Café Patrique is soaked in loud yellows and reds, almost to the point of chroma dementia. But the most daring design movement in this takeout cafeteria is the rest rooms. The men's room is drenched in red with various phrases of wisdom scrawled on the walls in yellow concerning life, laughter and good eating, the kind of wisdom you might find in a fortune cookie or an Oprah rerun. The toilet seats and toilet paper dispensers have also been subjected to graffiti. Under the rest room sinks is a basketball hoop and net. It's cute really, but isn't the term "nothin' but net" more apropos to the bowl with the flush lever?

The Dream Cafe has one of the best cheap lunches in Dallas. It's called "The Cheap Lunch." It costs six buckaroos. It's mighty tasty. Whether you love red meat and consume dead animals on a regular basis or whether you're vegan or some form of vegetarian, you will love this lunch. If you're into low carbs, high fat; low fat, don't count carbs; low cal and low carbs--whatever. It's a bowl of organic black beans and brown rice with some truly amazing spices, topped with jack cheese, sour cream and sprouts. They serve it with corn chips, so it's a homemade warm, cheesy bean dip experience. It is the best damn lunch. Only, it's no longer on the menu. A recent shrieking phone call to Christopher Sanford, Dream Cafe manager, went something like this. "Hey, have you really taken The Cheap Lunch off the menu?" "Well, yes and no," Sanford says. "The Cheap Lunch is off the menu, only we have The Global Dinner on the menu, and it's the same thing." Only bigger. Same price, though. So, Dream Cafe has the best cheap lunch in Dallas, only it's called "The Global Dinner," and you could say they now have the best cheap lunch and the best cheap dinner--and both of them are larger than they were before, for the same price.

What could be better than sipping your Shiner Bock with a piping hot bowl of this delicious concoction? Served in a large bread bowl with a convenient lid for dipping, this is perfect for chilly winter evenings on the couches in the beer garden. If you feel like being social, ask for a chess set or checkers. We promise they won't laugh at you.

India Palace specializes in Balti dishes: an Indian cooking technique that utilizes a cast-iron pot similar to a wok. Onion, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, fennel and mustard seeds are combined into a rich sauce that bathes the centerpiece (such as beef) of the dish. And the effect is rich and aromatic. Plus, India Palace makes enthusiastic use of buffet tables at selected times and is drenched in luscious pink with burgundy accent points. Maybe not as yummy as the food, but this décor has a profound effect if you close your eyes tightly and imagine you're dining inside a delicate piece of lingerie.

Oh, how cozy this place is. La Duni is owner Espartaco Borga's quest to craft a Latin Brasserie with homestyle food from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All the homespun recipes are authentic, and to that end, he succeeds spectacularly with enhancements such as house-baked goods and wine program agility that is as sophisticated as it is functional. La Duni's wine list catalogs some 89 wines, all of them from Spain or South America and all of them available in more ways than you can order a religious experience. They'll serve your wine by the half-glass, by the glass, by the half-bottle, by the bottle--hell, they'd probably pour some in your Calvin's if you asked them to. And like all religious experiences, wine makes a swell breakfast beverage, no matter how you order it.

When you order fresh-squeezed orange juice, you don't want it from a plastic jug labeled "now with extra pulp." You want to know that someone actually crushed the rind between his fingers to force that last drop into your glass--just like at Grandma's. Landmark Restaurant in the Melrose Hotel is a place to break from tradition and enjoy an artery-clenching fest. Among the modern and Southwestern creations, diners find nods to the past. The standout: real old-fashioned steak and eggs. Remember those classic World War II movies where wimp-ass 4F actors who were a bit too precious to enter the armed services would sit in a soundstage foxhole and moan about Mom's steak and eggs? That's the stuff we're talking about. And Landmark has it.

Original Pancake House

There are two other locations in town--on Lemmon Avenue and Belt Line Road--but this is the one we go to most often...and from the looks of it on weekend mornings, it's your favorite, too, since the line seems to go to the Albertson's across the parking lot if you don't arrive before, oh, 9 a.m. (And on weekdays, too, it's pretty crowded; get there early or you're stuck eating at La Madeleine, which isn't a bad option, but it just ain't the same.) Every table usually has a little one in a high chair--the dollar-sized pancakes make this a parent's fave for the little ones--so if you're partial to reading the paper in the quiet, maybe you oughta go to Breadwinners or the Metro Diner in Preston Center or stay the hell home. But this place is especially worth it for the corned beef hash, which you should order with eggs sunny-side up, and, of course, the pancakes. Coffee's also really good here, but beware the tiny cups; on busy days you'll have trouble getting a waiter, who's always sorry he hasn't been there earlier, but, well, it's the best breakfast in town, and people tend to get busy. We understand.

Readers' Pick

Cafe Brazil

Various locations

This restaurant gets the nod because of great food at even better prices. Owner Mark Serrao's second restaurant (the first being the flagship store Vitto's in Oak Cliff) has been open only nine months, but it's already made a big splash with Oak Lawn-area patrons. The mood is cheery when you enter, with a friendly and competent staff. (The background disco music made us feel like we were in high school again.) We really loved the spinach-and-cheese tortellini; the various styles of pizzas were similarly gooey and loaded with sauce. The chocolate cake was creamy, smooth, and sinful. The wine list comes highly recommended. What's really amazing is that a meal at this place won't break the bank in comparison with establishments of similar quality and atmosphere in town. Head for this little jewel and discover why so many Oak Lawn dwellers start off their nights here.

The Riviera is practically a Dallas Institution, distinguished by its suave continental food and sensibility. To that end, its service execution is tight and remorselessly efficient. While it embraces a level of formality that can leave you a little chilly, it's impressive nonetheless: attentive and well-orchestrated to the point of dizziness. Wine glasses are whisked away immediately after the wine is ordered and replaced to reflect the appropriate type of wine. The ensuing service is impeccable, right to the wiping of the dribbles from the neck lip of the wine bottle. Glasses are filled as soon as the supply in the glass gets low, as if a pair of eyes hovers over the table waiting for the wine level in the glass to drop below 2 ounces. Servers are well-briefed on the menu, answering detailed questions without so much as a brain-strained hiccup. It's the kind of professionalism and coddling you wish the IRS would employ. But then you'd have to tip them. And who could survive that?

The appetizer is traditionally a thing you eat before the headliner. You know, salad, foie gras, fried calamari, frog legs in aloe vera. But sometimes appetizers can be meals instead of just tongue-whetters or fodder for the grazing trough. This is what Café Modern's smoked mozzarella-stuffed risotto cake is. It's a bronzed baseball--with the bronzing provided by panko bread crumbs--resting in a bath of "light tomato sauce." This alone makes it a museum piece. But when you add that it tastes good, it makes it double-plus fine. It's layered with overlapping wilted leaves of baby spinach. That bath is smooth and brisk, crackling with delicate acids. The ball crunches when pierced, exposing a steaming network of risotto grains--not creamy but breadlike in consistency. Plumb further and you unleash a core of molten smoked mozzarella that flows like slag through the risotto webbing, turning the whole thing into creamy, messy goo that steams. Now you're ready to view the art at The Modern.

Readers' Pick

Snuffer's cheese fries

Various locations

Most beer gulpers don't have a palate that ventures much beyond leftovers found between the couch cushions. But Trappist monks have always enjoyed good food to go along with their beer brewing--or so we've been told. That's why the Old Monk, a pub rife with Trappist monk imagery, has a range of good nibbles such as delicious mussels steamed in beer spiked with garlic and herbs, cheese boards, and fried calamari sleeved in a light, airy batter. What we want to know is, do monks pray before the same altar the rest of us do when the brew gets out of hand?