best Dessert
  Paris Vendôme
  There are a lot of bad apple tarts out there: sticky, dry, old and washed-out. It's gotten so it's hard to remember what the thing is supposed to taste (or look, or feel) like. Well, refresh your memories with Paris Vendôme's apple tart (not the only tart there, mind you) galette with... More >>
• Best Ice Cream
  Paciugo Gelato
  Just as the Magnolia (and before it the Angelika Film Center) has exponentially expanded the city's movie-going options, Paciugo Gelato, the "Italian Gelato Renaissance," has broadened the city's snacking horizons. Gelato is another word for ice cream, but Paciugo's gelato is no ordinary ice... More >>
• Best Bagel
  Bagel Chain
  We were going to give this to Einstein's, but something about handing out this accolade to a chain; readers do that enough anyway (fave burger in years past: Burger King; we kid you not). Besides, we love this venerable establishment, which is the Cheers of local bageltoriums; on any given... More >>
• Best Tomato Basil Soup
  Lucky's Café
  Some are flat, some are bilious, some rely mainly on salt for their flavor; Lucky's tomato soup is merely sublime. We've always thought good tomato soup should have nothing to do with low fat--the piquant tomato taste should be gently subdued, but not overpowered, by the smoothness of cream. A... More >>
• Best Takeout
  Eatzi's
  Hate to cook? Don't have time? Then Eatzi's is the place for you. This market and bakery offers chef-prepared meals for people on the go, and the variety is outstanding. Eatzi's offers everything from lasagna and Spanish rice to King Ranch chicken and twice-baked potatoes. Just heat and eat.... More >>
• Best Chocolate Chip Cookie
  JD's Chippery
  Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle, baked in the store with real butter, real eggs and real vanilla, these are real chocolate chip cookies the way you wish you remembered somebody baking them for you at home. The chocolate is either Guittard or Ghirardelli, and the experience is... More >>