Sure, there are a lot of restaurants that are dog-friendly. Sit on a terrace and your dog will get a pat on the head, a dish of water, maybe even a Milk Bone. But the Nauti Dawg Café is truly dog-obsessed. The restaurant, located at the Lighthouse Point Marina, goes above and beyond to treat Muffy and Chopper like the furry royalty they are. Dogs have their own menu filled with delights — much healthier than having you sneak people food to your pooch. Offerings are grilled without spices, cut into bite-sized pieces, and served tableside in a doggy bowl. Fido can choose four strips of bacon ($3), a six-ounce skirt steak ($6), a chicken breast ($7), or a hot dawg ($4). Take Binky out on the town for Monday's Yappy Hour, when all K9 entrées are half-priced all day. As you and Fido bond over burgers at the quaint waterfront café, know that the only drawback to interspecies dining is the fact that when the check comes, Rover always seems to have left his money in his other collar.

Finally, Subway and Burger King offer veggie burgers. But more encouraging is that Sublime exists — a place where you can have a three-course gourmet meal coupled with a cocktail that is entirely vegan. It serves lasagnas, mojitos, pizzas, and mac 'n' cheese all made of plant-based ingredients. The prices aren't cheap, with entrées ranging from $15 for the black bean burger to $21 for the mushroom ravioli, but the ambiance is great. Save room for dessert: No cocoa beans were harmed in the making of that chocolate nirvana cake.

If you pull up to Calypso Restaurant & Raw Bar on a Saturday evening, the parking lot will be empty. The lights will be off. And there will be no one waiting for a table. This is not a bad sign, however. The longtime Pompano Beach restaurant hasn't held weekend hours for close to a decade. After 25 years in business, the owners like it that way; the restaurant has garnered such a devout local following that it doesn't need to cash in on a weekend swell. Inside, everything just feels right, from the gaudily bright parrot curtains to the tiki-style thatching hanging over the bar and the nautical bric-a-brac that brands it an official Florida hole in the wall. The seafoodcentric menu hasn't changed much since opening day, featuring a list of starters like cutters (island-speak for sandwich), roti, and specials created by the founding Bahamian owners. The heart of the menu remains conch, which, for the past two decades, is delivered straight from local waters and prepared in the same laborious, time-consuming manner: a rhythmic pounding by large wooden mallets, rendering each pink tongue-like strip of conch meat into tender tidbits. You can order it frittered, fried, or cooked over an open flame, served with a lime wedge and a cup of drawn butter.

Eating here is like eating at someone's home, where conversation and company are half of the experience. The heart and soul of the place is proprietor Beverly Jacobs, a charismatic woman known for her home-cooked dishes: escovitched tilapia, jerk chicken and pork, and curry golden crab, its sweet legs basking in a pool of spicy brown sauce. (Vegetarians will be psyched to know many of the dishes are vegetable- and fruit-based.) Take your time, soak in the place, and finish with a slice of rum cake so infused with spirits, you'll be breathing fire after each bite.

According to the restaurant's owners, a Dutch pot is the only way to produce authentic Jamaican cooking. The pot heats up at an even temperature, making the food consistent — and here, consistently awesome. What started in 1998 as a single-burner oven in the backyard has morphed into one of the best — and most inexpensive — eateries around. Here and at the two other locations, lunch specials cost less than $10. That includes a platter of spicy jerk chicken or pork served alongside a pile of rice, peas, and plantains. If jerk isn't your thing, there's also curry goat, akee, catfish, liver and onions, and callaloo. Caribbean-style sides offer a taste of something different, from fritters and boiled bananas to "bammy" — a traditional Jamaican cassava flatbread.

Co-owner and chef Mario Flores went to great lengths to create a menu with dishes that combine the best of Spanish and Cuban fare, selections that work to complement each other and highlight both cultures. The restaurant is best-known for its potent mojitos, homemade sangria, tender roast pork, ground-beef empanadas, and hefty corn-scented tamales. The crowd here is lively, and the air is heavy with the scent of garlic, grilled onion, and pepper. Main plates worth traveling for include the red snapper, rolled in ground plantain and topped with a handful of fresh shrimp; an Argentine-style skirt steak; and seafood-stuffed paella. The staff at this Fort Lauderdale spot is as sweet as the grilled plantains, the tres leches dessert, or the tiny cup of Cuban coffee at the end of your meal.

Chef-owner Eduardo Pria introduced ingredients like ancho chilies, and nopales (cactus paddles) to South Florida's upscale dining scene in 1993. Inside his eatery, amid colorful Mexican kitsch, you can sample unusual dishes like the achiote crepes stuffed with cuitlacoche (a fungus native to Mexico that grows on cornhusks); Florida blue-crab cakes with sweet yellow corn, napped in puebla mole and smoky chipotle sauce; and a cream of cilantro soup (which actually contains no dairy aside from the cotija cheese sprinkled on top). Pria's specials change often, and a daily new dish might include escargots sautéed with white wine and onions, or grilled nopales layered with marinated pork loin and achiote for a new take on bocadillo. For entrées, try something less Mexican but tasty and tantalizing: the trio of ruby-colored Colorado lamb chops brushed with cilantro-garlic oil and served with a wild-mushroom-stuffed tamale and a miniature cornhusk boat of puréed black beans.

Readers' Choice: Rocco's Tacos

Fast, casual, and delicious — J28 Sandwich Bar is a hot spot to get a bite by the beach and sample some Peruvian fare with American flair. Most South Floridians are familiar with Cuban food, but if you haven't tried a home-cooked meal from Peru, a trip to J28 is an easy way to get your taste buds wet. Established by two friendly brothers, Marco and Javier, this small but inviting restaurant offers pork, beef, and chicken prepared Peruvian style and served on a freshly baked bun. Most popular on the menu is the chicharrón — thick slices of pork belly with pickled onion, mayo, and boiled sweet potato. Munch on the sandwich with a side of roasted corn or potato salad, and wash it down with chicha — a purple maize drink with a touch of pineapple juice and hints of clove and cinnamon. Sure you could go to a Publix or Subway, but why?

Indian food is becoming increasingly easy to find. Recently, the first outpost of California-based KASI Indian Food opened in Boca Raton — fast-casual dining à la Chipotle but with a helluva lot more curry. Still, most of the Indian food sold in South Florida — like masalas and tandoori — comes from the country's northern region. Madras Café, however, specializes in southern Indian cuisine like dosa, papdi chaat, and biryani. Recipes from the south use more exotic spices — amchoor (dried mango), saunth (dried ginger), and anardana (crushed pomegranate seeds) — as well as hotter chilies. They also lean vegetarian, with lentils factoring into sambar (a dish tempered with whole spices and chilies), rasam (a hot-sour soup dish), and poppadoms (deep-fried, crispy pancakes). Round out your meal with some sweetness, the most popular dessert being dahi vada (lentil cakes dipped in a mild coriander- and cumin-spiced yogurt) fried into dense doughnuts and paired with the restaurant's syrupy-thick chutneys.

Cafe Martorano is a picture of Staten Island meets New Jersey cool. A black, horseshoe-shaped bar is the focal point of the room, flanked by an open kitchen on one side and a DJ booth on the other. Both booth and stove are the domain of owner Steve Martorano, who likes to spin tunes as much as he likes to make Sunday gravy. The burly cook (he doesn't like to be called "chef") specializes in Italian-American classics: eggplant stack ($23), chicken cacciatore ($34), and bucatini carbonara ($26), all served in oversized portions. The food is tasty and the portions generous, and if you're a transplant from New York or New Jersey, it tastes like home. But it's Martorano who sets this restaurant apart from other Italian joints. The chef's personality is as big as his biceps, and when he's in the room, all eyes are on him. As the evening progresses, so does the decibel level, until you're not sure whether you're in a restaurant or a club in Bensonhurst. You might even get a glimpse of some of Martorano's celebrity friends like Mario Lopez, Tom Jones, and Shaq, who drive and fly in to see the king of the meatball.

Readers' Choice: Casa D' Angelo