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Best Fish Tacos

Taco Diner

Nearly every Dallas Mexican restaurant worth a dip boasts some type of fish taco on its menu, but almost none are as good as Taco Diner's. These upscale taquerias are certainly no hole-in-the-wall treasures, but what they lack in soul they more than make up for in flavor. The fish tacos feature grilled tilapia (soaked in a delicious, tangy citrus marinade) and sliced peppers on thin corn tortillas, with the requisite trimmings on the side. We get our kicks by adding a little white cheese and a spoonful of the spicy green salsa, but hey, it's your fiesta.

Best Fried Pickles

Love and War in Texas

Every true Southerner knows the pleasure a quality order of fried pickles can provide. Unfortunately, they're not an easy appetizer to master, and a floppy pickle just ain't no good--no matter how well you batter it. The cut is also important--some prefer spears, others side with slices. We're in the latter camp, as we'd rather take our big pickles in small doses. Thankfully, the fried pickles at Love and War in Texas are done just right--thin slices of tangy perfection, delicious flaky batter with the right amount of spice and a big bowl of "smoky ranch" for dipping. The fact that we actually get to ask the waitress for an order of "Texas Wagonwheels" is just gravy.

Best Food Orgasm

Pokey O's Cookies & Ice Cream

The ice cream sandwich is a work of art, perhaps the most perfectly devised dessert ever created. Pokey O's has upped the ante, though, replacing the thin cookie wafer of the traditional sandwich with sizable, freshly baked cookies (available in 14 varieties) and thick scoops of Blue Bell ice cream (they stock 15 flavors). We soil our faces with oatmeal cinnamon raisin walnut cookies and plain ol' vanilla, but honestly, it's hard to go wrong with any combination. They also do catering, or you can take the ingredients to go and build your own creations with a "Pokey Pack." We could make an easy sex joke here, but we're far too busy thinking about ice cream and cookies.

Best Senior Dining

Chubby's Family Restaurant

We generally don't make it to Chubby's until 2 p.m. or so on the weekends, at which time we're enjoying a late breakfast. Most of the clientele, however, seems to be enjoying an early dinner before they watch JAG and turn in. Whether they come for the excellent omelets, the chicken-fried steak or the freshly baked pies we're not sure, but there's no doubt about it--this place is a mecca for the old-timers of Northeast Dallas. We've never been up early enough to see it open, but it's easy to imagine: a hungry mob of seniors crawling out of their Buicks and Lincolns, their walkers and canes banging against the doors, the sun rising in the distance...OK, maybe it doesn't go down quite like that, but if we were old, we'd sure as hell bang a walker for some of that French toast.

Best Homemade Ice Cream

Ham's Orchard Peach

Ham's, the little roadside stand that could, is already fairly famous for its pick-your-own or just-buy-it fruit, especially the peaches. But people need to know more about the "homemade" ice cream they sell. Both flavors, peach and strawberry, are delicious, but our particular favorite is the peach. Maybe because they use peaches to make it instead of Soviet-era surplus chemicals, Ham's peach ice cream is incredibly peachy without being too strong-tasting. Because Ham's is a fur piece from Dallas, there are some tricks: You need to take your own cooler with ice in it, and even at that, on a typical Texas summer day you have to hightail it home to get that stuff in the freezer. But it is so worth it! They're open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, from mid-May to mid-August.

Best Muffuletta

Jimmy's Food Store

Lauren Dewes Daniels
Second-generation owners of Jimmy's Food Store, one of the true treasures of Old East Dallas, weren't defeated by a fire in 2004: They reopened a year later, and now they're doing better than ever. People come from all over North Texas to buy sausage handmade behind the counter, imported Italian groceries and wonderful cheeses. And now the store has a little table where you can eat. They're selling, among other things, the best muffuletta sandwich this side of Central Grocery in New Orleans. Another interesting thing since the fire: The area all around them, which used to be dauntingly seedy, is sprucing up a little. Little Italy reborn? If not, it's still one hell of a muffuletta.

Best Taco Stand

Tacos y Mas

Here at the Observer, we're precise in our word use. So when we say stand, we mean a walk-up, no-indoor-seating, honest-to-goodness free-standing stand. And if there's anything we'll stand for, it's the torta al pastor at Tacos y Mas, which may be the best spicy pork sandwich any side of any border. As for the first part of the name, the tacos are mouth-watering and easy on the wallet besides. And while we may be sticklers for precision, we don't mind taking advantage of the covered outdoor seating in front.

Best Corporate Diner

Lucky's

What is it that makes a good diner? Grease? Lucky's has that. Kitschy memorabilia? The walls are groaning with it. Quirky neighborhood characters? Ever been to the Oak Lawn Halloween Parade? 'Nuff said. In other words, you'd never guess that this friendly retro joint is run by Consolidated Restaurant Operations Inc. (could you find a more impersonal name, please?), the company that runs Cool River Caf and Cantina Laredo, among others. Still, the pecan French toast is enough to make you forget your money is going to the suits.

Best Soda

Jarritos

You can get Jarritos, the Mexican fruit-based sodas, in most major grocery stores now, but the best selection is at Fiesta. Something about these sodas makes them much more flavorful than American sodas, maybe because they try to taste like real stuff, as opposed to, say, Coke? What does Coke taste like? Can you imagine whatever Coke comes from growing on a tree? Yeah, maybe one of those scary trees in Wizard of Oz that could talk. They could wave their arms, but they couldn't chase you, right? Where were we? Oh, Jarritos! Go to aisle three where the Mexican drinks are, not aisle 10 where all the gringo soda is. They've got Jarritos in guayaba, fresa, mandarina, mango, tamarindo, pia and best of all, tutifruti.

Best Dumpling

Thai Dumpling at Bangkok Inn

Taryn Walker
Dumplings are touch-and-go. It's easy for a dumpling to be a little too dumpling or not quite dumpling enough. The shell has to be cooked but not overcooked, and of course the filling needs to be warm when the dumplings arrive at the table but not cooked solid and certainly not cold. If you've never been to Bangkok Inn before, don't start complaining about the modest dcor. All of that energy and concentration is going into getting the Thai dumplings just exactly right, to say nothing of the perfectly prepared dunking sauce that comes with them. Open weekdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.to 10 p.m. and noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

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