Hey, where but in East Dallas are you going to find a Mexican dish named after the Duke? And it's meant as a compliment. To Mexico. The John Wayne is two eggs over on a flour tortilla, hash browns, melted cheese, choice of sausage or ham and lots of hot sauce. It's a breakfast dish, but you can get it anytime at this venerable clinic for hung-over hipsters. Tell you what, Pilgrim: You polish off a John Wayne, you're gonna be ready for your siesta.

Just up the hill from the intersection of Gaston and Garland roads, near the White Rock Lake spillway, La Parillada might be in a part of town you don't consider picturesque. But you could be wrong. Some nice evening, go get yourself a plateful of La Parillada's delicious fajita tacos, served from a little mail slot in the front of the building at a buck a piece. Step down to the beer store nearby for beverages. Come back and take a seat at one of the tables in front of La Parillada. The circus parade of life is before you on Gaston Avenue, my friend. And you've got good tacos to eat. What more can you ask?

In business 20 years at its location near Abrams Road and Lakewood Boulevard, Dallas Affaires has earned a regional reputation for wonderful wedding cakes, but a good half of the store's business is in its other great product--the custom birthday cake. There is no birthday boy or girl who won't love the white chocolate cake with Chambord (French liqueur) and raspberry filling. Call ahead: They make these things by hand. And if you do happen to have a birthday person who doesn't like Chambord and raspberry filling, it's the perfect opportunity to tell him or her to grow up.

A pink drink to make you think, the pomerita (pomegranate margarita) at Café San Miguel is a concoction of fresh-squeezed lime and pomegranate juices and Sauza Gold tequila. Goes by in a blink, makes you sink to your knees: the perfect potion to accompany the avant-Mexican fare at San Miguel. The only chink in the plan would be too many pink drinks, and then, of course, you might land in the clink. Which is why we told you, in the first place: think. That's the link. Wink, wink.

If you're a reader (or employee) of this paper, the odds that you place a high value on respectability are probably only 50-50. But just in case you do, "the only respectable way to have beer for breakfast" (as proudly stated on the waitresses' shirts) is Barbec's beer biscuits, which accompany pretty much any of their breakfast plates. If you like your biscuits on the baking powder side, salty and light, we can respect that. But we'll take ours full of beer--decadent, dense and delectable.

The Asian Mint dining room is rather small. (This is especially noticeable at busy hours, when you feel the waiting customers praying that you eat faster and leave sooner.) But for some reason, you just can't rush at Asian Mint. We always find ourselves slowly eating sushi, pondering the pad Thai and dawdling over dessert (usually one of their green-tea ice cream creations). Don't know if it's the funky décor or the Asian spices that make us linger, but we always do. Good thing they're open until midnight on weekends for those of us who just don't know how to say goodbye.

The owners of Highlands Café were fed up with the dearth of non-chain restaurants in Lake Highlands, so they decided to start their own. Almost instantly, the place became the local lunch hangout. Nothing fancy; the walls are decorated with kids' art. The burgers, sandwiches, salads and homemade soups are fresh and inventive; kid-sized meals come with fries or raw baby carrots. The nachos are worth a special trip. Yeah, you can get plain cheese nachos, but try one of their specialties: a plate of tortilla chips piled mile-high with beef, chicken or pork topped with sautéed mushrooms and red onion or artichoke hearts, green olives, feta cheese and diced tomatoes. Each overloaded plate is served with homemade salsa and pico de gallo, or order extras such as jalapeños, sour cream and guacamole. Highlands Café is also open for dinner, serving grilled steak, chicken and fish. It's an excellent start for a neighborhood starved for something besides fast food.

Why is it so many restaurants don't understand why people order BLTs? Is it for the bread? No. The tomato? Not really. The lettuce? Please. You buy a BLT because you're in the mood for bacon, and the best place to buy a BLT with a hefty rasher on it is Café Brazil. Everything else on a Café Brazil BLT is great, crunchy and fresh, but the bacon is what it should be and more, crisped hard but not burned and, best of all, spilling out of the sandwich. BLTs are funny. A bad one can put you off your feed for the rest of the day, but a really good one can make your day. Café Brazil is the place to go for the kind you're yearning for.

It's too far for a workday lunch for up-and-downtowners, but you'll find many of us trekking there on Saturdays to sample the lunch buffet. Did we say "sample"? Strike that, we mean "gorge on." For about $6, a hungry vegetarian or vegan can get bottomless iced tea and a shot at Suma's all-you-can-eat buffet. The buffet varies somewhat week to week, but you can expect fried rice, flat noodles, a tasty green curry, egg rolls, sweet and sour "chicken" and a tofu dish. There are some vegetables, but the carbs are glorious and abundant. Often, we can eat lunch at Suma on Saturday and not need to eat again until Sunday brunch. Now that's filling.

Never pit a cooking mom vs. a canned good. There's no point. Especially when it comes to split pea soup. Bordering on stew, it's a tough soup to get right (not too salty, not too chunky) and it'll never be right if it comes from a can. Mom will always win. Christine Vouras proves this with a hearty, savory concoction that sticks to your ribs in a way that somehow feels healthy. It may be the fresh ingredients she uses each day to prepare her two or three soup selections for the Main Street breakfast and lunch spot, or it may just be that something extra that comes from Mom. We don't know the magic that spouts from her ladle, and we don't want to know. We just want that perfect puree of peas sliding down our gullet whenever we can get it. She's no Seinfeld Soup Nazi, she's Souper Mom.


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Tomato basil at La Madeleine French Bakery Multiple locations