Food & Drink

Ponte Vecchio (Italian for "Old Bridge") doesn't look like much from the outside. It's at the end of a strip mall on busy Commercial Boulevard, right next to an empty lot that accommodates overflow parking on busy Friday and Saturday nights. But as in Italy, the outside of the building says nothing about the food and service inside. Once you walk into Ponte Vecchio's charming dining room, made to appear like a café along one of Venice's many picturesque canals, owner and chef Michel will happily warn: "If you want a great meal, you have to give it time to cook." And he means it. This isn't a place to grab a quick bite. Ponte Vecchio offers a true dining experience, complete with a tuxedoed maitre d' and a team of accented waiters bringing drinks, meals, and the occasional surprise from the chef. "From Michel," a waiter will say as he puts a small plate on the table with an unexpected, appetizing treat the chef has prepared. Although Ponte Vecchio's extensive wine list includes reds and whites from Italy, France, and California ranging in price from $25 to $100, the restaurant's Italian and Mediterranean dinner selections change from one night to the next. Indeed, though patrons can order from a two-page menu that includes salmon, veal, chicken, and pasta dishes ranging from $20 to $30, the maitre d' will generally encourage you to try the specials. And for good reason. Michel puts extra effort and time into developing these -- generally three dishes, one fish, one meat or poultry, and the other pasta -- that range in price from about $25 to $35. Your dining experience at Ponte Vecchio could last nearly two hours, and you'll savor every minute of it.

It's clean, it's bright, and it serves confections so sweet that your teeth almost rot just looking at them. Gone are the days of Grandma's neighborhood bakery, where only muffins, brownies, and loaves of bread were available. When this company was founded nearly two decades ago during the "Let's Get Physical" '80s, more than 50 flavors of cheesecake and dozens of pies, tortes, and other cakes were delivered to the hungry masses by Celebrity's chefs. Through the no-fat '90s and the "anti-carb" new millennium, this bakery has continued to thrive with loads of options for anyone from the carb-conscious to the reckless. This is your go-to joint for Hello Dollies and brownies ($2.75 each), custom cakes (slices $3.25 to $3.50), platters, and seasonal selections like egg nog and cranberry pumpkin cheesecake ($3.50 to $26). What else makes this a great spot to visit? Lots of little tables, decent cups o' Joe, evening hours, and a personable staff. Cooking classes are held for kids and adults too so you can learn how to make more than just Betty Crocker.

Michael's Kitchen is a showy new restaurant in downtown Hollywood where dinner is as much a spectacle as a food experience. Flames spout from stoves in the open kitchen, frying pans sizzle like lava eruptions, and chefs parade through the place with creatively displayed dishes. This is "Cirque de Soleil dining," says Michael Blum, co-owner (with his wife, Jennie) and namesake of the restaurant. The food? It just tastes good. But the presentation is, well, carnyesque.

Blum, the food showman, feels right at home in the lurid sideshows of county fairs and traveling carnivals. "I like the wow effect -- the 3,000-pound pig and the lady with the 14-inch nose. At the carnival, it's all about the wacky people. That's kind of how I go through my day. We give you in-your-face dining."

He's the guy whose name tag says Freddy Scoops. This is Fred Sabloff, co-owner (with Fay Decker) of Maggie Moo's, the Coral Ridge ice cream emporium where they stir your favorite toppings into your flavor of choice on a stone cutting board. What? You didn't know? It's the latest thing. Last year was the store's first full year of operation, and it packed 'em in, with customers clamoring for signature flavors like grape bubblegum, very yellow marshmallow, and udderly cream.

Moo's even gives the ice cream a carny spin or two.

"Our biggest-selling flavor is cotton candy," says the gregarious Sabloff, a New Yorker with a penchant for street scenes. "I go to all the carnivals. I like the excitement. I like the food -- hot dogs on a stick, all the stuff that's not good for you. Mostly, I like to be where there's a lot of people, where people are tumling." Tumulting? "It's like tumult. But it's tuml." That would be Yiddish for noisy, chaotic, and entertaining.

Tropical Café has been dishing out flavorful Cuban grub at its present location -- an out-of-the-way store in the Sears shopping center -- for four years (and seven years before that on Andrews Avenue). It's all about the pork -- which is roasted, indelibly touched with garlic and secret herbs -- and the coffee (thick, sweet, hot as a punctured radiator in July). That's why we like owner Humberto Fajardo's peerless breakfast deal. For a mere $4.99, you get an omelet, a layer of that roast pork -- or ham or bacon -- and a slice of Swiss cheese, all pressed into a hunk of Cuban bread, which has been grilled flat in the kitchen's heavy, metal parrilla. Top it off with a steaming hot café con leche. It's what gets us to work every morning.

The cuisine of India is perhaps the only in the world whose aftertaste is more seductive than its taste. Infused with cumin, cardamom, turmeric, chili powder, coriander, and jaggery, the menu at Madras Café, a quaint restaurant in an unassuming strip mall in Pompano Beach, features some of the most authentic South Indian dishes this side of the Atlantic Ocean. For carnivores, the clay oven-baked Tandoori chicken ($11.95) blends spices with equal kick and zing to accentuate tender, fall-off-the-bone chicken; then there's the traditional lamb vindaloo ($12.95), which uses a spicy sauce to complement chunks of lamb served over a bed of rice. Additionally, Indian cuisine is known for its vegetarian dishes, and here Madras Café does not disappoint. Among the highlight veggie dishes are the Navratan Korma ($9.95), a delicious blend of vegetables in a creamy cashew-and-almond sauce; saag panner ($9.95), a mixture of fresh spinach and homemade cottage cheese; and the time-honored aloo gobi ($9.95), a combination of cauliflower and potatoes cooked with ginger and tomatoes. What's more, for those wanting to sample a variety of Indian dishes, try the lunch buffet ($7.95 Monday to Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., $9.95 Saturday and Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.) or the $11.95 dinner buffet Wednesday and Sunday from 6 to 10 p.m.

Cuban food is not complicated, nor is it generally gourmet fare. But it's spare, delicious in its simplicity, and, most important, fresh. Well, for all this you couldn't pick a better location than next door to a grocery store. And Senor Café, an ultraclean, well-lighted joint next to President Supermarket just south of downtown Hollywood, fits the bill perfectly. Our favorite dish here is boliche, Cuban pot roast ($6.95), a juicy cut of meat that will make you immediately forget that dried-up shoe leather your mom used to serve. It comes with two side dishes. For these, we recommend the moros y cristianos (white rice and black beans) and tostones (fried green plantains.) Indeed, the plantains here are some of the best on the planet -- pounded, then dumped into superhot oil so that the outside is crispy and the inside tender and moist. But the best way to eat at Señor Café if you're hungry is the lunch buffet ($6.99), which is served 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.. The menu changes every day, but a few things are for sure. Wednesdays, there will be lechon, perfect Cuban pork, and Friday is seafood day. It's all you can eat not only of the main dish but also of plantains, yucca, rice, and soup. To end your meal, what else but a perfect cup of coffee? Try the cafecito, a tiny sweetened cup that goes for a measly 53 cents. The place is open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays.

If you like yours with lettuce and tomato, onions, Heinz 57, pickles, and French fries, Muddy Waters could be your gastronomical paradise, especially on Tuesday nights, when the restaurant sells the Jimmy Buffett burger for a discounted price (reduced from $7.99 to $5.95). More adventurous aficionados with a little more to spend should order one of the $8.99 selections topped with any of Chef Adam's homemade sauces: The Portobello burger is topped with grilled, sliced you-know-whats, fresh mozzarella, and a red wine sauce; the Cayman is swimming in homemade chili and cheddar cheese sauce; and the Sunset is smothered in zippy, tropical barbeque sauce, cheddar, and bacon. The Yak, another unique find at just under nine bucks, is topped with melted cheddar, onions, jalapeños, and Conch Turbo Sauce, which isn't homemade but is a zesty, peppery product of the Keys. While all these toppings are fine and good, the bottom line here is the meat: Owner Jay Arney says each burger is made with a half pound of Black Angus, fresh ground that day. Yeah, these babies are worth every damned bit of sacrifice.

Don't bother looking for menus in this down-to-earth neighborhood place. All its offerings are up on a mirrored wall, each dish spelled out in blue tape. But then, that might not even help you. "Do you speak French?" the owner recently queried a first-timer at Chez Moy. No, came the reply. "Well, then I'll just tell you what we have," she said with a thick Creole accent, listing off lunch items: chicken ($7), fish ($10), or goat ($8) in spicy sauces. Each comes with salad and rice. For those uninitiated in Haitian ways, the menus for lunch and dinner, which also include lamb and fried pork entrées, are identical in fare and price. Breakfasts are cheaper ($6 each), but don't expect eggs and toast. Haitians like to start their morning off with the likes of meat stew and salt fish. Open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Tim Martin is a New Yorker who travels to Florida to ingest a week's worth of spring training games every year. "Eating a hot dog is the thing to do when you go to a baseball game," he says. "Even though they charge you as much as it would normally be for a whole package of hot dogs, for some reason, it just tastes better at a game." At Roger Dean Stadium, where both the Florida Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals send their major-league teams for spring training and where their minor-league teams play all summer, hot dog-eating is a complex experience; buyers need to be choosy. At any concession window, you can get a regular hot dog, which is steamed, for $3 (prices increase during spring training). Certain windows also offer the "jumbo hot dog" ($4), also steamed, which is like a regular hot dog, only fatter. Both are made by National Deli, a Miami-based company and "the official hot dog of Roger Dean stadium." Now you could satisfy your weenie jones by doing up either of those dogs with sauerkraut, relish, mustard, and ketchup from the freestanding condiment bar. But the discerning diner goes for the Dean Dog, a $5, 1/3-pound frank that is grilled until it sweats, has the black grill marks to prove it, is served with sautéed onions and peppers, and is available at only two windows: the St. Louis Grill and the Florida Grill. Volunteers run the concession stands -- and then take home 12 percent of the day's proceeds for the charity they support. (The Shriners made about $40,000 last season this way.) Nick Barbera, who mans the grill every Saturday to raise money for Kelly's Powerhouse dance school, says you should definitely spring for the Dean Dog: "It's like a hot dog on steroids. It fits right in with baseball."

Audrey Hope doesn't have to fish for compliments. Her customers offer them generously enough, most likely through a mouthful of fried snapper or over a bowl of tilapia stew. Hope and daughters Lucretia and Jessica, who hail from British Guyana, serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner Caribbean-style in this tiny, eight-table restaurant that's in an area never known for its culinary highlights. Don't let the handmade curtains in the windows or the building façade fool you: You don't have to be a fancypants to turn out a mouthwatering chicken curry with a side of mac and cheese -- or to enjoy them either. The cooking skills Hope learned from her mother are put to excellent use on recipes ranging from Bahamian to Jamaican. A chalkboard printed with the day's specials usually advertises a lineup of items including tomato-based fish stew, a whole fresh-caught battered fish, a plate of crab, shrimp, or lobster tail ($8.99 to $14.99). Sides include enough red beans and rice to feed a battalion, a double dollop of potato salad, and a half head of iceberg with bottled dressing. After you polish off that last slice of clove-, cinnamon-, and nutmeg-flavored shortcake, don't mind if Audrey and her girls, chattering happily, walk you to your car. Where there's Hope, there's lots of life.

When the Vietnamese boat people abandoned their war-torn country in the late '70s, hopping aboard rickety vessels for the trek to Dallas, San Diego, New York, and Fort Lauderdale, they brought along some indispensable knowledge: how to make a damned near perfect sandwich. Why it's taken Americans so long to pick up the trail of the Vietnamese bánh mí sub is an unanswerable mystery. Although you can probably find bánh mí at dozens of mom-and-pop groceries in South Florida (hint: Start anywhere on 441 and work your way south), the cheerful and friendly Saigon Deli is a terrific introduction to the genre, a delicacy incorporating French influence (a baguette, mayonnaise, pâté) and Vietnamese staples (roast pork, daikon radish, cilantro, fish sauce). At Saigon Deli, the subs come in eight variations, all for $3, starting with house-cured meats like ham, shredded pork, barbecue pork, and roti chicken. A combo sub of ham, Vietnamese bologna, and silky pâté topped with crunchy pickled vegetables and served on a warm sweet roll, when paired with a glass of salty lemonade or sweet bubble tea, is bliss on Earth. This charming restaurant also serves a full complement of Vietnamese soups, salads, and noodle dishes.

Give a French cook an egg, a couple of slices of bread, a stick of butter, and five minutes and most likely he'll return the favor by creating something so exquisite it'll haunt you for life. When a croque monsieur is done properly, it is, indeed, the most fantastic concoction in the universe. And, mes amis, the sandwich is made just right at La Vie en Rose (true for almost everything on the menu, but that's another story). This long-running French restaurant in Margate produces a crisp, elegant croque with slivers of country ham and Gruyère cheese melted between two slices of feather-light toasted French country bread. It's gooey and savory with a scrumptious custardy interior. For a real jolt, order the croque madame, with two poached eggs on top. They're available at $7.25 and $8.25 respectively for Sunday brunch, with a complimentary glass of champagne. You might want to refrain from mentioning your skyrocketing croque consumption to your cardiologist, though. She probably won't understand that anything that tastes this good has to be good for you -- existentially speaking.

We hate chain restaurants. Can't stand 'em. Not even Pollo Tropical escapes our wrath. But there's an exception to every rule, and it must be said that the septet of Jerk Machines not only breaks the mold; it chops it into teeny, tiny pieces. Founded in Lauderhill 16 years ago by islanders Desmond and Catherine Malcolm, Jerk Machine does several things so righteously that it'd be a shame to ignore its achievements. First and foremost, it gives scaredy-cat Anglos an opportunity to sample real Jamaican cooking without alienating its core constituency of native folks -- those who depend on the restaurants for fast, consistently excellent food that reminds them of home. Secondly, it remains a centerpiece of the downtown restaurant rows of Lauderhill, Miramar, and central Fort Lauderdale. Sit down, or get it to go. You can't deny that the Machine serves some superb pork jerk ($7.99 for a large plate with fixings) and chicken ($5.99 to $7.69). There's also succulent curry goat and oxtail, brown stew chicken that'll have you running back for more, escoviched fish, and crispy snapper. Plus, there are patties ($1.25 to $1.50), those hand-held pastries full of spicy goodness. Oh, and don't forget breakfast -- ackee and saltfish, of course; liver an' onions; calaloo; and mackerel. Authentic enough to run Kingston's own Island Grill out of Lauderhill in less than a year, this well-oiled Machine will jerk forever, Jah willing.

Funky as an old Parliament album, Le Tub's commode-themed outdoor eatery looks more rustic and weather-beaten each year. But the place stays packed with happy locals vying for a waterside table (best way to catch those superb sunsets glittering off the Intracoastal) and waiting for the molasses-slow servers to bring another round of drinks. Still, even Tub fans can get put off by the less-than-antiseptic surroundings and opt for liquid refreshment only -- an elitist error, to be sure. Yeah, there might be a fresh ketchup wet spot on your driftwood bench, or a palmetto bug may scurry across the floor... so what? Everything on Le Tub's handwritten, Xeroxed menu tastes fantastic -- its chili, burgers, and key lime pie win regular accolades. But the fries -- ye gods! These lovingly hand-cut shards of spudly goodness are fried to crispy perfection in peanut oil, rendering McDonald's flash-frozen abominations utterly pathetic. Blistered brown with shreds of skin attached, a basket ($3.50 to $5) of these hot 'n' tasty little items split between a pair of happy diners is a sure-fire entry point to the rest of Le Tub's delicious, overlooked selection of victuals.

Brush up on your Spanish, gringo, because few people at Atlakat are likely to speak your tongue, except when it comes to the universal language of great homemade food. But if you can open a menu and point, you'll be well taken care of at Manuel Chavez's Salvadoran café. Make a stab at the Sampler Platter ($12.99): fried pupusas filled with jack cheese, curtido (a marinated cabbage and carrot slaw) grilled beef chunks, fried pork chicharrones, and pieces of yucca and fried plantain. Give it all a squirt of Cholula hot sauce or a dunk in your bowl of hot tomato salsa and you've got a meal. Er, well, actually you don't. El Salvador may be the smallest country in Central America, but its appetites are big. Witness those burly workmen polishing off plates of tamales and grilled chicken. Now take a deep breath and order yourself a monster bowl of seafood soup ($13.50) or the Atlakat Special ($11.95), a forearm's-length strip of grilled sirloin, a grilled breast of chicken, and four jumbo grilled shrimp. Granted, you won't be able to finish it, not with those sides of fried yucca, red beans, and rice, but your waitress probably understands the universal sign for "Much as I'd love to, I can't choke down another morsel." (Point finger at unfinished plate, then at belly straining shirt buttons. Shake head wistfully.)

Philosophical question: How can you tell the dancer from the dance? How to separate the French fry from its environment? If you could surgically remove, say, that single Benny's fry -- crisp, salty, and golden -- from its plate and whisk it away from these surroundings -- the wooden pier, the gossiping pop and suck of the wavelets, the aromas of Hawaiian Tropic, salt air, and trolley exhaust; if you could spirit it to a place free from the absurd Technicolor tangerine hues of the setting sun and the ocean's sad, late-afternoon turquoises, from the babble of flirting couples and cranky tourists, and the high whine of a drive-time traffic report from a forgotten radio -- would it still be the same French fry? Or would it have become something else entirely?

Blather all you want about authentic Mexican food, but how do you know it? The old lady in the kitchen pressing tortillas? The "secret" spice recipe? Maybe it's a menu that unabashedly sells tongue burritos ($3.50), tripe soup ($6), pork skin tacos ($1.50), and shrimp/octopus cocktails ($7.99). You could count the number of Mexican families crammed into a tiny room on any given Friday night or point to the queue of exhausted migrant workers lined up at the taco truck in the parking lot. The average price of a meal hovers around $5; the place is lavishly decorated with glittery streamers and balloons for every single holiday, from Valentine's to St. Paddy's to Cinco de Mayo. The mariachi and norteña music blaring at eardrum-splitting decibels could be the dead giveaway. Some might argue that you really know "authentic" when you can drive up to the to-go window at 4:45 a.m., seven days a week, and come away with a carton of spicy pork tacos ($1.50 each) that will satisfy any longing you're suffering at that blasted hour.

Tacos Al Carbon nails each and every one of those. But what really sets this moving-and-shaking, ever-evolving little goldmine apart from the corporate taco mongers is that nothing ever tastes the same twice. You may get a green sauce with your taco de chicharron that will peel the roof off your mouth. Then again, that taco might come with a cool tomato salsa bursting with cilantro and onion. A basket of corn tortillas, puffed and warm straight from the fryer, might arrive at the table at no charge, or then again, no dice. Your "veggie" burrito ($2.99) could have just about anything in it that can't be slaughtered and thrown on a grill. And then there's that mysterious menu item described as "other kind of meat..."

Big breasts. Hot legs. Juicy thighs. Isn't fried chicken the best? For more than 40 years, Keese's Simply Delicious has dished out perfectly spicy, sublimely crispy, just-greasy-enough pieces of fresh-fried heaven, even keeping its old family recipe through several management and ownership changes. But besides the fine fowl, Keese's has the advantage of its almost-oceanfront location. So order your two-piece/two-side dinner -- for less than six bucks. (Try the slaw and the intriguingly spiced baked beans). While you wait the requisite 17 minutes cooking time, brown-bag a beer from the gas station across the street and stroll past the tacky-yet-charming shops and cafés of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea's pier district. By the time you make a leisurely lap, your food will be ready to grab and carry back to the beach for a seaside picnic. Just be wary of jealous bystanders. Keese's chicken looks and smells as good as it tastes.

Those of us who have taken to barking incessantly about the insulting lack of quality in everything these days -- the DVD player that skips whole movie scenes first time you plug it in, stylish steak knives that break off in your T-bone -- will cherish Salerno's for every drop of its home-made, carefully tended red sauce, its freshly made gnocchi, tortellini, and spinach fettuccini, its imported provolone and mozzarella. Sing arias of grazie to Tony Salerno for being a decent guy who couldn't live with himself if he charged more than $3.25 for a delicious bowl of Italian wedding soup. A hot sausage and pepper sub, supersized, can be had for $6.50 here, and you know when you get it home and peel off its greasy wrapper, it's going to taste better than you dreamed possible. A plate of rigatoni, served with a salad and dripping garlic rolls, will fill your belly without emptying your wallet. The only surprises here are good ones, like a shrimp, scallop, and bacon pizza (at $27.95, the most expensive pie on the list). And the only secrets have been passed down through generations of Italian cooks. Pass them on.

When you order chicken wings, you want the whole shebang: a lopsided w of drummie, drummette, and that extra pinky on the end that functions best as a handle. That's what they serve at this tiny, carryout-only soul-food joint. A ten-piece box sells for $5.50 and comes in four varieties: mild, hot, lemon pepper, and "the famous Pompano Wings." The latter are bathed in a sauce that's neither hot nor exactly sweet. Neither spicy nor bland. Call it a flavor not found in nature. Gray's makes it easy to fulfill your fowl cravings, as it's open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. They deliver with a $20 minimum order.

Short of booking a flight to Italy's Amalfi coast, you're not going to find a whole bunch of restaurants where the waiters address you as madam, whip out plates of char-grilled calamari on shredded artichoke and arugula salad, uncork your wine with a flourish of white linen, appear with glasses of chilled, homemade limoncello, and prevail upon you with samples of biscotti. That such a place exists in backward bumpkin Lake Worth, where nothing happens but a lot of bickering over whether to sell a parking lot, is, frankly, surreal. And if things weren't mysterious and melancholy enough, when was the last time you saw a $38 piece of fish on a menu? My dear, you've stepped into the zone; relax and enjoy it. And if you can't find somebody to pay for your pleasure, Paradiso's $48 prix fixe menu, served nightly, is an epic five-course bargain, if for nothing else than the opportunity to bask in the glow of so much masculine pulchritude, all of it dressed in snappy black suits and silk ties and sporting Mediterranean accents. From the first course of eight little bites of bliss -- tuna tartare, grilled eggplant, mozzarella di bufala, among others -- through the pastas and mushroom risotto, the grouper Livornese, the venison in balsamic reduction, to the perfect little plate of sweets and your limoncello cream, you know they weren't kidding around when they named this place Paradiso.

Sure, you say, "You think I'm going to drive across hundreds of acres of sugar-cane fields just for a piece of meat?" Well, take heart in this: You'll float back home after you try this melt-in-your-mouth slab o' heaven. Jellyroll's offers a solid assortment of "upscale" soul food, but the chicken-fried steak and brown gravy, for $6.95, is the best. It includes a choice of two side dishes, among which are green beans and ham, black beans and rice, and collard greens (cooked with liberal portions of pork). The steak is lightly breaded and fried to a delicate crispiness. The restaurant is visually appealing too, with antique collectibles and old-time photos of Pahokee displayed throughout its brightly lit interior.

Nothing in life feels quite as sweet as being on your way up. And Chef Michael Blum's star sure looks to be rising over the Hollywood skyline. Blum's new restaurant on Harrison Street is the culinary equivalent of a blockbuster or a box-office smash: the one thing everybody's gotta see and all your neighbors are talking about. Patrons brave enough, or early enough, can snag a seat at the granite counter and watch Blum and his minions perform pyrotechnics over open grills a few feet away. Come a little later and you can sink into a leather banquette and prepare to be spoiled rotten by a bevy of servers and sous chefs. Blum's larger-than-life dishes, some of which are served on Home Depot-style floor tiles, are as delicious as they are dazzling. This transcontinental menu sails from port to port -- Asian-inspired yellowfin tuna martinis in their elegant, long-stemmed glasses ($14) to American quasi-classics like candied pecan-coated grouper ($25) and specials like rich osso buco. Armchair travelers go 'round the world in 80 minutes and then find themselves safely back where they started, happier and wiser.

Maybe you've noticed the high price and low quality at the supermarket: America is currently undergoing a tomato famine. Well, not so much a famine as a shortage, which makes the sumptuous, fresh-tomato-topped slices at the Cannoli Kitchen all the more impressive. Existing in the culinary nether-region between New York thin crust, Chicago deep dish, and California gourmet, Cannoli Kitchen's slices come in 17 "signature" styles, like chicken fiorentina with ham, spinach, and mozzarella; Mexican with ground beef, salsa, lettuce, tomato (fresh!), green peppers, and cheddar cheese; chicken Alfredo; portobello; and the divine artichoke with sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, capers, and mozzarella. Takeout slices ring in at just over $3, and there are plenty of other Italian specialties -- including awesome hot and cold subs, pasta, and seafood, all at modest prices. If you like thinking in the long term, grab three fresh-frozen slices for five bucks. Now that's a cool deal.

Chef Don Pintabona comes from so many generations of Sicilian cooks that he could make ricotta cavatelli blindfolded, one-handed, and asleep. The cuisine is in his blood -- from his grandmother's simple, impeccable recipe for marinara to a witty plate of tuna, salmon, and yellowtail carpaccio with ostresta caviar. This noted cookbook author and globetrotter joined the ranks of Fort Lauderdale's most interesting chefs when he opened Trina in the Atlantic Hotel last year. Even better, this whiff of Italy delivers the sophisticated scents of New York, where Pintabona ran the kitchen at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Grill, concocting jaw-dropping feats of culinary legerdemain for the likes of Madonna, Liza, and Shaq. Now partnered with Nick Mautone, a noted author and beveragemeister who has assembled a stunning list of martinis, world beers, and international wines, Trina is an example of how two great minds can add up to an incalculable sum. And Pintabona really riffs on his Southern Italian roots: The place is named for the Sicilian flag's medusa, which has three legs representing Sicily's trio of seas; the focus here is on the ocean, a serendipitous collaboration between Mediterranean/African influences and South Floridian bounty. Start by sitting outside with a view of the Atlantic and sip on a Trinatini, the house cocktail of vodka, pomegranate molasses, and lavender syrup. Once you've thoroughly unwound, follow with a cold almond vichyssoise decorated with sliced grapes and a looping ribbon of almond cracker. Then choose from a range of small plates -- char-grilled octopus with sherry vinegar and oregano ($11); signature entrées like tagine-baked Florida grouper with almond couscous, whitewater clams, and chermoula sauce ($26); or a Mediterranean surf and turf, a six-ounce filet mignon with a half lobster, a dollop of lobster hash, balsamic onions, and sauce Maltaise ($46). As restless and eclectic as its author, the menu is a work always in progress. Let's see if we can keep this one around for awhile.

As Zagat, Fodor's, or any assorted tourist map will tell you, the best breakfast around is at John G's. But the line at this place is often too much; it frequently snakes out the door and around the building. So here's a trick: Cut up to the takeout counter and bring your eggs to Lake Worth's public beach, which is just across the parking lot. G's is famous for its pancakes, with the blueberries baked inside ($5.95), but the best omelets you can find on or off the beach are also here. Their Italian is full of sausage, peppers, pepperoni, and melted cheese ($8.50), or try the Hawaiian, chock full of sautéed vegetables, a grilled pineapple slice, and cheese sauce ($7.95). G's will pack up your beach brunch, and then you can eat it blanket-style as you laugh at the poor schmucks waiting in line.

Somehow, someone in Thailand a long, long time ago discovered that the sweet taste of coconut could be mixed with hot chili powder to create some of the most savory sauces to come out of the Southeast Asian peninsula. The taste can be exotic, uncompromising, and sometimes surprising. You can find all three at Thai Spice, an elegant restaurant filled with aquariums and Asian art and sculpture. All entrées -- from red curry chicken ($11.95) to scallops basil ($14.95) to the more expensive house specials -- can be served safe-and-sound mild to burn-a-hole-in-your-tongue spicy. Thai Spice is open weekdays for lunch and for dinner seven days a week starting at 5 p.m. Reservations are suggested for Friday and Saturday evenings. That's for good reason: This place is a first-rate restaurant that can be as busy as the streets of Bangkok.

They call it a slice, that slab of pizza in front of you. It looks about the size of a laptop and sits on two paper plates. Cut from Pizza Rustica's signature square pans of the stuff, these are a meal cut into three-bite squares. They come with a laundry list of toppings, including imported prosciutto, yellow squash, and shiitake mushrooms. There's the campagnola -- with sweet sausage, roasted peppers, sweet onions, and plum tomato sauce. Or the pizza putanesca, covered in Sicilian anchovies, kalamata olives, jalapeños, red onions, and pepperoni. Finish them off with a pizza filled with hazelnut chocolate. The slices cost $2.75 to $3.75 and the full pies $11.50 to $29. But what makes these slices better than the competition is the fact that you don't have to leave the house: Pizza Rustica delivers any order of three slices or more. Why order so much? You don't need more than a slice for a meal. But if you order just a little, you have to leave the couch.

Here's a little story about the fajita that could. One day, the fajita looked at his peers with their white, flaky tortillas, boring veggie mixes, and dry, flavorless meats and said, "There's got to be more than this." So he left his tiny taco stand in Nowhere, Idaho, and headed for Florida, Land of the Unique and Daring. Here, he encountered the folks at Cafe del Rio, who promised a makeover that would make him unrecognizable to those stale fajita friends he left back home. So the Del Rio people tossed chicken, steak, and shrimp into a tumbler with seasonings and marinades to make them flavorful and exquisitely tender. Then they added some yellow squash and zucchini to the standard veggie mix of onions and green and red peppers and adorned the sizzling skillet with a shiny, jade-colored pepper and a little silver cup of butter touched with cilantro and jalapeño. Why butter, you ask? Well, my child, butter makes the flavor of the meats richer (just ask someone at Ruth's Chris), and it adds a nice flavor to the golden and puffy tortillas that Del Rio makes fresh to blanket the whole affair. Of course, the guacamole, sour cream, diced tomatoes, Tex-Mex rice, and refried beans topped with melted shredded cheese were thrilled with the results, and they agreed that the prices asked were more than fair (just under $12 for beef or chicken, a little shy of $14 for shrimp, and nearly $15 for a combo of the three). And they all lived happily ever after in my stomach. The End.

Maybe it's baby-boomer nostalgia that makes Maison Carlos seem so comforting. The place is decidedly old-fashioned in its tastes, exuding a worldly, early-'60s-era charm that was always more mirage than reality (Dean Martin really was a bastard, and those Playtex girdles were freaking uncomfortable). The lavishly gilt-framed marine paintings by Nantucket artist Robert Stark say it all: You're as far from the cutting edge as you're likely to get, at least on this side of the bridge. At Maison Carlos, somebody still believes in romantic, windswept seascapes; in vichyssoise (this faultlessly executed classic, $6.50, is prepared without the faintest whisper of innovation); in waiters who do not speak unless spoken to; in smoky-voiced jazz singers. That the owners, cast, and crew of Maison Carlos are all in their 30s or younger makes the experience of dining here even weirder. What's up with these cats? Oysters Rockefeller, for god's sake? Somehow, though, it all works beautifully. Settled back with your plate of crispy fried zucchini, sliced white bread with a dish of sweet butter, and a cold martini, you could be 8 years old again, having dinner with Mummy at the club (yes, our Mummy let us drink martinis). Start with the oysters ($11.50), follow with caesar salad ($7.50), and a plate of steak au poivre ($25.95) or spaghetti with jumbo lump crabmeat ($19.95). Then give Tippi Hedren a call and see if she'd like to join you for a stinger. They won't have to ask you how to make one.

The salsa at this modest and friendly joint isn't the finest only because it's free and plentiful but also because it's damned near perfect. Color: A bright, beautiful pink from the combo of diced tomatoes and onions. Taste: Like God has decided to prove to the world that he really does exist. Texture: Crisp and fresh. "We make it five times a day," says Eduardo Argueta, general manager of the Riverfront location. "And we throw away what's left at night and start fresh the next day. It has to be fresh to be tasty." But at Olé Olé, it's not just about the salsa. The fare is all first-rate. If you're with a friend or two, try the fajitas for three, which runs only about $23 and comes with a mountain of your choice of chicken, shrimp, or steak (or any combo of the three). And enjoy the margaritas. They're always strong enough, of good quality, and totally authentic, like the rest of the place.

This place is famous for its stellar beef, which is the very heart of good chili. Hamburger Heaven has long been one of Palm Beach's only moderately priced lunch spots, with crowds waiting in line far out the door to enter the 60-year-old diner. Most of 'em have come for the burgers, like the aptly named Beverly Hills, which comes with avocado and ranch dressing. But Hamburger Heaven's chili ($2.95 a cup or $5.95 a bowl) makes a good rival; it has big chunks of ground beef, red beans, and a sauce that's tangy but not spicy. Even though Hamburger Heaven is most certainly a diner, its chili doesn't have that diner feel -- you know, the sticky, murky texture that comes from being in a crock pot for a week. This sublime dish has a smooth consistency so that the floating chunks of beef and beans stand out. It's astounding, but if you simply can't pass up getting a burger when you visit Heaven, try the San Antonio ($9.95), which is smothered in jalapeños, cheddar cheese, raw onions, and, as you guessed, a mound of chili.

The best new restaurant in Broward County never sent out a press release. It didn't cost $2.2 million to open. It doesn't have a celebrity chef, and waiters do not ferry convoluted cocktails to tables full of PR ladies clutching Kate Spade handbags. There are no "small plates." No ceviche either. Or anything -- alcoholic or not -- called a "martini." The menu is not divided into sections and subsections with poetic titles, ecstatic blurbs about a chef who worked in Paris and Manhattan, or overwrought explanations about technique. This menu has two almost bafflingly understated categories: "Japanese" and "Thai." That and a blackboard of specials that you may have to squint to read. But in the gaping void left by an utter lack of braggadocio, here's what you might find on an average night at Kaiyo: (1) boned, stuffed, deep-fried chicken wings served with a subtle homemade chile dip ($5.95); (2) crab Rangoon with fruit sauce -- deluxe, peppery, and crabfull -- that should make other restaurants serving Rangoon weep with shame ($5.95); (3) a spicy Thai seafood salad ($7.95) that has been known to temporarily silence the most inveterate blabbermouth; (4) a Thai cook in the kitchen who won't reveal the ingredients in, or sources of, her secret recipes; (5) squid stuffed with ground pork and served in ginger sauce with bright vegetables; (6) a sushi chef who sometimes makes up brilliant roll combinations involving mangos and oranges on the spot; (7) a list of sauces (peanut, basil, red curry, garlic, ginger) that all actually taste completely and enchantingly different; (8) lovely service performed by lovely people; and (9) a menu where -- excepting the big sushi boats and the occasional market price fish -- no single item tops $14.95.

When it comes to creating the perfect barbecue experience, there's more involved than putting a rib on your plate. Alligator Alley has all the requisite trappings: a down-home vibe, the Meters on the jukebox, and icy Native Lager on tap (because a barbecue joint without beer is like a bistro without Bordeaux). As for the main event, it's true the menu lacks the baby backs and quarter birds that are the cornerstone of many a rib shack. That's because owner Carl "Kilmo" Pacillo has mastered -- mastered -- the pulled pork sandwich ($6.95), and you won't find a more delectable example in South Florida. Period. Three made-from-scratch sauces -- sweet, tangy, and Carolina-style -- add just the right spice to the tender, oak-smoked meat, which emits a pungent, primal flavor that stands up to copious saucing. A healthy dollop of creamy cole slaw (included with the sandwich) cools down the fire sublimely for a three-way balancing act worthy of Ringling Bros. Along with the pork po-boy, the Alley serves up a killer chicken breast sandwich ($10.95) that is also smoked out back in a house smoker just big enough for a few items. The alligator ribs are always fresh and tender, and Kilmo's gumbo is award-winning. If you're smart, you'll finish the feast with a slice of tangy, locally made key lime pie. Calling Alligator Alley a bar is a disservice; it's a vital part of the community. Calling its menu "bar food" is outrageous -- it's an epicurean wonder. UPDATED: This location is now closed.

OK, we're going to assume that if you're reading this category, you need a place to take the grandparents. Down for the weather, they've promised to give you a break from your normal dinner of chicken wings and Schlitz. You'll need to take them to a place on their turf, and there's nothing better than codger-filled Manalapan, home to Ritz-Carlton's Soleil restaurant. Soleil is perfectly situated on an oceanfront terrace to give you something to stare at during Grandma's rants. If you go on Fridays, hit the $52 seafood buffet. On other days, start out with the citrus-poached shrimp cocktail accompanied with a "coconut scented cocktail sauce" ($15), since the only scents you're used to during dining are the ones that emanate from the sticky floors at Hooter's. Next, since Gramps is paying, go for Soleil's priciest item, the $36 rosemary-flavored rack of lamb, which comes with herbed gnocchi and red-wine braised carrots. Finish it off with the restaurant's award-winning chocolate mousse with a crème brûlé filling for $8.50. That's a total bill of about $80 with tax and tip, which just might take a day's work to pay for at the car wash.

Sure, the baloney sandwiches in prison offer more nutritional value, but this menu item could come in handy when your wallet's thin: "The Inflation Beater: two stale heels of bread wrapped around a freshly frozen ice cube." Cost: 2612 cents.

If your palate craves strong flavors and your belly demands a hearty meal, head to H&E Marina Deli. The mouthwatering food and no-nonsense service merit the sometimes difficult search for the deli, which is tucked away in the back of the Southport Shopping Center. The first two meals of the day come easy to these folks, who serve an array of breakfasts ranging from $2 to $5.25 and including a pastrami omelet and a crabmeat omelet (both $5.25). For lunch, there's a hot corned beef sandwich for $7.25, a veggie Reuben for $5.45, or a tuna, chicken, or whitefish salad sandwich for $6.75. The drink selection in the fridge is equally stacked with everything from chocolate milk and a variety of juices to Dr. Brown's sodas. It's a real New York kind of place. On your way out, throw a tip in the jar reading "Subway" and the crowd behind the counter will yell "Thank you" without looking up. But don't be upset at the lack of eye contact. As you'll know by then, they have important work to do. Open from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

You've complained for years that the major thing wrong with most diners is you can't get a vodka gimlet straight-up with your eggs over easy at 3:30 in the old a.m. Well, quit your bellyaching, you hopeless lush; the oldest diner in Palm Beach County not only hops around the clock on weekends but will gladly shake you up a creamsicle martini (if you must) or pop open a magnum of bubbly until exactly 3:59 on Saturday and Sunday mornings. So you can have your pancake and drink it too. And, dig it, you might just get those hotcakes bussed to your table by some freaky little slip of a nymphet with a bar through her tongue and bangs tinted blue. Thank nightclub entrepreneur Rodney Mayo for bringing civilization to the madlands of Dixie Highway, along with easy-on-the-wallet Howley's egg-with-French-fries-on-top sandwiches, steak frites, crab cakes Benedict, grilled Black Angus burgers, homemade apple pie à la mode, cups of espresso as black as the night is long, and a Pied Piper parade of babelicious artsy types who drape themselves around the retro-chrome chairs, dissolve into fits of giggles over the Jackalope heads hung on the bathroom doors, and swerve from counter to patio in their go-go boots, waving clove cigarettes. What with that filtered lighting and the Cure on the sound system, you might say it's just like heaven.

Oh Cyrille, Cyrille, how we adore you, you big rouille-making brute you, with your leek tarts, your duck confits, your chicken pot pies, your soufflés au fromage! Our hearts simply break in two over your mystical lentil soups ($4.50) and surreal espresso milkshakes, your plates of assorted cheeses ($15.50), not to mention the BLT that is like a reinvention of the BLT ($11.50), a sandwich that somehow both confounds and enchants. It's as if you dreamed of mayonnaise, awoke, went to your kitchen, and in a moment of tortured genius conceived a sauce so tender and sad that it would suffice as the last meal -- with a simple boiled egg, perhaps -- for your dying beloved. All this we divine in you, Cyrille, and yet -- we are less than nothing to you, and you once told us (admittedly, you were a bit in your cups at the time, and we had been perhaps overlavish with our praise, embarrassing you) that you "didn't give a damn" whether we liked your cooking. You are so French in that slightly haughty but magnetic way that it makes us swoon, Cyrille. But most of all, how thrilled we are that this bright and lovely little café is now yours entirely, since you have bought it outright, and that you serve a prix fixe dinner (which is very expensive but no doubt worth every blesséd franc) from Thursday to Saturday, but only for four persons or more, and only for two tables per night, and only if reserved in advance. We wouldn't expect any less, Cyrille, from a man of your qualities.

Robin: "Holy car collection, Batman!"

Batman: "Uh, yeah, Robin. That's what Daddy keeps around the restaurant for all the little kiddies."

There's generally nothing unique about a Waffleworks franchise, but the one in Hollywood is extraordinary. It's decorated with about 500 scale-model cars on the walls. You can imagine there's plenty to look at while your little angels wait for their Mickey Mouse-shaped chocolate chip pancakes ($1.99) or their M&M Waffle, Oreo Waffle, or Crunch Waffle (made with the Nestlé's stuff that Shaq claims to eat), all of which are $4.99. Visit on Halloween, when owner Sergio Goldvarg arrives dressed in his authentic Bat costume (often with his son, dressed as Robin, in tow); the kids go wild angling for photos. Parents don't have to feign interest either, since the Batmobile he arrives in is one of the actual cars used by Adam West and is an admirable collector's piece.

Oy! Murray! Take a look at those stoy-gen! Congrat-u-lations, Murray, you and your lovely wife have found smoked fish paradise, and, believe it or not, you aren't in New York anymore. Sure, it looks a little like a Manhattan deli, what with the Hebrew National salamis hanging and the signs announcing a sale on chicken cutlets, but this place is truly a Florida-style testament to the fish that sacrificed themselves. Granted, all the swimmers had to travel a distance to get here -- the whitefish and chub are from Lake Michigan, the salmon is from Norway, and others arrived from Chile -- but the flavors are so rich that you'd think they had jumped out of the tank and into the smokers mere moments before they were served. If you've never tried smoked fish, take a taste of nova (nonsalty salmon) or sable for starters. If you are a connoisseur of the stuff, be adventurous and go for the smoked butterfish. Bet you can't find that in your local deli.

You will eat it with a fox

(if you're lucky enough to be dining with one).

Owner Mike Montella, who started out as a charter-boat captain and is now nearly three decades into running this gourmet seafood market, knows a thing or two about our scaly and shell-covered friends. His fish is delivered fresh from Florida's West Coast, and he even has a local lobster diver who has been going down for about seven years to catch those local, clawless langostas. This squeaky-clean, stacked-to-the-gills place has just about every type of local fish you can imagine (pompano, snapper, grouper, mahi, stone crab claws, shrimp, lobster); it also carries cooked meals, spreads, sauces, soups, and even desserts. Rich butters are also available for dipping, flavored with everything from champagne to wasabi, and the prices are competitive. But here's the best part: You can have everything shipped overnight via the "Fish-in-a-Flash" program. Hah! Flying fish! That's something Dr. Seuss would appreciate.

If you believe in reincarnation, you probably think you'll come back in the next life as a sky princess or a space wizard. But odds are just as good you'll eke out your latter days as a skink. Dramatic transformations are the stuff of the afterlife. Hell, even restaurants undergo major shape-shifting in their reincarnations. Thus did the Armadillo Café, a gargantuan and popular Southwestern food palace, bite the dust in the summer of 2004 and reappear six months later as KM at the Grapevine. The new place is a tiny neighborhood fooderie wedged into a gourmet shop, open on Wednesday through Saturday nights only and offering a drastically pared-down menu. But there's no net loss of flavor, imagination, and personality in these scaled-back digs. Among our favorites were a $27 lobster quesadilla and a special: the "wild" Tasmanian salmon, which went for $26 and was simply poached in white wine and butter, nestled in a bed of sautéed spinach, and served with slim, crunchy green beans and broccolini. Kevin McCarthy, one of the partners from the old Armadillo, now has breathing space to come out of the kitchen and gab with customers, to change the menu weekly, and to experiment with exotic fish from around the globe. Favorite 'dillo standbys join new creations, the atmosphere is cozy and congenial, and the plain-Jane looks of the place can't conceal a heart of purest gastronomic gold.

Somehow, the folks who own Zona Fresca, a clean, bright little taqueria serving Cal-Mex style burritos, chiles relleños, and quesadillas, have managed to achieve a feat that has stumped many a local superchef: How to turn out a delicious piece of fish, consistently, honestly, and cheaply. For their fish taco, a fresh white filet is dipped in beer batter, deep fried in canola oil, then wrapped in a double corn tortilla stuffed with marinated cabbage and sour cream dressing. You pay $2.50 for this perfect minimeal, carry it over to Zona Fresca's salsa bar, which offers an array of mild to fiery sauces (we're partial to the tart, green tomatillo), squeeze on a bit of lime, eat your taco in a half-dozen bites, then head back to the counter for round two. You can spend the good part of a day engaged in this ritual, several times a week, for months or even years before you'll think of looking elsewhere for your fish sandwich. Crunchy on the outside, moist, light, and steaming inside, the fish is perfectly foiled by the bright salsa and crunchy cabbage. Zona Fresca looks like a fast-food joint with its walk-up counter and plastic utensils. It also acts like a fast-food joint -- you can get in and out in a quarter of an hour if you have to. But the strong flavors and freshness of their vegetables, lean meats, and beans cooked without lard are healthy enough to make lunch a guilt-free zone.

Brush up on your American Sign Language before heading to this stylish Fort Lauderdale eatery... because the torturous clamor prevents any meaningful conversation. What with the metal chairs and concrete floors, the tables on rollers, and the exposed ceilings, you can hear every barked order, every dropped spoon, resonate. Still, you're in sublime South Florida, darling, and you'll know it from the gnocchi with gorgonzola cream sauce ($14), the flat-screen TV, and the hot -- if sometimes unpunctilious -- waiters. Who needs talk, anyway, when you can just make goo-goo eyes and blow kisses across the table? Sometimes what's left unsaid is what really counts in matters of the heart... and, perhaps, of the stomach.

When a restaurant makes it to 32 years old, it has to be something more than a stroke of luck and a good location. It's the food, damn it -- or, in this case, the bagels. Indeed, after three decades, Sage Bagel & Appetizer Shop is still reeling in the same loyal bagel lovers week after week. The menu covers all the standard bagel types (plain, poppy, pumpernickel), specials (jalapeño, bran), and the extra-special (bialy). The cost for a single bagel is 75 cents; make that $1.95 with regular cream cheese, $2.35 for chive or vegetable, and $5.99 for lox. If you dine in, be sure you're ready to eat, 'cause the food comes fast. The menu includes far more than bagels. There's all manner of breakfast bites, full dinners, and desserts. If you plan to do some shopping for the week, a dozen bagels costs eight bucks, and a quarter-pound of cream cheese goes for $1.59. Make sure that alarm clock's set for bright and early; Sage opens at 6:30 a.m. every day.

The best way to find great Chinese food -- unless you happen to live in San Francisco, where it rains jasmine tea -- is to disguise yourself, Inspector Clouseau-style, and trail a Chinese family at a safe distance. A little careful sleuthing and you'll end up at Silver Pond in Lauderdale Lakes. Getting a table might be another matter, since Hong Kong families, and New York families, and Vancouver families will have gotten there well ahead of you. But the few minutes you'll have to cool your heels will allow time to inhale the scents wafting from passing trays, to pick the exact lobster/crab/flounder you want from the wall of fish tanks, and to peruse the 200 dishes on the menu. Some of these inevitably may be new to you (braised sea cucumber); some may be old friends (pork fried rice). But it's the in-betweens that will take your breath away: a whole sea bass steamed in ginger and filleted tableside (market price); a whole barbecued Peking duck for two ($35) served in two courses: the honey-sweet, oleaginous skin wrapped in a pancake with hoisin sauce first and the cut-up duck with vegetables to follow. A bamboo basket of scallops with homemade bean curd ($11.50) is as delicate and creamy as the inside of a courtesan's thigh; salted, chopped, and flash-fried crabs ($9.50) are as rich and steamy as that same courtesan's pillow book. And if you've been feeling a little slow on the uptake, shark's fin soup ($10) is an ancient -- and delicious -- remedy for what ails you.

"Language of Love Spoken" reads the sign in the window. Not really, but where better for a sotto voce discussion of the nice and naughty things you'd like to do with that plate of shrimp maison au beurre blanc ($14.25 lunch, $25.95 dinner) than at the French Quarter? In this centrally located spot, Paris, the city of amour, meets the Big Easy, city of sin. Nestled at a table under glass skylights, partially hidden by tropical plant fronds that are becomingly lit by gas lamps, you'll almost certainly get something going here. But if you fail -- or things are looking grim -- impress your dinner companion with your savoir faire. Just casually mention that the duck à l'orange ($22.95) was Grace Kelly's favorite dish and that the baked Alaska ($12 for two) was invented by master cooks of the Chinese Celestial Empire. It won't hurt your case to choose a bottle from one of the best wine lists in the city either. Here's a hint, you big lug: There's no romantic problem that a double magnum of bubbly won't solve.

Owner Benjamin Wong is big into numbers. If you ask him how long his market has been around, he'll tell you 15 years. Ask how many Chinese videos he has available for rental and he'll quickly inform you, "More than 100,000." (That's including the ever-popular Kung Fu Hustle.) If you inquire about a special type of teapot, he'll invite you to choose from more than 100,000 of them. OK, so perhaps they are not all to be found in his market, but he really seems eager to help customers find whatever Asian product they have a yen for. Never tried a sweet yet salty dehydrated plum (they start at $1.25 for a small bag) or dry shredded pork ($1.65 for a four-ounce container)? Just request Wong's opinion on the product and he'll likely split a bag with you. Wondering what kind of pudding is actually stored inside the oversized plastic kitty heads? He may bust one open to show you. Of course, he can't really share some of the teas he carries -- especially since they are used to treat maladies like gall bladder and liver dysfunction -- but you would probably feel comfortable talking about PMS or erectile dysfunction with Wong, and he'd provide just the tea for the job. And since teas start at only $2.95 a box, you'll find them much cheaper than a box of Midol or a blister pack of Viagra. If you have never set foot in an Asian market, stroll into Hong Kong some evening (the market is open until 8 most nights). You'll get an instant education and possibly even some samples.

It's been an awful day. Now, it's getting dark. The rain is coming down. The exhaustion settles in. Those two rental movies on your passenger seat look awfully enticing. At times like this, the difference between good Chinese takeout and bad Chinese takeout is based on three factors: taste, price, and speed. China "A" aces the trio. Nestled in a no-frills spot in Northridge Shopping Center, China "A" serves up about 100 dishes under $10 -- from the classic General Tao's chicken ($8.50) to moo shu shrimp ($6.50). Have a bunch of mouths to feed? Try the Super Family Pack for $20.99; it includes three egg rolls, wonton soup, fried rice, and three entrée selections. Walk-in orders are filled in about ten minutes, while deliveries take about 20 minutes if you live nearby. Plus, you won't get MSG-laden dishes at China "A." Remarkably, the food is as good as any restaurant in New York's Chinatown. Hours are Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 9:30 p.m. Free delivery is available to select areas.

Someone forgot to tell the guys who serve sandwiches, salads, and smoothies at this bustling downtown Fort Lauderdale lunch spot that they have every right to behave as über-efficient Soup Nazis -- Get 'em in! Push 'em out! Instead, just for walking in the door here, you're likely to be handed a paper cup of freshly blended strawberry juice. Sandwiches (e.g., salmon salad, turkey breast, grilled chicken, natural peanut butter) are fresh, quick, painless, $4 to $6. The orders are accurate, the smoothies ($3.50) whirled while you wait. Cashiers say thanks. Upon asking for a takeout telephone number, a customer received not only an employee's cell phone but a chocolate-chip cookie. ("Best cookie you'll ever eat," it was said.) The capper came when an employee took time to rebound a customer's errant, wadded-napkin jump shot into a trash can. "Try again," he said, and when the second shot missed even worse than the first, he scooped it up and threw it away. No need to pad the stats, nor belabor the misses.

If the idea of sushi sounds as thrilling as another Blockbuster night or walking that nasty little mutt around the block, you need a little gastronomic counseling -- you know, something to perk up those taste buds and help you remember why you fell in love with raw fish and vinegared rice in the first place. Cast your mind back to your very first time: How silky the tuna, how scrumptious the spicy mayo; that salty, slithery bite of seaweed salad; wasabi's head-clearing heat. To help you renew your commitment to sublime Japanese specialties, get away to Sushi Jo in West Palm, where rolls are given lubricious names and tarted up in the equivalent of culinary lingerie: the Sex on the Beach roll ($12), the Release roll ($10), the South of the Border ($15). Your fish and rice comes decorated with illicit exotica like macadamia nuts, strawberries, and truffles. And there's toro -- the bodacious, pricey call girl of the fish world -- all over the menu. Still yawning? Jo's monkfish liver is aphrodesia on a plate, creamy slices of "foie gras of the sea" dusted with multicolored fish eggs and dressed in two sauces. Think of your relationship with Sushi Jo as a permanent pleasure, a kind of covenant marriage for which you don't have to travel to Arkansas. Beware, though, menus and prices differ at the two locations.

Anthony DiCarlo must have spotted an unfilled niche in South Florida: There are maybe two natural food restaurants operating between Palm Beach and North Miami -- if you don't count the chain cafés like Whole Foods -- to feed thousands of hungry health nuts. Sure, there are plenty of fruit smoothies and bean burgers, but when dinnertime rolls around, the organically minded diner is reduced to unwrapping another frozen Ethnic Gourmet. Life sucks for vegetarians too; the best we can hope for is a job offer in Santa Monica. But DiCarlo's Low Fat No Fat Café is winning converts even among slobs who thrive on regular doses of animal fat. The sophisticated décor -- polished wood floors, stainless steel and bamboo accents, 30-foot ceilings -- is a deliberate snub to the dowdy Birkenstock-beleaguered health food restaurants of yore. Organic fruits and veggies, lean beef and chicken, fresh fish, organic eggs, and whole-grain baked goods, carefully handled and lovingly cooked, deliver a flavor punch that happens to be healthy. DiCarlo, who's spent ten years in the fitness industry, doesn't believe in additives or preservatives, so pregnant ladies and nursing mothers can chow down on a dish of spicy jambalaya, a "tofu club" layered with grilled vegetables and brown rice, or a plate of seared sea scallops without guilt (dinner entrées run $8.95 to $18.95). And DiCarlo believes in dessert: A roasted pear or a sesame-coated banana may make you swear off Mom's cupcakes with buttercream icing forever.

Faced with a menu of full entrées, some diners find it hard to pick just one. Dim sum is the Chinese solution to indecision -- the ultimate sampler plate. And this bright and airy restaurant offers about 60 items from which to assemble a unique, tailored-to-your-tastes meal. Your best bet is to pile up on the numerous and savory items that cost only $2.45. There's turnip pudding, shrimp-stuffed eggplant, baked BBQ pork bun, beef tripe, and the exotic chicken feet in black bean sauce. Each amounts to a small appetizer. There are other selections that range from $3.50 to $10.95, such as shredded pork pan fried noodle and roast duck on rice, but your best bet is to stick to the numerous and less costly fare. If there's one don't-miss item -- and you'll certainly develop your own list after a few visits -- it's sticky rice with lotus leaf for $3.50. Rice is heaped over saucy diced pork and duck, wrapped in a massive lotus leaf, then steamed to perfection. Dim sum is served daily until 4 p.m.

"Eat clams... Live longer!!! Eat oysters... Last longer!!!" The motto emblazoned across the menu at Tarks is as catchy as it is true. Those raw clams and littlenecks (both $8.95 a dozen) are a low-cholesterol source of minerals and protein, and the fresh-shucked gulf oysters on the half shell ($6.50 for a half dozen, $8.95 a dozen) are a wet, plump, and succulent way to get your motor running on overdrive. Served ice cold, the conch salad ($7.95) is touted on the menu as "a local favorite." Tarks has been a Dania institution since 1966, and the folks know local seafood as well as anyone. Take a seat at the counter -- that and a few tables out front are your only options -- and you're sure to go elbow-to-elbow with tattooed bikers and leather-skinned laborers, all enjoying Tarks' cheap beer and tasty bivalves. Check out their daily specials, which include ten free wings with a pitcher of beer on Wednesday after 7:30 p.m. Make sure you try their tangy key lime pie ($2.25) too. Shellfish isn't the only thing Tarks does right.

Miracle of miracles department: This gorgeous space hosted a seemingly never-ending series of restaurants that all bit the dust after a few months. Then, about four years ago, a Syrian family moved in and lifted the curse. Ferdos Grill has thrived and prospered (as it should -- it's one of very few Middle Eastern restaurants in these parts) and shows no signs of abating. The falafel here is astounding and comes in three styles. It's made from chickpeas and fava beans that must've grown up listening to classical music; first, they're ground and shaped in small, wafer-shaped patties; then they're fried in a loving, gentle, oily environment. The appetizer version comes with hummus that is perhaps the finest ever produced by man (try the version with the grilled sirloin tips), and the pita-bread sandwich and the falafel salad ($5.95 each) are both noteworthy. The place is called "home of the kebab," and the belly dancers are a big draw. But when falafel is the question, the only answer in town in Ferdos.

Though Nikki Marina claims it is "knot just a place to dock your yacht," it wouldn't hurt to arrive in one. Granted, you can pull into a slip with whatever showy marine vessel you managed to inherit from Daddy, be it a catamaran or a Cigarette, but don't dare pull up in a Boston Whaler and expect the staff to run to you with martinis and oysters on the half shell. Come here when you want to be seen relaxing with the leisure class, lounging in linen accouterments, sipping mojitos, and noshing on Nikki's Delight of the Sea; this $200 platter is stocked with Alaskan crab legs, Maine lobster, poached shrimp, oysters, crab claws, Volcano coconut tiger shrimp, and sushi. Polish it off with a tres leches meringue ($8), if you still have room available in your belly. No doubt you'll wish to linger a while, mesmerized by the rhythmic lapping of the Intracoastal waters and the soothing crash of a large fountain. On a sunny Sunday, take in the brunch from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with its sushi, salads, pasta bar, fresh-made waffles, and omelets ($37.95 per person). There's nothing more Florida-chic than eating right near the boat slips without a bothersome umbrella or a drunken bunch of catfish-feeders around.

Home cooks, foodies, wine aficionados, sandwich lovers, party-throwers, vegetarians, marooned Manhattanites, and second-generation Italians far from Mama's kitchen all know where to find the magic missing from their lives: Fernanda's. To purchase a slice of mascarpone torta ($29.99 a pound -- bliss doesn't come cheap) and eat it right from the box in your car, without ever leaving the parking lot, is as close to pig heaven as most gluttons are ever likely to get. If the torta's too rich for your belly and your pocketbook, an array of sautéed vegetables like caponata Pietro ($9.99 a pound), Italian roasted peppers ($9.99), broccoli rabe with lemon ($8.99 a pound), roasted eggplant ($12.99 a pound), marinated mushrooms ($6.99 a pound), garlic mashed potatoes ($4.99 a pound), and macaroni and cheese casserole ($4.99 a pound) make for more wholesome chow. Fish lovers can sink a line and reel in Pietro's seafood salad ($12.99 a pound), Maryland lump crab cakes ($4.99 each), grilled swordfish pistachio ($16.99 a pound), or a tin of beluga caviar (market price). And culinarily challenged bachelors or bachelorettes can put together a multiculti party of Fernanda's breaded veal cutlets, sausage and peppers, meatballs, fried tortellini, proscuitto pasta salad, stuffed grape leaves, mushroom pirogues, spicy chicken wings, and fresh foie gras (24 hours' notice on the goose liver). If you're planning a picnic, Fernanda's dozen varieties of black, green, and stuffed olives, plus their selection of 18 sandwiches (all $7.99, from the Muffeletto to the "Don Quixote" with thin-sliced Serrano ham) sure beat that standard loaf of bread and jug of wine.

This place takes its seafood seriously. Though the menu is merely two pages long, there are so many succulent selections that it may take you and your lovey some time to decide. Choices include delicately steamed Prince Edward Island mussels marinière ($7), shrimp cocktail served with a nontraditional zesty mustard sauce ($8.75), Maryland lump crab cake kicked up with black bean/tomato/corn salsa ($8.75), and Atlantic salmon served cold smoked with crème fraiche and a small, light, buckwheat pancake ($8.75). You can also get the salmon sautéed with cucumbers, dill, capers, and lemon ($22). Plus, you can add a broiled, stuffed Florida lobster tail with drawn butter to any entrée (four ounces, $9; eight ounces, $18). Pure marine mayhem for the taste buds. A real treat is the tuna lovers' tasting menu, which includes the moist, ruby red slices starring as sashimi, tartare, and spring roll filling with wakame ($8.50). Not into the raw stuff? Take heart. The basil risotto with shiitake mushrooms and grilled shrimp, scallops, and mussels is simply heavenly ($24). Regardless of what you choose, Brooks will get it right. After all, the place has been serving seafood to South Floridians for nearly a quarter of a century.

You're kicking yourself for not investing in Whole Foods five years ago -- you could be retiring to your villa in Provence right about now. Here's a tip: A little independent operation called Village Marketplace is the dark horse that's going to give Whole Foods a run for its money. Owner Joseph Macchione is making his mark in the grocery biz in South Florida with a midsized market -- smaller than Publix, bigger than the corner deli -- that sells gourmet chocolates, organic half and half ($3.29), Guatemalan coffee ($8.99 a pound), fresh produce, prepared foods, specialty cheeses ($3.77 for a wedge of ricotta salata), imported wines, tuna (a can of Ortiz is $4.99), and olive oils. But that ain't all. Bathroom tissue, frozen pizza, muffin mix, tomato sauce, and strawberry jelly are for sale too. It's one stop for your ravishing bouquet of lilies, your Gardenburger, and your Bounty paper towels. Macchione cut his teeth on jobs with Wild Oats and Fresh Fields; he's clearly taken the best ideas of both. The original Marketplace in Plantation closed this year, but only to retool; Macchione says they'll reopen in Lauderdale, possibly in another location, at a more manageable size. They're steadily adding organics as they see what sells and what rots on the shelves; they're already selling free-range chickens from Ashley Farms. A small café turns out wholesome lunches. The cheese and charcuterie sections offer enough variety for a year's worth of antipasti; a yummy, whole-grain bread ($3.49 for a loaf) comes from their bakery; and bottles of wine and sake boast Wine Spectator ratings. Macchione says he's committed to keeping prices fair. Sounds like a great marketing concept.

OK, it's not the place to dine solo if you're planning to slog through another chapter of Finnegan's Wake. But if you're reasonably pulled together (leave the fanny pack at home) and arrive somewhere between happy hour and midnight, you're bound to find yourself inexorably drawn into the crowd that congregates at Las Palmas. Brush up on your rendition of "Feelings" for the late-night karaoke session. Slide up to the sushi bar under what is "the largest tiki hut on the east coast," according to the website. Dancing eel rolls here go for $9, volcano rolls for $14.95. Bide your time while pleasure boats unload their bevies of beauties at the dock. Your Polynesian pork chops might set you back $17.95, but you could find yourself eating it next to a table full of Miss Florida USA hopefuls. Big difference between being alone and being lonely, isn't there?

Don't be stupid enough to jump on the mechanical bull at Tequila Ranch after polishing off oak-smoked ribs at Renegade Barbeque Co., chili fries at Johnny Rockets, sushi at Tatu, oysters at Bluepoint Ocean Grill, and a pretzel from Wetzel's ($2.55). What may spring from deep inside you will make others run into Hooters for the distraction of surgically enhanced bustlines. Instead of bull riding, enjoy all those delicacies on successive nights of the week and follow them up with some java from Bad Ass Coffee Co., Chunky Monkey ice cream ($2.78, cup or cone) at 2 a.m. from Ben & Jerry's, and some Pepto from CVS on your way home. You'll be OK. We promise.

Grandpa's in town for the season, and it's clearly time to get the old coot married off again. You could pour through Google listings for Golden Years dating services, but here's some advice: the 70-something eye candy at Old Florida Seafood House ought to give him an excellent excuse to refill that Viagra scrip. This three-decades-old Lauderdale institution, complete with busy raw bar, stuffed sharks on the walls, and threadbare carpet, is a favorite with the finest local ladies of a certain age, who arrive on a Sunday evening decked out in their best duds, coifed and manicured and presumably perfectly weddable. You and Gramps can discuss their assets over an appetizer plate of shrimp Florentine ($8.95) and a bowl of oyster stew ($8.95), an entrée of freshly caught fish -- broiled, baked, or sautéed ($18.95 to $21.95), or a plate of sautéed veal with lobster tails (in season). The early-bird special is rather pricey between 4:30 and 5:30 (the three-course meal costs $17.95 Monday through Thursday, $19.95 Friday through Sunday), but it does give the erstwhile ladykiller ample opportunity to linger long enough to get noticed.

The cousin-from-Camden contingent has arrived, half a dozen nippers in tow, and by day six, you've stage-managed everything from airboat rides in the Everglades to daytrips to Disney. Worse news is in store: Your loud-mouthed sister-in-law has dropped in for a surprise inspection. Drastic times require drastic measures, so raise the salty old ghost of Cap Knight. Cap's Island Restaurant, which is set in two 80-year-old buildings on an island at Lighthouse Point, can be reached only by ferry. And it boasts enough nostalgic charm and locally caught seafood to stifle the in-laws -- at least for as long as it takes 'em to down a glass of chablis at the hand-built bar, peruse a couple of hundred old-Florida photos, and read all about how Cap and his wife ran a gambling and bootleg rum operation on the premises. If you still need a little distraction, introduce them to the Knight family -- a sister and two brothers who still run the place. Then all of you can polish off a plate of broiled dolphin ($24.95) and a slice of lime pie ($5.95). Sate them with histories, stuff them full of house-made fish dip, and for pity's sake, send them home on the next 747.

Red wine is full of reservatrol -- a potent fighter of cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, and bad cholesterol. This is one reason the French can smoke packs of unfiltered Gauloises, eat two pounds of butter daily, and stay thin and mean as minks. For optimal cardiovascular health, ignore the puritanical U.S. recommendations (One glass of red wine a day for women? Puuleeeze!) -- European doctors prescribe a moderate three glasses daily for the ladies and four for the guys. Drinking alone isn't good for you, however, so a place like 3-year-old Harrison's Wine Bar, very European in style and sensibility, is an excellent locale for a good workout. There's a wine list of more than 100 bottles here. The Santa Emma Merlot from Chile is $8 a glass; Silver Oak Cabernet is $150 a bottle (presumably spiked with extra reservatrol at that price). So you won't ever have to stick your tongue in the same bottle twice, owner Richard Duncan is committed to mixing things up: Lately, he's hot on the Stonehedge Zin, a Mont Gras Cab, and a Bearboat pinot. Harrison's tapas and cheese menu will give all that wine something to work with.

Sunday, of course, is a day of reflection. It's when one takes time to look inward, to contemplate the meaning of good and evil, to reflect upon sins, and finally, to become grounded in family and community. Let us all come together, then, at Boulevard Café, to drink of the Blood of the Mary beginning at 10 a.m.; to join with fellow brethren and sistren of our holy rainbow community. We shall join hands and give thanks over bowls of spinach artichoke dip with four cheeses and chips ($8.75); we shall break toast together over the three-egg scramble served amongst home fries and fresh fruit ($6.75); the lions shall sup upon filet mignon Benedict ($12) and then go home to lie down with lambs. And we shall know that we are righteous and good because we did not pretend we never received our complimentary mimosas. Let us contemplate at length the many sins of our exes, who paid for phone sex with our American Express Card and let us struggle to come to terms with the meaning and necessity of evil: How many bumps of Tina it takes to send you-know-who into orbit. And if we raise our voices in unison, it shall only be to wonder at the mystery of a God who creates roommates who walk away with our best Ralph Lauren cashmere crewneck. On a Sunday morning on Las Olas, to forgive is absolutely divine.

Ulysses and his hearty crew sailed the dark canals of Broward County. As they approached Pembroke Pines, Ulysses ordered his men, good and true, to lash him to the mast. For they approached Pitios, whose siren scent of deliciousness called to the stomach and could drive hungry men mad. The crew stuffed beeswax in their nostrils, and Ulysses ordered he not be released under any circumstances. As they passed Pitios, Ulysses caught a whiff of the Greek sausages, gyros, imported feta cheeses, and phyllo-wrapped spinach pies. "In the name of Zeus!" Ulysses gasped as he worked against the leather bindings. Then he beheld the pita bread: freshly baked, soft on the inside, with an ever-so-slight crunch on the outside, just like his mom, Anticleia, used to make. "Agamemnon, free my anxious maw!" he yelled to the heavens. Change jingled in his toga, surely enough to buy any one of the affordable entrées that run from $3.25 to $9.25. Owners Michael and Katerina Giannomoros stood waving. "Oh, Styx," he groaned, "cheap and authentic Greek food."

You'd never dream of setting foot in an Olive Garden, much less a Red Lobster, but that doesn't mean their parent company, Darden Restaurants Inc., is giving up on you. Darden introduced a high-end, low-cal restaurant this year that's drawing yuppies as inexorably as a Prada close-out sale -- Seasons 52. Here's an idea whose time has come: delicious, elegantly plated little morsels, grilled in olive oil rather than butter, incorporating seasonal ingredients, whole grains, and lightly cooked vegetables -- promising a caloric content below 475 per dish. Among those we recommend: grilled deepwater sea scallops, cedar plank salmon, and mesquite roasted pork tenderloin. Prices range from $8 to $21.75. And, get this: If you're vegetarian, vegan, or on any kind of fad diet -- like the amazing new chocolate and vodka diet (it really works -- call us and we'll fill you in!) -- Seasons' kitchen will accommodate you without flinching. OK, so the thimble-sized desserts, gargantuan wine list (more than 60 wines by the glass), and plush Intercontinental Hotel-flavored setting don't have the personality of your Aunt May's frayed living-room rug. But heck, it's even better this way. So tuck your oh-so-precious politics in your back pocket, relax, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

To hunt for the perfect cup of coffee is to separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the NBA from your neighborhood pick-up game. There's a lot of crap out there. Mediocrity, really. But rest assured, at Kamzaman, there's no frou-frou soy, decaf double lattes. Instead, you'll taste the richest, smoothest Turkish coffee of your life for the ridiculously low price of $3. The caffeine elixir is brought to your table in a piping hot vessel, which you then poor into tiny ceramic cups for you and your guests. And what goes as well with good coffee as tobacco? Luckily, Kamzaman is a spacious smoke shop in a strip mall north of Sunrise Boulevard that's become a hotbed of Middle Eastern shops. Its walls are a continuous mural of scenes of Saharan life. For $8, they'll deliver a hookah to your table, and you can choose from among 15 types of tobacco.

A reasonably bright chimpanzee could be taught to make a faultless key lime pie: There's one immutable method, and it allows for no deviation. The recipe involves a can of condensed milk, a couple of eggs, a box of graham crackers, a stick of butter, and a handful of key limes. To see so many reasonably bright human beings in local restaurant kitchens floundering around with meringues and preformed crusts, Persian limes -- or worse -- bottled lime juice, whipping cream, and God-knows-what-all, is to witness the awful human compulsion to fiddle with what ain't broke. That being said, exceptions do exist. The pie-in-the-sky concoction dreamed up by pastry chef Gus Hernandez at River House is certainly one. His "key lime pie baked Alaska" is a delicious joke composed of a Brazil-nut graham cracker crust, a tower of sweet limey mousse, a rakish chapeau of browned Italian meringue, and many decorative swivels and swirls of berry coulis. That you can sit outdoors at a table under the stars to eat this pie between the glittering lights of two august mansions and the lazy New River makes variations like this one seem necessary.

Our American romance with Asiatic foodstuffs shows no signs of slowing -- and now some genius has dreamed up a gigantic, all-you-can-eat Eastern food complex adapted to our very Western waistline -- Super Size Me-San. At Crazy Buffet, a budding Florida franchise with outlets in Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm, discerning diners can fork over $19.99 to begin at the sushi bar, which features 50 kinds of sushi, sashimi, and rolls, a lineup stretching as far as the hand can reach. A full dinner plate of dragon rolls, rainbow rolls, kimchee rolls, chunks of glistening raw tuna, yellowtail, and salmon is just a little something to whet the appetite. Next stop: the seafood table, for snow crab legs, shucked oysters, cold boiled shrimp, marinated mussels, seared scallops. And for a little variation, the salad bar offers cold comforts. A fourth course entails tough choices: pick your own beef, chicken, and bean sprouts for the chef to stir-fry, have a steak or a mess of shrimp grilled on the hibachi, or both. Or all. Just don't forget to stop by the Peking duck-carving station on the way back to your table. Finally, it's crucial to save a little room, maybe roughly the size of your small intestine, for a dessert table laden with cakes, pies, and ice cream -- because there will be no taking home leftovers in doggy bags -- you gotta live for the moment.

Thirty years from now, when you're a full-blown diabetic jabbing your beleaguered index finger to test your blood sugar for the fourth time in a day, bemoaning your descent into infirmity and disease, you will think back. You will remember, with morning-after regret, the diminishing returns of those Pepsi refills, the cheap half-thrill of real sugar in your espresso, a lifetime of licking whole whipped cream off strippers' netherquarters. Then you will remember Johnny V's tiramisu martini, its spiced pumpkin mascarpone steeped in chocolate liqueur and antlered with ladyfingers. You will recall a warm mango tart soaked with the nectar oozing off a dollop of cinnamon sorbet, the sweet burn intertwining with the sugary sour. You will hark back to a mound of soft-centered chocolate cake that guttered an intoxicating syrup-sludge onto the chocolate-covered strawberries of the chocolate sampler plate. It was all worth it, you'll say, even at $8 to $10 per dessert. It was all worth it.

The top views in Hollywood come courtesy of the ocean-facing tables at Hasan Kochan's 13-year-old restaurant on the Hollywood Broadwalk. Those tables have withstood annual flocks of snowbirds, the gentle if charming weirdness of the area, and a handful of hurricanes. But taking the long view must be Kochan's talent. The Broadwalk is coming in for a big revitalization that's bound to pay off for him -- that is, unless somebody decides to plunk down a high-rise next door. In the meantime, you can take advantage of those tables, particularly offseason, for the panorama they offer of the skaters, bikers, and scallywags who ply the two-mile walkway. The food is homemade and moderately priced ($3.95 to $9.95 for small plates, up to $16.95 for entrées). Among our favorites are the feta- and parsley-stuffed cigars, the little Turkish pizzas topped with lamb and vegetables, and the dish of fried sardines with a side of thick cacik -- a yogurt and cucumber salad as mild as an ocean breeze.

Brian Miller spent 20 years in Boston selling computers. Sometimes, he stopped in at the Cape Cod Emack and Bolio's for a couple of scoops of Twisted Dee-Light and Deep Purple Cow. Then he moved to Boca to open an ice cream store of his own -- every nerd's fantasy. Emack and Bolio's started out 30 years ago as a late-night hangout for rock 'n' roll types; it was owned by entertainment lawyer Bob Rook (hence the ice creams nostalgically named for '70s and '80s bands). Today, there's plenty to keep the tykes occupied (like 100 flavors), but a new line of milkshakes, glad to say, is for grownups. They're called "frappes" these days, of course -- gotta change with the times -- and five flavors ($5 each) are designed to keep you up all night bangin' head to your old Twisted Sister discs. Choose from Irish Coffee, Italian Coffee, Dirty Monkey, Caramel Thriller, and Nutty Monk, all made with ice cream, a good splash of French roast coffee, a dash of the appropriate flavoring, and a cap of homemade whipped cream. Miller says he's adjusting just fine to the life of an ice cream man -- long "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of panic." Sounds kinda like the way we remember those old Deep Purple records. "Smoke on the Water," anyone?

The state of dining in many museums is disappointing. You're part of a captive audience. What a pleasure, then, to know that after you've strolled the goldfish ponds and other loveliness of the Morikami's gardens, some fine and affordable Japanese food is waiting at Cornell, which overlooks all the flora and babbling brooks. Start with the seaweed salad, a plentiful plate mixed with sesame seeds and mild hot peppers in a vinaigrette sauce for $4.50. Tuna, shrimp, grouper, and salmon rolls run $4.50 to $5.50. But it's the luncheon specials that make the day. For the budget-minded, the beef bowl, at $6.95, is a meal in itself, with strips of stir-fried beef, onions, fresh mushrooms, and carrots. Jumbo shrimp in Asian leek sauce is a steamed delight that includes rice and vegetables for $8.95. For vegetarians, there's Asian eggplant with garlic sauce for $6.95. For the true Japanophile, there's the eel bowl, in which this favored seafood is baked in sauce and ladled over rice. Cornell is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission into the museum is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors, and $6 for kids.

Across from the comfy half-moon couch in a corner of this roomy caffeine bar hangs a large black-and-white drawing of a rhinoceros. The animal's eyes glare menacingly, and his nostrils flare. Hasn't had his coffee, obviously. Or perhaps he just hasn't found the right place to drink it. Relax, big boy, you're at Boomerang, which is a bona fide coffeehouse, the kind the Northern folks take for granted. There's conviviality between patrons and staff that makes this a warm place to come. There is, of course, the lengthy and varied menu of coffee drinks, from the basics -- a cuppa joe for $1.51 or a single espresso for $1.42 -- to the more specialized concoctions, like a white mocha, which is espresso, white chocolate, steamed milk, and whipped cream, for $3.35. But it's the atmosphere that makes this a "house." On a recent Saturday morning, a jazz guitarist set up his laptop computer, which served as a backup band, and then began strumming a soothing sound. One young woman read a book as she reclined on the sofa. Others chatted quietly at tables. Of course, the rhinoceros was none too happy with the whole thing. But what the hell; he's only a picture.

There must be a lot of folks who were hopping mad to see York's Tropical Ice Cream pack up and move south from Washington, D.C., to Broward County. They've probably spent many a lonely, ice-creamless night wondering how to satisfy their jones for rose-flavored ice cream. And those hooked on grapenut, jacknut, cinnamon, tamarind, and lychee or accustomed to a regular fix of papaya, ginseng, or black walnut, not to mention the mild alcoholic fizz from a scoop of Guinness, are likely out of luck too. Their loss is clearly our gain. What we lack in political culture and great art museums, we now more than make up for in soursop, in decadent high-butterfat chocolate chip, and in R-rated rum raisin ice creams. Jamaican proprietor Cal Headley makes the stuff in a Lauderdale Lakes location, trucks it over to the store daily, and sells it for $2.50 a scoop or $5.70 a pint as he doles out sample spoons of the most luxurious fresh banana ice cream from here to Kingston.

The perfect meal ends with a good dessert and this small store on Hollywood Boulevard -- the fifth of a small chain founded in Miami Beach -- makes the perfect sweet. This is not an exaggeration. The creamy stuff served by Italian/Argentine/American Julio Bertoni and his partner, Hector Enede, is unforgettable. There are 48 flavors, from chocolate to rum raisin to dulce de leche to super sambayon, a combination of egg yolk, marsala, and cream. Ay, it'll make your head spin. Prices for the stuff are as low as $3.50. Bertoni and Enede are ambitious. They are establishing free delivery at the year-old Hollywood store -- the first in Broward -- and plan to open places in Houston this year. They also serve the stuff at fancy hotels like the Mandarin Oriental on Brickell Key. But don't worry about all that. Just stroll in here after a meal on Hollywood Boulevard, taste to your heart's delight, then enjoy some of the most beautiful, cool flavor you've ever dreamed about.

Ladies who shop and then lunch have enjoyed leisurely afternoon tête-à-têtes at Belle and Maxwell's for years; it's time they scooched over their Chanel-clad fannies and made room for the rest of us. In the heart of West Palm's Antique Row, where uniformed chauffeurs keep the Bentley running while Madam dickers over the price of a Louis XIV end table, Belle & Maxwell's is an excellent place to lean back with a pot of Earl Grey and forget for the moment that the social contract is crumbling around us. The space is surpassingly luxe, calme et volupté, full of flowers and plump pillows; a back door opens onto a tiny, sunlit patio. Try the pear and gorgonzola salad ($9), a brie baguette with apple and walnuts ($8), or a slice of homemade quiche with gazpacho ($9), but damn it, don't skimp on the sweets! They're homemade by the ladies who run the place: key lime pound cake, chocolate croissant bread pudding, an almond joy tart, apple praline pie, chocolate espresso truffle cake. Ten bucks buys you a "sampler choice of four." Go get your just desserts. Open Tuesday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sometimes, when it's 3 a.m. and you're half-drunk, you're prone to imagining things. In fact, you might very well think that your mind is playing tricks on you as you stand outside Moonlite Diner. Built to resemble a highway café from the 1950s, the place features stools and bars of the John F. Kennedy-era malt shop style. There's also enough rock 'n' roll memorabilia on the walls to make Buddy Holly proud. Then there's the food. This restaurant serves good, cheap eats 24 hours a day. Highlights include crab cakes ($7.69) served with a fiery Cajun sauce; the Mediterranean omelet ($6.29), an unpredictable egg dish with feta cheese and spinach; and the Meatloaf Blue Plate ($9.29), a hunk of oven-baked beef seasoned and shaped with the same love and care that your mama gave it. Finish everything with one of Moonlite's 24 flavored malts and shakes ($3.99) and you'll be left with the wherewithal to sleep off that nasty hangover.

To embrace Middle Eastern culture is to learn to enjoy overeating. Liberate yourself from those blindered Western values by throwing on a flowing, figure-concealing thobe and heading for this cultural island out west. The menu and service at al-Salam epitomize Middle Eastern generosity and hospitality in spirit, if not in the exact details; rather than press upon you a roasted filet of camel, Salam's gracious servers ply you with familiar Mediterranean dishes and a few scrumptious things that you probably haven't stumbled upon lately. Begin with a complementary starter of dates, olives, and pickled turnips. Move on to appetizers like kibi, hummus, and koddsieh ($3 to $7.49), then settle into the heart of your meal with selections from the evening buffet, which includes potatoes with tahini sauce, stuffed tomatoes, red peppers, and cabbage, chicken soup, and hummus ($11.99). Or try an order of shawerma ($7.99). It's considered polite to eat and pass plates with your right hand, so feel free to count calories with your left. A cup of cardamom-laced Arabic coffee is final proof of Allah's beneficence.

If heaven exudes a fragrance, it's the one that awaits when you step into Da Mee Rak. Korean barbecue is the specialty of the day here, with marinated beef, pork, and seafood sizzling and snapping atop each table-top grill. Once you've partaken of this distinct Asian cuisine, you'll wonder why there isn't a K-BBQ joint on every street corner. For first-timers, the best bet is the BBQ for two for $33.95, which includes your choice of three beef, chicken, shrimp, and pork plates. It's served with 12 side dishes -- many of them variations of kimchee, which is vegetables pickled in garlic, red pepper, and ginger. As you nosh on this bounty, the first plate of raw meat grills before you; you can tend it yourself or, if you want to concentrate on eating, leave the work to the skillful wait staff. For the more adventurous, there's beef tongue for $16.95 and marinated conch for $19.95. After you become a regular, try the octopus, eel, and "marinated intestine of cattle." Obviously, it pays to dine here as a group to get a wide tasting of meats. Wine and Korean beer are available for $3 to $4. Reservations are recommended.

An NPR commentator once asked a French chef if he thought the Atkins Diet would ever catch on in France. "Mais non," the chef replied haughtily. "In France, we must eat one pound of bread every day for good health." No doubt for other reasons of vigor and well-being, that pound of bread must also be slathered with sweet cream butter, n'est-ce pas? And washed down with just a cup or two of hot chocolate to aid the digestion? The baguette ($2.50) at Le Petit Pain is the place to start if you're planning to follow the good chef's advice: the long, thin loaves, crunchy and buttery on the outside, pocked with delicate holes when you break them open, come warm from the oven a couple of times a day. The proprietors, a handsome and charming family hailing from Paris, have evidently picked up a few baking skills in their native country that have translated exquisitely to ours. They serve the finest from the baguettes, which have an unsettling tendency to become as necessary to daily existence as air, to their beautiful cakes, pies, butter cookies, fresh croissants, and filled crepes -- also highly nourishing when eaten in quantity.

Quick, name your favorite Filipino dish. If you're stumped for a response (roasted poodle is not an answer), it's time to go back to foodie boot camp for a refresher course in delicacies like dinguan and bulalo, the national dish of the Philippines. The outré ingredients of Filipino cooking have been denigrated by some, and you may have to screw up your courage as you scan the menu at Pegasus Pinoy. But if entrées like pork cooked in pork blood ($6.50) and deep-fried pork belly ($6.95) don't satisfy your yen for authenticity, nothing will. In fact, as exotic as it may sound to cook a beef stew of coconut milk, onions, bell peppers, green peas, and olives, one taste of kalderetang baka ($7.50) makes you wonder why you haven't been whipping up a pot of the stuff every Sunday morning. Even the wildest dishes are tamed by the spicy, sweet, and sour dipping sauces -- like one made from vinegar, sugar, and liver paste. Real men eat daing na bangu, grilled milkfish marinated in vinegar, garlic, pepper, and salt. But even the faint of heart will tremble with anticipation when a plate of peppery pancit guisado ($6.95) -- wheat noodles with sautéed shrimp garnished with julienned carrots, celery, cabbage, and green beans -- is put down in front of them.

This market guarantees that its fruits and vegetables were picked within 48 hours of the time they were laid before your eyes here. And like the shingle says, it's all 100 percent organic. The market is open all day Sunday, and it pays to be early to beat the crowds and swoop up items that grow more scarce toward the end of their season. There's no guarantee you'll find the same items from week to week, because the market relies much on Florida's growing seasons. During winter, the bounty is spectacular, from the routine to the exotic. For $3.99 a pound, pick up crispy red and yellow peppers, fresh garlic, pungent parsley, or exotic dandelion greens. You'll find Josh's on the Broadwalk behind the old Hollywood Beach Hotel, which is just south of Hollywood Boulevard.

Though the raw (and cooked, for that matter) fish is stellar, Kiko is best-known as perhaps the region's finest -- only? -- country-style Japanese restaurant. Instead of the flashy, neon-drenched techno-meal you'd find in the hip sections of Tokyo, this clean, bright space in the Fountains Center offers food you'd discover a farmer serving to guests in the old country. Ramen and other noodle dishes are outstanding, as is the deep-fried pork cutlet with panko breading ($13.95), a true comfort food. Try nabemono, with vegetables cooked together in a clay pot, or yakimono, with various samplings of meats or seafood in different sauces. The provincial fare is heartier and less delicate than what Westerners are used to -- some of the menu is a rather radical departure from our usual strip-mall sushi spots -- but it's authentic and served with artistic flair in a Zen-like realm. Kelp salad, brown rice, and tofu galore set Kiko apart, but on those rare, cold and rainy subtropical days, nothing warms body and soul like a steaming hot bowl of udon soup with fat, chewy noodles, Japanese cabbage, and big chunks of chicken (starting at $6.95).

On his first trip to Rorabeck's, my true love brought to me: 12 yellow onions, 11 sweet potatoes, ten heads of lettuce, nine ripe tomatoes, eight colored peppers, seven fat zucchinis, six Chinese eggplants -- fiiiiiiive finger-lings. Four sprawling herbs, three tan yams, two garlic cloves, and the chaaaange from a twe-e-enty. It goes without saying that my beloved made a few more trips to Rorabeck's, still flush with his astonishing success. I sent him out for a nine-foot potted palm tree ($50), a bucket of jalapeño peppers ($1), two bags full of bronze and black muscadine grapes ($5), a flat of Florida strawberries ($4), some flowering impatiens ($1.50 each), an obscenely sized watermelon ($3), half a dozen Georgia peaches ($2), a gigantic bunch of basil ($1), and a couple more of those giant zucchinis, roughly the size of Paul Bunyan's forearm, which I needed to whip up a vat of ratatouille for my true love and his extended family.

The latest relentlessly trumpeted diet plan? To stay chic and slender as any Frenchwoman, you have to eat like one. And that plate of escargots with mushrooms, garlic cream sauce, and chives, the one that promises to melt away unwanted pounds like magic, is waiting for you at 4-year-old Brasserie La Cigale. Executive Chef Farid Oualidi turns out classic retro dishes like sole meunière ($34), caesar salad, cuisses de grenouilles (frog legs, $11 -- sounds better in French, doesn't it?), and the euphoniously euphemistic "sweetbreads" ($10). These elegant dishes are balanced with subtle butter,- wine-, shallot-, and cream-laden sauces of great art and complexity. And if all this sounds a bit rich, consider that Cigale's canards are served in a setting so cozy, relaxed, and unpretentious that you could be tucking into a plate of Julia's very own moules (may that blessed lady be forever sautéeing chickens in heaven). "Life itself is the proper binge," Mrs. Child once said. Bien sur, even better if life contains plenty of foie gras with black currant sauce.

Baja Smoothie Café may not have 10 gazillion trademarked flavors like those giant-blender joints, but it's pretty damned close. Besides -- is anyone anal-retentive enough to need ten different strawberry-flavored blends to choose from? Baja has cooler names for its smoothies anyway, like the Twisted Sister or Bananas for Bono (though it might want to rename the Blue Baja Tsunami before some overly sensitive customer raises a stink). The basic nutritional info is listed for all smoothies (which range in price from $3.95 to $5.25), so you know how many calories, vitamins, carbs, and grams of fat you're ingesting -- and that you're getting more than just a cup of sherbet run through a blender. If you have any leftover room for solid food, the café has plenty of fresh salads and wraps, all made with your calorie count in mind. And check this -- the café has subscription-free wireless Internet service, meaning you don't need to sign up with T-Mobile just to browse the Web for ten minutes. All you gotta do is turn on your laptop and you're on the Web. Damn, all that and all you wanted was a Hawaiian Five OH!