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Best Chinese Takeout

Christina Wan's Mandarin House

Chris Bellus
The Wan family has been serving wok creations to South Florida since 1966. Its takeout service leans upscale — with prices to match — but placing an order is a breeze, and delivery is fast. Lunch specials (starting at $7.95) come with a vegetable spring roll rather than the artery-clogging pork variety that many other places hock. And health-conscious patrons can opt for brown rice at no extra charge. There are even special low-carb and dieter's menu items. Likewise, the appetizers veer away from traditional Chinese fare and lean toward Japanese (edamame and miso soup). But standard favorites like shrimp dumplings and three varieties of chicken wings are still there. And it's all prepared in a flash, so you can drive on over after placing your order and it'll be ready when you walk in the door.

Best Late-Night Dining

The Dubliner

The owners of the new Dubliner have already staked sole claim to the rough-and-ready after-midnight crowd. Running successful nightclubs for more than a decade has taught them exactly what the slow burn of Jägermeister in an otherwise-empty gut feels like at 3 a.m. For a contingent of folks in South Florida who rarely roll off their futons before the sun goes down (the beautiful people know evening's mood lighting erases traces of hard living), owners Rodney Mayo and Scott Freilich have been operating Dada in the south (Delray Beach) and Howley's in the middle (West Palm) for many years. Both places will serve you a char-grilled burger or a chocolate fondue at any hour. Their latest pin on the late-night map: Palm Beach Gardens, where the Dubliner dishes up swankified Irish fare like corned beef and red cabbage, beer-battered fish and chips, or Irish breakfast served day and night: a banger, roast veg, two eggs. This time, the fondue is made of cheddar-laced Guinness and served with Irish soda bread, and a live band plays retro-Earth, Wind, and Fire hits even boomers can swing to.

Best Raw Bar

Southport Raw Bar

Photo by Glenn Govot, courtesy of Southport Raw Bar & Restaurant
Southport is probably the most rustic locale in South Florida to sport free wi-fi, but nobody cares: A computer would only serve to distract you from the eye-popping menu served by Jack, Pat, and Buddy — a marvel of freshness, generosity, and kinky economics. Raw-barring folks will want to start with the Raw Seafood Combo, comprised of four clams, four oysters, and four spiced (with pickling spice and beer!) shrimp, all of surpassing freshness. This comes at you for "market price," but those two words don't mean the same at Southport as they do elsewhere (where "market price" is code for "we will now rape your wallet, thanks."). From these cold and reasonably priced beginnings, you can investigate what these folks can do with heat: fried clam strips like you haven't seen since you were last in New England ($5), baked stuffed clams ($5.75), and a thing called "Oysters Southport" (read: Rockefeller) that are, no shit, the best you've ever had ($7.25). Once you've mowed your way through a few dozen pounds of shellfish (and, by the way, you must try the fried scallops), you might want to note the bacon cheeseburger for $3.75. It's not shellfish, but who cares? It goes great with shellfish. And so does Yuengling, on tap along with many other brews for a mere $2.75 a glass.

Best Steak House

Strip House

One thing guaranteed to get the human male all hot and bothered is a juicy piece of USDA prime. Give him that slab of meat in a room decorated like an upscale bordello, complete with coy glamour shots of turn-of-the-century lovelies in various stages of deshabille, and you've got yourself one of the most successful steak-house chains in the country. Live from New York, Strip House has landed in Palm Beach Gardens to satisfy our every lust, and even the sour old feminists among us are glad: Those mashed potatoes cooked in a truffle-oil-laced crust, that pale and unctuous foie gras steamed in herbs, the tiers of crustaceans on their fresh seafood plateau, and most of all, those thick, fat-larded, char-grilled rib eyes — coupled with stellar service, dry martinis, and a wine list vast enough to bring a Bordeaux-flavored grin to the lips of the pickiest oenophile — are reason enough to throw any lingering principles out of the window and dig in.

Best Beachside Breakfast

Latitudes Ocean Grill

It should be a crime to draw attention to such a serene spot, but were gonna do it. The Atlantic Coast line just north of Boca Raton has an odd mix of condo villages, luxury beachfront homes, and public parks with seemingly no beachfront commerce in sight. But hidden behind the Holiday Inn in Highland Beach is Latitudes, an unpretentious little restaurant that looks out onto grass-covered sand dunes. There's breezy outdoor seating shaded by huge umbrellas, as well as tables behind a glass-walled dining area. The stretch of beach ahead is usually empty, so diners can tuck into breakfast while contemplating the ocean and sea birds rather than staring at the bathing hordes. There are no lines to get in. No obnoxious young valet or packed parking lot to contend with. Just lots of hot coffee, a relaxed wait staff, and budget prices. The cheese blintzes with blueberries and heaping veggie egg skillets both go for $9.95.

Best Sushi in Broward

Cafe Emunah

If you can navigate through the clouds of New Agey blather that blanket Cafe Emunah like a swarm of Old Testament locusts — just ignore any invitations to take a spiritual journey and concentrate on your exploration of the specialty rolls — you'll find that this little Internet café, co-owned by a rabbi and a psychologist, offers plenty to get your creative juices flowing. The sushi chef is doing extraordinary things with fish (raw and cooked), oddly and deliciously paired with Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Floridian flavors. Though the range of seafood offered is fairly conventional — salmon, blue fin, hamachi, white tuna, escolar, mahi — it's all melt-on-the-tongue fresh. It's also kosher, organic, and imaginatively dressed — with everything from pineapple and coconut to miso aioli. A "peaceful roll" ($10) combines salmon with crisp carrot, golden raisins, walnuts, and Asian pear and dusts the plate with ground green tea. The Emunah ($12) wraps yellowtail with fried plantain and shredded coconut, drizzles it in sweet chili sauce, and dots the top with chopped cilantro and candied ginger. A "smile roll" mixes tropical pineapple and papaya with three kinds of fish, cilantro oil, and shredded coconut. The cradle-of-civilization-inspired "Moses roll" (the biblical symbology is nonstop) tops tempura salmon with taramasalata, avocado, chives, and crunchy shallots. And when was the last time you saw chickpea paste and eggplant spread at a sushi bar? Cooked seafood dishes are excellent here too. Settle in with your laptop and a pot of organic lemongrass mate and let the "inspire roll" (tuna, Asian pear, cilantro, masago, salmon) call down your muse.

Best Meal for Cheapskates

Bucky's Grill

Bucky's doesn't purvey the cheapest eats in the county, but the ratio of pennies out to pounds of pork in is a fine one. Were Bucky's take-out window a slot machine, any gambler who moseyed up would be an instant winner — at least between 4:30 and 10:30 p.m. A Texas beef brisket sandwich, for example, is an overgenerous pile of smoky, thin-sliced beef that makes you wonder how management ever figured they were gonna make a profit. This $10 heap of meat, like all of Bucky's sandwiches, includes a side of something equally messy, caloric, and bottomless — by the time you and your tightwad family have polished off the last of the "loaded up" baked potato and chipotle mayo-slathered hoagie roll, you'll feel like your miserly soul and the universe have come mysteriously into alignment. A plate of Kansas City baby backs ($21) with, say, an assortment of $3 sides — mac and cheese, creamed spinach, smokehouse baked beans, garlic mashed potatoes, and sweet potato fries — is a movable feast clearly meant to be shared with neighbors, strangers, and lovers. Think of it as a sort of potato-powered pay-it-forward.

Best Sushi in Palm Beach

Fah Asian Bistro and Sushi Bar

Last year, the government in Tokyo, fed up with the proliferation of faux sushi spreading its evil tentacles across the globe, announced that it would offer official seals of recognition for restaurants around the world that served "pure Japanese" cuisine. But we South Floridians don't give a blowfish's fart for authenticity. We'd rather chow down on our beloved deep-fried, mayo-drenched, libidinously named familiars. And truth be told, a well-made American-style roll is a precious thing, whether or not it's accompanied by real grated wasabi root or the green stuff that comes out of a tube. Fah's Japamerican sushi has evolved from its skewed fusion crossbreedings into something adorable and unique — like a labradoodle or a puggle, only it doesn't attract fleas or run up vet's bills. Take the Volcano roll, a calorically magnificent hybrid working at peak performance: cream cheese and baked seafood (in mayo, natch) poured over a California roll. Or Sex on the Moon: fried shrimp with eel, asparagus, avocado, and masago, inside out and topped with tuna and tempura flakes. Eat a plate of these babies, and believe it, you won't be defying gravity for quite a while. That the specialty rolls at Fah are beautiful, delicious, satisfying, and relatively inexpensive probably wouldn't convince the Japanese food police to bestow their coveted stamp of approval. But we're sure enough giving them ours.

Best Reason to Renounce Vegetarianism

Gol! The Taste of Brazil

Being a vegetarian is so, well, 2005, isn't it? Your prissy, eco-friendly diet has lost a bit of its luster in the past year or so — what with the poisoned spinach, tainted onions, and deadly peanut butter. Isn't it time you started rockin' with the rest of us? The party's in full swing at Gol!, an all-you-can-scarf rodizio opened this year by an American couple who learned their stuff in Brazil. There are no finicky illusions at work here.You know what you're eating and where it comes from: big bloody chunks of meat impaled on swords tendered by gauchos, who roam these rooms like victorious bullfighters proffering grilled sirloin, hot sausages, bottom round, lamb loin, and breast of chicken — as long as you keep turning that little chip on your table green side up. This is a hunter's feast in celebration of the carnal. (There's a terrific salad bar too, but that's hardly the point.) For $39.95, you can participate in an ancient ritual that's been going on as long as we great apes have been skulking around: Kill it, throw it on a fire, eat it. Even better with a cold caipirinha cocktail (on the rocks, lots of lime). Come on, isn't this how the food chain is supposed to work?

Best Restaurant Expansion

Sushi Bon

Once upon a time, there was an itty-bitty sushi bar. At its busiest, it could accommodate maybe 30 people, even with every stool at the bar taken. Regulars who adored the stern and dignified chef swore by the locally caught grouper, triggerfish, pompano, wahoo, and snapper that were magically turned into divine rolls and sashimi platters, sometimes served with true grated wasabi root. They tended not to tell their friends about Sushi Bon, fearing that they'd never get a table once the place got too popular. Local chefs made daily pilgrimages, and so did regular people who loved the real Japanese deal — like the amazing beef miso soup or the special tamago the chef sometimes made if he was in a happy and relaxed mood. Then a fantastic thing happened: The ice cream store right next door moved away. And before we could say "Hai!" the itty-bitty sushi bar was completely made over. It acquired a new room full of palm trees and prints of crashing waves, with lots of tables and polished tile floors. There was a whole new staff of waitresses rushing around and three or four new guys helping behind the bar. You no longer had to bring your own pinot in a paper bag because they now sold beer and wine. Everything had changed. But still, there was the same list of specials markered on the white board, with the same very fresh grouper, teriyaki scallop rolls, imported uni, and our favorite spicy wahoo. The hungry chefs, the Lantana fishermen, the picky sushi lovers, and the Japanese families came back and stretched their legs out under the new tables. And they saw that it was good.

Best Of Broward-Palm Beach®

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