Though it was conceptually groundbreaking when it fused tastes from Thailand, Korea, China, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam and India under one roof, Liberty was mostly a bore when it opened. Aside from the birdcages posing as chandeliers with incarcerated amber bulbs and a swell, spacious patio with a huge aluminum washtub posing as a koi pond, there was little of interest in the cramped Lower Greenville quarters. The new Liberty is almost thoroughly denuded of such whimsy. Slipped into the two-decked Pavilion strip mall on Lovers Lane near Inwood Road, the new Liberty Noodles is at least a washtub above the old. And the strip-mall funk lifts once you slip through the door. The flickering birdcages are still there. But Liberty no longer flaunts self-conscious "ain't we hip?" flamboyance. Its style comes across more as a self-deprecating smirk, an acknowledgment of twisted excesses of youth. In short, Liberty has grown up, and nowhere is this more evident than in the food, which is brighter, brisker, tighter and tastier than ever. Promise realized is always the best move.

It's searingly potent. Sewn with thick sheets of tender, supple rice noodle, Royal Spice Thai Bistro's bong bong chicken contains a simple combination of ground bird and Thai basil in a clean, spicy oyster and Thai bean-sauce blend. Yum, yum. Cluck, cluck. No smelly water to chuck.

"Think of us as a power steak house with a seafood center." This is how the top brass at Oceanaire want you to think of their restaurant. They're referring to the beefy, two-fisted portions that in some cases--in true oxymoronic fashion--contain shrimp. Chilled shellfish is delivered in two portable ice mountain versions ($35 and $65) embedded with all manner of water crawlers, including lobster, crab and shrimp as well as shelled critters that do nothing but suck and make expensive jewelry--the freshest, richest stuff we've tasted in a city. Jumbo lumpmeat crab cakes are bumpy, ugly barnacle-like nodes of sweet brackish crabmeat chunks laced with just a puff of bread crumbs glued in place with a mayonnaise dressing and packed into balls before they're baked with a little bay butter. This allows the delicious crab flavor to easily pierce the thin starch draperies--a welcome maneuver in a town where chefs seem determined to smother crab flavor in a blizzard of sticky bread crumbs. Whole fried fish is delicate, moist and greaseless, while Chilean sea bass, resting on a mattress of bacon-studded wilted spinach basking in a beet purée, is brilliantly buttery--a flawless twist on a fish that has become a cod-like staple for high-end fishmongers. Great Key lime pie, too.

Stuff a toasted sub roll with grilled chunks of chicken. Add sautéed onion, bell pepper and mushrooms. Then smother it all with melted provolone cheese. You have a lower-fat version of a Philly cheese steak. At least that's what you can tell yourself as you shovel in every gooey morsel. Burger Island's not really fast food--order at the register, take a booth and wait for delivery--but at $3.99 a pop, their chicken Philly is an ideal alternative to a drive-thru chicken sandwich. Oh, go ahead. Order the delicious skin-on seasoned fries. You've been good enough.

Purists may scoff and pick, oh, Big Easy New Orleans Style Sandwiches up north or something farther east...say, in New Orleans. But this venerable Deep Ellum eatery has never let us down, whether we needed our café au lait-and-beignet fix at 8 a.m. or our muffaleta-and-fries jones satisfied at lunch. The gumbo and étouffée are extraordinary--the roux's particularly rich, like Mark Cuban--and the sandwiches wonderful, and if we feel the need to dock this place points, it's ditching the booze, which is fine most afternoons save those occasional lunches after the boss tells us if our Best of Dallas items are late again, there'll be no raise. Need a Dixie after that. Make it a case. Instead, we'll just have the oyster po' boy.

Readers' Pick

Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen

Various locations

Soul food is the quintessential home-style cuisine: black-eyed peas, corn bread, macaroni and cheese, meat loaf, okra. At South Dallas Café, greens such as cabbage and okra skirt mushy textures and rise to supple sensations. Meat loaf is thick and hearty, smothered pork chops are tender and rich, and the fried chicken is crunch-crisp, spicy and moist. To really reach into your soul, South Dallas Café runs a two-meat special with your choice of two meats, three vegetables and corn bread for $9.95, a fine spot to drop a 10-spot.

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.