This Lakewood hole-in-the-strip-center-wall is, now that Dan's Lakewood has shuttered, the finest hangover breakfast in town, which means that by its very definition it is the best greasy spoon around. They are one and the same. You wake up after being overserved, you need eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausage, hash browns, et. al. In fact, we may tie one on tonight just so we can have an excuse for eating a plateful of this tomorrow. Our favorite, actually, is the huevos rancheros, eggs and chorizo and refried beans topped with a green chile sauce and served with hot tortillas. Even the coffee is good here. Just be prepared to wait in cramped quarters for a table during peak hours. Worth it, though.

Readers' Pick

Metro Diner

3309 Gaston Ave.

214-828-2190

We once worked at a restaurant that hosted a weekly half-priced burger night. As a result, for months we could not stomach a burger and came dangerously close to vegetarianism. Luckily, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and soon enough we were eating burgers again, doing our part to help out the national beef industry. Most of the time for lunch, we just go get a deli sandwich. But every so often, our stomach rumbles and angrily demands: "Burger! Burger!" So we motor down the street to Angry Dog, where the burgers are thick and juicy and the service is fast and friendly. A craving is a terrible thing to waste.

Juicy double-beef burgers with cheese and Thousand Island dressing, which they call Thousand Island, not "secret sauce." Beer to go or stay. You can smoke in part of the dining room. The jukebox has plenty of C&W. The ladies behind the counter know how to take an order and chew gum at the same time. And the cell-phone-per-table ratio is lower than any other spot in a 20-mile radius. Everything is jake at Jake's.

Curved leopard-print banquettes, sequestered in gauzy curtains, resemble a sheer negligée over cat-pelt bloomers. Black lacquered chairs are cushioned with leopard-print padded seats, and tables are cloaked in black tablecloths, like a black slit skirt over shiny black stilettos. The focal point of the back bar is a dramatic pair of narrow, triangular shelves bathed in the kind of neon orange favored by those who like folded greenbacks slipped into their underwear. This is the fine-dining version of a minx in homicidal regalia. Be careful how you use it.

Their tagline is "We'll make you a pizza you can't refuse." The logo splashed across their menu features a sextet of sharp-suited gentlemen walking toward you like a pack of reservoir dogs...and one is armed with a pizza box. The name of the joint is Café Nostra, and while they may play it up "bad," every run-in we've had with these fellas has been good. Backed by lunch and dinner choices that are available in-house, for pickup or (best of all) for delivery, the fine folks at Nostra make us almost forget that we're not around the corner from a genuine New York eatery. Appetizers to salads, pastas to pizzas, it's all here, capice? Our favorite? Start off with some garlic knots and maliciously addictive Buffalo wings, then move on to the main event: The Sicilian. Aesthetically, it's a bit like "The Big New Yorker," but the similarities end there, as Nostra's Sicilian is actually, you know, good. Each ingredient is balanced with precision in this thick-crusted rectangle of pie perfection. You'll likely have leftovers, and you'll definitely make use of them.

No fast-food assembly line or heat lamp warming here. Manager Don Oates doesn't buy frozen chicken, so everything's fresh. The crunchy crisp breast, wing, drum, and thigh that come with the dinner have been marinated for 24 hours before being battered and cooked. Forget the calorie count and plan to go away full and happy since the side dishes include a choice of five home-style vegetables, a salad, and hot biscuits.

An icy Jarritos of any flavor--lime, fruit punch, guava, plenty more--is enough to win you over from the laboratory and focus-group flavors of most Norteamericano sodas. The fresh, clean fruit taste of Jarritos is a blast of beach and jungle rolled into one. Fiesta Mart offers a variety of Mexican brands--Goya, Victoria, Topo-Chico, along with Mexican versions of some U.S. drinks. But the very best is the Jarritos orange. It actually tastes like an orange! Imagine: naturally occurring flavors! What a concept. Other stores stock the brand, but Fiesta is one of the few places where you can buy Jarritos in plastic 2-liter bottles, after you get the habit.

Even though Gilbert's Deli broke the hearts of many of its most loyal patrons by leaving North Dallas and moving to Addison, there are too many things about the restaurant that make the drive worthwhile. The meat loaf sandwich, the bagels, the pastrami, the vegetable soup, the knishes--all of which cost money. What doesn't cost are the pickles, which are placed on every table alongside a mountain of crunchy bagel chips. Those deli pickles are of two varieties--kosher dills and half sours--and besides their abundance, they make the lips pucker, the mouth water and prepare the taste buds for the deli food that follows. If you ask Alan Gilbert where you can purchase a jar of these pickles, he has been known to reply, "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you." Rather than press the issue, the occasional drive north will have to suffice.

Let's be honest here: There are no great Indian restaurants in Dallas. So with that premise established, let's examine the most interesting entrant in this mediocre ilk. Mantra is a stab at modernity; an incremental tweak of traditional Indian cuisine. Mantra attempts to preserve the rich, heady complexity of Indian cuisine while casting it as wily and deft, in a contemporary sense. Many culinary trend peepers have been predicting Indian fare would be "the next big thing": mainstream dining tickled by mint chutney and tandoori chicken. If that's true, Mantra is poised to pounce. Mantra is Indian lithe. Gone are the soupy dishes like chicken masala and lamb curry. Indestructible sauces able to survive hours of agony on buffet tables are also no-shows, as are the buffet-table torture chambers. Exhibit one: tomato broccoli soup. It's thick. It's smooth. It vibrates. Conclusion: Mantra's dishes are not only seasoned with more subtlety; they're actually a different set of centerpieces gently framed in Indian influences. Exhibit two: crepes stuffed with things, from vegetables, scrambled eggs, onions and potato to chicken, shrimp and lamb, all adorned with lush Indian spices. Conclusion: Keep your eyes peeled for the sweetbread mulligatawny. It's the next big thing.

Readers' Pick

India Palace

12817 Preston Road

972-392-0190

There are a lot of good things that can be said about Local, the tiny boutique restaurant that opened in the heart of Deep Ellum in the historic Boyd Hotel, one-time stopover for Bonnie and Clyde, Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter and Blind Lemon Jefferson. One of them is the Sluree, a blend of Rotari, an Italian sparkling wine, and scoops of house-made grapefruit-rosemary sorbet that quickly melt into the fizz. The Sluree is a good source of vitamin C as long as you don't fortify yourself into blurred vision. Another is the small collection of imaginative salads equipped with things like fried pears, oven-baked Roma tomatoes and strips of skillet-fried prosciutto. The cheeseburger is hearty and bursting with flavor, the fried chicken flits like a cloud and the fish is provocatively simple, letting the natural fish flavors blaze a path across the tongue (the footprint of chef Tracy Miller is ever so slight, yet undeniably shrewd). But perhaps the best thing that can be said of this restaurant is that it has no ambition to be anything other than what it is: a distinctly Dallas restaurant that bubbled up organically from the inner city's pavement. This is no New York or L.A. or Chicago wannabe posing. It just is what it is. To this spirit is stapled a tiny, eclectic and thought-provoking wine list and deliciously clean and crisp design lines (even wool shag carpet) by hotel designer and co-owner Alice Cottrell. Plans for an outdoor courtyard and wine lounge only assure that the luster deepens, carving another notch in the short bedpost of culinary experiences tasted through a distinctly Dallas prism.

Sweet Temptations' wonderful crab cakes are served over salad or pasta in an intimate European setting. Their dessert selections are also awesome, including the Lake Highlands rock cake or the Godiva cake.