If you're sick of the smog, the ozone alert days, the heat, and the general misery of a Texas summer that lasts into February, head over to La Madeleine for some freshly squeezed lemonade. Not too tart, not too sweet. As the immortal Tammy Faye Bakker once sang, "When life throws you a lemon, make lemonade."

What's at stake with steak? In Dallas that's a foolish question. Our existence depends on it. Without steak, Dallas is just Six Flags and Big Tex. The former isn't even in Dallas, and the latter doesn't go very well with a first-growth Bordeaux. So you know how important steak is. And there's a lot of bad steak out there. Trust us. We've had the leftovers. (No matter how unfortunate a steak might be, you still can't afford the misfortune of not bringing it home after you've spent a fortune on the dang thing.) Fortunately, you're virtually guaranteed a flood of drool at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse. Pappas has its own dry-aging locker on the premises, which is ostensibly loaded with the one thing missing from most prime steak houses: rich, dry-aged prime. It has all of the succulence, the robust flavor that you'd expect from the type of steak Dallas swoons over. This is special. Juices gush. Whatever cut you have carved, the flavor spectrum is broad, right through to the lingering finish. No leftovers tomorrow, just a messy T-shirt.

Readers' Pick

Bob's Steak and Chop House

4300 Lemmon Ave.

214-528-9446

River Spice has a fairly typical Thai menu with clever atypical touches. Pad Thai is often an effective barometer of Thai kitchen brilliance--or haplessness. It's far too often cloyingly sweet or a sticky knot of noodles or a soupy mess or some frightening combination of all three. Here, it is superb. At the far end of the plate is a curved cup of sheer rice paper that reaches a few inches above the plate and embraces--like a concert shell--a river of gently twisting noodles and crisp bean sprouts, egg, crushed peanuts and scallions in a culinary freeze-frame on the plate. Panang pork delivers a similar thrust with strips of tender juicy pork, bell pepper, gently bending green beans and tears of basil leaf deposited into a rich, fragrant curry sauce. Whole fried fish is compelling, as are most of the fried foods--spring rolls and curry dumplings, for example. A transparent glass water wall tinkles in the entrance to animate the river part of the moniker. (A River Spice extension recently opened in the structure off Lower Greenville that was once home to Liberty Noodles.)

There are more high-dollar Cajun restaurants in town, but high-priced food ain't what Cajun is all about. What we're looking for is the best taste of NOLA, the combination of better-than-good bar food, ice-cold beer and gluttonous/libidinous spirit that exemplifies all things bayou. You find that at HG: great bar food (fries and oysters are faves), all-you-can-eat crawfish on Wednesdays when in season and cold brews, brought to you by a helpful (read: borderline flirtatious) waitstaff. Good lunch menu, great street-side patio and a decent jukebox round out this underappreciated Greenville Avenue spot.

What makes Pappadeaux's Greek salad the best? Absolutely fresh lettuce, not a brown leaf in the bunch; a tangy, well-balanced lemon vinaigrette dressing; a generous sprinkling of high-quality feta cheese; and all the other ingredients--capers, scallions, tomatoes, celery, pepperoncini--mixed tableside so nothing ends up soggy. The huge creation, available in portions for one or two, is garnished with a single boiled shrimp and finished with a squeeze of lemon. Other places in town turn out a praiseworthy Greek salad, such as The Metropolitan Cafe at 2032 Main St. and Ziziki's, but none of them equals Pappadeaux's.

Pho is a little like Buddha: It invites nourishing contemplation. A Vietnamese beef-broth soup, pho is often described as the national dish of Vietnam. It's a fundamental part of the day, a mind-clearing tonic steeped in ritual, often served for breakfast. It's an arduous, labor-intensive thing created by simmering meat and bones for roughly eight hours to extract that soothing richness. To this are added long rice noodle strands, meat, scallions, and herbs. It's often floated with cuts of beef such as brisket, eye of round, and flank steak, as well as meatballs. But there's more yummy stuff to toss in. You can add gelatinous and chewy soft tendon (not so much a cabled ligament as a piece of knuckle) or bible tripe, a piece of ox stomach. The wide, steaming bowl arrives with a plate piled with knots of bean sprouts, Asian basil, a lime wedge, and tiny slices of green chilies that look like mag wheels, all for tossing into the soup. Pho Kim's pho is delicious: freshly light and perfumy with tender, separate noodles and chewy sheets of beef. There's nothing better to endulge in as the briskness of fall sneaks upon us.

How many times have you ogled the layer cake at your favorite coffee shop, ordered a slice of the vertical wonder, and then sunk in disappointment at its day-old taste and fridge-ridden frosting? Cake by the slice is a risky choice, but not at Dallas Affairs, the Lakewood-area bakery known for its stunning special occasion cakes. At the counter, Dallas Affairs keeps two cakes on hand for by-the-slice orders. One is an Italian cream with cream and pecan frosting; the other, a chocolate fudge with chocolate cream filling. For $3 a pop, it's a little slice of heaven--thick, heavy with flavor, and most important, fresh, fresh, fresh.

A friend asked us to make a Sunday lunchtime trek to this far north outpost. We weren't excited, as the word "Plano" and the phrase "sushi buffet" make us queasy. Of course, we were blown away by the quality of the food and the family atmosphere. The buffet at Osaka Sushi is huge, composed of not only cool, comforting sushi but a wide array of meats, fish, sauces, soups and vegetables. They'll even grill you up a bowl of goodies Mongolian style. When you leave, stuffed and wobbling, don't be surprised if you feel a little drunk on food--perhaps even yelling "shabu shabu!" at random customers as you giggle between belches. Sounds yummy, no?

Oishii mixes Japanese and Vietnamese with a little Chinese. The latter two are closely linked, while the former is more distant. Does this sound confusing? It shouldn't. OK, sushi is a little hard to square with kung pao chicken. There's lemongrass tofu, too, which is hard to square with anything. Yet the sushi is good. And the pork ribs in spicy salt and shaken beef are stellar, as are the Vietnamese spring rolls. But pho, that ceremonial, aromatic soup that's ladled for every meal among the Vietnamese, is how you test the spine of Vietnamese fare. And it's here where Oishii goes over the top. When pho is good, it's all minimalist guts and glory, the Dalai Lama of soups. Slurping pho is like having your soul breast-fed. Pho is loaded with feathery hints of lushly sweet aromas and carnivore brawn. Tangled there among slick and supple rice noodles are square scraps of beef as thin as pounded sheet metal plus beef tendon as tender as noodles (you can get it in chicken duds, too). From a separate plate heaped high with green and white flora, you add cilantro clippings, dark green basil leaves, bean sprouts, jalapeños and squirts from lime wedges. Pho is sense-surround soup: You breathe in billowing gusts of perfumed steam while spray stings your wrists from the splashes of noodles, sprouts and beef slipping off the spoon as you try to cram its addictive warmth into your mouth. Can your kung pao do that?

Readers' Pick

Green Papaya Cafe

3211 Oak Lawn Ave.

214-521-4811

Pretty much any event that combines two of our favorite pastimes--food and setting things aflame--will win our rapt devotion. Dislike bananas, like bananas Foster. Loathe the French, adore crêpes suzette. So, any dessert that brings a butane torch into the kitchen, namely crème brûlée, is tops on our list, especially when it's the coffee-tinged crème brûlée served at Cuba Libre. The rich, firm mocha custard mingled with the crunchy caramelized sugar topping is a smooth, luscious counterpoint to Cuba Libre's spicy entrées.