As you sit before a heaping platter of rice and beans, white cabbage, and curried goat at Tasties, the fullness of its spice builds slowly, from tropical depression to storm to hurricane. Halfway through the meal, your face is hovering over the plate, vacuuming like a water funnel. The piquant sauce brings on a kind of equatorial madness, a subtropical food lust. Your mind maniacally calculates when next you'll hunger, what next you'll order -- perhaps the curried oxtail, cowfoot, or chicken. Some day, you revel, there will be a chance to feast on the jerk dishes. A five-spot covers most of Tasties' meals, which are served 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

If you think Miami's the capital of Cuban cuisine, then you haven't been to Delray lately. What Miami has in numbers, Delray has in quality: Cohiba, a mami-and-papi shop that offers above-and-beyond black beans. A pounded palomilla proves its pedigree, while lechon asado and ropa vieja vie for slow-cooked honors. But it's the seafood and fish flesh -- garlic shrimp, lobster Creole, fried grouper -- that's the real hook here. Paella Valenciana is a good way to guarantee yourself some plentiful shellfish, but it's made-to-order. How to cope with the requisite one-hour wait? Two words: stuffed yuca. Sit in front of the palm tree mural and pretend you're back in the home country. At Cohiba, it's that easy.

This "Little Colombian Corner" will warm the heart -- and the belly -- of not only the homesick paisa but of anyone seeking simple, hearty, skillfully prepared fare in ridiculously large portions. Pull up a chair at one of the tables or just belly up to the bar under the eaves of the barrel-tiled faux balconcito and tuck into a breakfast of arepas, white cheese, and the soft, sweet, cheese-infused rolls known as pan de bono -- baked on-premises and also sold at the pastry shop next door. Come on back for lunch: Perhaps an appetizer of papas rellenas (mashed potato dumplings wrapped around ground beef, then dropped in the fryer) and one of the stick-to-your-ribs soups -- the Saturday special of sancocho de gallina (hen soup with onions, potatoes, yuca, and plantains) is a can't-miss. For dinner, go all-out for one of the bandejas, a huge platter offering a skirt steak, rice, red beans, two kinds of sausage (options include not only the standard chorizo but the very authentic morcilla blood sausage), a strip of chicharron (fried pork skin), and a fried egg. Or perhaps you'll opt for the sobrebarriga, a falling-apart pot roast stewed in a tomato-onion sauce and served with yuca. Whatever you choose, you'll have plenty left over for lunch (and possibly dinner as well) the next day.

Once the bastion of fast-food joints, now Coral Springs gets a nod from gourmets, thanks to fine-dining restaurants like Anita's. See, we're not talking chicken burritos here at this sibling of Eduardo de San Angel; we're talking cilantro-flavored crêpes filled with cuitlacoche (corn fungus), onions, and chopped Serrano peppers. And we're not looking at your standard chile relleno; we're gazing at a poblano pepper, fire-roasted and filled with salmon mousse that's been enhanced with minced pasillo chilis and topped with a creamy ancho chili sauce. In fact, chili lovers can peruse the full palette here, from the guajillo sauce that dresses the grilled yellowtail fillet to the cascabel barbecue rub that enhances the grilled, 16-ounce pork chop. Nor do you have to worry that with all this highly spiced fare, you'll be hung out to dry. Service is as professional as the chef, which means frequent refills on water and wine, replacement of silverware, and a much-welcomed, no-rush policy.

Just in case you were wondering, the "Porto" stands for Portuguese, as in one of the peoples who settled the Brazilian region oh-so-long ago. Oh, OK, they usurped it. But aside from its obvious (and somewhat dubious) gift of salt cod to the area, Portugal isn't ultimately represented in the cuisine at this authentically ethnic Brazilian eatery. Instead, the native influences and the imported African influences are more widely seen in dishes like moqueca, a fish stew, and picanha, a steak topped with a double bonus of two fried eggs. For dessert, crema catalana is given a tropical influence with passion fruit, but the real passion inspired here will be your own -- a desire to return for some traditional, well-prepared Brazilian fare that takes as much care with quality as a Brazilian teenager does picking out that perfect thong bikini. Now that's serious business.

Face it, herbivores: In these parts, going vegetarian means going ethnic -- usually Mediterranean/Middle Eastern, or Asian. And if the Red Thai Room isn't already at the top of your meatless-dining list, it should be. Heck, the place even writes "Lunch, Dinner & Vegan" on its takeout menus. Said menu also features a helping hand -- a little icon in the shape of a hand giving the "peace" sign -- to guide the fleshphobic to their very own tasty treats. One peace sign means no meat; two means vegan -- no animal products of any kind. And those who are used to finding veggie meals banished to the back of the bus will be happy to spot those little hands all over this menu: three of twelve appetizers, four of six rice/noodle dishes, and 13 of 19 specialties are meatless (all have a couple of vegan options). And the taste? The pat khi mao, with its spicy chili paste, julienned bamboo shoots, bell peppers, and mushrooms, is a great example of the subtle flavor and delicious heat these meat-free meals offer.

Yes, this joint tucked right next to a movie theater does offer beef, lamb, and chicken selections on the menu, but there is no shortage of vegetarian choices. The place is open until 10 p.m. every day of the week, which means a real dinner after a movie is no longer out of the question for vegetarians. Many of the vegetarian selections are actually vegan. Go for lunch and the server will immediately bring a pitcher of cold water and a basket of warm, fresh slices of pita bread with butter. (Why not hummus? Small quibble.) Follow that up with a bowl of hearty, nutty, red lentil soup, and it just gets better from there. There are no fewer than nine vegetarian entrées to choose from, including dolma (stuffed cored zucchini and green peppers), spanakopita (spinach pie), türlü (vegetable medley in red sauce), and eggplant sauté. All are less than $15. So why doesn't this place make it as veggie heaven? The small matter of the rice, which is made with chicken stock to give it added flavor. That'll scare off the vegans -- which leaves more of those tasty stuffed grape leaves for the rest of us.

OK, so Gary Woo is about as Chinese as tortillas. So the place is about as much like a bistro as a convention hall. When it comes down to the fare -- which is about as Hong Kong as, well, New York City's Chinatown -- it hardly matters. This is the stuff New Yorkers' dreams are made of: an endless bowl of crisp, fried noodles with duck sauce to start off the meal, along with a stiff drink from the bistro's fully stocked bar. Plus, just the appetizer list alone, featuring nearly two dozen dumplings, deep-fried seafood rolls, and pork ribs, is the equivalent of a good dim sum buffet on Spring Street. Add in beef chow fun with black bean sauce, eggplant and chicken served braised in a hot pot, royal lobster casserole with the mysterious XO sauce and chef's suggestions such as bean curd, shrimp, and crab meat sautéed in a tiny wok and you'll be hard-put to get the snowbirds to leave the snow peas behind.

While many Chinese takeout places appear to have been built from the remains of a Denny's or Taco Bell, Henry's is an institution. Since 1959, the place has been dishing out Chinese food, from Szechuan to Mandarin to Cantonese, from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 4 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday. All of it is pretty good stuff, though they do Szechuan best of all. Nice and spicy. The reasonable asking price, typically from $5 to $10, makes Henry's a viable option for all but the most low-end budgets. Ask them to make the Szechuan beef or pork really spicy if you're in the mood for the oral version of a nuclear meltdown. But having your stomach lining dissolve from extreme spice and then screaming in agony as the acids digest your body is a pretty nasty way to go. So perhaps you should just understand that, in this instance at least, the Chinese are bigger men than you and that, to many of them, a whole bowl of super-spicy Texas chili es nada. We've had a couple of centuries to perfect our recipes. They've had millennia. Come back when you are ready, grasshopper.

Intimacy is all about eliminating distractions -- forgetting the day at work, ignoring the mass of people around you, creating a funnel of focus. The senses must remain alive to the one you're with, but the surrounding static needs to be squelched. The restaurant in a chamber just off the raucous pub at King's Head is just such an oasis of dimly lighted calm. The dark wood walls are like a black hole that suck disharmony into their very grain. The waitresses at King's Head know how to take an order, deliver it, and let you dine in peace. No "How are we doing here?" every five minutes. If you've a conspiracy to concoct, a proposition to put forward, or a confession to divulge, slip right in.