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Best Inexpensive Italian Restaurant

Papa Pistola's

For decades, you could count on the checkered tablecloth and the bottle of Chianti, the proprietor who knew the latest dish on everybody who walked in the door, the bread soaking in garlic butter, and the 12 kinds of spaghetti all cooked in the same heavy red sauce. Then, overnight, they were gone. Our cozy neighborhood Italian restaurants morphed into places playing trance music and serving vertical appetizers. Today, your chocolate martinis are brought by tattooed hunks, but the tattoos no longer say "Rose" or "Mama"; they're Sanskrit hieroglyphs that translate to "Ohm." Papa Pistola's is a nostalgic glimpse back to that bygone era when a bottle of wine with dinner set you back 15 bucks instead of 50. From the Dean Martin, Al Martino, and Mantovani record sleeves that decorate the walls to the fried mozzarella, pasta fagiole, and homemade gnocchi to the sincerity of the servers and the very reasonable prices (about $14.95 to $17.95 for the entrées), Papa's not cutting any edges. But he's not cutting corners either.

Best Raw Bar

Southport Raw Bar

Photo by Glenn Govot, courtesy of Southport Raw Bar & Restaurant
Those scary written warnings that accompany servings of un-cooked shellfish are so uninviting, it's a wonder anyone eats raw oysters or clams. Risking hepatitis or vibrio just to swallow something salty and slimy takes a particular breed of cat (or kitten). But raw oysters are, in fact, a delicacy and reputed aphrodisiac, and South Florida's a prime spot for both Gulf and Atlantic varieties. Unlike many other restaurants -- even shacks right on the water -- Southport always shucks oysters to order, instead of letting them sit refrigerated on the half-shell until they develop the texture of rubber cement, the way some establishments do. Observe as plastic milk-crates packed full of the bivalves make their way from coolers in back to tubs of ice at the shucking station. At $9 a dozen (cheaper during happy hour), the oysters fit in well with Southport's no-frills, slightly divey setup. The smoked fish dip and fried offerings (clams, oysters, catfish, scallops, etc.) consistently cost about half as much as you'd find elsewhere but are invariably twice as good; its Philly cheesesteak is enormous and authentic, and beer and wine flow freely (and cheaply). Besides, after more than six years of swallowing those sea-salty little items, we're still alive, healthy, and ready for more.

Best Fish Sandwich

Tiki Waterfront Sea Grill

Bikers, boaters, and bobos rub beer bellies under the thatched roofs of Tiki's upper- and lower-story bars at the Riviera Beach marina, shaking booty to live music on sunny Sunday afternoons. It's Old Florida meets Eastern Europe: luscious Romanian girls, wearing last-decades' gold eyeshadow and hot pants, maneuver baskets of peel 'n' eat shrimp, hot blue crab dip, and Bahamian conch salad through the throngs. But it's Tiki's crunchy grouper sandwich that keeps reeling you back: a glistening slab of prime catch rolled in panko breadcrumbs, deep fried, and tucked into a pillowy Kaiser roll with tomato, onion, lettuce, and a lemon-struck tartar sauce along with a heap of crisp shoestring fries -- all of it as ideally proportioned as the maiden who serves it to you.

Best Jamaican Restaurant

Annie's Fresh Fish and Baked Goods

Good Jamaican and Caribbean food abounds in South Florida. Drive ten minutes from anywhere and you can get decent jerk and oxtails that taste pretty much the same as the ones you had elsewhere. Are they all using the same recipes and sharing one big kitchen? Annie's is one of a handful of places where such thoughts never occur. The jerk is not just tender but scented through and through with peppers, cinnamon, and allspice. Fish are cooked fresh, not ladled from a steam table. Rice and peas are moist and fragrant, not dry and starchy. Even the steamed cabbage has a certain something to it. The sorrel and bracing ginger beer are made on the premises. And save room for dessert: The "Off-the-Chain" spice cake really is.

Best Japanese Restaurant for Pyrotechnics

Sakai Japanese Restaurant

You thought old-fashioned hibachi pyrotechnics had gone the way of the samurai? Not so, Grasshopper: The spinning knives and the flying fillets are still dancing through their paces at Sakai Japanese Restaurant, where -- depending on how sociable you feel -- you can reserve a seat at one of four communal hibachi tables. Kids, of course, love to belly up to the hibachi to see old Iron Chef play with his food (where else is tossing around your vegetables socially acceptable?). Watch him, all but stony-faced, as he twirls his knives like batons, cracks raw eggs midair, and composes a flaming volcano from a stack of raw onion rings. Choose steak, shrimp, scallops, chicken, and lobster in some combination ($19 to $35); hibachi dinners include soup or salad, fried rice, stir-fried vegetables, and noodles -- you can't go away hungry. Sushi and excellent vegetable, tempura, and tofu plates are available in the quieter front room, where you and your party can shutter yourselves away from the madding crowds in a completely private booth, sliding the paper screen closed behind you with a satisfying whoosh.

Best Sub

Colombino Italian Bakery and Deli

You make a submarine for 20 years, you get to know what you're doing. The current owners of Colombino took over the decades-old business just five years ago, but the family's carrying on a serious tradition to exacting specifications -- while Taco Bells and Subways have sprung up around this tiny deli and bakery like pokeweeds around a violet, nothing can stop the hot ovens from churning out dozens of warm loaves of Italian bread six days a week (the deli is closed Monday) or the "upstate N.Y. style" pizzas or the buttered steak, sausage, and veal parmigiana sandwiches or the stuffed breads bulging with pepperoni and cheese. It's the "Italian assorted" sub (six, nine, or 12 inches from $3.19 to $5.39), though, that defines the genre. Stuffed into one of those warm, crusty rolls, a mound of salami, Italian ham, capiccola, and provolone is drizzled with olive oil and vinegar, given a shake of oregano and a handful of tomato, sliced onion, and torn romaine lettuce leaves. The art of the sandwich is indeed a living art.

Best Croissant

EuroBread & Café

Let us school you on the croissant. The best ones are covered with a thin, tan crust that's hard enough so that it resonates a little if you tap it with your fingernail but thin enough to "break" when it's given a little squeeze, like the shell of a robin's egg. Inside, the bready material should be slightly moist, with enough body so that it shreds rather than breaking or balling up when it's pulled apart. It should have a scent of butter, and it should taste like a morning in Provence. All right, maybe we're getting too subjective with that last bit. We must be under the influence of EuroBread & Café, the French bakery in Coral Ridge (there's another one at 6847 Stirling Rd., Davie), where the walls are painted an earthy yellow, like Provence clay, and the croissants are always fresh. There's a buttery smell in the air, as well as the scent of baking bread. Try all of their croissants -- the chocolate croissant, with its schmeer of bittersweet chocolate inside, or the almond, which is sweet-toastier, with a sprinkling of crisp almond slices. We'll settle for the croissant plain, warm from the oven, maybe daubed with a little strawberry preserves or English marmalade.

Best Mexican Restaurant

Silvana

If you've run through the menu at your local taqueria a few dozen times and think your burrito tour has made you an expert in Mexican food, it's time to get cozy with Silvana. The focus here is seafood, and we don't mean fish tacos: Chef Antonio Brodziak takes his classical Mexican culinary training and gussies it up in contemporary trappings via New York, where he worked with Richard Sandoval at Tamayo. Specials from Brodziak's rotating menu, like sea bass with roasted corn and tamarind, tuna with tomatillo and mango chutney, adobo-marinated yellowtail, and salmon served with warm pico de gallo and black bean sauce, are priced between $17 and $22.95 and served by big, raven-haired Mexican boys whose smiles could melt a block of queso fresco. It's all buttery, beautiful, and sensually revelatory, but Brodziak's camarones Silvana ($18.95), grilled shrimp drizzled with pitch-black calamari ink and arranged around a sigh-inducing masa cake stuffed with black bean paste, is enough to make serious diners consider permanent relocation to West Boca. And you know, that's high praise.

Best Bread

German Bread Haus

When it comes to the staff of life, Europe rocks. If you're looking for something awesome with which to mop up your gravy, go straight to the Italians, the French, and the Germans. While the first two favor a crusty, airy loaf, the German version is typically too heavy to carry one-handed. It's also lugubrious in mood, slightly sour in flavor, and best when heavily buttered -- much, come to think of it, like the national character. Deiter and Norma Dauer, who've owned the German Bread Haus for 20 years -- that tiny gingerbread-looking concoction you've passed a thousand times on Commercial Boulevard -- import some of their flours from Germany and offer several entirely organic loaves studded with seeds and nuts (like their popular Jogger's Loaf, Survival Power, and other multigrains also sold at Whole Foods) in addition to classic German wheat-rye mixes, sourdough, sweet raisin-inflected stuten, Christmas stollen, and a cornucopia of rolls to fill Little Red Ridinghood's basket. They'll let you stand and taste (heavily buttered) samples for as long as it takes you to make up your mind. And by that time, you'll be packing up cherry strudels and bags of ginger and pepper nut cookies too.

Best Philippine Restaurant

Horizon International

Open the front door to Horizon and it'll look like a tiny Asian food mart. But follow the murmur of voices and clanging of pans coming from the back and you'll discover a busy little kitchen with seating for about 20 and lunchtime fare that'll snap you out of your burger complacency. Come here during the weekend and you'll likely stand in line with a cadre of Filipino workers from the cruise ships docked at nearby Port Everglades. Horizon is home-away-from-home for many of them, serving up the mainstay dishes of their homeland. Philippine food has been influenced by Malaysian, Chinese, and Spanish cultures, but it retains an identity all its own. Your best bet is choosing among the pork dishes, most of which cost $3.99. Adobo, considered the national dish, is pork marinated and sautéed in cider vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, and peppercorns. Pata tim is pork hock sautéed in a dark, sweet-vinegary sauce. Lechon kawale, or pan-roasted pork, is bite-sized pieces of belly that are fried in a wok to a golden, crispy brown. Some of the vegetable dishes use bitter melon, a squash that's too strong for most America palates, so it's best to ask if it's in a dish before ordering.

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