The fried mushrooms at Snookie's are everything they should be: plump, juicy and not too greasy. These lightly battered balls of goodness are also just the right size--not so small that all you can taste is the crust, and not so large that the 'shroom overpowers. They're served with ranch dressing and horseradish sauce and extra-long toothpicks, which aid in easy dipping. And dip you will. The horseradish sauce is an excellent touch. At $4.25 and served in a plastic basket, Snookie's fried mushrooms aren't the epitome of class, but they go great with a couple of brewskis and some titillating barroom conversation.

Veal piccata, a thin veal escalope that's dredged in flour, seasoned, sautéed and sauced in lemon, takes on many forms in Dallas. Sometimes it's pasty, sometimes thick. Sometimes it's drowning in lemon to the pucker point. But Ernie's, a supper club with dancing and avocado crab salads, gets it right. Pounded into a skinny scaloppine and drenched with a bracing butter, wine and lemon sauce seriously studded with capers, the meat is tender and juicy. Plus, the flour dredge on the veal never congeals into that slimy Lake Ray Hubbard mucus that is so common in many Dallas preparations.

So this may not be what she thought when you told her "dinner and dancing." But with prices like this, you can afford to buy her flowers, too. Dining al fresco, as is the situation at Taco Loco, is always exciting, especially on a bustling Deep Ellum street. Taco Loco offers 17 kinds of tacos, including a few vegetarian choices, all priced at less than four dollars. Other dishes--tamales, enchiladas, fries, desserts--round out the menu, plus it's open all night on Friday and Saturday. And if you go to Deep Ellum on "Deep Friday," the first Friday of the month, you can enjoy live music at eight (or more) clubs for one cover price. They vary month to month, but past participants include Trees, The Curtain Club, Gypsy Tea Room and Club Clearview. Eat tacos, rock the night away. Repeat.

If chef Kent Rathbun's brilliantly orchestrated Abacus is anything, it's fancy. Its rich elaborateness is accomplished in thoroughly fresh ways, both on the plate and in the dining room. The food is complex with lots of influences meticulously merged in a loud, well-creased ascot sort of way. The décor is...well, it's a futuristic rendering of poshness. The interior is filled with dramatic angles, jarring plunges, and hard surfaces softened by sloping ceiling soffits and rounded points. It's rich with deep, bright reds and dark wood and lighting that add delicate sparkle. If the Starship Enterprise were retrofitted in red velvet and paneling, Bones wore a corset, and Kirk was called madame instead of captain, the bridge would look like Abacus. Warp speed.

Wine flights, even in rooms posing as wine bars, are often a rarity. When they are offered, they arrive as laser-printer sheets of paper with little circles so servers can bull's-eye the glass bases in proper flight formation. But at Mercy, flights are delivered in 6-ounce crystal carafes dangling from custom-hewn loops of iron with little hooks fastened inside the carafe handle. Tasters can pour wine from the carafe to the glass at their leisure. Looking is half the pleasure of wine tasting--at least until your vision blurs--and this contraption is stunning. And far be it from us to suggest anything illegal, but they can also be used to hang tiny little pots, thus making swell windowsill herb gardens.

Mirabelle isn't exactly new. It was forged from the leftovers of Francois and Catherine Fotre's La Mirabelle. Though the name is a retread as is largely the interior, the food is not. Gone is La Mirabelle's French fare, and in its place is a New American hybrid (and what New American sortie isn't a mongrel?) cobbled together from an odd assortment of influences, from French to South American to Nordic. From his shunning the use of olive oil (he prefers the neutrality of grapeseed oil) to his creation of ambidextrous fish ensembles that flirt equally well with red and white wines (Mediterranean branzini in a red wine emulsion), chef/owner Joseph Maher treads an odd culinary path, one governed by color swipes. Like olive oil, he eschews butter and cream because he says the inherent fats blunt and obscure the intrinsic flavors he seeks to draw out. In their place he employs fruit, a substitution he insists heightens freshness. Yet unlike the color in his art collection that splashes the walls of the restaurant, Maher's food is not drenched in bracingly intense fruit tones. Rather, his sauces are pervious cloaks that embrace rather than drape. Mirabelle is a pretty good squeeze.

It's truly weird when a bit of hog can outflank a steer in an upper-crust steak house. It's even weirder when that pork piece is not a loin or a chop, but a shank. It looks like a battered, partially deflated deep-fried soccer ball: in other words, butt ugly (which is no way meant to denigrate pork butts). But Smith & Wollensky's crackling pork shank is a beautiful thing in the mouth. Sitting in a rat's nest of sauerkraut studded with poppy seeds, this crusted, crunchy brown ball is a hive of lusty rich flavor delivered by moist, tender pork flesh. And its preparation is just as ugly as its appearance. The shank is scored, cured in salt and sugar for a day or two, braised in beef lard and deep-fried in oil. The deep-frying sheathes it in crisp crust (leaking fat with every chew--yum) that seals in the juices, allowing the pork to come off like silk. You can feel your arteries quaking in fear as your tongue waters in anticipation. Get in there and get one quick, before the National Institutes of Health sends in a SWAT team and puts a stop to this vicious health crime.

Jesse Moreno and his family are among the few proprietors still producing truly handmade tamales in Dallas. They roast the pork, grind the corn, spread the masa harina de maiz (corn flour) by hand in the husks and cook the tamales themselves. The Morenos use all the best-quality ingredients, no lard, all vegetable oil. During the holiday season, La Popular is so popular, you have to call in your orders several hours in advance, maybe even a day. There's always lots of chitchat along the front counter: Jesse Moreno Sr. is an avid community volunteer with long service to the Dallas school system, and Jesse Jr. will probably show up on the city council some day. So in addition to selling great tamales, La Popular is an interesting place to visit.

OK. Glen Rose isn't Podunk. It's a swell little quaint town with lots of rejuvenating hospitality and giant fiberglass dinosaurs. But the restaurant in Rough Creek Lodge, an executive retreat with activities ranging from bird-watching to hunting wild boars, has a profoundly delicious menu--so delicious, it would do any haughty metropolis proud. Sherry-maple-glazed Texas quail is the best version of this bird (Nosh it or shoot it? You get to pick!) you're likely to find. Likewise, the porcini mushroom-crusted salmon elevates this stately fish to new levels. Peppercorn-crusted fillet of beef is pure silk. Pack your spyglasses or your Remington. But don't forget your refined sensibilities.

If only we had a placid lake or high mountain setting to linger over in Dallas, this category might be flooded with possibilities. But most outdoor dining here overlooks a parking lot or busy intersection, and oppressive heat and smog alerts cure even the most incurable romantics among us. One restaurant that is really trying to alter the landscape is Celebration, which has several outdoor seating areas, friendly to lovers and families alike. In the summer, its outdoor patio sprinkles a cooling spray from its several mist machines. In the winter, well-placed electric heaters and an outdoor fireplace conjure up feelings of a ski chalet. The traditional home-cooking fare is consistently competent and abundant, much like it has been through its 31 years in service. And between the fountains, the mist machines, the fireplace, fans and food, you might not even notice the cars racing down Lovers Lane.