Catfish can often be dull, spongy and soggy, even when fried. It takes a special set of fingers and a deft mind to breathe life into these supple fillets. Hattie's chef Lisa Kelley does it. Her pecan-crusted catfish resonates with such rich buzz that you'll find it bathes your mind as well as your buds. A long fillet, tapered on one end, shimmers in a scaly gold coat glossed with lemon-butter sauce, ebony patches breaking through where heat held more sway. It's crisp, nutty and draped over a mashed-potato cushion snarled with bits of scallion melded into reverential communion with lemon-butter sauce. The butter is full-throttle stuff--rich and salty--and the citrus is dribbled to perfect pitch.

For the unrepentant carnivore, nothing can compare with the cardiological time bomb that is the prime rib. If it's to be perfect, let it have been chosen and aged by experts and roasted in a manner that lets its enzymes caramelize into an ephemeral sweetness while its flesh remains firm but tender. Let it be well-trimmed with just a little interior marbling. Make it seasoned on the outside and juicy throughout, cut so broad and thick that a single slab can be rare near its massive bone, medium rare across its great plains and verging on medium well at its peppery borders. Let it smell as lordly as it looks. Such perfection exists in Dallas. Only at The Palm.

That ubiquitous brown goo that's found on most of what passes for Chinese food is not welcome at Caravelle. Vietnamese firepots, whole baked fish, and beautiful spring rolls, all freshly prepared and served by the gracious staff, are what you'll find. Great for large groups, and when the kids get bored, they can hang around the huge fish tank.

For those who like their ethnic food authentic, Tong's House is where you want to go for Chinese cuisine. Check out their delicious hi sang su jin soup, which combines pork with seafood and vegetables. The gung sow sha sweet-and-sour shrimp was also tangy and delicious. Since many of the Chinese nationals who reside in Dallas bring their friends to this restaurant, we believe that it has earned the highest seal of approval.

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 nerve-shredding caffeine jitters. That's when that "darn good" coffee becomes profanely swell.

Waka chef-owner Seiji Wakabayashi defines his craft as nouvelle Japanese. And the nouvelle part is like a projector or viewer for peering at Japanese cuisine from a different vantage point. The examples are subtle--creamy carrot soup, rich nutty foie gras perched on yams, mixed seaweed salad fluffed with baby greens and little surprises like a thing called an eel carpet ride (the kind that won't skin your knees). Though there is no sushi bar, you can watch them carve it from the stools perched near the open kitchen.

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 so mysterious. At the table, you add the spicy, vinegar-based sauce, yielding a blend of tastes so wonderful, people in places like Minnesota boast of stealing Peggy Sue's recipes. The sides here, too, raise our overall rating. They include healthful steamed vegetables, a great vinegar-based slaw and wonderful fries. The server always comes by and offers fried pie desserts, which are actually turnovers filled with chocolate or fruit. We're told they're great, but, with all those rib bones piled up, we have never left enough room to check them out.

This spinach never saw the inside of a can. A square dish is layered in the center with steamed spinach leaves, and soy sauce is channeled between the stack and the edge of the dish. The leaves are dusted with shredded bonito, blond thin curls of dried skipjack tuna. The bitter, leafy earthiness--silky in texture--is deftly foiled by the concentrated sea wash, delivered in whispered bursts shrouded in a delicate crunch. This stuff can do more than just swell biceps.

Fried calamari is as ubiquitous as Monday-morning yawns, but it's the subtle details that make it shine. Crú's scraps of squid are light and airy and virtually greaseless. And the spicy sweet-and-sour sauce kicks your senses back into alignment, should your wine-tasting flights knock you off course.

The thing you want to do most when nibbling late into the night is look. And here, there is a much look at, from the stylish nocturnal nuzzlers linking and languishing in lust at the bar, to the big red doors at the entrance, to the row of TV monitors rolling Japanese movies. (OK, maybe we don't want to read subtitles past midnight when our brains are marinating in stuff served with little umbrellas.) Fishbowl is a good place to gaze into the wee hours. Plus, this retro Asian lounge has great munchies such as sushi, mu shu pork tacos, and Szechwan shrimp stir-fry. Wash it all down with drinks called blazing Bangkok punch and chocolate Monchichi monkey, so even if you're sober, you won't sound that way ordering a nightcap.

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. Filled with potatoes and peas, wrapped in a pastry and then fried, often served with mint and tamarind chutney, you can't eat just one. Good thing they're only 80 cents at the front counter at India Grocers. You can also pick up other fresh and packaged Indian foods and goods while you're picking up your samosas. They tend to be pretty spicy, but a cool chutney or hummus balances the flavors. Just don't let them see you use ketchup.