If you don't lurch for this one, you'll certainly lurch afterward if you're still conscious. Hurricanes are terrifyingly furtive beverages, unleashing their rum pestilence long after you've removed your socks to keep your drink tally straight. But the Hurricane Grill multiplies this unseemly horror with the Category 5: a 45-ounce hurricane served on the rocks or frozen. They say it's designed for two or more, but we know that once the wind kicks in, it usually blows this rum jumble up one straw and into one mouth. This violent tropical quencher in pinkish fruity hues is enough to make your head hum like an old transformer. It's smooth, balanced and refreshing, so it coddles you while it messes with your brain cells, the ones you need for remembering your name and address for instance. Just pray there's an eye in this Category 5 so you can remember where the rest room is.

Younger sibling to Sol's Taco Lounge in Deep Ellum and older kin of the Sol's Cocina in Plano, this Mockingbird outpost bags brawny tacos, enchiladas, tostadas, tamales and burritos with lots of refried beans and tri-color chips to help chalk the entrées to your gullet. The food is always hot, ample, done up right and quick.

OK, so it might be a wholly unmonastic indulgence. But The Abbey Café's slow-roasted pork tenderloin is among the best kitchen devotions to the Babes and Arnold Ziffels of the world we've ever tasted. Two pieces of tender, juicy crown tenderloin are hit with stinging cayenne that spars with craggy chunks of coarsely cracked pepper. The meat is brilliantly paired with a cherry and jalapeño cranberry sauce that meshes well with the meat, creating an alluring harmonious tug between heat, restrained sweetness and tang. Go ahead. Eat it. It's been blessed by St. Gregory Peccary.

There's no cure for the summer--or winter, fall or spring--time blues like a few squares of fresh cornbread and a slab of chicken-fried steak smothered in peppered cream gravy. But don't forget the veggies: The mashed potatoes have skins, and the broccoli is steamed until tender. Everything's exactly like Ma makes it. Only Lucky's waitstaff won't make you clean your plate before chocolate cake is served.

The restaurant works hard for this honor. They throw parties every Monday. They serve breakfast almost all day. They even put ears on their pancakes. Given all they do--and the fact that Mom and Dad can get a decent, fresh-tasting meal--we think the eatery deserves credit as "cool, Mom."

Not only does Basha serve lots of garlicky hummus, roasted eggplant dip, tabbouleh, tangy labni (Middle Eastern cream cheese) made from house-made yogurt, falafel balls and great kabobs. It also serves up special dinners in a "tent room" where you can sit on a low couch and eat sans knives or forks, replacing them with pieces of just-baked saj bread to scoop up grub. Belly dancers even stroll in for a kind of vivacious, animated dessert, the kind you get when you put a dish of pudding on a coin-op motel bed.

The fish and chips at Hook, Line & Sinker aren't served in newspaper as they are across the pond, but these come close. The catfish (available in portions from one fillet to four or a whole fish) is served in a wax paper-lined basket with slender hush puppies and long, thin french fries. All three are spicy and so crispy and almost greaseless that the paper lining isn't really needed--except for sanitary reasons, of course. Hook, Line & Sinker may look like a bait shack, but it's got standards, and they're very high.

Chipotle rightly refers to its burritos as full gourmet meals wrapped in handy carrying cases. Dissect one before chowing down or study the spillage on the plate after a few bites, and you'll notice that ain't no cheap, boxed, Spanish rice hidden inside with the meats, vegetables and beans. Flavored with lime juice and tiny shreds of cilantro, the not-too-dry, not-too-sticky rice would be good as a side dish as well, though Chipotle wants to stick to serving only burritos, tacos and chips with salsa.

BLTs and grilled-cheese sandwiches are about neck and neck in the "hard to screw up" category, so it probably comes as no surprise that Jena's All Good Cafe does both well. But, as they say, God is in the details. While we'd never equate black peppered bacon, red leaf lettuce and Roma tomatoes with holiness, those ingredients make Jena's BLT as memorable as most other, more complicated sandwiches. And they're served with a pickle and cole slaw, to boot.

In the right hands, a chickpea can be a beautiful thing. In the wrong ones (say, most companies that mash 'em up, toss in some garlic and oil and sell them in tubs at grocery stores), they can be a sticky, bland mess akin to a slightly flavored wallpaper paste. Ali Baba adds just the right amount of garlic, tahini and olive oil, mixes until smooth and almost creamy and serves it in the middle of a plate full of hot, chewy triangles of nan. It's tasty enough for an entire meal without overwhelming the palate, but don't stop there. The other Syrian and Middle Eastern dishes are just as good.