Martinis are clearly an acquired taste: You can pretty much expect to pay $6 to $10 just to acquire one of them. Even then, you have to get past their somewhat medicinal flavor, which in a badly made martini is something akin to rubbing alcohol. But if done right, they can be a cheap high because they are so damn potent. And if done right, they can also add an air of sophistication (it's the olives and the presentation) to your bar persona. Terilli's clearly does them right, using the best ingredients and a block of ice to cool down the vodka, which makes it go down smoothly and, yes, sumptuously. We must give first runner-up to Del Frisco's, which gets downright creative by placing blue cheese in its olives. Also Houston's on Preston can't be left out of the mix, because its chilling procedure causes ice crystals to form in the vodka, which gives it that same Terilli's effect. We would like to give an honorable mention to this other bar, but after conducting our nightlong taste test, we can't remember its name and scarcely remember being there.

For the low, low price of $3.59, they serve up the po' boy to end all po' boys. Just ask for the "red wrap" and they'll know what you're talking about: double ham, double German salami, double provolone cheese, mayo, chowchow and pickles on fresh hoagie bread. On the Dallas scene for almost four decades, Antoine's serves up color-coded slices of heaven. The "green wrap" is Antoine's original and most popular. It's the "red wrap" without double helpings of all the goodies. Then, there's the "brown wrap" (turkey), the "purple wrap" (roast beef), the "orange wrap" (pastrami) and the "blue wrap" (tuna).

The city keeps meddling with its venerable Farmers Market, trying to figure out ways to fix something that ain't broke, but those trusty farmers from East Texas and South Texas and Oklahoma just keep on truckin' in, bringing those great tomatoes, fresh-shelled pintos, pattypan squash, peaches, and watermelon. Shop there often enough, and you'll get good at picking out the choicest stuff. Prices are often good to great. You may forget what vegetables ripened under a chemical spray in the refrigerated trailer of an 18-wheeler taste like.

As if to prove all the skeptics wrong, Dallas-based Internet food retailer Grocerworks.com apparently insists on making sure its customers get produce from the Web as high-quality as if they squeezed the little peaches and plums themselves at the store. The first time you place an order with Groceryworks.com, you get a bag of produce gratis. And after that they only deliver fresh, plump, and ripe vegetables and fruits. Go ahead, try it, the delivery staff won't even accept gratuities. "We aren't allowed to accept tips," they'll explain. "Our company doesn't want buying from us to cost any more than the grocery store."

Meatless in Dallas is sacrilege; like letting your speedometer needle slip below 70 on the Tollway (55 mph is permissible only when pitching change into a toll basket). So vegetarian restaurants are few. Good ones are downright rare. That's why when seeking out meals void of elements that once had supporting roles in Green Acres, it's best to seek out Indian cuisine. Indian food is so beautifully complex, it's hard not to be dazzled--even if there isn't a flank or a wing to be found. Its endless and exotic variations on pickles, chutneys and salads tickled with a vast variety of spices--many fiercely intense--such as cardamom, chili, cinnamon, garlic, cloves, saffron and tamarind, make for a meal that never suffers from a lack of livestock. Take Food for Thought, for example. The food is light and fresh, the sauces are vivid and the spices are expertly applied: robust yet balanced. In addition to dosai (crepes), pakoras (deep-fried chickpea batter fritters) and samosas (triangular pastries bulging with mashed potatoes, peas and fennel), Food for Thought has delicious mulligatawny ("pepper water" soup) and a lunch buffet packed with dozens of herbivore joys. Food for Thought also has thali dinners, those traditional Indian meals served on a circular steel tray with several small metal serving bowls filled with chutneys, rice, soups and such. Food for Thought proves it takes a lot of thinking to prepare food without brains.

Best Cellars is clean, crisp and easy, everything wine should be but mostly isn't. Instead of by geographical origin or grape variety, wines are arranged by color and taste--fizzy, fresh, soft, luscious, juicy, smooth, big, sweet--so shopping is easy on the brain. Best Cellars scours the globe to dig up wines that veer elegantly from the beaten path. Yet this won't land you in a pack of dogs. (OK, you may hit a pooch here and there.) It's easy on the wallet because most of their stash of 150-plus wines is priced at $15 or less, which can be further shaved via case discounts.

Wolfberries are believed to be good for the eyes and enhance energy. Gingko seeds are swell for memory enhancement and urination promotion (not the same as urinal advertising). Lychee nuts are good for the skin. Gingko Tree China Bistro employs all of these healthful ingredients in its menu so that we can cease being forgetful sloths with eyesight that blinds us to our own bad skin. Plus we don't pee enough, or maybe just not in straight enough streams. That's why Gingko serves delicious dishes like lychee nut shrimp and gingko shrimp seasoned with seeds from the gingko, a Chinese ornamental shade tree. Gingko is Nuevo Chinese, in effect. It acknowledges that the great regional cuisines of China--Cantonese, Fukien, Honan, Szechwan, Peking-Shantung--are blurring, with aspects of some absorbed by staples of others. Gingko fare is designed to reflect the shifts in this hoary cuisine stirred by modernity. There are nods to the past, such as ants climb tree: rice noodles infested with stir-fried ground pork, bell peppers, scallions and tiny broccoli florets. There are crafty desserts such as fire on ice: seasonal fruit surrounding a scoop of house-made vanilla ice cream that's doused with Everclear squirts and set ablaze. Desserts like this simply underscore the need for proper bladder health.

Readers' Pick

P.F. Chang's China Bistro

Various locations

This restaurant serves inspired saj (a thin, flaky tortilla-like bread), smooth hummus, refreshing tabbouleh, and tangy labni. Plus there's the "tent room," where you can sit on a low couch and stuff yourself with kabobs or maybe some sautéed lambs brains. Think about that.

Every morning, every day of the week, the onion ring guy in the kitchen at Peggy Sue's BBQ cuts the onions into rings, dips them in a special buttermilk sauce and batters them. Then all day he fries each order individually as it comes in from the waitstaff. The end product is the very best freshest crunchiest onion ring on this particular planet.

Though it isn't strictly Greek--it's billed as "Mediterranean" with Greek and Italian influences--there are a number of Greek-bred standouts at Ziziki's. Lamb souvlaki, a tasty slew of juicy skewered meat medallions, is served in handmade pita bread with roasted new potatoes and sweet-onion marinade. Then there's pastichio, a.k.a. Greek lasagna, a pie of chopped lamb baked with tomatoes, onions and herbs, blended with pasta and topped with béchamel sauce. Little twists erupt, too, like Greek paella, curried orzo pocked with shrimp, lamb, spicy sausage and bits of chicken. But mostly Ziziki's is great because of how it dresses its dining room. The digs are clean and a little cheeky, and the wine list is a renowned little slate of eclectic bottlings, including a half-dozen or so from Greece just to keep the branding authentic. Stuff that into your dolma.

It's a frugal place already (see above). On Saturday afternoons, however, it becomes a freeloader's heaven, as top Dallas chefs drop by to offer sample plates paired with a good wine. That's right. For the cost of a little gas and a bit of shoe leather--well, not leather, perhaps, but whatever Target makes their shoes from, you damn cheapskate--you can try out crab cakes or risotto or whatever while sipping a red or white from the Best Cellars collection. The likes of Gilbert Garza from Suze and Bartolino Cocuzza of Amici prepare dishes for the Saturday fete. Best of all, the chefs hang around to answer questions, which makes it easier to say, "I didn't notice the hint of basil, let me try another free sample, chop chop." Yes, the wine comes in little plastic sample cups, but we assume they're clean. Besides, it's all free, so quit your bitching.