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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 heavy meal.

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 milkshake with hooch, so you'll love it too. Just be careful not to confuse your shake with the one the kids are slurping, or you'll never get them to come down off the train tracks.

Best salsa

Mis Cazuelas

Taryn Walker
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 blend of herbs, tomatoes, and peppers.

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.

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.

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 the newcomers from the oldest part of the world.

Best exotic restaurant

Tei Tei Robata Bar

Beth Rankin
Behold, a pouch of tiny mushroom magic (not that kind of magic).
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, depending on the catch of the day, which may be sea urchin wrapped in sheets of raw flounder or whole sardines scorched on the robata grill, or any number of swimmy things. Beer-guzzling things too. Tei Tei features Kobe beef, meat that comes from the rare wagyu cattle. Wagyu cattle spend their lives getting massaged with sake and fed a diet that includes copious amounts of beer. The more expensive cuts of meat come from wagyu, which are known for watching sports on big-screen TVs, belching, and telling lewd Holstein jokes.

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 here are huge. A hearty eater is hard-pressed to get through, say, the No. 8--two beef enchiladas, one pork tamale with chili con carne, rice, beans covered with cheese, and the usual basket of chips--without expecting a little siesta back at the office. The solution: split. At $3 each, you and a friend can be well taken care of. Tax, tip, and Coke and you're out the door for $5 a head. Now that's cheap.

If you can keep your mind and your lunch plans open, you will certainly enjoy the gourmet goodness and styling of Monica Greene as she opens up her Mexican kitchen to power-lunchers looking for the best bargain in town. Five bucks can buy you hefty portions of enchiladas, tacos, and burritos, but don't look for traditional Tex-Mex here. We are talking about fare with flair, Mexican food prepared and presented with thought, delicacy, and whimsy--whatever that means. The noise level here gets way over the top, but what did you expect? This is Deep Ellum.

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 out the dust and flies. Flies apparently are as fond of a chilled glass of bone-dry sherry as anyone. Though why a Spaniard would prefer flies socializing on a slice of cured meat to drunk and sterilized in a glass of fino is anyone's guess. Anyway, you can relive this 19th century appetizer tradition at Caf Madrid. With a cozy dining room furnished with old wooden tables and chairs, Madrid's little plates are always fresh and intriguing, from chopped octopus salad to anchovy filets in garlic to chewy marinated quail. Caf Madrid has a broad Spanish wine list organized by regions and a splendid selection of sherries.

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 sauce, and it's heaped with these amazingly thin onion rings, and the sauce and the rings mix and meld into a splendid goop of their own making. What can we say? It's just a great piece of meat that's worth the bucks and the attitude.

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