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Best Family Restaurant

Big Pink

"Real Food For Real People, Really!" is the motto here, which means that the 226-item menu -- an actual book with table of contents and page numbers -- has something for every member of the "real" family. For meat-and-potatoes Dad: the meat loaf tower, layered like a cake with mashed potatoes. For on-a-diet-again Mom: the chicken stir-fry. For Grandpa, grumpy about missing Wheel of Fortune in order to have dinner out with the young'uns, there's an honest-to-goodness TV dinner served on a six-compartment, stainless steel tray. For Grandma, who just broke her bridge, she'll have the lox, eggs, and onions. And for Junior, who will eat only pizza, more than a dozen choices'll have his head spinning. Also included are a highchair and a kid's menu for the baby of the bunch; plenty of hallways for the toddler who can't sit still; and live bands playing around the corner for the teenager who just wants to hold down a burger and escape with his dignity intact.

Best Contemporary Restaurant

Bistro Double U

Sedate Galt Ocean Mile may be known more for its old-fashioned snowbirds than for its newfangled eateries. But Bistro Double U is paving the way for change with appetizers like the house-cured salmon quesadilla with mustard dill sauce and salmon caviar; salads such as arugula with warm potato dressing and goat cheese croutons; and entrées that include pan-seared scallops and crawfish tails in cognac bisque. Proprietors Uli Dippon and Udo Mueller, who is also the chef, run a tight but almost informal operation, saving booths and tables in the smartly decorated dining room for those who make reservations but gladly seating walk-ins on the patio outside. After all, eating well on the spur of the moment is what contemporary dining is all about these days. Prices are also reasonable, and the wine list small but select, with about two dozen choices available by the split or glass. So, Uli and Udo, how 'bout a Double U 2?

Best Fresh Pasta

Mimi's Ravioli

Mamma mia, they actually speak Italian at this local fresh-pasta landmark. For three decades Mimi's has been supplying South Florida restaurants with ravioli, tortellini, agnoloti, gnocchi, and countless other pasta manifestations. Their retail outlet is overflowing with meats and cheeses (including homemade smoked mozzarella), breads, and homemade sauces, not to mention fresh pasta with fillings like porcini mushrooms, asparagus, seafood, and goat cheese.

Best Diner

Lucille's American Cafe

Photo by Bobby Sammarco, 47 Films, courtesy of Lucille’s Café.
No place is more American than Weston, an ultrasuburban community planned down to the buried telephone wires. Lucille's, which was built just a few months ago but evokes the '40s, fits right in -- if only because the conscientious proprietors and staff, like the city managers of Weston, see to every little detail. This American diner features countrywide favorites like old-fashioned chocolate egg creams, macaroni-and-cheese casseroles, and heart of iceberg salads. Breads are baked fresh daily, potato chips and ketchup are homemade, and even the pickiest kid would be happy to sell this fizzy lemonade on Main Street, USA. The comfortable diner-style booths and a speakeasy soundtrack are enticements in their own right, but it just might be the strawberry shortcake that sells the joint. You don't even have to be hungry to eat it. Hey, nothing could be more American than that.

Best Mediterranean Restaurant

Mark's in the Park

Chef-proprietor Mark Militello isn't too comfortable with labels, and truthfully, we can never figure out what to call his inventive fare. But his newest restaurant, which debuted recently in Mizner Park, offers pastas such as saffron fettuccine Bolognese with braised veal, beef, and pork; pizzas topped with tuna, capers, olives, balsamic-roasted onions, and garlic aioli; and entrées like spiced charcoaled lamb loin with dried sour-cherry couscous and marinated tomato salsa. This all sounds as if the Mediterranean region has inspired Militello, so we'll stick his triumphant eatery with the big M label. We hope, of course, that he'll keep sticking it to us.

Best Middle Eastern Restaurant

The Original Falafel King

Trapped in a grubby mini-mall for more than a decade, this place nevertheless manages to impress falafel lovers with its recipe for savory, deep-fried chickpea balls. But Falafel King, while mainly Israeli, is more than just a one-note song. Turkish salad, spiked with hot peppers; Moroccan eggplant salad; Lebanese ful medames (beans); and Greek spinach pie create a virtual Middle Eastern symphony in the mouth. Enjoy the first movement -- split-pea soup -- at a rapid pace (you won't be able to help yourself), then linger over some deep-fried schnitzel, washed down with mango juice imported from Israel. Finish off the composition with a piece of baklava and a thimbleful of Turkish coffee or a glass of mint tea. The staff conducts a pleasant experience, right down to the presentation of the bill, which will run you a good deal less than a ticket to the nearest performing arts center.

Best Live Music in a Restaurant

Toni Bishop's Restaurant & Jazz Club

When people say that proprietor Toni Bishop sings like a bird, they mean it. The jazz singer-turned-restaurateur performs every weekend at her supper club, warbling birdcalls during improvisations. When she's not performing, other national jazz acts like Shirley Horn, Chick Corea, and our perennial favorite, Spyro Gyra, take center stage, which is in the center of a dance floor crowded with tables. Of course no one plays the jazz diva quite as well as Bishop, who just released her second CD, Incredible Love. But you've got to pay for that ear candy. While her performances are free with dinner or drinks, entrées can cost as much as $40. Guest performers' shows, which often sell out, can run you $50. Altogether it can be an expensive evening out. For jazz fans, though, no price is too high to hear such an exquisite bird.

Best South American Restaurant

La Hacienda

Without question this place puts one over on Miami. Though primarily Venezuelan, La Hacienda has no ethnic bias, serving pan-Latin American dishes with equal grace. Tamales and arepas are on a par with each other, the former stuffed with ground beef, the latter studded with minced pork. Stews, particularly oxtail and goat, are superb. Steak with chimichurri (parsley sauce) or pickled onions benefits from the pungent condiments but holds its own with a lightly flavored avocado sauce as well. Even the rice pudding for dessert is smartly done. If all Broward County's Latin American restaurants were as accomplished as this one, we'd never have to drive south again.

Best Hot Dogs

Hot Dog Heaven

Courtesy of Hot Dog Heaven
Among the worst hot dogs in the world are the shriveled pinkish-brown sausages sold two for a dollar along with tropical fruit drinks at a New York institution known the world over because of a Seinfeld cameo. The encased mystery meat available all night at Gray's Papaya is fossil fuel for many of the city's homeless as well as more than a few early-morning club crawlers. On the other end of the great American hot dog spectrum is Fort Lauderdale's own Hot Dog Heaven. The tiny sausage shrine on Sunrise Boulevard gives hot dogs the respect they deserve, serving fine plump Vienna Beef sausages from Chicago with the same fresh fixings you'd get at Wrigley Field. Order one or two or half a dozen with the works -- cradled in a steamed poppy-seed roll with mustard, relish, pickles, onions, fresh tomato, hot peppers, and celery salt.

Best Pizza

Downtown Pizzeria

Just having the word pizzeria in the name should be enough to get any pizza lover worth his or her pepperoni through the door. Sounds authentic. Italian. But it's not -- exactly. Downtown Pizzeria owners Chris and Gus Kapakos have more Greek ancestry than Italian, but their restaurant background and pizza-making pedigree come from authentic sources. Their father was a restaurateur who owned and operated the Horizon Diner and the Key West Seafood House locally during the mid-'70s and early '80s. (He still has restaurants in Orlando.) The brothers grew up working at dad's places and then went into business for themselves with Lazy A Farms, a produce company they ran until the building that housed it burned nine years ago. As luck would have it, one of Lazy A's clients was Dino's Pizzeria, and when owner Dino Chilini heard about the closure, he offered Chris a job delivering pizzas for extra cash. Soon enough Chris was elbow-deep in dough, working inside the kitchen at Dino's, where he began perfecting his dough-tossing technique. With Dino's blessing, Chris chose a location in Fort Lauderdale, and he and Gus opened their first pizzeria on Seventh Street. They built a reputation and a clientele with a full menu of Italian dinners, subs, and salads. And awesome pie. The thin-crust, New York-style slices are big enough to choke a hippo and dripping with just the right amount of cheese grease floating above the zesty red sauce below. The makings for the sauce, Gus' concoction, are secret, but Chris lets on that they use whole-milk mozzarella ("It's a little more fatty, but it's got the taste," explains Chris), fresh herbs instead of dried flakes (except oregano), and only the freshest produce, no canned stuff. What else would you expect from a couple former vegetable peddlers? And they've done so well, a second Downtown Pizzeria was opened in Oakland Park in January. Both locations are open until 4 a.m. and offer free delivery till 5 p.m., though you can grab a pie hot out of the oven and eat it on site at the small counter.

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