Food & Drink

It must have taken some brass balls to open up a shop that sells nothing but pies at the tail end of the Great Recession, so if supporting the gumption of the lovely young ladies behind Emporium Pies isn't enough to get you in the door of their Victorian bungalow on Bishop Avenue, perhaps the "Smooth Operator" will. It has a silk chocolate filling and a pretzel crust that provides a delectable salty counterbalance to the sweet. Chocolate not your thing? How about the "Drunken Nut" — bourbon pecan with a shortbread crust? Or "Lord of the Pies," a deep-dish apple and cinnamon-streusel pie? If you're dining on Bishop, there is no finer postprandial delight than a made-from-scratch pie.

“I would like to do an in-your-face Texas concept,” Stephan Pyles said when he was interviewed in the Observer about the state of Dallas dining in 2010. “Maybe it’s a little Disneyland-like.” Pyles lamented the lack of “Texas” in local Texas cooking and suggested that Dallas chefs had gotten off track. As he spoke he was sowing the seeds for his latest restaurant, Stampede 66, which delivers Texas custom tailored to downtown Dallas with the volume turned up to 10. From the color-shifting lights and quirky artistic sculpture to the images of cowboys branding calves, and the wall-mounted longhorns, Stampede 66 is as in-your-mug as it gets. If there’s one restaurant to take an out of town guest to show them everything Dallas is about, Pyles’ latest creation is it.

Barbecue is a humble art, and there's something special about brisket procured from a barbecue shack on the side of the road. Trouble is, most of the ramshackle joints across Texas don't serve very good smoked meats — that is until Travis and Donna Mayes first fired up their brick smoker in 2009. They've been serving up exceptional barbecue in this modest, smoke-stained building ever since. And it's the best "shack" barbecue you'll find around. The menu is hand-painted on the brick exterior next to the take-out window, and parked cars compete with massive piles of wood for real estate. There's no pretension here, and there's no seating either. All you get is smoky, tender brisket, ribs that pull from the bone. The smoky understand that this is precisely how barbecue was meant to be experienced.

You're finally up to order at Lockhart and despite how much time you spent in line you still haven't figured out what you want to eat. So you ask the guy taking orders because he works here and his epic beard conveys a lot of authority about meat. He tells you that if you're going to try anything today it should be the special, turkey breast, and your first impulse is to think that's absurd — you came for barbecue, after all, and barbecued turkey just sounds like a waste of good sides. But you know it would be rude to not take his suggestion, and he still has that authority-commanding beard. And thank God you listened to him. After that first spicy, tangy, juicy bite and the decadent blue cheese coleslaw you can't believe that for a moment you doubted that guy or his beard.

Get it? Because you smoke barbecue slowly, and ... OK, you get it. Fortunately, the meat is even better than the innuendo, with brisket that can be falling-apart tender and smoky, great sausages and ribs, and daily specials that can be hit-or-miss but always creative. Also noteworthy for those who aren't solely focused on the meat, the sides — often an afterthought at great Texas barbecue joints — are outstanding: green-bean casserole that doesn't come from a can, dessert-like sweet potatoes and even hush puppies. The meat alone puts this place among Dallas' best barbecue restaurants, and the quality side dishes make it one of our favorite restaurants period. Huh huh, we said "period."

It looks like a hot dog, even though it's too long and too skinny. It smells like a hot dog too. But as soon as your teeth snap through the casing on a Post Oak Red Hot, you're bathed in endorphin rush that's transformative. It's as if all your childhood memories — the dog your old man bought you at your first baseball game, the wiener you grilled on a stick at camp — are simultaneously unlocked in your cerebellum to set off a hot dog euphoria. The link is a perfect example of pedestrian charcuterie, and creator Brian Luscher adorns it with handcrafted condiments that only enhance the magic. Spicy mustard, pickled peppers and cucumbers, onions and tomatoes are all nestled in a pillow-soft bun speckled with poppy seeds. The only rub is you have to hit the White Rock Farmer's Market to get one until Luscher's opens in East Dallas late this fall.

Something weird has been happening to burgers over the past few decades. They've gotten bigger, cheesier and more obnoxious, and for the most part, they aren't any better for it. Leave it to Off-Site Kitchen to counter the trend and return the burger to more restrained proportions. Yet they somehow keep the flavor turned up to 10. The meat clocks in at a respectable quarter-pound and is cooked with the care all burgers deserve. The finished product is rosy, juicy and less guilt-inducing than a burger that arrives the size of your head, so you can over indulge some of the best burger toppings you'll find. Try it "Murph Style" with roasted jalapeños, bacon relish, cheese and creamy sauce that will really stick to your ribs. It's a small burger, sure, but don't mistake it for health food.

Anywhere else the turkey burger is a second-stringer. It's what you choose because you're trying to be healthy, or because you just exercised and you don't want to feel guilty about really, really indulging yourself. So you skip the regular burger and go for the turkey. Not as rich, not as juicy, but at least it's leaner. But Goodfriends' Gobbler is not the healthy alternative (well, it is relative to the El Jefe burger with brisket and bacon). It's thick, it's greasy and it's juicy, and it's presumably lean but certainly doesn't taste like it. And you can't beat a menu with beer recommendations for every sandwich.

The people behind Subway and Jimmy John's should be strung up. They've reduced the greatest ingredient delivery system to a mere commodity. Lucky for you, East Hampton Sandwich Co. rights all wrongs. They may even take the humble sandwich to places it has never been before. You've likely had many chicken sandwiches, but East Hampton's version with tender roast chicken in a Meyer lemon vinaigrette opens up new dimensions of sandwich creativity. Bored with roast beef? Try a hot short-rib sandwich with oozing cheese and horseradish cream. Be careful. These East Hampton creations have a way of ruining you for the classics. And should you find yourself stuck with a commodity sandwich again, you'll be overwhelmed with sadness.

This year the sandwich crown goes not to some arugula-strewn, aioli-slathered bistro creation but to an honest-to-God, no-bullshit Italian sandwich. Jimmy's Food Store's hot Italian sausage sandwich will make a New York transplant feel, if only for a moment, like they've come home. It's loaded with Jimmy's ubiquitous Italian sausage, sweet peppers, onions, stringy gobs of mozzarella and a tangy marinara sauce, all just barely contained by flaky French bread. Be patient, because they make it all from scratch. You can watch, or browse aisles stocked with wine and pasta, and fridges and freezers filled with lobster ravioli and containers of an unbelievable creamy vodka sauce. Take the sandwich to go or pull up a chair inside the Wine Room past the meat counter. On the way out, do not forget the cannolis.

If flavors were sounds, the lemon in Marc Cassell's lobster roll would be the faintest whisper. The subtlety should be noted. In a city that has turned lobster rolls into a fetish, most restaurants create versions with way too much noise. Mayonnaise is often used in excess, or they're weighed down with butter. Sometimes the lobster meat comes in frozen. At 20 Feet, everything is as it should be. Lobsters are brought in live and steamed in batches before their shells are picked clean. The knuckles and tails get dressed in the tiniest bit of mayo brightened with lemon, and the simple salad gets tucked into a house-baked bun. That's it. That's the whole recipe. And that's why 20 Feet serves the best lobster roll in town.

It's hard to understand, if you haven't spent sufficient time (it doesn't take much) in Pennsylvania or New Jersey. The hoagie is more than a sandwich; it's a way of life. And once you've learned to love the hoag, its absence will cause a persistent and dull ache for the rest of your life. You'll miss things like shredded lettuce and high-quality cold cuts stuffed into a soft but chewy roll, and white butcher paper stained with oil and vinegar. Carbone's won't completely satiate your longing, but their Italian combo is very good methadone. They get their chewy bread from Padre Vecchio, a bakery out in Arlington, and they stuff it with some of the best cold cuts you can buy. The sopressata and hot coppa are from Molinari, a San Francisco company that's been hanging salamis since 1896, and the mortadella is made right behind the counter. You might as well be in Philly.

The exponential growth of Dallas' beer scene has added so many breweries to the city and surrounding area that it is really hard to narrow the contenders down to a single best. Even better, there's not a bad one in the bunch. Perhaps that's because navigating Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and city regulations is such a hassle that only the area's most dedicated beer makers graduate from homebrewing to doing it professionally. But Michael Peticolas' creations are especially great. Velvet Hammer is an outstanding imperial red ale that is as refreshing as it is potent. Royal Scandal is a multiple-award-winning English pale ale. And we could have lived on the dark and strong Wintervention, spiked with Christmasy spices from Pendery's just down the street. Not only are we yet to be disappointed by a Peticolas beer, we have yet to try one that we didn't absolutely love.

Tiny little Pasadita might be the smallest restaurant in Dallas. Ana Ortiz makes papusas in a postage stamp kitchen in the back of a convenience store on Carroll Street. This might not be exceptional but for the fact that Ortiz's pupusas are the very best in Dallas. For evidence, look at her curtido first. The lightly fermented cabbage slaw has a little extra crunch, when compared with other pupuserías. Then taste the salsa, which is often plain and runny but here boasts crunchy onions, fresh cilantro and big-time heat. Finally, check out of the chicharrón. The rich, shredded pork packs a whole pig's worth of flavor into a morsel not much bigger than a marble. Now combine all of this evidence in one massive bite. The salty pork, the crunchy cabbage, the melting cheese and the bright and spicy salsa — if you're not careful, one of the neurons in your pleasure center could burst.

The term pedestrian is often used to describe humble dishes. Burgers, wings and sandwiches are all pedestrian foods. They are common, familiar and soothing. Too often, though, what is pedestrian often tastes stepped on. The ubiquitous snacks served at countless bars and restaurants are prepared carelessly with frozen ingredients. It was almost unthinkable that a bar would actually hire a chef and properly feed people instead of pandering to drunk customers who are thought to eat anything. When Ten Bells Tavern announced Carlos Mancera would be manning the kitchen of this Oak Cliff gastropub, it was a revelation that turned out to be worthy of extended celebration. Who knew the blue cheese served with wings could actually be a desirable condiment, or more shockingly, that brunch didn't have to suck? Bar food menus in Dallas have been given notice. Change is in the air.

You'd given up on them, hadn't you? Chicken tacos are dry, mealy and miserable — the absolute bottom of the taco echelon and suitable only for the drunkest of drunk food. Steady yourself. El Taco del Rincon de Villa is a small taco house on Greenville Avenue, and its chicken tacos will completely revive the genre for you. Tinga de pollo is your new go-to taco order. Grab several and wait for chicken meat stewed till it falls apart with a slightly spicy, slightly smoky sauce. Even better, they're tucked into tortillas that are made right there. They're soft and pliable and ready to receive all the salsa you can handle. This is anything but yet another chicken taco. It's your go-to lunch.

Suaqueso, like Texarkana, is what happens when you run out of names for things and just start squishing words together. Fortunately, suadero and queso are extremely complementary. Not only do the words have a nice ring when assembled, but the ingredients they describe taste delicious in tandem too. Picture the best quesadilla you've ever had and then throw that thought straight in the garbage. Suaqueso is going to give you a whole new perspective. Suaqueso pairs an obscene amount of oozing, melted cheese with bits of beef that have been braised until they're tender before they're crisped up on a flat grill. The best part is the suaqueso provides another excuse to indulge La Banqueta's green sauce. And since the suaquesos are much larger than the tacos, you get to use more of it.

If you've had enough of ceviche swimming in a saucy concoction with too many embellishments, you should get to Joyce and Gigi's soon. It may be the only place in Dallas where you can get such a hefty portion of Chilean sea bass treated so respectfully. The rich, firm-fleshed fish is perfect for this preparation, and the appetizer is a great opening act for larger, heavier dishes. The kitchen treats the fish to a bath of apple cider vinegar, which firms up the flesh. Tiny currants and fennel lend sweetness and red onions offer texture and pungency. Then there's the crunchy snap of plantains shredded into strings and fried till they're crisp — they make the dish seem almost celebratory. Order a crisp lager and tear in with a friend. This ceviche deserves to be shared, even though you'll want each and every bite for yourself.

They're almost insufferable with their coffee nerdery at Ascension Coffee. They even admit on their website: "We are fanatics!" You'll almost want to smack them till you have a sip of pour-over brew expecting it to taste like your coffee at home. Now you're in trouble. Now you're talking about single-origin beans, water ratios and extraction times. You better figure out how to upgrade your home-brew process or you'll be on the hook for $5 cups of java the rest of your life. Except you'll never pull it off. There's something special that happens when a true coffee nerd makes hundreds of cups of coffee a day under the exacting specifications of an ownership devoted to quality and consistency — they get really, really good at it.

What in God's name happened to the martini? You remember James Bond? It wasn't long ago that your only choice was gin or vodka and whether you wanted it shaken or stirred. If you were in a fancy place you might have had the choice between an olive, an onion or a twist of citrus peel. Now martinis come in more flavors than bubble gum and taste about the same. Thankfully, Louie's has continued to offer martinis that would keep 007 happy, and they're served up by one of Dallas' best no-bullshit bartenders. Louie sugarcoats nothing. If you're wrong about something he'll politely correct you, and since he's a walking Encyclopedia Britannica it can happen often. You might do your homework here if you need some good fact-checking, but the martinis are so strong you'll lose your motivation. It's just as well. You're in a fine bar, and deadlines are as malleable as your brain on vodka.

If you've been to any other Babe's but the original, you're going to need to start all over. They're all great, sure, but the Roanoke location is exceptional. It's not just the customers waiting out front, drinking beer while they wait on a table (though that's not a bad thing). It's the that this particular location boasts unparalleled specialization. When you finally get your seat you're faced with a seemingly dire decision. "You want chicken-fried steak or chicken," your waitress will bark. And while you will undoubtedly want both, the right choice is chicken-fried steak. They're both delicious because this kitchen turns out the same two dishes over and over again, but the chicken-fried steak is an order of magnitude better because it comes with gravy served on the side, so the crust doesn't get soggy.

Sushi Sake dwells in the house that uni built. After a solid run in a Richardson strip mall, the popular sushi restaurant moved to a large standalone building that's become a temple to raw fish. You're more than welcome to come and order all the spicy tuna rolls you can fit in your belly, but you'd be doing yourself a major disservice — there are amazing cuts of fish here. And they're all prepared with an old-school flare that pays homage to sushi tradition. Just look at the place, with its Japanese architecture, low-slung tables and dim lighting. Drink enough Japanese beer and you could picture yourself on some strange island in the Pacific. Confidently sit at the bar and cast your menu aside. Instead, ask your sushi chef what came in today. Your sushi expectations will never be the same.

What does it take to have a nationally recognized restaurant scene? A collection of restaurants that offers something you can't get elsewhere. Dallas needs more chefs and restaurateurs who are willing to sculpt the local dining scene and take it in a new direction. Chefs like Matt McCallister, who has shown he's willing to take some risks with his restaurant FT33 in an effort to innovate and differentiate from a culinary landscape that is often bland. There's beef at his restaurant, but no steak (and surely no steak sauce), and dishes combine innovation with time-tested techniques. The results are plates that are both satiating and exciting, and they break far away from what Dallasites typically expect to be served for dinner. Considering the number of steak houses and Tex-Mex restaurants that thrive here, a few more chefs should follow McCallister's lead. Our culinary identity would be all the better for it.

Rich, dark, strong, sweet and silky-smooth, imperial milk stout The Temptress embodies the best qualities of stouts and then doubles them. It's a 9.1-percent ABV dessert in a glass that implores you to savor the deep, luscious chocolate and caramel malts, the milkshake-thick body and the slight coffee-like bitterness at the finish. It's a complex beer, yet we see people who aren't normally craft-beer drinkers seduced by its charms at bars that are otherwise mostly devoid of craft-beer choices. Even better is the seasonal bourbon barrel-aged version, which adds toffee and vanilla notes.

There's so much more to Chinese food than orange chicken and beef with broccoli, and Royal Sichuan is the best restaurant in Dallas to get you out of that mold. Try the ma pao tofu if you want to get to know a new flavor that you won't find at many Chinese restaurants. It's packed with Sichuan peppercorns, which have a subtle, citrusy flavor that lights up your mouth with numbing electricity. Combined with the heat of other chiles, the effect is memorable, and it's just one of many new dishes to encounter here. The menu is massive, and you can indulge in a wide array of curiosities like sea cucumber along with simple dishes like cumin lamb. Even the mainstays you grew up on are available here, should you crave some sesame chicken, but it would be a shame to fall back on an old crutch with so many new things to try here.

If you're bored with casual, suburban Indian restaurants, you'd do well to check out Mughlai. Yes, it's still in a strip mall of sorts, but the similarity to other Indian restaurants stops right there. Inside, a spacious modern dining room is filled with diners and energy. Eating here is like a celebration. The more friends you bring, the more of the menu you'll get to explore. Dishes are served in copper karahis that are perfect for sharing, and you'll want to indulge as much of the menu as you can. You should order multiple curries and multiple breads and rice dishes for soaking up each of them. You can Kingfisher in rounds and lounge over a meal that feels like an event. You'll walk out stuffed to the gills and completely content, and you'll have a new understanding of Indian food.

If you're expecting red-check tablecloths, you should know that Café Urbano's Italian cooking is anything but traditional. This is the un-Italian Italian restaurant, and the dishes are all the better for it. You can get an amazing Bolognese if that's what you're craving, but there are other items on the menu that will challenge your perceptions of what dishes belong on an Italian restaurant's menu. Take the caprese s'mores, which turn a boring and clichéd dish into a fun, oozing grilled cheese sandwich. Or how about the mussels with the surprising addition of chorizo alongside the expected basil and garlic? There's a Hawaiian ceviche, which seems odd, but then a Caesar salad will assure you you're in an unforgettable and creative restaurant with deep Italian roots.

Good service is always important in the restaurant business, as customers take home memories of the staff they interact with just as often as they do the food. The relationships you build with a wait staff or a chef are what keep a customer returning to a restaurant again and again. That's why if you step foot in Kyla Phomsavanh's East Dallas dining room, you'll likely be committing to more than one meal here. Not that there's anything wrong with coming back again and again to feast on stuffed chicken wings, sultry curries and other dishes prepared simply with fresh ingredients. As a bonus, Sakhuu is BYOB. There's no better place to bring a bottle of Belgian beer and devour spicy curry, and maybe even indulge some whiskey for dessert.

Everything about Stratos lets you know that you're in for something that is over the top. The building that holds the restaurant is massive and wrought iron gates painted in sky bird blue jump out from the white exterior walls. The website for the restaurant fills your office with festive music while you check out the menu, and there's just as many special events to choose from as there is food. The meat lovers' gyro is fitting considering the scale of the restaurant. Order one, and the resulting pile of gyro meat served on buttery bread will have you set for at least a day or two. Be careful how much food you commit too, though, because as the night wears on you might be forced to get up and move. The place is overrun with belly dancers and with DJs spinning until 2 a.m. Greeks know how to party. You should think about joining them.

Afrah may be one of the most well-known Middle Eastern restaurants in the Dallas area — a fact that can likely be attributed to its origin as a sweets shop when it first opened in Richardson. The restaurant that followed, though, is anything but a run-of-the-mill kebab house. The breads are freshly baked on-site and arrive warn and soft, while skewered meats come out charred and blackened in spots, yet remain juicy and tender. During lunch, there's a buffet where you can eat tabouleh and hummus till your stomach pops, along with most of the rest of the menu. And the best part about Afrah is they never gave up on those sweets, and have only added to them. How many Middle Eastern restaurants do you know that will serve gelato along with baklava after your meal?

Consider Il Cane Rosso a pizza dynasty. Not even Jay Jerrier himself could top his original creation. His newest pizza shop in Oak Cliff does its best to bring a slice of New York to Oak Cliff, but Zoli's still can't top the carefully prepared Neapolitan pies Jerrier built his name on. The pizzas at Cane Rosso are light, soft-crusted and don't go down like a 12-inch round of lead. Now with two locations serving up pies certified by the Vera Pizza Napoletana, Cane Rosso brings a taste of Naples to Dallas in a casual, relaxed atmosphere that's as good for a laid-back date as it is for a family dinner with the kids or catching up with your friends over some beers.

Unfortunately for Dallas there aren't a lot of provincial foods that locals can hang their hats on. There's good food, sure, but not much we can call our own. Except brisket tacos, which are said to have been created at Mia's Tex-Mex before taking over the Tex-Mex world. Regardless of origin, they're done nowhere better than Manny's in Uptown, where the peppers have a little extra crunch, the beef is more flavorful and the bowl of dipping gravy is as big as they come. If brisket tacos aren't your thing (shame on you), there's still plenty to keep you well fed. This is Tex-Mex after all, and enchiladas, tacos, beans and fajitas are all promised in endless combinations here.

You wish you had a restaurant like Jonathon's in your neighborhood. Unless, of course, you live in Oak Cliff, and then you're thankful to have a restaurant like Jonathon's in your neighborhood. (The rest of us hate you.) Jonathon and Christine Erdeljac have turned a tiny house on Beckley Avenue into a staple for neighborhood locals, who now see a sizable wait for a table during brunch on the weekends. That's why you should come to Jonathon's during the week for breakfast. You'll get nearly the same menu, with none of the hassle. Bring your paper and grab a seat at the bar and order up a couple of eggs, with two sides and toast. This is how breakfast used to always be. And if you're not a classicist, you can always go with the danger dogs. Sausages battered in pancake batter are difficult to eat without a smile.

The best way to assure you'll get good fried chicken is to order it from a place that does little else. Henderson on Abrams Road is just this type of takeout chicken joint. The menu may look large, but it really just offers an endless array of chicken parts, assembled in two-piece, three-piece and other-piece combinations. While rookie fry shacks serve up chicken with greasy crusts that drip with oil before they slough off with one bite, the chicken at Henderson has integrity. The skin stays attached to the meat until your teeth say it's time to let go, and it's rich but not excessively greasy. Make sure you get some of the pickled whole jalapeños. Prick one with a fork and squeeze the vinegary brine that's inside all over your cardboard basket full of golden brown deliciousness. There's no better condiment for fried.

With the craft beer movement exploding in Dallas, your options are bubbling up like the head on a farmhouse saison. Of course you're having a hard time choosing your beer, which is why you should make haste to Craft and Growler in Fair Park. Husband and wife owners Kevin Afghani and Catherine Kinslow are here to make sure you end up with your perfect brew, and finding your match is half the fun. Just 10 bucks gets you access to four different beers, and each of the glasses is a generous pour. The 30-tap dispensing system behind the bar is your gateway into a world of Texas beers, and they always seem to have the latest, greatest brew that your beer nerd friends are buzzing about. When you find one you like, grab a growler from the wall and take the object of your affection home. If only dating were this easy.

Every popular taquería has a most celebrated taco. There's always a filling they pull off with a little more flair than their taco-making counterparts. But when Los Torres Taquería opened and offered several noteworthy taco types, something special happened. Your order will be larger than you're used to here, and there's little you can do about it. How can one choose between birria and barbacoa roja? The first is soft and tender goat meat, flavored gently with cinnamon and clove and kissed lightly with chiles for heat. The barbacoa is more aggressive. The abundance of dried chiles lends a rusty red color and the subtle suggestion of smoke, while the meat has been cooked down into tender threads that could only belong in a tortilla. It tastes so much like home cooking you might feel like you're eating in someone's home. You almost are. Los Torres Taquería is a family business, and Mrs. Torres is patting fresh tortillas in the kitchen.

It's a hike from Dallas, but it's worth the trip to find what is undoubtedly the best vegetarian restaurant in the area. Chennai's dals, vegetable curries and chutneys are delicious, and their South Indian menu promises an almost endless array of vegetarian choices. Don't miss the masala dosa. It's stuffed with potatoes, onions and cashews, yellowed with turmeric and flavored with mustard seeds. The crepe is big enough to cover your table and it's incredibly cheap. The uthappam, idli and other breads are affordable too, and they won't send you home hungry. The best value is the thali, which provides no fewer than 10 vegetarian dishes and a massive bowl of rice to soak them up. And because every vegetarian friend has at least one carnivorous friend there are curries made with meat that are outstanding here. Everyone is happy at Chennai — especially your belly. Besides, you were never going to convert your friend, anyway.

Mac and cheese is one of those dishes that is all over the map. There are highbrow versions made with mascarpone and obscure aged cheese, and there are the versions we all grew up on that came out of a cardboard box. There are baked versions that will cause your heart to flutter and there are versions that will cause it to stop. Nearly every mac and cheese rendition made is at least satisfying, but when the variables of texture, flavor and the crucial cheesiness all reach their respective pinnacles in unison, the resultant dish can make a person emotional. Pecan Lodge offers such a mac and cheese and after you wait in line for an hour for the cup of golden sunshine, your first bite will bring tears to your eyes. Thick, cheesy, lactose-laden tears, because you've just realized you should have gotten a second order and the line is now twice as long.

The shame of bad drive-thru starts with the heavy sack. Sometimes it's a plastic bag that's dense in the center like a full diaper. Start is not baby dump. Someone has finally figured out a way to make drive-thru food not shitty. It's this place called Start, and the food isn't all quinoa troughs and garbanzo bean tubs. You can get an honest-to-goodness burger. And tater tots. And sweet-potato tater tots. Here's a plus, and we can't believe we're saying this, they actually have a good veggie burger. It's rich, faux-meaty and loaded with fresh avocado. Fresh, from-scratch and made-to-order: That's drive-thru that doesn't suck. Oh, and the staff sometimes wears cool hats.

There are so many seafood restaurants in Dallas, and a lot of them are very good, but if you were looking for a fine dining experience built on ingredients from the sea, you were out of luck until Spoon Bar and Kitchen opened. John Tesar's Preston Center dining room is sleek and cool, and the plates that grace his tables respectfully showcase some amazing ingredients. Oysters are shucked with such care they appear as if their top shells had just vanished, and fish is treated cautiously, with embellishments that never overpower the subtle flavor of the sea. While some chefs in Dallas have the gall to chicken-fry their lobsters, Tesar gently poaches his crustaceans in butter so the meat is soft, rich and tender. Spoon serves up dishes with the elegance seafood this good deserves.

Since when did the steakhouse become the domain of freshly polished Bentleys, sky-high heels and ... is that a caviar bar? Not everyone can drop a Benjamin when they want a seared hunk of beef, and sometimes you just want to sit in a dark, old-school meat den without waiting for your date to get a mani-pedi. Enter Dunston's, the steakhouse for the rest of us, where the meat is cooked over mesquite, the waitresses have sass and the walls have so much history. You should order a prime strip steak rare (the cooks are heavy-handed) and sip on a cold beer while you bathe in the smell of smoldering wood. When your steak arrives, revel in the papery crispness of the fat and the deep, smoky flavor that eludes most other steakhouses. Then ask for your check and grin — your whole meal set you back 33 bucks.

Salads do not have to comprise wilted iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots with the moisture of toothpicks and dressing weighed down with xanthan gum. Yes, some of them can be bright and refreshing. Take the papaya salad popularized in Vietnamese cooking. It's loaded with crunchy fruit, the bright acidity of lime juice and the funky pungency of fish sauce. Mot Hai Ba's take on the classic salad decimates your favorite corner takeout spot. Not only are the central ingredients brighter and snappier, but also an addition of beef jerky adds extra texture and flavor. It's kind of like bacon bits except they don't taste like sodium nitrate and dextrose — they taste like beef and delicious. And they help make this one of the best salads, papaya or otherwise, you've encountered in awhile.

If frozen margaritas are your thing, Mariano's is where you want to be. Owner Mariano Martinez invented the drink, after all, so he should know a thing or two about its construction. Behind the bar, four frozen margarita machines spin like race car wheels, hypnotizing you while whipping frozen tequila and sugar into a velvety froth. Served in a pint glass, Mariano's margarita does not mess around. Drink one and the chile peppers on your plate will start to dance around. Drink two and you'll be the one dancing around until the inevitable sugar crash finally brings you down. When you awake you'll be left with hazy memories of the Tex-Mex meal you previously enjoyed, and you will not be hungry.

Ice-cold beer and a big basket of crisp potato chips scrambled with nuggets of blue cheese, indoors in the A.C. or up on the roof in front of the giant-screen TV: You've never felt this good this close to Baylor Hospital. It all works. Salty chips, savory cheese, washed down with beer. Why don't we have this stuff for breakfast? Stackhouse is a hangout for the scrub-suit set from the hospital, with a growing clientele from the whole Bayloresque region near East Dallas. Remember: When you order the chips and dip, you do have to ask them to add "bleu" cheese, pronounced bluh. Yeah, so, no place is perfect.

There's really only one thing to know about onion rings. Fresh? Or frozen? At Peggy Sue they slice their own fresh onions, batter them up and deep fry them right there in the kitchen, so they taste like sliced battered deep-fried onions instead of chemically enhanced Mylar. Everything at Peggy Sue is pretty much that way. The onion rings stand out, maybe because a good onion ring is such a hard thing to find in this world. Those fake ones must be a whole lot easier to do. That's not what they do at Peggy Sue.

Captain Keith Schlabs, Meddlesome Moth partner and beer guru, precedes the craft-brew revolution. His Flying Saucer was serving up the best beers available in the area before "craft brew" or even the now antiquated-sounding "microbrew" were terms that merited USA Today trend pieces. Flying Saucer, which has blossomed into a formidable chain of franchises in the South, may have more mind-boggling arrays of taps, but the Moth is where you'll most often find Schlabs' most prized trophy brews: cellar-aged kegs, special one-off casks and rarities otherwise difficult or impossible to find in North Texas. Better yet, chef David McMillan's culinary creations are made with beer pairings in mind, helping prove that beer is just as good (well, better, if you ask us) as wine when it comes to elevating a great meal.

A good brunch is a balancing act that has to take a variety of things into account. There’s more involved than just sweet and savory, though these elements are of the highest importance. A good brunch has to cure a hangover while keeping things a little fruity and wholesome. It also has to appeal to the church crowd while being rich and fiery. Bread Winners can straddle all of those at the same time — for example, with the Tabasco hollandaise on the Southern Benedict or the hot sauce and maple syrup on the fried chicken and waffles. Or the Carmen’s French Toast — cinnamon raisin bread topped with fruit — with an added side of jalapeño bacon. Bread Winners has the balance you need in a successful Sunday brunch: the healthy and nutritious parts of breakfast with all the lingering sinfulness from the night before.

It is an unlikely place for an eatery of any sort, but if you were going to pick a restaurant to open up on this little strand at the end of Lake June Road, it would probably be a taco place. Lucky for you, Barbacoa Estilo Hidalgo isn't just any taco restaurant, but a really good one. They likely make the best barbacoa in all of Dallas, and they pack it into handmade tortillas. Owner Raymundo Sanchez roasts lamb down to shreds on the weekends for breakfast and lunch. During the week his restaurant is closed. That's just as well because the food here was designed to destroy your worst hangover. The lamb roasts in a special oven, suspended over a bed of chickpeas. What collects in a pan at the bottom is the most restorative soup you'll ever encounter. Come with friends and say goodbye to last night's margarita haze. Everything is all right now.

The term "mom and pop" is as overused as the word "hipster." It's heaped on every restaurant that's not a Chili's or a Cheesecake Factory. Mom and pop should indicate an actual set of parents is at the heart of the business. It should be reserved for family-owned restaurants, like Los Torres Taquería in Oak Cliff, where Ramiro Torres, wife Irene and her sister Evangelina wait to deliver bliss tucked in a tortilla. Even their children are there, more often then not. And you wish you grew up with cooking like this. There is succulent goat spiced with cloves and cinnamon and rich barbacoa made not just with beef, but pork too. And if you request it, they'll make your tortillas by hand, to order. Step up to the salsa bar and choose your ammunition. Your hunger never stood a chance.

This upscale Design District restaurant isn't new to winning awards or earning "best" nods for its cuisine in these pages or in other publications. Last year, Oak walked away with Best New Restaurant and Best Chef awards from us, and for good reason. We've yet to be let down when dining there. The menu at Oak is constantly changing, especially since its recent chef transition, but throughout the turmoil one thing has remained: the Ligurian Caesar salad. Oak takes the on-every-menu salad and turns it into a refreshing, modern nosh. The Caesar comes served with a hunk of hand-torn crouton, Parmigiano-Reggiano and mint pesto, and once that crouton soaks up some of the dressing, it's ever so heavenly.

Chances are that while sifting through the bar menu at Truluck's (which is half off during happy hour) you'll feel like a kid in an alcoholic version of a candy shop. The menu is filled with drinks ranging from savory to sweet, among them the tiramisu martini made with Vincent Van Gogh double espresso vodka and walnut liqueur, the Red Door with vodka, St. Germaine and fresh raspberries or the Dinner Martini made with Belvedere Intense vodka and served with a few blue-cheese-stuffed olives. While picking one can be hard, there's one cocktail in particular that stands out: the lychee martini. The sweet and perfume-like taste of the lychee pairs perfectly with vanilla-flavored vodka and Chambord. We've ordered the Asian fruit cocktail all over Dallas, but haven't been able to find anywhere that shakes and pours it up better than Truluck's.

The restaurant formerly known as Thai Express received an upgrade of sorts when it moved from its strip-shopping-center location on Inwood Road to the new spot on Oak Lawn Avenue (underneath the offices at 3300 Oak Lawn Ave.) and re-branded itself as "Si Lom Thai Asian Fusion" in late 2012. While the menu offers a variety of scrumptious options, from curries, salads and noodles to the amazing pineapple fried rice and Thai classics like pad Thai, it's the tom kha soup that keeps us coming back time and time again. Si Lom's take on the lemon grass soup is made with coconut milk, cilantro, green onions, juicy hunks of tomato, straw mushrooms and a choice of chicken or shrimp. It comes served in individual portions or as huge, sharable platters, and diners are given a heat index to choose from. We recommend ordering the large and asking for it "hot."

Do yourself a series of favors. First, go to brunch at Sundown. After you've pounded your requisite (and delicious) mimosas and bloody marys, take a look around. You'll see the same dish ferried to most every table: Sundown's insanely delicious, heavenly choir-inspiring eggs Benedict. You will want to order them. Quickly. They'll come with Shiner brisket for the meat eaters, sautéed spinach and mushrooms for the herbivores, barbecue hollandaise and sweet-potato hash for everybody. They taste like drunk sunshine. The sight of that perfect golden yolk running across the plate is enough to inspire goodwill toward your fellow man, always important when you're at brunch surrounded by 200 people drinking just as many mimosas as you are.

Tacos Y Mas gets most things right. Every taco offered there is delicious, naturally, as are the queso, the guacamole and the chips, all of which they turn out from a tiny kitchen wedged between a car wash and a Walgreens. But the bombero salsa is, truly, their crowning achievement. The adobe-brown concoction is house-made, never watery and goddamn hot. It’s also got just the right hint of tomato and onion to make it flavorful, without overdoing them so much that it turns into some gringo-ish salsa fresca bullshit. Enjoy the sweet sounds of some dude blasting his stereo as he soaps his 1992 Camry and get yours.

Five years into the tradition, The Libertine Bar's annual July 4 celebration of gluttony, excess and cheap processed meat — all the things that make America great — is getting better and better without changing a thing. The prizes are fairly lucrative by local eating-contest standards, offering gift certificates of $100 and $50 for first and second place and $25 in quarters to third. That's enough to lure in professional gurgitator "Nasty" Nate Biller, who easily won in 2013 with 26 corn dogs downed in 20 minutes. But the real draw is the crowd of drunken smartasses on both sides of the contest table, shouting hilariously as men and women do their best not to reverse, all soundtracked by over-the-top patriotic jams played at top volume. For those seeking masticating glory, it's the longest and best 20 minutes of the year.

Few things can make us drive north of the George Bush Turnpike other than a trek to H Mart. This Asian-inspired grocery store opened its first location in Queens in the early 1980s and has since expanded across North America and even opened a location in Carrollton. According to its website, H Mart is short for "Han Ah Reum" or "One Arm Full of Groceries," but chances are you'll leave the department-store-sized Carrollton location (the spot used to house a Mervyn's) with a cart full of loot. H Mart is home to some of the freshest (and reasonably priced) fresh produce in town, a meat market section stocked with meats you would expect at a typical grocer, and tanks filled with live seafood we'd never seen outside of the Discovery Channel or Food Network. The market also offers some less conventional fare, from kimchi and seaweed to quail eggs and dragon fruit. There's also a section of household appliances and gadgets and the most impressive sake selection in town.

Deep Ellum Brewing Co. founder John Reardon was ahead of the craft-beer curve in Dallas, creating the first in a wave of new breweries in the city limits of Big D. With his new venture, he and DEBC event planner Zack Fickey are once again reading the hop leaves to foresee the future of craft beer. Canned beer is becoming respectable and even preferred in some cases for the kind of earth-conscious brewers and consumers responsible for the craft-beer business boom. Cans are lighter and have less of a carbon footprint; they are more portable; and they preserve beer better by keeping out the damaging sunlight and oxygen that can leak into bottles. But rather than simply buy a canning line for DEBC, Reardon and Fickey created a new venture, a mobile canning service that can serve their own brewery as well as other small breweries popping up around town such as Denton's Armadillo Ale Works. We raise a can (and then shotgun it) to the North Texas brewing community working together.

That old problem: Which sounds better, an order of queso, some quesadillas or a plate of nachos? If you can't figure out which Tex-Mex appetizer you'd like to munch on with your first margarita after a chaotic day at the office, Ojeda's has you covered. The botanas platter has every cheese-filled and fried finger food imaginable; a pile of nachos, a few chicken flautas, some amazing stuffed jalapeños, traditional chicken quesadillas, a cup of chile con queso and a scoop of guacamole — all served on one large plate. For $15 you can provide appetizers for happy hour with friends or the entire family, or simply make a meal out of it, but we don't recommend the latter unless you're training for a professional eating competition.

We've tried pretty much every variation of taco salad offered from East Dallas to Oak Cliff, and if you want a fresh and affordable take on the traditional "healthy option" while eating at a Tex-Mex joint, then this one wins our vote for a much tastier option without the temptation of that fried outer shell. Rather than a pile of iceberg lettuce inside of a grease-laden flour or corn tortilla bowl, Mia's salad is served with finely shredded greens in a wide glass bowl with the "taco" meat served in a small tortilla. For less than $8, diners get a choice of seasoned ground beef or tender shredded chicken on top of fresh lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and cheese. The salad comes served with a house-made spicy blue cheese or your pick of a variety of other dressing options. But if we're counting calories, we prefer dousing it in Mia's salsa.

Nachos can come loaded with everything from ground beef, veggies, chicken, brisket, lobster, beans and even pulled pork smothered in barbecue sauce, but there's one ingredient that is integral to the delicious appetizer from menu to menu: cheese. So, how can the nachos from vegan restaurant and bakery Spiral Diner be the best in town (FYI for all you carnivores, vegan = no dairy)? If you put your skepticism aside you'll discover that the mound of chips covered in cashew and bell pepper "cheese" spread, quinoa, black beans, black olives, tomato, green onion, corn and cilantro comes together deliciously and satisfies even the most intense nacho craving, sans the greasy "I just ate a brick of cheese" feeling.

Jack Perkins' spot is known for its slabs of cow. Seared to a crisp in that old diner style, the meat's crust always has that excellent crunch. It's a damn good burger, one of Dallas' best. Their BLT (that's bacon, lettuce and tomato, of course), however, is Gladiator good. The bacon comes crispy and thick, with that perfect salt balance with the creamy mayo. The best part: This isn't one of those sandwiches that falls apart instantly. The bread, slightly toasted and buttery, holds every shard of bacon. For a good time, ask for extra bacon.

The equation is perfect. Take the Foundry's patio, add the wooden stools firmly placed in the gravel, add some hair of the dog and multiply that by a biscuit sandwich the size of Giada De Laurentis' head. On the other side of the equation? A future nap and a dead hangover. Go for the restaurant's namesake sandwiches: The Foundry has fried chicken, collard greens, an over-easy egg and Tejano red sauce. You may need a cab ride home or a neck pillow to finish this sucker.

Ditch Jack and the Box. Their deep-fried tacos are a cult favorite, but they're trash compared with these crispy gems. Food snobs turn away; these are not real taquería tacos. They come with heavy shredded cheddar, iceberg lettuce and diced lipstick red tomatoes. The cook uses toothpicks to keep the tortillas together when they're fried. Pour some green salsa onto the spicy beef (or pulled chicken) and you get a guilty pleasure that'll guarantee a second order.

Something about The Cedars Social is perfect. It may have something to do with the fire pits with the polished rocks, the late-night oysters, brioche-bun burgers and succinctly astounding cocktails. No, hang on. That’s not it. No. The Cedars Social is awesome because it has somehow managed to completely own a Secret Agent/007 theme. The menu comes out like a “for your eyes only” dossier. Come on, what’s not fun about that? Did we mention late-night oysters?

You walk into Smyth, and you're immediately transported. Not to an island in the Caribbean, or Fiji, but to a plane. You're on the second floor of James Bond's private jet. There are only a few seats, but the way Smyth is carpeted and decorated it's a certainty you're in a deleted scene from Dr. No. Here's why it's great: There's no giant, weird wooden menu. No menus at all actually, so you can just pretend you can afford everything. You just tell them what you like, and they make you a great cocktail. Somehow, even though you might order a cocktail that they finish with the smoke from a lit match, it ends up being not pretentious. It's simple and good.

There simply isn't enough room here for the philosophical discussion necessary to suss out when, in the process of garnishment, a bloody mary ceases to be a bloody mary. At what point does it become something else entirely? Perhaps the mixologist (chef?) who concocted "Fuck Brunch" can better answer this question. All you need to know is that when you order this "bloody mary" for Sunday brunch, you need not order anything else. Its "garnishes" include a bacon-and-cheddar slider, an artisanal cheese, some meat (maybe a Slim Jim, maybe not), asparagus, green beans, a pickle, shrimp, Brussels sprouts ... truly, the list goes on and is subject to Anvil's whims. But it will all, somehow, fit inside a big-ass mason jar. Yes, Fuck Brunch.

Beer dinners are becoming a staple of the Dallas dining scene, proving that craft beers can complement fine food just as capably as wine. One of the great things about beer is that it's so much less expensive than wine — you can get 750-ml bottles of some of the world's best beers for less than $20 apiece. But beer dinners typically start at around $50, and with exceptional food and ales they can approach the $100 mark, undermining beer's place as the common man's drink of choice. The $29 four-course meal, available Mondays at The Common Table, somehow manages to offer new creative and tasty food pairings each week with their perfect bubbly mates, without putting the meal out of reach for the working man.

Lebanese club music throbbed through air tinged with hookah smoke. A comely and curvaceous belly dancer writhed through the restaurant, finger cymbals ringing to the beat of the music. Diners took in this sumptuous visual delicacy as waitstaff brought platter after platter of tender lamb, chicken and steaming rice. They brought bowl after bowl of hummus and olives and creamy baba ghanoush. Once sated, the diners on a recent evening, many of them Indian, danced alternately in their own cultural way and in the booty-shaking style found in any club. And in a way, it was fitting. At Al-Amir, it's a taste of something familiar or something exotic, delivered — from the valets to the restroom attendant bearing a selection of cologne — in a very Dallas way.

Sometimes, in spite of the advice of doctors, we don't want to eat kale and sustainably caught salmon. Sometimes the only food that can fill our souls (and our arteries, with congestive levels of cholesterol) is served by the greasy spoon. Norma's Café has chicken-fried steak swimming in cream gravy. They've got fried catfish, pot roast, chicken pot pie and sweet tea to wash it down — the stuff Mom used to make, if you grew up in the South. Their Mile-High Cream Pie is the stuff of diabetic dreams. What's more, it's served to you by the kindliest, most matronly women. They're the kind of ladies who call you "sweetie." We swear, "being grandmotherly" must be one of the chief qualifications for becoming a waitress at Norma's.

On the list of foods destined for artisanal rebirth, ice pops would seem to hover in the vicinity of fish sticks. But John Doumas, with the stand converted from a VW bus, has managed to lift the humble popsicle into the quasi-foodie realm. We say "quasi" because Doumas' take on the frozen treats, which include flavors like cucumber lemon mint, coconut lime and apple rose, appeal to palates both sophisticated and young and sugar-crazed. Except for the Noble Coyote cold-brew coffee. The kids tend to steer clear of that one. Thank God.

It doesn't matter which one you order. Every flatbread at Bolsa is a flavorful and delicious dish that's great for splitting as an appetizer during happy hour or scarfing as a main plate for dinner. The margherita flatbread with amazing smoked tomatoes and fresh basil makes for a safe, favorite starter for any pizza — er, well, flatbread-lover (we all know these crusty, salty bread and cheese things are just a thin-crust pizza, right?). And while the sausage and shishito pepper flatbread and the bacon and blue cheese one with charred pineapple and kale make our mouths water, our favorite is the "Twig & Branch" topped with wild arugula, caprino chevre and roasted grapes.

The North Dallas Chinese restaurant opened in 1974 and has since won "Best Chinese Food" several times for serving up some of the best food in town. And while most everything on the menu is worth a try, the xiao-long-bao or "soup dumplings" at Royal China especially deserve praise. The handmade morsels come in a handful of varieties. There's the pork, which they claim is their most popular dumpling, chicken, shrimp and vegetable. There's also a gluten-free dumpling which comes wrapped in a steamed napa cabbage leaf, for those with allergies.

There are two kinds of late night food in Dallas: the kind that you don't need alcohol to eat, and the kind that leaves you contemplating the faulty lock on your workplace bathroom stall come morning. Velvet Taco is very much the former. Get past the lengthy wait time and the "I'm paying how much for a single taco?" attitude, and you're well on your way to hangover splendor. Order the elotes — roasted corn in a spicy cream sauce with queso fresco — and tack on one or two of Velvet Taco's larger than life fish or Indian concoctions and you've already forgotten about the mandatory karaoke at your company Christmas party that night.

Brewery tours are strange. The name implies a guided exploration through the processes and equipment a brewery uses to produce beer, when in reality the tours provide little more than an excuse to consume it. Not that anyone is complaining. We could probably use a few more excuses. The best “tour” by far can be found at Lakewood Brewing Co. in Garland, where a $10 admission gets a generous four pours. Owner Wim Bens gives a blessedly short talk about the brewery, and then he lets his guests get back to what’s really important — drinking more beer. Most Saturdays there’s a food truck parked out back, and musicians fill the brewery floor with energy and music. There may be no finer place to sip from a glass of Hop Trapp or Rock Ryder. It certainly won’t get any fresher than this.

Really, it’s the only beer shot. Can you think of another in Dallas? But that isn’t the point! Combine two chilly draft favorites, Maredsous 8 and Ace Pear Cider, and you have the crispest, most refreshing beer combo since beer plus your mouth. They tout this mixture as “The Ginger Man Special,” a sweet and sour juncture that takes place on the tip of the tongue. Just be careful, because two of these and you’ll never know what hit you — or whom you hit.

To borrow a note from Jeffrey Tambor in Arrested Development, eating an ice cream sandwich should be a love affair. Indulgent, satisfying and sometimes weird. Bizarre even. And in combinations you wouldn't have dreamed of before the options were suddenly placed in front of you. And CoolHaus has more flavors of both cream and cookies than the Kama Sutra has ways to throw out your back — like olive oil gelato on butterscotch and potato chip cookies. Rice milk and cardamom sorbet on double chocolate sea salt cookies. Or brown butter ice cream filled with chunks of real cooked bacon on, why the hell not, vegan carrot cake cookies. The food truck lines at Klyde Warren Park can get fatally long on sunny summer days, but the blood orange sorbet on rosemary cookies are worth any sunburn. Also, all the sandwiches come in edible wrappers.

Cosmo's is a beautiful mystery. Right next door to one of Dallas' greatest dives (see Lakewood Landing), is a place that can pull off the terms "'80s" and "swank" in the same breath. The drinks are as strong as Terminator here, but are softened by whatever is happening in the kitchen. Their Vietnamese options are surprisingly top-notch. The swift crunch of their egg rolls is nice, but pales in comparison to the dishes they serve up on Banh Mi Mondays.

Here's the scene: You're saddled up to one of Elbow Room's two ancient pool tables and you're about to knock in that critical black ball when shots arrive at your table, ordered by the girl who thought that was a good idea. Clearly she's never had a shot at Elbow Room. At Elbow Room, shots come in squatty cocktail glasses, not shot glasses — that's because this bar serves shots so big they inspire yo-mama jokes. Order with caution if you had any plans of driving anywhere ever. And remember: Yo mama's so fat she thinks Elbow Room's shots are normal-sized shots.

Sitting high atop NYLO Dallas Southside, the city's coolest new boutique hotel, is a bar that either exists on South Lamar Street or is actually some kind of quantum wormhole that transports patrons to Miami. Let's review the evidence. At Soda Bar, there are lounge chairs surrounding an infinity pool that appears to extend out into an unbroken horizon; a bar ringed with some kind of softly glowing LED light; and billowing curtains, suggesting a Caribbean opulence. Where the South Florida spell ends is at the view. It's often said that Bar Belmont offers one of the finest views of the Dallas skyline. But have you seen it from the south side?

Mike and Connie Hale raise chickens on their farm in Campbell, but not just any chickens. These chickens are hormone-free, antibiotic-free and pastured. The Hales go so far as to house their organically fed ladies in moveable yurts. Yes, yurts. They even process the chickens on-site, which means if you have a question about a Windy Meadows product, Mike Hale can answer it for you because he raised it from beginning to end. For the Hales, it's about providing a quality product you can't find in a typical grocery store. Luckily for you, you can find their chicken, broth, sausage and more in small grocery stores, farmers markets and restaurants around Dallas.

Bars are always changing. The stools, fixtures and walls might stay the same for decades, but the customers shift like sand. The Windmill Lounge has served all types, but these days it's a drink-maker's bar. Charlie Papaceno is the bartender's bartender, and though he's not behind the wood every night, he's a fixture here too. Don't be high maintenance and ask him what he makes well, just tell him what you want and you'll end up with a well-made drink. Papaceno stays loyal to classic recipes when he should, but he also throws you a subtle twist to keep things new. While other mixologists twirl their mustaches while telling you about specially procured cloves for their next bitters recipe, Papaceno is a simple craftsman. You're damn right that maraschino cherry is handmade, but he'd never say so unless you asked him.

They lied to you. You don't have to be caught in the rain to enjoy a piña colada. You just have to make happy hour at a strip mall that shares parking with the Kroger in Denton. If you're ordering the piña colada at El Matador, you don't have to play the sacrifice game that often comes with icy, sugary drinks elsewhere: flavor versus alcohol. You get both here. The piña colada is blended so smoothly that you could mistake it for a milkshake ... but a milkshake with a very, very important kick.

One of the hardest things to do when you're sick is to put on pants. When your fever is skyrocketing, every second feels like baby beavers have formed a dam in the part of your body that allows happiness to flow. You just have to make it to Black Swan, where you will discover Gabe Sanchez's hot toddy, aka healing elixir, is worth the effort of getting dressed. Apply this lemon-, honey- and clove-infused bourbon to what ails you as you listen to the bartender's Vegas stories. (They're all good.)

Just listen: If it's between the hours of 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., stop reading this and do what we tell you: Go to Village Baking Co.'s retail shop on University just a half a block east Central Expressway, RIGHT NOW. Buy something. Keep doing this every day so this little shop stays open forever because, swear to God, Dallas, if Village Baking ever goes away, we will slap the entire city. OK, sorry to be overwrought there, but our jones for Village Baking's flour, yeast and water artistry makes us a little jumpy between hits of sourdough. Baking demigod Clint Cooper had been making bread for local restaurants, hotels and grocery outlets for nearly a decade before he opened up this retail outlet last year, churning out baguettes, kouign amman, brioche, croissants and specialty loaves so good they'd tempt an angel to gluttony. So, obviously, we never stood a chance. We're not saying we're addicted to Cooper's wares, but we do have a question: If he can legally sell his pain au chocolate, why is heroin illegal?

Three hours a day, seven days a week, you can get a $10 pizza and $3 beer and sit on a patio perfectly situated to watch the Beautiful People of the West Village stroll by. And these are great pies and great suds — you'd expect nothing less from the folks who brought you Eno's Pizza Tavern. Normally $14 or $15, 15-inch pizzas with toppings ranging from back bacon, pineapple and jalapeño to toasted pistachio and goat cheese to lamb are yours for a sawbuck. And if you find the sausage too spicy, it's easy to soothe the burn with select "fire sale" draft beers at $3. The deal lasts 3 to 6 p.m. daily, so you can unwind after work, get your Saturday night started early or consider it the afterparty to your Sunday brunch.

The Foundry, the bar adjoining the outstanding fried-yardbird restaurant Chicken Scratch, is the first watering hole we think of when we want to do some day drinking on a beautiful weekend or sit under the strings of globe lights in the evening cool. It's expansive, with plenty of seating at picnic tables that can hold large parties. Shipping containers shelter couches and tables that make it feel like you're having a house party in public. The outdoor stage, made of shipping pallets, is gorgeous, curved like a rough-hewn wooden standing wave, and the concert booking is pretty solid, too. But the best part is how inviting it feels. Oak Cliff regulars, visiting suburbanites or out-of-towners, kids and dogs are all equally welcome.

Our 2012 winner for best ice cream, Carnival Barker, is just now tottering back into business after a successful Kickstarter campaign that helped them acquire a pasteurization machine required by state regulators. Denied our fave during the prime ice-cream-eating months by the heavy hand of The Man, we fell back this summer on our old standby and previous Best of Dallas winner, Paciugo. Sure, it's a chain, but let's not hold Paciugo's success against them. They serve up a mighty fine Italian gelato concocted of fresh fruits and all-natural ingredients in array of crème brûlée to violet with every stop in between. It's lightly sweet and refreshing, and it doesn't chew like bubble gum, unlike that of a certain 31-flavored chain we could name but won't. Best yet, gelato has far less fat and 100 percent of the flavor of American-style ice cream, and Paciugo lets you mix and match flavors in one cup. Less fat just means you can make it a really big cup. Or so we tell ourselves.

Let us stipulate that those with child and those without will forever diverge on whether kids should be permitted to stray from their coloring-book stations at our finer dining establishments. Let us momentarily table the matter, and instead celebrate a beautiful, sandy, sudsy middle ground called The Lot, known to its East Dallas neighbors as Like Elmo On Demand but With Tito's. A rustic bar and grill near White Rock Lake, The Lot serves up solid renditions of bar-food staples for kids (grilled cheese) and alleged adults (grilled cheese and beer). More important, its massive covered patio is flanked by a just-as-massive sandbox, which is studded with tires and bridges and other things from which your kid can go all WWE on an unwitting stranger-kid, while you, the day's Designated Kid Watcher, sip a bloody mary and think to yourself, Hey, why is that weird kid doing a leg-drop on that poor — uh oh, I gotta go.