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Best Bottled Beer

The Bottle Shop

World Beer Co., online purveyor of fine beers, has taken to the street with the opening of this cozy bar on Greenville Avenue. The feel of the place is sort of a cross between university reading room and corner pub. Instead of books lining the walls, you'll find a whole lot of beer from all around the world. It claims to offer 500 different beers, but who's counting? Maybe the best thing this place offers is a truly sophisticated, may we say beer-opolitan wait staff able to tell you a plausible story for each and every one of those 500 brews. But who's listening? This is a place to taste, and there are enough on the shelves to keep you at your studies for a very long time.

Best Beer

Rahr Bourbon Barrel-Aged Winter Warmer

Rahr & Sons Brewing Company Winter Warmer is a fine holiday-season beer, a chocolatey, roasty smooth English dark ale with a nice kick at 8.5 percent alcohol by volume. But the bourbon barrel-aged version, usually called "Whiskey Warmer" by those in the know, is our favorite locally made beer. The ale picks up some sweet vanilla, brown sugar and toffee notes from the aging and whiskey soaking, making an already great beer outstanding. The beer has changed each year as the brewery switched brands from Old Forester to Maker's Mark to, most recently, Jim Beam. Whether one of those will be used again (we were partial to the Maker's batch) or something new (one of the rash of up-and-coming Texas bourbons, please?), we'll be waiting at our favorite beer bar for a pint. Or store: Last year, Rahr appeased the masses clamoring to get some in stores by finally offering 22-ounce bottles of the previously draft-only brew.

Best Hangover Cure (Tie)

AllGood Café's South Austin Migas and English Breakfast Trinity Hall

Nick Rallo
Mike Snider's AllGood Cafe clearly has a thing for our state's capitol. The little placards announcing the upcoming dinnertime shows at the Deep Ellum mainstay proudly boast that a trip to the AllGood is like a trip to Austin, "without having to go through Waco," no offense to Waco, we guess. Fitting, then, that the best thing on the menu (yes, ahead of the chicken-fried steak, even) is the so-called "South Austin Migas." The AllGood's version of the classic Tex-Mex breakfast item pairs scrambled eggs with diced, grilled veggies. Mix it up all up, pile it high in a provided flour tortilla, top it off with some green salsa and it's tangy and sweet — but not too powerful to overwhelm your cup of hot coffee. It goes down smoothly and deliciously. And, when all you're worried about is keeping last night's intake down, that's all you really need. Hungover? Us too! But drag your ass out of bed and trust us. If you can get your throbbing head to Trinity Hall, everything will be OK soon. Tell your server you have an emergency and order these four things: a glass of water, a cup of coffee, the English breakfast and a pint of Guinness, please. Pound the water and sip the coffee while your pint warms up just a touch. By this time, your English breakfast will have arrived. They say grease is a great hangover cure, and Trinity Hall pulls out all the stops. Fried eggs, bangers and bacon are just the start. Black and white pudding and a bowl of baked beans are ready to right your aches and pains too. Buttered toast will soak up that nausea and leave you in a cholesterol-laden, pleasant haze. You might even be ready for a shot of Jameson after.

Best Breakfast

The Taco Joint's The Great Gordo

Here's how you can tell that the food's legit at Taco Joint: Every time you go there — and when you do, you better go before 2 p.m., because that's when they close, and breakfast and lunch are all this place serves — you'll find yourself surrounded by people wearing hospital scrubs. Baylor employees, one assumes. But, thing is, the Joint isn't that close to Baylor. And it's not particularly healthy either. So, what gives? Our best guess: It's too damn tasty to turn down — especially the massive breakfast burrito called The Great Gordo (yes, named after KTCK-1310 AM The Ticket morning show personality Gordon Keith). A 14-inch flour tortilla filled with eggs, bacon, potatoes, chorizo and ohmygodsomuchcheese, this thing's a beast. We recommend taming it with some of the Joint's killer ranch salsa. Like we said, doctors are all around. If ever there were a place to have a heart attack ...

Best Substitute for Pizza

Quesa-D-Ya's

Pizza in the morning? Pizza in the evening? Pizza at suppertime? Count us in. Until, that is, we can't stomach the thought of once again traversing the dangerous Dallas waters of mediocre delivery pies and we'd-rather-not-discuss-it crusts. Enter Quesa-D-Ya's, a business model so effin' obvious that we don't understand how it hasn't yet swept the nation. Here's how it works: They make quesadillas — big ones, filled with whatever ingredients you want — and you can order it for either pickup or delivery. There are a number of different options on the menu; we prefer the build-your-own. And, because we're fatties, we prefer our orders with a side of the very-solid queso, so we can dip them sumbitches in the cheesy goodness for that little something extra. Oh, and speaking of extra: Order the large. You won't come close to finishing it, but you'll have leftovers that hold up shockingly well for days. If nothing else, consider it a way to avoid going to the grocery store for a bit. That's why people order pizza anyway, right? C'mon, that can't be just us.

Best Chocolate Experiment

Dude, Sweet Chocolate

There's something funky in the fudge at Oak Cliff chocolate laboratory and shop Dude, Sweet Chocolate. Same goes for the rest of the chocolate offerings created by chef Katherine Clapner. There's tobacco in one bite and curry in another, and the white chocolate popcorn is laced with green olives. The store offers a rotating menu of Clapner's chocolate experiments, which, thanks to the generous samples handed out by the store's enthusiastic employees, can all be sampled before purchase. Chances are you'll stumble across some pretty strange flavors, but discovering how well rich chocolate pairs with bacon is pretty sweet, dude.

Best Locally Roasted Coffee

Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters

Shannon and Jenni Neffendorf, the folks behind Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters, aren't thinking big. They're not trying to become the next Starbucks or compete in the international coffee trade. They're thinking local, and they have their minds on something quite small: your coffee cup. They want to fill it with the purest, freshest, most flavorful coffee possible. They're doing so by developing relationships with the coffee farmers and roasting the beans in small batches, which are each tested strenuously before being distributed to the handful of local stores that sell it by the pound. While the single-origin coffees offer a variety of flavors, we suggest trying a pound of their Hidden City Espresso.

Best Cocktail

The Cedars Social's Old Fashioned

History and booze collide at The Cedars Social each night. When you walk up to the bar in the amber-lit pseudo '70s cocktail den, you're greeted with a drink menu cloaked in a folder that looks like a CIA top-secret mission assignment. Once opened, you'll find the menu, curated by barman Michael Martensen, divided by eras rather than composition. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better Old Fashioned in town. And in a vodka city, as Dallas has been described by several top mixologists, the inclusion of the Moscow Mule, the first popular vodka cocktail in the United States, should hit the spot for any discerning Dallas drinker. Regardless of what you order, the drinks are uniform no matter which bartender makes them.

Best Fried Chicken

Oddfellows

Kathy Tran
There are hundreds of different ways to make fried chicken, but the one employed at Oak Cliff coffee shop and restaurant Oddfellows is more likely to be seen on an episode of Iron Chef America than in a typical Southern kitchen. The chicken is prepared sous vide, a slow cooking method, then battered and fried to order. This ensures that each bite will be tender and juicy, and it cuts down on time spent waiting for your order. The restaurant encourages sharing, only offering portions big enough for two. Don't let that throw you off, though. The pieces at Oddfellows are from naturally raised chickens, which means they're smaller than the ones from your typical fried-chicken joint. Bigger isn't always better.

Best Coffee Shop to Make Dentonites Feel at Home

Crooked Tree

Tucked away in a tiny 1920s bungalow on Routh, Crooked Tree Coffeehouse is a place to escape the hustle and bustle of city life. While it won't necessarily be easy to find a place to sit and set up your computer on most days, the overall vibe is more unassuming and laid back than your average Dallas coffee shop. Inside you'll find several cozy rooms, each painted a different color and furnished with a mishmash of couches, chairs and coffee tables. The staff is easygoing and willing to assist with drink selections — no pretentious coffee snobbery here. And as you sit back and sip on your cup of coffee, you might suddenly feel like you're in a smaller, slower city.

Best Of Dallas®

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