Eat & Drink

We usually don’t rely on anybody’s good taste but our own, so the fact that this high-end Italian destination has attracted notice over its decadeslong life span from reviewers ranging from Wine Spectator to Fodor’s doesn’t impress us all that much. But the fare here, along with the sophisticated stylings from the service staff, speaks for itself: stuffed pastas topped with Béchamel sauce; lamb chops glistening with juice; snapper so fresh it, well, snaps. We also should note that given the rising prices in our South Beach establishments, suddenly this menu doesn’t read all that rich. Just richly delicious, and reliable, to boot.

At first glance the gustatory enticements on this stretch of Biscayne Boulevard seem flatter than the landscape. The eye gets caught on the bright ubiquitous colors and familiar logos of McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell and sees little else. But the neighborhood also boasts eateries that speak not to the comfort of national fast-food dining but to the richness that waves of immigrants have brought to Miami’s cuisine. Within a few blocks there is Honduran, Nicaraguan, Peruvian, and Haitian cuisine served at the kind of down-at-the-heels-looking joints that you pray have great food. Housed in a building with a lime-green shingled awning on the corner of 30th Street and Biscayne Boulevard, Delicias del Mar Peruano offers fresh seafood seasoned with lime, basil, mint, garlic and other pungent flavorings. Portions are large enough for two. The fiery jalapeño salsa with sliced baguettelike bread is worth a visit alone. The restaurant prepares six kinds of ceviche, heat adjusted to order; seafood soup (with octupi, large shrimp, and mussels in a clear broth); and perfect arroz con mariscos (shrimp with yellow rice) with flaky rice and just-cooked shrimp. Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, just like a neighborhood restaurant should be.

Kevin Rusk took a risk when he named his brewpub for the doomed ocean liner that sank in 1912, but he’s managed to keep it afloat for the past two years. Drawing on his success at Tobacco Road and Fishbone Grille, Rusk has created an eclectic menu that’s designed to complement Titanic’s handcrafted award-winning beers. Bypassing the uncharted (but tasty) waters of gangplank salmon and steerage skirt steak sandwich, we’ve found our safety zone in something tried and true: the essential burger. One-half pound of fresh ground Angus beef grilled to juicy perfection, crisp romaine lettuce, and a ripe-red tomato slice sit atop a toasted onion bun and are accompanied by a choice of caesar salad or fries. Extras (add fifty cents to a buck to the ample $5.95 burger) include grilled onion, jalapeños, cheese, mushrooms, and bacon. We’ll be enjoying these consistently savory beefburgers until an iceberg forms on the UM campus.

“Welcome to Bavaria,” the menu reads, and it’s true on both counts: You are welcome, and Edelweiss is like a restaurant in Bavaria. By that we mean the homey, old-world décor, coupled with the traditional, finely wrought German fare, gets us salivating for a weis bier every time. We always enjoy sopping up the brew with the bread dumplings with mushroom sauce; the pan-seared trout with sherry sauce; or the grilled pork sausages over sauerkraut. And finishing off the meal with Black Forest torte doesn’t suck either. But the part of the experience we think is most essential? Bestowing a pat or two on the owner’s shaggy white dog, who is always resting eagerly at the top of the stairs, delighted to welcome you to — and say goodbye from — Bavaria.

As a rule, perkiness is annoying. But politeness, freshness, brightness? All good. And in the morning hours, even better. That’s what you’ll get when you stop in at Jamba Juice for a healthful taste sensation. Left Coast influences (the California-based Juice Club became Jamba Juice in 1995) have obviously infiltrated Jamba Juice’s Kendall outpost, which features a tremendous menu of fruit- and soy-based smoothies plus a fresh-juice bar (even wheatgrass grows in patches behind the counter). Ask your upbeat server to toss in a free Jamba Boost (select vitamins, minerals, herbs, and amino acids) for immunity, women’s health, or energy, and you’ll be treated to a pick-me-up that packs more of wallop than anything you’ll get at that gloomy Starbucks next door. Creamy smooth drinks are filled with the fuel your body needs any time of day: Combinations of berries, bananas, peanut butter, peaches, mangos, and more mingle endlessly with nonfat yogurt, sorbet, and ice. Nothing artificial here — even the shiny happy people who man the blenders and make sure every last drop finds its way into your jumbo cup are genuine. So if they want to be perky, we’ll just go ahead and let them.

In 1994, back when Lincoln Road was just emerging from its rutted, nearly abandoned phase, Alfredo Gonzalez and his sons Alex and Adrian opened David’s Café II. Their original David’s Café had been up and running on Collins Avenue since 1977, offering Cuban fare in a diner setting. But the family was looking toward the future, and it looked to be on the Road. They were right. Their business has only grown since then, expanding to add a café to David’s II in 1999. But the Gonzalezes never strayed from their roots serving simple, tasteful Cuban dishes — such as tostones stuffed with seafood, and churrasco steak — even as all manner of hip restaurants (drag-queen waiters) and celebrity-owned bistros have opened and closed around them. Perhaps their biggest challenge came a year ago, when the weedlike Starbucks set up shop across the street selling $1.50 espressos. Despite it all David’s has thrived. Thank God there’s still a place on the Road where locals can buy 50-cent cafecitos. The café is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The restaurant is open from 7:00 a.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday.

Never underestimate the power of an old maxim: Power is as power does. If you want to be perceived as powerful, act it. And eat some power protein for lunch. At this Brazilian rodizio eatery, you don’t have to be a glutton to prove you’re worthy. Order the “executive lunch,” a complete meal for $12.99, which includes soup, caesar salad, side dishes, and a main course ranging from sirloin steak to salmon in white wine-caper-mushroom sauce. Or go all out and sample everything on the 30-item salad bar, then give the green light to the skewer-carrying meat carvers, who will feed you until you feel like having a power hurl, for $25.99. ‘Course we don’t recommend that if you’re trying to impress a client or a senior partner. What we do advise: Check out the free valet parking, then tip big. Your power is in the (doggy) bag.

This food is so good you have to pass through a metal detector just to get to it. Hang a right just past the bathrooms in the Juvenile Justice Center, and there it is, the colorful little trailer from which at-risk teenagers on probation in the juvenile court system serve up fresh food for low prices five days a week. You can get sandwiches, salads, chicken wings, and daily specials flavored with vegetables and herbs grown onsite by the teens. Park yourself at a picnic table or lounge in the sun-filled courtyard where you can watch the mingling of cops, judges, social workers, and children. An average breakfast or lunch will run you from $2.75 to $4 and is almost always healthier than fast food. Teen Cuisine also offers catering.

It might take a little while to get used to. Here you are, all ready to enjoy the best seafood in town, and not a chair in sight! Yet the place is packed, and hardly anyone is ordering take-out. Amid all the roiling humanity, keyed up further by the salsa music on the radio, giving everything a (very) slight beach-party ambiance, you manage to order. You don’t have to wait too long. Pretty soon you’re leaning against the counter along with everyone else, diving in, and, you got it, thinking it’s fun to eat standing up! Next time, sneakers instead of platforms. There’s a brand new Fico on South Beach, and the food is probably just as wonderful, but they surely couldn’t improve on the original — seated, standing, or prone.

If you judge Haitian restaurants as we do — solely on the virtue of the lambi — then you’ll agree with us that Le Pavillon is tops in conch. The pounded conch, smothered in a tomato sauce and served so tender you know the chef has carpal tunnel syndrome from all that whacking, justifies the honor alone. Fortunately that’s not the only qualified dish at this smartly trimmed eatery, which has been open for several years but is under new management. The beef-vegetables stew and the goat with gravy both rule their categories, as does the rice and peas. And while this eatery clearly is Creole to the nth degree, you won’t find better fried chicken — available every day — served anywhere in the Deep South. Le Pavillon’s motto is “home of many cultures,” but really we think it’s the place for just one: the culinary society.

This wonderful little joint answers the question Can man live by meatball alone? with a resounding yes! Of course there’s plenty of other fare here, including some really good pizzas, homemade sauces, and a variety of dishes inspired by chef-owner Michael D’Andrea’s family. Check out Grandma Lena’s soup, Josephina’s asparagus purée, or Vito’s ricotta cheesecake. Whatever you choose, it’s not only namesake; it’s guaranteed authentic, made-on-the-premises, primo stuff. Naturally we can’t get past the garlic-studded meatballs quickly enough to have any room left for cannoli, but that’s why we’re repeat customers: We have hope for the future.

To be honest we tried really hard not to love this place so much this year. After all, while Anokha pretty much is responsible for bringing ethnic food back to the Grove (and keeping it there), spicy Indian contenders are hot on the restaurant’s well-shod heels. But just when we got to the point where we weren’t craving the rogan josh or chicken vindaloo for dinner, Anokha did something really evil: It added a lunch buffet. Now, with an assortment of expertly seasoned goodies for lunch Tuesday through Saturday, we had little choice but to rename Anokha numero uno.

A little slice of Mexico across the street from the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner. Not that that has any significance, other than Los Tres Amigos certainly has been a welcome addition to the lunch possibilities for all the hard-working medical types in the Jackson Memorial Hospital area. Tres Amigos is the kind of place you virtually never see in Miami: It really looks Mexican inside, Selena plays on the jukebox, and the food really is Mexican/Tex-Mex. You can order the usual varieties of burritos — chicken, beef, refried beans and cheese — as well as the superdeluxe burrito Los Tres Amigos, a fat package of beef, pork, and chicken. The best part is ladling on the red or green sauce, or both.

Three-radish salad with soy-lime vinaigrette? Crisp oyster rolls? Lobster tempura? Green tea cheesecake? And cold sake on tap to wash it all down? An establishment that treats Japanese cuisine with respectful innovation, Shoji is the latest product to debut from the Michael Schwartz-Myles Chefetz team. Like the partners’ other restaurants, including Nemo, it seems Shoji was destined for success from the get-go, thanks to flavorful drinks like the sakatini (like a cosmo but with sake). Indeed we’ve been waiting eagerly for it to open for almost a year — and hey, we’re not all that patient. So it’s all the more satisfying not only that Shoji lives up to its implied reputation, but that we can award it for its high cuisine so readily.

We thought proprietor Alejandro Garcia and chef-wife Lorena Vega-Beuggie were completely nuts when they reopened Divina. They’d formerly operated this Mexican haute-cuisine restaurant for only seven months a couple of years ago, and while they got great reviews and built a loyal clientele, landlord problems forced them to give up the space. But when they saw that Divina’s successor, Chow, had gone out of business, they decided a little resurrection was in order. Can’t say any of Vega-Beuggie’s fans were dismayed; that corn torte with poblano cream sauce she makes produces a powerful craving, and, admittedly, we also were suffering without our regular fix of squash blossoms and cuitlacoche. Our goal now? To let everybody in on the secret of their success, so the duo will have no choice but to expand their hours to include a divine lunchtime.

It’s been said before and will be said again: There is nothing, nothing, nothing like a warm fresh-from-the-oven Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. The other varieties at Krispy Kreme are luscious, better than any doughnut has a right to be. But the fresh glazed — the ones that simply are too amazing for human taste buds — are the last word in doughnuts.

The name means “Russian ravioli sold here.” Scoop up your fill of pale meat dumplings, pierogi stuffed with cheese, potato or cabbage stew, and cherry varenikis for about four dollars a plate. A variety of soups includes Moscow-style borscht. Communication with the staff is limited if you don’t know Russian; they do, however, speak the universal language of grunt and point. The little bistro is situated inside the Driftwood hotel, in a second-floor overlook bubble. The front window looks out over Collins Avenue, with its pedestrians blithely ignoring traffic and lines forming outside Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House across the street. The view out back is of the hotel’s innards and a small tiki bar and, beyond that, sparkling Biscayne Bay. For some reason the modest dining room is divided into “bistro” and “café,” with signs proclaiming that patrons are expected to tip ten percent if they sit on the bistro side of the room and fifteen percent if they sit on the café side. They claim to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Those wacky Slavs.

A view overlooking the bay, back toward Miami, and down sparkling Brickell Avenue is the first thing you notice when walking into the elegant, nouveau-Asian lobby of the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Then, at the entrance to the restaurant, you glimpse the waterfall that separates the open kitchen from the dining area. The absolute succulence of the dishes devised by celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein dazzles you next. And finally a bill that surpasses monthly car and mortgage payments combined makes you gasp. If you stopped at the bar first, refinancing could be necessary. But if you’ve gotten someone else to foot the bill, this is the place to dine (and to stay warm; house pashmina shawls are available to wrap the chilly). Hamachi carpaccio in an Asian-spiced citrus sauce to start? On your own dime, maybe such an appetizer would be out of the question. On someone’s else’s — go for it! It’s sublime. Foods from the sea remain the best choice for a main course (no need to look at prices this time!). Signature Bernstein dressings, often combining an Asian flavor (a nuac nam or hoisin sauce?) with, say, rose water or papaya, enhance snapper, sea bass, and other fresh cuts. Add up the outdoor vista, the indoor décor, and the internal satisfaction, and Azul reaches the pinnacle of, well, good taste.

It is indeed a cozy, homey sort of diner on a bustling corner of Miami Springs’ business district. The walls are hung with fancy quiltwork and needlework, old black-and-white photos of the town circa 1930, and antique Coca-Cola paraphernalia; real and fabricated ferns and flowers are everywhere, and delicious-looking cakes, pies, and pastries sit on counters in those covered glass stands. It’s plain country-good eatin’ here: meat loaf and mashed potatoes, eggs and grits — even one of the greatest dishes ever to come out of the South, biscuits and gravy. Breakfast is served anytime, and there are many excellent and reasonably priced specials. But the real test of a kountry kitchen is the waitresses. You won’t find the actress-student birdbrain type at Cozy Corner. Here the food servers have weathered years on their feet, memorizing prices, and carrying three plates on one arm (if they have to). In other words they’re much like the unpretentious throwback the restaurant is.

Just north of the bustle and hustle of Little Haiti and just south of the suburban meadow of Miami Shores squats a 28-year-old shrine to past greatness. Various shades of pink and the words “Home of the Zonker” transform what once was a gas station into a place where mere salami, ham, Provolone cheese, and a generous layer of mayonnaise become divine inspiration for less than four dollars. Take your zonker and a beer to one of the outside tables, or lean against the guardrail overlooking the Little River as it flows past the parking lot. But sit inside if you want the real deal. The walls are plastered with posters and memorabilia from Old Hollywood and every major sport in the Western Hemisphere (except soccer — like that counts). There’s a virile young Ronnie Reagan as gunslinger, Jackie Gleason as pool shark, Marilyn Monroe as pneumatic nitwit, the Babe and Joe DiMaggio as baseball icons. Even the Hialeah racetrack has a spot on the wall. But it’s Dan Marino who will take your breath away. Really. An artist lovingly drew just the head and naked shoulders of Number 13 rising from a sea of blue, as if he were the Greek god Poseidon. Lightning sparks distantly in an ominous black sky as dolphins leap over Marino’s prodigious shoulders and into the water. Eat it up.

South Beach has been sushi central for almost a decade now, and in the past few years the ranks of stellar traditionalists such as Maiko, Sushi Rock, and Sushi Hana have been swelled by star-power newcomers like Bambù and Bond St. Lounge — not to mention Nemo’s super Shoji Sushi outpost taking off with a bang. Whew! But currently the best Miami sushi, with proven seaside freshness and solid creativity, can be found at BlueSea. This tiny (eighteen seats — all at one marble, diner-style countertop) eatery has somehow escaped terminal trendiness despite its location in the lobby of the hyperhyped Delano Hotel. Instead of a star chef, BlueSea has a layered sashimi arrangement of hamachi and avocado with rich blackstrap rum and lime dipping sauce; a sesame-flavored tuna tataki tower with spicy daikon radish chips; a crisp salmon skin-garnished plate of green tea noodles topped with a quail egg and spicy mayo; imported Russian caviar; and an assortment of the usual sushi fare. All come with a very non-Japanese assortment of mix-and-match dipping sauces. Don’t dig standard soy stuff? Try inventive Indonesian asam manis, rich Thai peanut, incendiary Korean kim chee, or citrusy ponzu. And though BlueSea doesn’t take reservations, waiting in the Philippe Starck-designed space, with its cocktail bar and comfy couches, is no great hardship.

The Cracked Conch is not to be confused with the Cracked Conch Café further down on Marathon Key, more expensive and not as down-home-tasty. The Cracked Conch also is not to be found by street address; it may have one for official reasons, but, the attitude about official stuff being what it is in the Keys, the address is not visible as drivers whiz down the Overseas Highway. Just look on the left side of the road, around Mile Marker 105 in Key Largo, for a small overgrown wooden shack with lots of hopeful cats on the roof licking their chops. Relax. You’re there. Also there are a rustic room with booths, not tables; a terrific country jukebox; an informal take-one-now-leave-one-later bookcase of delicious vacation trash reading; even more delicious always-fresh local seafood and homemade specialties (several variety platters let you sample most everything including — surprise!– tender deep-fried cracked conch); a beer list longer than the food menu; and a great sense of humor: A note on the menu states that the Conch is run by “a very close staff and family. Close to broke. Close to insanity.” The Cracked Conch is closed Wednesday. But if you begin a Key West weekend on Wednesday, you’ve been listening to waaay too many Jimmy Buffett songs.

As the saying goes, you’ve had the rest, now try the best. The rest in this case is unsubtle glop: white starchy glop that tastes more like bacon and potato than seafood if it’s something like New England-style clam chowder; red starchy glop that tastes more like chili powder and tomato than seafood if it’s something like Manhattan clam or Caribbean conch chowder. So now try the best, which you’ll no doubt be able to do for a good many years, since Norman Van Aken’s regulars would probably kill the chef if he discontinued his conch chowder. Slight variations have occurred over the years (like the current cloud of foam on top), but forever ambrosial is and will be the inventive chowder: panko-crusted pieces of tender conch plus garnishes of citrus, shaved coconut, and a few vegetables floating on a slightly hot, slightly sweet, rich yet refreshingly reduced (not starch-thickened) shellfish stock flavored with saffron, star anise, Scotch bonnet peppers, orange juice, coconut milk, and a generous dollop of cream. The rest simply can’t compare.

Yes, it’s him again. And we might as well permanently retire this category to Norman Van Aken until he retires — which he shows no signs of doing, possibly ever. While other superstar chefs would rest on their laurels — especially if they had as many as Van Aken does — or clean up financially by opening clone eateries, Van Aken remains in his Gables kitchen. And remains energetically, unceasingly inventive. How to equal still-superb old favorites like yuca-stuffed crispy shrimp with mojo and habanero tartar sauce? With Fire and Ice (a combo of warm lobster/boniato hash and cold tuna tartare, with wasabi granite and vanilla sabayon), or sautéed soft-shell crab with pancetta and basil/lemon butter, among many recently invented creations. As for tasting menus, there are always two. One is a weekly changing five-course feast based on seasonal ingredients and events, as well as Van Aken’s sense of humor. A recent Judeo/Christian holiday menu, for instance, included both an amusing upscale Easter egg salad (quail egg halves stuffed with lobster or foie gras mousse, with a caviar crema and local spring vegetable accompaniment) and a Seder-ish dish of sea bass on a crisp latke topped with a “Balsamic Blessed ragout of teardrop tomatoes, accompanied by hearts of palm.” The other is a tasting menu of signature dishes, for diners who don’t want to gamble — though no diner, no matter how high the bill, ever loses at Norman’s.

This sliver of a restaurant is in old downtown, which with every passing day seems to gain more and more flavor as a thriving ultramodern Latin-American city of the Sixties. Wednesday is garbanzo soup day. A bowl makes a meal (especially with the complimentary side of hot buttered “Cuban” bread), and it contains four essential food groups: potato, cabbage, chorizo, and, of course, the multifaceted chickpeas, as they’re called in El Norte. Sit at the lengthy counter or at a table in back. They also deliver.

Ah, the Grove, where people live in trees, bartenders look like clowns, and rickshas run wild through heavy traffic. Like a lot of Grovites, Mezzanotte is a little kooky. But in a good way. Take, for instance, the bistecca pulcinella: steak with peppercorn, brandy cream, and a touch of demi-glace. Kind of crazy! Or the insalata parmigiana: mushroom salad with thin slices of Parmesan cheese, virgin olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Positively flaky! Or how about the calamari della casa: calamari, scallops, fresh tomato, peas, and a touch of cognac. Now that’s outlandish! Or the pollo contadino: chicken with sirloin steak, sausage, mushrooms, potato, garlic oil, and white wine vinegar. Absolutely wacky! Even more insane is the fact that, in an area once bereft of good restaurants, Mezzanotte has several fabulous contenders, including Anokha (Indian), Baleen (seafood and steak), Bice (Italian), Le Bouchon du Grove (French), and Las Culebrinas (Cuban/Spanish). But Mezzanotte’s prices (beef, chicken, and seafood entrées start at $14.50) are less absurd than most of them.

We’re not saying anything we didn’t already say back in 1999, 1997, 1996, and 1994. And our deciding factors — freshness, consistency, selection, reasonable prices, and, truth be known, free samples — are probably nothing you don’t already know about Biga, which, like bread itself, has become a staple in South Florida. Whether you live near the Coral Gables, South Miami, South Beach, Key Biscayne, Dadeland Station, Coral Way, Kendall, Boca Raton, or West Palm Beach shop, the hearty country breads and Latin specialties are trucked to you daily from Biga’s 20,000-square-foot baking commissary in Hialeah. Besides, Biga is a bakery that knows how to have fun: How about a loaf resembling a cluster of grapes, a bunny bun for Easter, or a heart-shaped brioche for Mother’s Day? Heck, if you’ve got the dough, you can even buy your own Biga franchise.

When Picanha’s opened a couple of years ago in the former Tark’s, which was attached to a Dairy Queen, we thought it would be another restaurant serf, dredging the lower realm of the dining public for customers. We’re not ashamed to admit we were wrong about this honest Brazilian eatery, which is named for the cut of rump roast called a pincanha. Indeed the eatery was so successful with both Brazilians and the uninitiated alike that it recently took its meaty linguincinha sausages and rich prawns sautéed in palm oil and coconut milk to a more conducive venue: the former Mark’s Place. Now the Grille is even more packed, especially on Thursdays for Brazilian-style karaoke and caiprinhas, and on weekends for executive chef Edson Milto’s traditional feijoada. And here we thought nothing could ever take the Place of Mark’s.

It’s Wednesday, hump day, and the morning is closing in on you like a python around your neck. You sidle up to the counter at Enriqueta’s and order the café con leche, wondering how in the world you’re going to get through the next eight hours. The waitress calls you “amor” and sets down a steaming mug of milk and a little stainless-steel pot with espresso coffee in it, so finely brewed there’s a delicate foam on top. Yeah, that’s the stuff. You mix just the right amount of coffee into the milk. Today it’s full-on, dump the caffeine in. You’re going to need all the help you can get. You sip. The coffee is sweet and strong, the milk is warm and comforting. Suddenly things don’t seem that bad. There’s that cutie on the second floor you want to ask out, and you just remembered your boss is gone half the day. You take another sip. Yeah, things are looking up. You smile. The waitress smiles back. Best damn dollar you’ve spent in a long time.

Contrary to the icon stenciled on the door, Irving Fields looks nothing like an iron Granny bent on reforming the eating habits of a decidedly pudgy nation. To look at his round, avuncular shape, one might not immediately guess that he has operated a health food restaurant in downtown Miami since 1971. But just watch him bustle around the restaurant and store. He’s hawking vitamins, mixing strawberry-banana protein shakes, and ringing up the bill — all the while maintaining a constant stream of banter and gossip directed at newcomers and regulars alike. The restaurant is only a short walk from the county courthouse and county hall, so many of the regulars are a mixed lot of Miami’s most famous and notorious denizens. “Mayors, commissioners, judges, lawyers, and cops, I know ’em all,” Fields declares. One of his favorite customers is former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, who he says confessed that she missed coming into the shop while she served out her term up in D.C. “She said, “Irving, I’ve got to tell you I fantasized about your fresh fruit and yogurt,'” Fields recalls with evident pleasure. “Fantasized — that’s a strange word coming from her.” Oh yes, about the actual food. The menu is large, with well-priced items ranging from tasty veggie burgers and spinach lasagna to chimichangas to a variety of chicken or fish dishes and a selection of salads and fresh juices. The restaurant operates on the downtown’s bustle-and-bust cycle, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

At all-you-can-eat buffets of the cafeteria-inspired kind, the urge to gorge overtakes most diners. Maybe it’s a Thanksgiving-related syndrome. Get it now or your brothers will be asking for seconds before you’ve taken the first bite. That experience is the opposite of eating at the Brazilian churrascaria Porcao in the Four Ambassadors Hotel. Although porcao is Portuguese for “pig,” and one essential element is the same — you can eat until you decide to stop — the experience is more like theater for the tongue. You are attended to by a cast of waiters. There is a constant flow of different foods to sample. The tongue remains surprised. A churrascaria is a restaurant that specializes in meat. The style of cooking is rodizio, Portuguese for “rotisserie.” Each table has a card, one side green and the other red, like a traffic light. If you flip up the green side, you will be approached by the phalanx of waiters streaming from the kitchen and fanning out through the dining room. Each waiter carries skewers of fresh-grilled meat. One time it will be pork sausages and grilled chicken. The next, buttons of filet mignon wrapped in bacon, perfectly charred roast rump, salmon with mushroom-butter sauce. If you want time to digest all that protein, flip over the card to the red side, order a drink from one of the carts wheeled through the dining room, and indulge in conversation. There’s no rush. Or if you just want to give your taste buds a change, take a trip to the salad bar. The array of choices and the quality of offerings are dazzling. And then there is the dessert cart. Yummy. Gluttony never felt so good.

In The Beach, a novel about traveling, the central characters are constantly looking for the next undiscovered Eden, where they can play in splendid isolation. Take that concept, transfer it to dining on South Beach, and The Abbey becomes an oasis of an island. Although it’s “undiscovered” by the masses, it’s not so far off the Ferragamo-trod path that it’s unfashionable. Thus the sophisticated eatery, featuring executive chef Philippe Baguette (can his name be any more apropos?), an eclectic menu, and a darling eight-stool bar, plus an airy but formal Mediterranean dining room and a beautifully landscaped terrace for outdoor dining, offers a temporary escape from the madding SoBe crowd. In other words it’s the perfect place to talk about your friends, because while their ears may be ringing, they don’t yet know where you are. And we won’t tell if you won’t.

If one had to name just a single Miami restaurant trend for the past twelve months, it’d be restaurant/nightclubs. Or is it nightclub/restaurants? Whatever. The idea is having it all in one place: Diners eat and then stay to dance the night away. That’s in theory. In practice these allegedly one-size-fits-all eats-and-entertainment spaces satisfy serious clubbers much better than they do serious diners. The latter tend to find the sounds too pounding for dinner conversation or digestion — and having to run a gauntlet of velvet ropes and doorfolk with attitude to reach one’s rib eye tends to ruin the appetite. At “American grill” restaurant/nightclub Touch, the rib eye is an intensely charcrusted, subtly spice-rubbed 24-ouncer with a generous topping of thin-cut onion rings just peppery enough to tingle one’s tongue. And other food offerings are equally first-rate in terms of ingredients and preparation: a lobster blini featuring Maine lobster, or a custardy smooth ice-cream-topped bread pudding that’s the sexiest thing most SoBe club kids have experienced in years. What makes Touch superior as a restaurant/nightclub is that you get to enjoy the experience. While Touch opened a year ago with the standard senses-smashing sounds and faux-glam ambiance, dinnertime music now is seductively smooth — and subdued in volume (after the kitchen closes, all bets are off). Best, there’s little velvet-rope snobbery; personnel are genuinely welcoming, even to those who don’t look like J. Lo.

They say that Costa Rica is the Switzerland of Central America. Then Nicaragua must be the Argentina of that historically embattled isthmus. Why? Churrasco. You know, charbroiled beef. The Nicaraguans are as crazy for it as their Southern Cone cousins. But whereas the Argentines often credit Italy for some of their culinary inspirations, the Nicaraguans tend to look north. Hence dishes such as tenderloin tips a la jalapeña (i.e., with a creamy jalapeño and onion sauce). You, however, need only travel west a few miles to this modest yet elegant establishment on West Flagler and SW 107th Avenue. The menu also offers a wide variety of appetizers and chicken, pork, and seafood entrées. And ask your very cordial waiter for that spirit enhancer that crosses all north-south divides: a carafe of sangría.

Unlike some of our other more blatant eateries — Tantra or Touch, for example — chef-proprietor Kris Wessel’s Liaison isn’t all about sex. It is, however, all about the sensual: the feel of a large airy dining room with a high ceiling and billowing linens. The look of a sleek bar that has the friendly, open-door ambiance of a corner shop. The taste of Wessel’s restrained yet exuberant New Orleans-inspired cuisine that combines classic French technique with local and seasonal ingredients. Don’t look for too much blackening seasoning, though. This restaurant doesn’t hit the diner over the head with Cajun flavors and drag her off to a cave for a bout of postprandial feasting. Rather Wessel seduces the sophisticate in all of us with items like filé gumbo with blue crabs; grillades of veal served over grits; crêpes stuffed with oysters; or zesty short ribs. Wash it all down with a sparkling kir royale, and you’ve got the perfect introduction to the main course after the dinner, if you know what we mean (wink, wink).

Since Miami no longer is the nation’s southernmost city but Latin America’s northernmost, a yearning for Old South Florida cuisine rarely becomes urgent. But after a day gaping at gators in the Glades, nothing hits the spot like cracker cuisine, primo of which is barbecue. And the primo place at which to get it is the Pit, conveniently situated at the outskirts of the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail, miles before the road morphs into Calle Ocho. The décor in this small spot is perfect for a Florida barbecue joint: rustic wood booths inside, tiki-hut-covered picnic tables outside. And the food is even more perfect. This is genuine you-can-smell-the-smoke-for-miles pit barbecue, cooked slow over smoldering blackjack oak. The tender yet toothy ribs are terrific. But hard-core classicists order the $3.95 triple-winnerer: juicy pulled pork topped with crunchy, slightly sweet chopped coleslaw right on the sandwich, just like in North Carolina. And for noncarnivores, there’s elegant fried fresh catfish. Among side orders, lightly floured crisp real onion rings are required eating, as are tangy-sweet barbecue beans. For dessert skip the overly sweet key lime pie and order another beer, since the Pit has imported Beck’s and some Hank Jr. (or Senior) on the jukebox.

Okay, we admit that the interior of this freaky circus-theme restaurant, with its banquettes shaped like jesters’ hats and papier-mâché harlequins dangling from the rafters, is striking. But it’s also a little scary, especially if Cirque du Soleil just really ain’t your game. All in all we prefer the seaside terrace, which provides the prettiest seating in North Beach. There you can enjoy executive chef Paulo Barroso de Barros’s intriguing ginger duck confit with ravioli and fresh mango sauce as it should be: out in the tropical air under a full Miami moon. When it comes to magical entertainment, sometimes nature, with a little help from a chef who knows how to cook a really good osso bucco, is all you need.

Most of us are introduced as children to The Sandwich, various processed foodstuff squeezed between two slices of white bread. People ask, “Did you eat?” and we reply, “I had a sandwich.” Everyone knows it isn’t the same thing. Well, everyone except the Sandwich Mill’s John Rossetti, whose inspired creations include the Tuscan Tower (roasted Italian vegetables with basil cream on a French batard), the Smokestack (roasted pork, caramelized onion, stewed apple, and vinegar mayo, also on a French batard), and the Taste-o-Tradition (roasted chicken, caramelized onion, and sweet potato spread on sourdough). And Rossetti makes everything, including half-a-dozen varieties of bread, right on the premises. Now that’s good eatin’.

Don’t be fooled by the name Hanna — this is the same beloved Gourmet Diner of old. And by old, we mean oldie but goodie. Original chef-proprietor Jean-Pierre Lejeune sold his signature place six months ago to new owner Sia Hemmati, who vowed to keep everything the same. Well, he broke his promise. By adding white linen tablecloths, fresh flowers, and the use of credit card machines, he actually made the stainless-steel diner with its hallmark French-inspired chalkboard specialties better. Not that we’re complaining about the most perfectly herb-roasted chicken in Miami, or the meatiest veal Bolognese sauce, or the slickest steak au poivre. And of course we certainly can’t bitch about the custard fruit tart, the recipe for which is exactly executed each day with vine-ripe strawberries and fresh kiwis. Call us sentimental if you must, but we’re just darn glad that neither new owners nor faithful followers have lost sight of the Diner.

Until there is an outbreak of foot and beak disease (or, God forbid, mad chicken) this Anglo version of Pollo Tropical is still a tantalizing investment for a quick healthful meal. The Brickell locale is a favorite lunchtime or postworkout pit stop for the calorie- and cash-obsessed professionals of our shimmering financial district. (You’re usually out of there for less than five bucks.) The Kitchen is a pioneer in the merger of salad and entrée: broiled chicken (or beans for the truly health-minded vegetarian) on a bed of rice with fresh tomato, lettuce, and sour cream on top. A clever variety of salsas/dressings make this culinary conglomerate complete.

We’ll tell you straight off the bat — or fishing line, if you prefer: This seafood market and restaurant has absolutely no charm. Bare (fish) bones to the extreme, the market features only a few kitchenette-style tables, plastic and paper tableware, and a powerful aroma of freshly scaled fish. So why does it win? Easy. In order: Captain Jim’s fresh garlic crabs, a three-and-a-half-pound bucket of which will run you only $16.95. A pile of fried Key West shrimp for $7.95. (Captain Jim does a lot of fishing in the Keys.) Cracked Caicos conch, which comes with hush puppies or beans and rice for the same amount of dead presidents. And “extras” like fried clams, conch chowder, smoked fish dip, and smoked marlin. Get the picture? Good. Now go get the seafood before Captain Jim runs out of those garlic crabs — at his prices, the eats go as fast as his reel.

This isn’t a confection shop; it’s a chocolate gallery filled with objets d’ cocoa: miniature pianos, magnum-size champagne bottles, and swans, all sculpted out of milk, white, or dark chocolate. Tired of chewing on a dry bird at Thanksgiving? Order a solid chocolate turkey. They make ’em. Don’t know what to give the man or woman who has everything? Try an oversize check, made out for a million dollars and printed on 100 percent solid chocolate. It’s just one of the many custom-made creations the folks at Le Chocolatier have cooked up over the years. Order anything you see on display, come up with your own chocolate fantasy, or grab for the goodies in the case: chocolate-dipped biscotti, pretzels, fruit, and, of course, truffles — tons and tons of truffles — including tropically inspired mango, banana, key lime, and piña colada. Le Chocolatier? C’est magnifique!

The main body of the White Lion Café is nestled in a converted Twenties-era Florida bungalow-style home. Constructed of Dade County pine, the house is warm and hurricane-sturdy. Placed around the rooms are touchstones of a bygone time: a wooden wall phone, a metal icebox, a Fifties-era Coca-Cola machine. Even the prices, which happily feel a few years behind the times, seem faithful to the antique ambiance. There is no corresponding stuffiness, either. Intermixed among the pieces are whimsical notes that help set a light tone. On the wall of one room is a mounted jackalope (a rabbit with horns, for those who have never seen one). Attached to the side of the house is a covered patio where animal-shape Christmas lights are strung from the rafters, picnic tables stand ready, and cats lounge underfoot. In contrast to the antique theme, the food is prepared with fresh ingredients. Simple fare like fried chicken and grilled snapper is tastily cooked to perfection. Sometimes though, the old ways still are the best. No new-fangled instant mashed potatoes served here. Delightfully seasoned, they are made by hand.

The late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer and his wife, Alma, used to visit this soda fountain and drugstore at least once a day, sometimes twice. For lunch Singer often ordered the grilled cheese on white. The prolific short-story writer and novelist was at Sheldon’s in 1978 when a courier from the Nobel Prize committee showed up at his Surfside home with the news he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sent to the drugstore to find the author, the courier interrupted Singer’s midday meal. The unassuming writer reportedly replied with characteristic aplomb, “Oh, okay,” and resumed eating. Singer probably liked the place, says owner Ethel Spector, wife of the late Sheldon, because the backstore diner treated him like any other customer. A sign printed on typing paper above a table near the coffee station states that Singer learned he won literature’s greatest award in 1979 while sitting at “this” table. Even if they got the year wrong and have since moved the tables around, there’s something inspiring about eating near where genius dined. In addition to its literary charms, Sheldon’s is a soda-fountain aficionado’s dream. They serve old-school sundaes with pineapple goo and chocolate sauce; banana splits; New York egg creams; phosphates; ice cream sodas; and thick, rich milkshakes in tall frosted glasses with both a straw and a spoon.

Incredible but true: Peruse the produce shelves of local markets here in one of the nation’s major tomato-growing counties, and can you find a truly ripe, truly red specimen spurting with sweet-tart juice, even during seasons when mouthwatering morsels are nearly falling off the vines half an hour southwest in the Redland? Nah. Not so you can count on it, anyway. What you’ll probably find is a “vine-ripened tomatoes” sign over a pile of pinkish orbs hard as billiard balls. Except at Norman Brothers. If the store’s buyers can’t find truly ripe tomatoes — local if possible or from somewhere like the Carolinas — shoppers won’t find tomatoes on the shelves. And in addition to carrying a full line of the usual suspects (in an unusual state of peak ripeness) and rare specialty-shop produce, the store is a treasure trove of tropical fruits and vegetables that grow and thrive in our climes yet are almost never seen in our stores, such as fresh tamarind and jicama. There’s also a sizable selection of prepared foods, cheeses, fresh fish, and fancy imported items, but pricewise Norman Brothers is no ultra-upscale gourmet shoppe. You won’t find a better buy on whole fresh Florida lobsters — in season, naturally — anywhere.

The name sounds like an Argentine steak house, but the Gaucho Room in the landmark St. Moritz Hotel, part of the oceanfront Loew’s complex, really is more an Argentine-theme restaurant. Family portraits on the walls and plush faux-steerskin dining couches instead of chairs feed the fantasy that you’re eating in the living room of a wealthy pampas cattle rancher, while twentysomething Boy Wonder chef Frank Randazzo more literally feeds fantasies. In fact while the Gaucho has never hyped its steaks, the all-American cuts beat any in town (assuming you’re looking for quality rather than quantity), and the superbly flavorful beef, grilled on a traditional parrilla grill and served with three garlic and chervil-spiked chimichurri salsas of varying heats, is even better. But inventive South American/Southwestern fusion specialties such as savory wild mushroom tamales, queso fresco pulled duck empanadas with smoked chili sauce, or annatto-glazed Chilean sea bass with a crunchy jicama/spinach sauté (not to mention desserts like poached fresh exotic fruit with bittersweet chocolate-coated coconut mousse and Malibu rum consommé), would tempt even a genuine gaucho to bag the beef.

Owner and chef Philippe Torchut is French and he bakes every morning with that joie du vivre and that je ne sais quoi. What we do know is that these croissants are fluffy in the middle and a little crisp around the edges. What more does one need to know? His staff also serves a proper café au lait (and a variety of sandwiches and entrées, si’l vous plaît).

Café Demetrio has everything we demand in a coffeehouse. The atmosphere, with its blond wood and tall windows, is comfortable and pleasing to the eye. Regular art shows keep the walls interesting. The food and beverages are exquisite. Demetrio’s has an extensive coffee selection that runs from plain old espresso to caramel lattes. While the food tends toward sandwiches, the desserts are more adventurous and include an amaretto tart and linzer tortes. Finally Demetrio shares that great legacy of the modern coffeehouse: music. Generally Friday evenings feature romantic pop, and Saturdays are devoted to jazz.

Located just a few blocks west of where downtown Miami begins to get graceful and tree-lined, this little shop has been satisfying Miami’s pita, falafel, and baba ghannouj cravings since 1954. Okashah Monem and his sons have stocked the shelves and refrigerators with all manner of Middle Eastern goods, plus music and videotapes and an odd assortment of trinkets. The shop also features a bakery and deli offering a falafel and pita sandwich for $2.50, as well as plates of kibbeh, tabbouleh, shish kebab, and baba ghannouj, for $3 to $5. A small collection of plastic outdoor tables and chairs is crammed into the deli area, perfect for a quiet lunch spent contemplating the comforting piles of nuts, cheeses, and breads. Or spend the time eavesdropping on the teasing exchanges between the Monems and their many regular customers. The Oriental Bakery & Grocery is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

It’s the eternal Zen question: How many links does a chain make? In chef-proprietor Mark Militello’s case, we think the answer is several, all located in the South Florida area. With the recent addition of Mark’s CityPlace in West Palm Beach, “Trade-Mark” Militello has expanded the empire he began in North Miami, then moved to Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and South Beach. Many chefs of his James Beard Award-winning caliber think a namesake restaurant is sufficient, but we know when it comes to talent, a single venue is only one hand clapping. But four — now there’s some real regional noise in the making.

The Idaho potatoes are cut fresh every day, long and thin. The restaurant buys them from a distributor who ensures uniform size and quality. The vegetable oil in which they are fried is changed daily. “And we make every batch to order,” says manager Patricia Ferraro. After all, the restaurant has a reputation at stake that precedes its three-year existence on South Beach. The flagship Joe Allen on Manhattan’s 46th Street is 35 years old. Sister restaurants in Paris and London both boast more than twenty years. And among them all are certain simple, signature American dishes: the calf’s liver, the sirloin, the hamburger, and, of course, the French fry (which, grouped as a serving, costs $3.50). Joe Allen is open from 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 p.m. daily.

The boulevard was abuzz when Pascal Oudin opened his eponymous eatery last year, and the place certainly hasn’t lost any of its charge. Chef Oudin has crafted a contemporary French menu that’s exciting but accessible, leaving the steak frites and escargots to neighbor Les Halles (which prepares those dishes simply and beautifully). Pascal’s offerings aren’t extensive, but with captivating choices like tenderloin of beef with snails, wild mushrooms, and garlic with Bordelaise sauce; magret duck breast with savoy cabbage; and sautéed yellowfin tuna au poivre (for those who can’t do without peppercorns), diners will still need time to peruse and decide. And when the dessert arrives, warm and lovely after all those other courses, you’ll be reminded that it’s never too early to plan for the future. The 55-seat restaurant is intimate without seeming cliquish, and the waitstaff is attentive and knowledgeable of the menu and the wine list. Prices are reflective of the fare’s essence: not over the top. Pascal’s is open for lunch, too, where such sensibility is even more obvious.

Tony’s represents Miami-Dade County the way it used to be, with a small-town rural feel. Breakfast at this greasy spoon begins at 5:00 a.m., daybreak being the time farmers usually go to work. Plopped in the middle of each of the two dining rooms are two big tables, one square, one round. These are where regulars who are eating alone but want to chat with their neighbors can sit. A prime topic of conversation is the weather (did we mention this is rural farm territory?). The food at Tony’s is basic, but one can usually fill up on a good, complete breakfast for less than five dollars. Still doubt that this establishment isn’t just another joint shoveling hash for cash? A toy train motors through the restaurant on tracks built high into the wall — can’t get more country than that.

Don’t get us wrong. Steve’s pizzas — hot wheels of steaming mozzarella on firm, chewy crusts — are a delicacy any time of day (and Steve’s starts baking ’em around 11:00 a.m.). But sometime around 3:00 a.m., when you’re on your way home from a long night of bar-hopping or you’re already in bed, wishing you had just a little something to nosh on, a slice from this (nearly) round-the-clock pizza stand acquires transcendental meaning: Someone in the universe cares — cares enough about you to stay up slingin’ dough, running the oven, churning out pizza pies (all the way to 4:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays). It’s just so beautiful, man.

One of Havana’s most beloved attractions for tourists and locals alike is the Coppelia ice cream stand in the Vedado district. There are those who believe Cubans would rather give up rum, or roast pig, than live without ice cream. Thus Miami’s Coppelia has quite a reputation to live up to. It does — even if it looks like any other strip-center storefront in Flagami. In a random survey, one Cuban visiting from Havana pronounced the Miami ice cream “better” than the Cuban Coppelia (which is a state brand sold throughout the nation). The flavors and the special sundaes here all recall those offered on the island, though in greater variety: marvelous mamey and mango, coconut, orange-pineapple, and peach. Of course you can’t go wrong with the all-American flavors like chocolate almond, chocolate chip, and cukis con crema (cookies and cream). A high note: the Pico Turquino sundae, an original Coppelia creation named after Cuba’s highest mountain peak and featuring clouds of whipped cream raining multiple flavors of syrup over mounds of ice cream perched on a cliff of cake.

Have it your way — a real tuna sandwich. Broiled, blackened, sautéed, it’s this big thick tuna steak that dwarfs the roll on which it sits. You can pile on the lettuce and tomato and tartar sauce, or go with a simple squirt of lemon juice, whatever rows your boat. It’s a lot of fish for $7.99.

Freshly chopped chicken, coated with flour batter flecked with ground black pepper, deep-fried en masse to a golden crunchy brown, done on the inside but not overdone, and always hot off the serving tray, Publix fried chicken is so good it brings back memories. Serve it cold, and it makes you hanker for a grassy lawn, a shady tree, and a picnic basket packed with lemonade and potato salad. Serve it hot, and you’ll long for macaroni and cheese, a heap of greens, and cornbread seasoned with diced jalapeño peppers. Meets the mom bar, which says a lot about a supermarket deli.

Cheese and wine can be a match made in Heaven, but only when in harmonious union. Such are the laws of nature. At Whole Foods Market another perfect pair can offer advice on how to achieve this delicate balance. Specialty cheese buyer Claudia Roldan will offer suggestions on choosing and combining just the right cheeses for any occasion, from the grainy Parmigiano Reggiano for an authentic Italian feast, to the drunken goat cheese from Spain. There are more than 35 cheeses from around the globe, and wine connoisseur Marguerite Roldan, related to Claudia by marriage, knows how to pair them with just the right wine from France, Italy, Chile, or Spain. For instance the Pyrenees with pepper, a semisoft rich and creamy cheese with a buttery taste, goes well with a red wine from Chile, offers Marguerite. The sumptuous Belletoile Brie, which Claudia says is perfect with raspberries, should be flushed down with a light red French wine. And Leerdammer, a baby Swiss, should be combined only with a sauvignon blanc. For further education on cheeses and wines, there’s even a small shelf with reference books on the subject.

Miami, not known for its raw-bar diversity, nonetheless has had a stalwart purveyor in this restaurant and its sister in Coconut Grove. But the South Beach locale usually plays second fiddle to the Grove location in the popular imagination. We don’t know why. The South Beach spot is wonderfully situated on the water by the Miami Beach Marina, a perfect place to catch a sunset. And this spot doesn’t disappoint the tradition of raw bars as a happy-hour destination. From 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. a dollar will get you two peel-and-eat shrimp, or two fresh oysters, or clams. Stone crab legs are two dollars each. And drinks are half-price. The seafood is specially selected for freshness and quality. The raw-bar line can get pretty long, but it’s worth the wait. Monty’s is open from 11:00 to 1:00 a.m. during the week and from 11:00 to 2:00 a.m. on weekends.

Ah, breakfast, the most perfect of all meals: sweeter than dinner, healthier than dessert, earlier than lunch. A shame we can’t have it more often…. This terraced café on the ocean is the answer to our prayers. Granola is served with strawberries, kiwi, mango — whatever’s in season — and bound with a refreshing dollop of yogurt. The thick French toast is four-star. While others sup on the Front Porch’s steaks, pastas, and offerings from the sea, be not abashed by your eggs, pancakes, fresh fruit, and the aforementioned crunchy cereal and battered bread. In this just and cozy place, all meals are created equal — and in generous portions for reasonable prices — daily until closing time at 10:30 p.m.

If “There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall,” as Colette writes in Earthly Paradise, then surely Atlantic is the restaurant that suits all three states. When solitude is a heady wine, there is Sheila Lukins’s modern American menu to savor by oneself, along with some more literal vino. When solitude’s a bitter tonic, there’s the view from the outdoor dining area of gently rolling sand dunes and clear, bright azure waters — of the pool, that is. And when solitude makes you want to bang your head against the wall, well, at least Atlantic’s walls were designed by the Ralph Lauren team. It doesn’t make ’em any softer on your scalp, but it sure makes ’em pretty.

Naming yourself after the Big Apple is like setting yourself up for failure, or at least for bitter comparisons. Add moving into the space formerly occupied by a very successful restaurant, and you’ve set yourself a double challenge. How could you possibly succeed? Well this deli does, and it does so admirably, in the spot where Andre’s Diner used to be. Turkey for sandwiches is roasted on the premises and sliced off the bone, not slipped out of plastic. Whitefish salad features big chunks of the flavorful fish. Hot open-face brisket platters can’t be beat, unless you’re thinking about ordering that pastrami Reuben known as a Rachel. Even the desserts — rugelach, chocolate layer cake, and carrot cake, for example — are made daily. For once even the New Yawkers can’t complain.

As one of the original Mango Gang of chefs who put New World cuisine on the serious dining map a decade ago (and the first to win a James Beard Award), Mark Militello is a certifiable culinary star. But at his South Beach eatery, the real star is Militello’s almost impossibly well-flavored fusion food — and it’s obvious from the clientele. Although Washington Avenue is South Beach’s nightlife central, Mark’s doesn’t attract club kids but a casually classy twenty-five-to-fiftysomething crowd that knows from noshing. So settle back in the exotic movie-set glamour of the black-enameled, hardwood-paneled Deco dining room (or better yet the balmy, multipooled outdoor tropical terrace) and swoon over the masterpieces: succulent West Coast oysters in a golden-brown potato wrapping, topped with horseradish crème fraîche and osetra caviar; a “millionaire” organic green salad with Maine lobster, foie gras, and truffle vinaigrette; crisp anise and hazelnut-crusted soft-shell crab; spot prawns with silky black truffle sabayon; or a mushroom-dusted pompano with foie gras, warm green lentils and chanterelles, and rich, naturally sweet aged balsamic vinegar sauce. The extensive menu changes nightly, but thanks to the skill of the guy who actually cooks at Mark’s while Militello supervises his ever-expanding empire, executive chef Tim Andreola (a protegé of fellow Mango Ganger Allen Susser), one can count on mostly magic.

Certain places may do certain foods very well, but Epicure has it all, and does it all well. And what especially sets this gourmet shop above not just most in Miami but in the world is personnel who are both extremely knowledgeable about the store’s products and astonishingly friendly, even on days like New Year’s Eve, when checkout lines stretch to, roughly, Fort Lauderdale. Not sure which melon is ripe or whether those $37-per-pound wild mushrooms are really worth it? Charlie in produce will give you the skinny. The guys behind the fish and meat counters share recipes and timing tips for everything they sell. The prepared-food folks dispense generous samples to the undecided and advice to unaccustomed party hosts. And if by some fluke you ask someone who doesn’t know the fine differences between the store’s dozens of different olive oils or cheeses or chocolates, that someone will immediately, and cheerfully, locate someone who does. Absolutely the best thing about Epicure, though, is the bag packers, who are to standard supermarket baggers what Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is to Hello Kitty. Never a broken fancy free-range egg! Never a squished heirloom tomato! Never a wasted half-inch of bag space! You may not think bag packing is fine art — but it is at Epicure.

The best Jewish deli in South Florida is the Rascal House, of course. Need we say more? Of course. This isn’t some sissy Southern-belle category like Best Sorbet. This is the real thing. You got your pastrami and corned beef, both as fatty as you could get at the Carnegie, or even Katz’s, in Manhattan. (If you don’t like it fatty, maybe you should move to Califrigginfornia.) You also got your blintzes, which at the Rascal are homestyle, meaning that the cheese — or blueberry, or whatever — filling is enclosed by delicate French-type crêpes rather than the thin but tough layer of pastry cement you’re probably used to. You got your genuine grated-not-mashed potato pancakes — oniony, crisp, and reasonably thin — not those fat squashed potato puffs many establishments sell to those of you who don’t know their latkes from their tushies. You got your clientele at surrounding tables that’s a typically Miami mix of Cuba and New York: “¡Mira! Oy!” And Rascal House’s very firm waitress-dominatrixes will make sure you return often enough to keep your soul filled. If these mother figures make you feel guilty about not calling your own mom lately, you can FedEx a Rascal cheesecake home. Strawberry is best. In short you got somewhere not even a visiting New Yorker could complain about. So, what’s not to like? Come! Eat!

The barbecue is the best at The Pit, but there’s no law against also frying up the best catfish this side of Lake Pontchartrain. After all, The Pit’s wood shack and tiki huts on the edge of the Everglades have a definite swampy, boggy feel. That special touch with the barbecue somehow carries over to The Pit’s catfish-frying technique. Certified barbecue gourmands have been converted to a more diverse diet by only a few bites of the scrumptious fish, which comes out so crunchy and tasty on the outside and so moist and succulent on the inside, you just may never order those ribs again. Or maybe not so often.

Let’s hear from the Cubans on this one. Although it’s won Best Cuban Sandwich three times, isn’t this still your favorite place for more than just that? Ask your viejo — he’ll be sitting with us. This particular location was chosen not just because it is housed in an old Arby’s with a huge U-shape counter, but because it serves outstanding Cuban food at amazingly reasonable prices. And some form of free entertainment — checking out the people on the other side of the counter or listening to myriad conversations going on –is always included. The waitresses, though not young, deliver a healthy amount of attitude, no doubt from dealing with all the humanity that pops in after midnight for a batido de fresa, with their homies along for the ride. The staff is made up of seasoned pros; if you’re a regular, they’ll start your order the minute they see you walk in. Your choices are varied no matter if you’re sitting at the counter, the outside dining area, or just picking up something at the ventanita. A breaded steak that hangs over the platter it’s so big? It’s here. An assortment of sandwiches alongside full meals of fish, beef, and chicken prepared numerous ways? Here. And the place is known for pouring thick, creamy milkshakes in flavors ranging from vanilla to mamey. Mom’s house is the only place to get a better Cuban meal, and even she has her days off.

Buried in a tiny nondescript minimall, Macau does not look impressive from the outside. And the interior décor is humble, too. But so is the décor in many of China’s best restaurants. And Macau’s food is Miami’s most authentically Chinese. Since Macau is an ex-Portuguese colony and major South China trading port island, people from all over the world have passed through for centuries. So chefs there know how to punt — and so does Miami Macau’s chef/owner May Yuen. If some menu item sounds appealing but not quite appropriate, negotiate; May is happy to improvise for diners with special diets or tastes. Even confirmed carnivores, for instance, will find an unlisted invention of vegetable ho fan (usually called chow fun), chewy broad bean noodles sautéed dry-style with snow peas, bean sprouts, and several other fresh Chinese vegetables. There also are at least a dozen nonmenu specials nightly, often featuring exotic seasonal ingredients. Don’t miss delicate sautéed pea shoots with crab or deceptively simple-sounding Maine lobster with ginger and scallion when on the board. But some of Macau’s tastiest treats are available always, like salty pepper shrimp. To ensure protection against Macau’s only likely disappointment, phone first. Since May is the only cook, Macau closes when her kid has a cold.

Was it propaganda? Was it fixed? Was it a given? In order: No, no, and yes. When Pascal Oudin, one of our all-time favorite chefs of Grand Café fame, finally opened his own restaurant in the Gables, we knew it was only a matter of time till Best of Miami named it a winner. That’s because the French-trained Oudin, who has noodled around the area with interim projects like the erstwhile Sweet Donna’s, has always deserved a neoclassic place in the Florida sun — and we’re determined to keep him here. So simply put, he keeps producing dishes like lobster bisque with fish quenelles or his justly famous soufflés, and we’ll keep buying ’em. And giving him the kudos he deserves.

Perhaps it’s the music, spun by DJs who damaged their own hearing so long ago they have ear-practice pads rather than ear drums. Possibly it’s the ever-playing Kama Sutra movie, inspiring both moans of delight and screams of “No, not again!” Maybe it’s the fashionable crowd, whose very clothing is loud, or the ever-present buzz that follows celebrity diners Jim Carrey or Will Smith like tinnitus. But the requirements for getting past the big boys holding the ropes at Tantra no longer stop at having a reservation. Now you have to be able to lip-read and speak in American Sign Language as well. And it’s no use throwing a tantrum — the only person likely to hear well enough to pay attention is, well, you.

First, an apology. We know the place looks as if it has been attacked by sea breezes and salt water for the past couple of decades. We know it’s not much to look at. We know if you’re not in the know you’d drive right on by. That’s because of what you don’t know: the genteel atmosphere. The unobtrusive service. And the creamiest, richest peanut sauce in the industry. We like ours over the “swimming angels” — chicken, shrimp, steamed broccoli, and tomatoes. But we also can’t resist items like the honey beef, the squid with mushrooms, or the duck curry with pineapple, cashews, and peas. As an added bonus, Siam Bayshore also features a sushi bar, which hardly is an afterthought given the quality of the raw goods — and it’s certainly less fattening than the Thai fare. But when it comes to the blue ribbon, to be honest we’re just not all that concerned about the ol’ scale, unless it’s the one we use to weigh quality. In this case that’s off the scale.

The wreath of laurel goes to Mylos for the third time. Surely the gods must descend from Mount Olympus from time to time to mingle with mortals and partake in the great feasts offered here. How else can such favoritism be explained? There’s the paidakia, broiled baby lamb chops sautéed with mushrooms; the dolmades, stuffed grape leaves with rice and meat; and moussaka, ground beef, eggplant, and potato topped with layers of Béchamel. A favorite of Hermes — so much that it was named after him — is the platter of grilled lamb chops, filet mignon, and shrimp. Dionysus prefers simply the plate of grilled filet mignon and shrimp that’s named for the god of wine.

Between 6:00 and 11:00 a.m., a cross section of Miami’s working stiffs — from car mechanics to Design District dandies — jostle for a spot in this efficient little sandwich shop. Not because it’s typical chaotic Miami, but because of the morning draw, the desayuno especial. For $3.15 one gets two eggs, bacon or ham, Cuban toast, café con leche, and the pièce de résistance: a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice. For $3.15. It’s unmatched anywhere else in the city. The service, by the way, also is a Miami anomaly, swift and friendly.

The loiterers near this hipster health food market’s deli department hover for a good reason. Their pacing near the salad bar and fancy meats section may seem aimless, but they are waiting for a signal that comes just before 10:00 p.m. When the deli guy begins to wrap leftover gourmet sandwiches in plastic, the rush is on to grab fine grub for a buck. Join the hungry bargain hunters for the best dollar meal in town. The upscale deli usually sells its Sonoma chicken wraps and albacore tuna melts for four to five dollars a pop. But once the tofu and spinach wraps and smoked turkey with Provolone panini are removed from the display, they go for just a few cents more than a Snickers bar. Like most deals in town, however, this friendly markdown is threatened by heated competition. The fire sale has cultivated a core group of regulars who queue up well before the prices plummet. Be prepared to duke it out for that mozzarella, basil, and tomato focaccia. Early birds try to cart off as many dollar sandwiches as they can, but if you arrive by 9:45, you’re in a good position to score. Wild Oats’ Pinecrest store on South Dixie Highway also unloads its leftovers at sale prices, but a dollar won’t get you one — those are sold at half price.

This Jamaican joint is reminiscent of a grandmother’s kitchen in Kingston. But no need to travel to the island and make good with locals in order to have delicious braised oxtail or curried goat. Try the brown stew fish and fried dumplings. Until 3:30 p.m. eat the best jerk chicken in town for just $3.99. Thirst quenchers include a variety of Jamaican sodas, sea moss, and ginger beer.

With 222 wines on hand, ranging in price from moderate to expensive, oenophiles and novices alike can enjoy Bice. In fact when it comes to vino, the restaurant walks confidently between egalitarianism and elitism. There is no wine steward, an old-school vestige that had more to do with pomp than practicality, according to restaurant manager Jason Bruce. Instead the entire waitstaff takes part in weekly wine tastings by experts in a continuous training exercise, where they are taught how to isolate the components of taste in a wine. “We’d rather have the whole staff know about the wines rather than just one specialist,” says Bruce. Management is as proud to offer a $780 bottle of Chateau Margot, or a $295 of Gaja Barbaresco, as it is to offer a $26 bottle of Roggiano super Tuscan (meaning all the grapes come from the Italian region of Tuscany). The wine “cellar” actually is part of the dining room, where, with reservations, up to eighteen diners can enjoy their meal surrounded by racks of wine.

Zesty, refreshing, cool, and minty. Yes, minty. Making lemonade may seem trivial, but at Eat’n Colors it’s become almost an art form. Mixed with bits of fresh mint leaves, a tall glass will quench your thirst and offer respite from not just the heat but the overwhelming demands of life. Nature supplies the crew of Eat’n Colors with lemons, and they make wonderful lemonade for us to enjoy. So enjoy!

In Miami Beach there are two kinds of happy hours: the ones that begin at midnight, and the ones that begin at 6:00 a.m. But in downtown Miami, where the business people — yeah, those with day jobs — play, there’s only one happy hour. That’s when work is over, the stuffy execs go home, and the unbuttoned professionals come out to play. And there’s no better place to relax than on the patio at Gordon Biersch. Located in the heart of the Brickell streetscape, the brewery has even the sharkiest of lawyers relaxing with a homebrewed lager and a plate of fried artichoke hearts. In the end the crowd here, especially on Fridays, may make it tough to negotiate some space for yourself. But if you consider the salubrious effect of a little cheer on a lot of hard-working suits — those you’re likely to be negotiating with come Monday — then the order of business becomes clear: Drink up, shut up.

Just the name, written in big old-fashioned script above the entrance to this 32-year-old bakery, makes you think of sweet treats. And here there’s an abundance of just about every Latin-American-style treat that can be baked. Homemade tamales simmer in a crockery pot by the cash register, and periodically a kitchen helper carries out fresh loaves of Cuban bread. In the morning and afternoon, people stop in on their way to or from work to pick up empanadas or pan gloria, maybe some pasteles de guayaba, cookies or cupcakes for the kids. The cakes at Bon-Bon are beautiful (it’s best to order first and pick up later to ensure freshness), and the pies are dense and heavily crusted. The chocolate, coconut, and almond brazos — a rolled log of cake that looks like an arm — are festively decorated and even more fun for the palate.

Many Miami brunch venues are beautiful (the Biltmore’s spectacular Spanish fountained courtyard immediately comes to mind), with prodigiously packed buffet tables. But few settings are waterfront. And cuisine, no matter how impressive in quantity, rarely is of cutting-edge quality in typical Sunday brunch steam-table settings. Which is why Baleen, whose executive chef is Robbin Haas, beats the competition. Luxuriating at an oceanside table in Baleen’s elegant outdoor dining area, separated from the sea by only a few lush palms and a waterfront walking path, brunchers enjoy plate after plate of appetizer items atop several big buffet tables in the indoor dining area: fresh fruit, just-baked croissants and breads, and the usual smoked salmon/cold shellfish assortment, plus unusually imaginative cold salads such as chicken with fresh cherries and walnuts, seafood with impeccably fresh briny clams, and caprese with top-quality tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Move on to hot entrées: grilled shrimp with citrus beurre blanc and risotto, tiny tender lamb chops with rosemary/ricotta polenta, Belgian waffles with real whipped cream, and smoked salmon as well as standard eggs Benedict. Definitely save room for the hazelnut/mocha cake, chocolate-covered strawberries, mousses, flans, and buttery homemade cookies on the dessert buffet table.

Once was a time when picking a good key lime pie was simple. A half-dozen well-known ingredients and a straightforward preparation added up to a consistent product that would always deliver that sweet-tart bite. You don’t meddle with a good thing once it’s perfected. But this is South Florida. People meddle. So you never know just what to expect from a particular establishment. Some places produce a sort of lime-flavor cheesecakelike confection, while others prepare a bright green yet bland sliver of custardy pie. Let’s not even get into the variety of crusts and overdone whipped cream or meringue toppings. Ideally you want a pie that’s a pale green and tart as a Granny Smith apple but with an underlying creamy sweetness that takes the edge off. It’s a good finish to a meal of sweet, smoky barbecue ribs. Shorty’s, a south-county throwback to the Fifties, delivers both of these well. Belly up to the long wooden benches and eat yourself silly. But save room for the bakery-delivered pie, $2.79 worth of simple delight. Open Sunday through Thursday 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday till 11:00 p.m.

Fact of the matter is, Donna’s is a market with a restaurant inside. So you can purchase a number of gourmet foodstuffs to take back to your office or home with you to snack on in front of the TV. But if you’re smart — as we know you are — you’ll order take-out from the bistro menu. Summer-yellow cherry-tomato gazpacho travels exceptionally well, even with the addition of the Maine peeky toe crab centerpiece (though you may have to do a little fishing to find it once you get it home). Chef Donna Wynter and sous chef Philip Brock also pack up a delish “mosaic of Montrachet,” goat cheese seasoned with roasted vegetables and then wrapped and baked with thin slices of potato, that beats the chips you pour out of a bag any day. Sturdier fishes like the salmon steak with Creole mustard survive beautifully, and even sweets like the Bahama Mama — a mélange of sautéed mango, papaya, and pineapple in clarified butter and dark rum — give the phrase “home-replacement meals” a whole new (and truly valid) meaning.

This mini-empire of restaurants and cafeterías would have been cerrado a long time ago if the most basic ingredient to any Cuban, let alone Miamian, repast missed the mark. One could say La Carreta’s success is founded on a thimbleful of thick, dark, sweetly bitter coffee. The restaurants are able to consistently produce cafecito that is neither too sweet nor too watery. If you don’t cheat on the amount of grounds used for each brew, your customers will happily return. “The secret is to use the best quality coffee and buy the whole bean,” explains Felix Jimenez, manager of the chain’s flagship Calle Ocho locale. La Carreta buys from different suppliers, primarily Pilon, and grinds the beans fresh each day. Jimenez adds: “The other secret is to use a ceramic cup. This is what gives it the special taste. If you use a paper cup, it won’t taste the same.” Hmm, there’s a certain coffee chain from Seattle that might want to know this.

Strolling along Collins Avenue you can single out Argentines from other Latin Americans by the telltale gourd in hand filled with a stuff called yerba maté. This is not just a drink. According to those from the pampas, yerba maté is a gentle diuretic that possesses incredible powers: It stimulates mental alertness, aids in weight loss, cleanses the colon, energizes the body, accelerates the healing process, relieves stress, calms allergies, fortifies the immune system, and increases longevity (we dare any Chinese herb to beat that!). But drinking it also is a cultural and social affair dictated by rules of consumption. The Guarani Indians of South America were the first to begin sipping yerba maté (commonly known as maté), a practice that was picked up by the gauchos, who would share a maté around the campfire to enhance their communal bonds. (In traditional maté ritual, the cup often is shared among close friends and family using the same straw, or bombilla.) The characters in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land became “water brothers” and “water sisters” when they drank from the same maté gourd. Now you too can join the family. Buenos Aires Bakery offers the largest variety of maté brands: Taragui, Rosamonte, La Merced, Canarias, Nobleza Guacha, Union, and our personal favorite, Cruz de Malta.

Okay, it’s an archaic term. So we’ll go with the euphemism and allow that Andre’s “sunset specials” are the best in the biz. And that’s not only because the restaurant offers complete meals, including soup or salad and dessert and featuring elegant pastas and tender meat dishes, for a measly nine dollars. It’s because the let’s-make-a-meal deal goes on and on: Monday through Thursday, Andre’s offers “between specials” as well, which are full-course meals plus a glass of wine ranging from $14.75 to $16.75. These are so tough to beat because chef-owner Andre Filosa, a legendary local aficionado of Northern Italian fare and French-influenced dishes, puts out a great product. Quite frankly the more you get of Andre’s at the cheaper the price, the more you can afford to go. And if that’s your goal, as it is ours, then all we can say is, “Score!”

This isn’t a big sweaty American slab of beef hanging out of a bun. It’s a Cuban twist on the he-man classic and thus must have some pork in it somewhere. And so it does — a slice of roast beef atop a slice of roast pork, lettuce, and tomato, all pressed between two pieces of toasted Cuban bread. Melts in your mouth, not all over your shirt.

Owner Robert Siegmann has created a virtual dessert oasis in the heart of Lincoln Road. And the former New York caterer has done it by taking classic desserts and giving them a modern flair. Take, for example, the pink coconut layer cake. The color isn’t the only thing that stands out. Each slice is immense, a towering testament to days gone by. Indeed the enormous dimensions of his creations are Siegmann’s trademark. But size alone doesn’t matter. (At least that’s what we’ve always been told. Really.) The true test is in the taste, and once again Icebox doesn’t fail. The carrot cake is so fresh you’d swear the carrots were picked that morning. The mouthwatering banana cheesecake will make you want to swing from the trees. And don’t get us started on their pound cake. The only problem you’ll encounter is whether to order the marble, the coconut, the chocolate chip, or the lemon-poppyseed variety. In every category Icebox offers the widest selection of desserts and pastries of any restaurant in Miami that we’ve seen for a long time: banana cream pies, raspberry-chocolate mousse cake, and an assortment of ice cream cakes too long to list.

Lunch counters like this, squeezed along a back wall in a little grocery, abound in Little Havana. A lot of them serve up some pretty good meals. Some aren’t so great. But the food at Nuevo Siglo is always the best Cuban cooking around. Nothing fancy, just right. You would expect, then, a just-right Cuban sandwich. And you would get it. They don’t try to make a gourmet delicacy, maybe slip in too much lean ham or try a fancy cheese. No. It’s just a basic Cuban sandwich, the kind you can’t improve upon.

It’s just a simple ground-beef sandwich, dressed with a bit of sauce and the obligatory vegetable matter. Yet somehow it’s like biting into a memory of your favorite comfort food Momma used to make. Wash it down with a tropical juice: banana, mango, passion, papaya, guava, or Jus Tropical special blend. About as much lunchtime bliss as you can expect for five or six dollars. There are a handful of other sandwiches — chicken, tuna, or a daily special– and some sweet snacks for dessert. Friday and Saturday nights the place stays open until 1:00 a.m. so patrons can lounge at outside tables and listen to the sounds of Haitian musicians like Sweet Vibe play at the front of the shop. During the week Jus Tropical is open from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

A nice big bowl of hot chili doesn’t require the commitment that a cheeseburger does. To get the full enjoyment from a burger, you have to eat it while it’s piping hot, straight through, before the juices seep into the bun and before the cheese coagulates. A bowl of chili can be spooned into your mouth at a leisurely pace, between gulps of beer. It even tastes better that way. A spoonful of chili, a sip of beer, a spoonful, well, you get the point. The beer cuts through the tomato flavor and gives your tongue a fizz. The tomato in the chili makes the back of your throat feel good. If you’re doing some serious beer drinking, there is no better accompaniment than an order of chili. With cheese, sliced jalapeño peppers, and onions on top, like they serve it at Tobacco Road, it’s a balanced meal in a bowl: protein in the hamburger, niacin in the kidney beans, vitamins A and C in the tomato, calcium in the cheese, and antioxidants in the onions. Sit at the pecky wood bar at the place that boasts the oldest liquor license in Miami and order another Foster’s. You all fired up?

A little piece of Spain is hidden in the heart of Little Havana. Step inside Casa Panza, wind your way past the old wine barrels, and chances are you will be greeted by the owner himself, if not some other family member, who will guide you inside. The first thing you’ll notice then is how big the place is. After the sangría starts to flow, you realize there are chunks of fruit in there, and not the Libby’s cocktail variety. Four days a week there are live flamenco performances by world-renowned dancer Celia Clara and her singer/guitarist husband, Paco Fonta. Despite all the heel thumping and hand clapping, you’ll still be able to hear the grease sizzling as waiters serve up tasty fried chorizo. For large parties the paella is a must. We say large parties, because otherwise the plethora of seafood and meats will go to waste. Dining alone? The tortilla española is a light and fluffy treat. Whatever you choose, rest assured the taste will be authentic, the entertainment will be rousing, and the service will be impeccable.

There is a moment in the night, usually after the clock passes 3:00 a.m., when if awake, the body hits a crossroads. Either go to bed or push on to the dawn’s first light. If the choice is to forgo sleep, sustenance is usually a must. For a hot meal there is no better place than the 24-hour 11th Street Diner. Whether it’s pancakes or fried chicken, the diner serves quality food at reasonable prices. An added bonus for late-night owls is the possibility of a celebrity sighting. The proximity to South Beach clubs makes the eatery a natural stopping place for the famous. Recent hungry partyers seen chowing down include pitcher Livan Hernandez and rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J. (See, the famous haven’t departed the Beach; they’ve just moved on to better and cheaper places.)

The old and rather large woman makes her unlikely way through an unruly flotilla of tables crammed with far too many revelers. She tips her ample belly first one way and then the other over each table as she makes the usual rounds. Roses for your lady friend? Perhaps the secrets of her palm are itching to be told? Most ignore her, too busy with wine and plates of tapas that keep magically appearing on the tables. Such tapas! These are appetizers that would make the king and queen of Spain feel welcome, assuming they’d be inclined to while away a humid night in a Calle Ocho tavern. There are some 35 different tapas from which to choose — from hot, salty, garlic-kissed shrimp, squid, and chorizo dishes, to a cool, fluffy Spanish tortilla or creamy potato salad. The median price hovers around five dollars per plate. It’s Thursday evening, so the two flamenco dancers are stomping up on the small stage in time with the guitarist, who is singing Iberian tunes, from fast party music to forlorn Gypsy tales. At eleven o’clock a basket of white candles is passed from hand to hand in preparation for a group sing, a prayer to the Spanish saint, La Virgen del Rocio. Come before eight o’clock on Tuesday and Thursday evenings if you want a table near the action.

What makes Spris’ baked-to-order, personal pies supreme: a pizza chef from Naples, originating city of modern custom-made whole pies; a wood-burning oven, indispensable for those irresistible charcoaled thin crusts; and fresh, authentic adornments. Frankly the recent opening of also-authentic-Italian Piola just a few blocks away on Alton Road made this category a close call this year. The newer pizzeria also bakes its pies in a real forno a legna, and crusts are a bit more appealingly crunchy around the edges from the get-go. At Spris diners must request a crisp crust, or slices will arrive limp enough that folding them double, or eating with a knife and fork (as is customary in Naples), pretty much is de rigueur. But what really makes Spris’ pizzas tops is what’s on top: The tomato sauce is full-flavored and spicy enough to stand up to whatever other embellishments are piled on — fresh porcini mushrooms, quality mozzarella, and raw arugula (thrown on at the last minute) is a typical combo. There’s no canned crapola and no precious Hollywood designer-pizza pretension at Spris, just the toppings you’d find in Italy.

Nobody denatures raw-fish proteins in citrus juices like the Peruvians. So it should come as no surprise that this low-key restaurant that calls itself Chabuca’s Place, dedicated to the memory of famous Peruvian composer Chabuca Granda, serves some damn good ceviche for $12. Get it Chabuca-style and you’ll get to try an unusual starchy corn from Peru. If you must have your fish tempered with heat, there are plenty of dishes from which to choose, including an excellent mixed seafood platter that comes as a mound of rice loaded with shrimp, mussels, scallops, squid rings, and itty-bitty octopi. The restaurant is open from noon till 10:00 p.m. most days, and until 11:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

People’s Bar-B-Que, in the heart of Overtown, dishes up comfort food with a smile. They pay attention not only to the way the food is prepared but also to how it’s served. And it shows in the soul-satisfying fullness that sticks with you long after you’ve gone on your way. The iced tea is sweetened the way it should be: while it’s still hot. The cornbread has a nice chewy crust. The greens are seasoned just so. The mashed potatoes are made from scratch. And the chicken, dipped in flour and deep-fat fried, is cooked to order. It comes to the table so hot it’s still sizzling.

The sun may have set on the British Empire long ago, but one of its key rituals continues weekdays at the Biltmore Hotel. The rapacious guardians of civilization knew that whether it be the languid tropics of the colonies or the drizzly comfort of hearth and home, nothing beats a good cuppa as the day turns dozy around midafternoon. Beneath the vaulted ceilings of this grand hotel’s lobby, for an hour and half starting at 3:00 p.m., the tradition continues as high tea is served. It all begins with the raw materials from a 115-year-old English tea company. A gracious attendant wheels in a cart filled with teas accented by exotic flavors that carry names like Imperial Gunpowder, Afternoon Darjeeling, and Tippy Assam. The last of these is harvested each year, between April and June, from the Brahmanputra Valley in northeast India. Off to the side a woman plays piano softly. The server pours the tea into china cups, through silver strainers that are then placed into individual silver bowls. She brings fresh fruit and a selection of crustless finger sandwiches that range from salmon to cucumber. Next come wickedly rich scones made of fluffy shortbread dusted in powdered sugar. A dish laden with whipped butter and a complete selection of fruit preserves complements the pastries. At this point, rather than risk the perils of overindulgence, pause and appreciate the beautiful orchids atop the five tables, the plushly comfortable chairs, and, of course, more of that delightfully calming elixir. The last course arrives as if by magic, a plate brimming with confections: little macaroons, diminutive lemon tarts, and mini-pecan pies. When the $15 check comes, it seems a small price to pay for the burden of being civilized.

There’s an old Cuban proverb: “The shrimp that falls asleep is sucked away by the tide.” No one is really sure what that means, but this much is clear: If it’s seafood you’re looking for, go to the source. Situated at the water’s edge on soon-to-be-overdeveloped Watson Island, Casablanca features the freshest seafood in the area. Just-caught yellowtail, grouper, dolphin, and snapper, still surprised to find themselves out of the water, stare up from ice-filled trays. Lobster claws and shellfish are piled high next to what appear to have been entire shrimp villages. And goodies from the sea flow in throughout the day, thanks to Casablanca’s location. Just don’t fall asleep. You’ll get sucked away by the tide.

Many praise the Knaus Berry Farm cinnamon rolls, so tasty not a one has ever lasted long enough to grow stale. Others have noted how heavenly a confection is the key lime pie created by these German Baptists, who share with the Amish a partiality for long beards and dark formalwear. But truth be told (no matter what the cooks are wearing), on any given day the longest line here is for the milkshakes. Smooth, fruity, and flavorful, the shakes come in strawberry, chocolate, raspberry, pineapple, vanilla, key lime, and mango. So sweet and creamy, in fact, that it just might appear these Baptists have a taste for sin after all.

Sango’s has won our hearts before as the best Caribbean take-out — but why stop there? Rosie Hollingshead’s jerk is so good, her little counter in Perrine can take on all dining-room challengers. If the huge portions don’t fill you up, the Arawak-inspired pepper pot and pumpkin soup will. Or do true honor to Jamaica with the national dish of ackee and codfish. If you’re carrying a meal home for a little romance, be sure to order the home-brewed love juice, Sango’s planter’s punch. If that’s not enough to get in the mood, stop in at Aquarius Records next door while you’re waiting for your order and pick up some deep luvy dub to listen to back home while you tickle your honey’s lips with coconut drops.

Forget chicken mole and everything else you know as traditional Mexican food. Consider instead cutting-edge nuevo Mexicano inventions featuring upscale ingredients and light but big beautiful flavors: a subtly spicy carrot and tomato chipotle chili soup; a seared foie gras and lobster sandwich on poblano cornbread with apple jalapeño sauce; or a precisely grilled-to-perfection beef filet with creamy corn and chili polenta, nopales cactus, and black beans in a complex chorizo/guajillo sauce that hit one’s palate a half-dozen different ways. Creator of this unique personal vision was Mexican-born chef Guillermo Tellez, for years second in command at Charlie Trotter’s culinary temple in Chicago. Icing on the cake — which here would have been something more like a liquid-centered dark chocolate and chipotle ganache with crunchy caramelized bananas — was Tellez’s domestic partner, pastry chef Leslie Swagger. The restaurant was Mayya, which closed last spring, barely a year after opening. Why? Well, restaurant powers that be dissed South Florida diners as too unsophisticated to pay a premium for sophisticated fare. Meanwhile the rumor mill blamed restaurant powers that be for appalling cost-cutting suggestions (“canned lobster!” was reportedly the kicker for Tellez and Swagger). Admittedly haute Mexican cuisine is a hard sell. Even savvy Northern diners balk at paying prices like Mayya’s ($24 to $37 entrées, a $70 ten-course prix-fixe tasting extravaganza) for what they consider refined versions of fast food. The tasting dinners at hopefully immortal Norman’s, however, are almost as high ($55 to $65) for five fewer courses. And unfortunately all the publicity Mayya’s high-profile owners garnered obscured the fact that the food was much more about Norman Van Aken (or Charlie Trotter)-type creativity than about Mexico. Yes, Mayya was expensive — and worth every peso.

Molina’s has a large and dedicated fan club; it’s certainly among the best Cuban restaurants in town. Thus Molina’s black bean soup, as a staple of any Cuban cuisine, has to be perfect, and it is. Very hearty, a nice thick broth enriched with just enough of the right seasonings to complement, not overpower, the succulent legume.

Caesar salad has become such a mainstay of contemporary cuisine that even fast-food joints offer a version. But we like places where the salad is tossed fresh and made to order with whatever you want put into it. The friendly salad makers at Perricone’s serve a hearty and delicate caesar at the rustic restaurant’s deli counter. With or without anchovies, this salad is a winner. The crisp romaine leaves are coated in a creamy egg and garlic dressing, accented with a perfect hint of Parmesan. Have it with a nice chardonnay and your lunch in Perricone’s tropical garden beneath the banyans becomes downright dreamy.

Many praise the Knaus Berry Farm cinnamon rolls, so tasty not a one has ever lasted long enough to grow stale. Others have noted how heavenly a confection is the key lime pie created by these German Baptists, who share with the Amish a partiality for long beards and dark formalwear. But truth be told (no matter what the cooks are wearing), on any given day the longest line here is for the milkshakes. Smooth, fruity, and flavorful, the shakes come in strawberry, chocolate, raspberry, pineapple, vanilla, key lime, and mango. So sweet and creamy, in fact, that it just might appear these Baptists have a taste for sin after all.

As a rule, perkiness is annoying. But politeness, freshness, brightness? All good. And in the morning hours, even better. That’s what you’ll get when you stop in at Jamba Juice for a healthful taste sensation. Left Coast influences (the California-based Juice Club became Jamba Juice in 1995) have obviously infiltrated Jamba Juice’s Kendall outpost, which features a tremendous menu of fruit- and soy-based smoothies plus a fresh-juice bar (even wheatgrass grows in patches behind the counter). Ask your upbeat server to toss in a free Jamba Boost (select vitamins, minerals, herbs, and amino acids) for immunity, women’s health, or energy, and you’ll be treated to a pick-me-up that packs more of wallop than anything you’ll get at that gloomy Starbucks next door. Creamy smooth drinks are filled with the fuel your body needs any time of day: Combinations of berries, bananas, peanut butter, peaches, mangos, and more mingle endlessly with nonfat yogurt, sorbet, and ice. Nothing artificial here — even the shiny happy people who man the blenders and make sure every last drop finds its way into your jumbo cup are genuine. So if they want to be perky, we’ll just go ahead and let them.

There’s an old Cuban proverb: “The shrimp that falls asleep is sucked away by the tide.” No one is really sure what that means, but this much is clear: If it’s seafood you’re looking for, go to the source. Situated at the water’s edge on soon-to-be-overdeveloped Watson Island, Casablanca features the freshest seafood in the area. Just-caught yellowtail, grouper, dolphin, and snapper, still surprised to find themselves out of the water, stare up from ice-filled trays. Lobster claws and shellfish are piled high next to what appear to have been entire shrimp villages. And goodies from the sea flow in throughout the day, thanks to Casablanca’s location. Just don’t fall asleep. You’ll get sucked away by the tide.

It’s been said before and will be said again: There is nothing, nothing, nothing like a warm fresh-from-the-oven Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. The other varieties at Krispy Kreme are luscious, better than any doughnut has a right to be. But the fresh glazed — the ones that simply are too amazing for human taste buds — are the last word in doughnuts.

Miami, not known for its raw-bar diversity, nonetheless has had a stalwart purveyor in this restaurant and its sister in Coconut Grove. But the South Beach locale usually plays second fiddle to the Grove location in the popular imagination. We don’t know why. The South Beach spot is wonderfully situated on the water by the Miami Beach Marina, a perfect place to catch a sunset. And this spot doesn’t disappoint the tradition of raw bars as a happy-hour destination. From 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. a dollar will get you two peel-and-eat shrimp, or two fresh oysters, or clams. Stone crab legs are two dollars each. And drinks are half-price. The seafood is specially selected for freshness and quality. The raw-bar line can get pretty long, but it’s worth the wait. Monty’s is open from 11:00 to 1:00 a.m. during the week and from 11:00 to 2:00 a.m. on weekends.

As the saying goes, you’ve had the rest, now try the best. The rest in this case is unsubtle glop: white starchy glop that tastes more like bacon and potato than seafood if it’s something like New England-style clam chowder; red starchy glop that tastes more like chili powder and tomato than seafood if it’s something like Manhattan clam or Caribbean conch chowder. So now try the best, which you’ll no doubt be able to do for a good many years, since Norman Van Aken’s regulars would probably kill the chef if he discontinued his conch chowder. Slight variations have occurred over the years (like the current cloud of foam on top), but forever ambrosial is and will be the inventive chowder: panko-crusted pieces of tender conch plus garnishes of citrus, shaved coconut, and a few vegetables floating on a slightly hot, slightly sweet, rich yet refreshingly reduced (not starch-thickened) shellfish stock flavored with saffron, star anise, Scotch bonnet peppers, orange juice, coconut milk, and a generous dollop of cream. The rest simply can’t compare.

Ah, breakfast, the most perfect of all meals: sweeter than dinner, healthier than dessert, earlier than lunch. A shame we can’t have it more often…. This terraced café on the ocean is the answer to our prayers. Granola is served with strawberries, kiwi, mango — whatever’s in season — and bound with a refreshing dollop of yogurt. The thick French toast is four-star. While others sup on the Front Porch’s steaks, pastas, and offerings from the sea, be not abashed by your eggs, pancakes, fresh fruit, and the aforementioned crunchy cereal and battered bread. In this just and cozy place, all meals are created equal — and in generous portions for reasonable prices — daily until closing time at 10:30 p.m.

This sliver of a restaurant is in old downtown, which with every passing day seems to gain more and more flavor as a thriving ultramodern Latin-American city of the Sixties. Wednesday is garbanzo soup day. A bowl makes a meal (especially with the complimentary side of hot buttered “Cuban” bread), and it contains four essential food groups: potato, cabbage, chorizo, and, of course, the multifaceted chickpeas, as they’re called in El Norte. Sit at the lengthy counter or at a table in back. They also deliver.

Naming yourself after the Big Apple is like setting yourself up for failure, or at least for bitter comparisons. Add moving into the space formerly occupied by a very successful restaurant, and you’ve set yourself a double challenge. How could you possibly succeed? Well this deli does, and it does so admirably, in the spot where Andre’s Diner used to be. Turkey for sandwiches is roasted on the premises and sliced off the bone, not slipped out of plastic. Whitefish salad features big chunks of the flavorful fish. Hot open-face brisket platters can’t be beat, unless you’re thinking about ordering that pastrami Reuben known as a Rachel. Even the desserts — rugelach, chocolate layer cake, and carrot cake, for example — are made daily. For once even the New Yawkers can’t complain.

We’re not saying anything we didn’t already say back in 1999, 1997, 1996, and 1994. And our deciding factors — freshness, consistency, selection, reasonable prices, and, truth be known, free samples — are probably nothing you don’t already know about Biga, which, like bread itself, has become a staple in South Florida. Whether you live near the Coral Gables, South Miami, South Beach, Key Biscayne, Dadeland Station, Coral Way, Kendall, Boca Raton, or West Palm Beach shop, the hearty country breads and Latin specialties are trucked to you daily from Biga’s 20,000-square-foot baking commissary in Hialeah. Besides, Biga is a bakery that knows how to have fun: How about a loaf resembling a cluster of grapes, a bunny bun for Easter, or a heart-shaped brioche for Mother’s Day? Heck, if you’ve got the dough, you can even buy your own Biga franchise.

Certain places may do certain foods very well, but Epicure has it all, and does it all well. And what especially sets this gourmet shop above not just most in Miami but in the world is personnel who are both extremely knowledgeable about the store’s products and astonishingly friendly, even on days like New Year’s Eve, when checkout lines stretch to, roughly, Fort Lauderdale. Not sure which melon is ripe or whether those $37-per-pound wild mushrooms are really worth it? Charlie in produce will give you the skinny. The guys behind the fish and meat counters share recipes and timing tips for everything they sell. The prepared-food folks dispense generous samples to the undecided and advice to unaccustomed party hosts. And if by some fluke you ask someone who doesn’t know the fine differences between the store’s dozens of different olive oils or cheeses or chocolates, that someone will immediately, and cheerfully, locate someone who does. Absolutely the best thing about Epicure, though, is the bag packers, who are to standard supermarket baggers what Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is to Hello Kitty. Never a broken fancy free-range egg! Never a squished heirloom tomato! Never a wasted half-inch of bag space! You may not think bag packing is fine art — but it is at Epicure.

It’s Wednesday, hump day, and the morning is closing in on you like a python around your neck. You sidle up to the counter at Enriqueta’s and order the café con leche, wondering how in the world you’re going to get through the next eight hours. The waitress calls you “amor” and sets down a steaming mug of milk and a little stainless-steel pot with espresso coffee in it, so finely brewed there’s a delicate foam on top. Yeah, that’s the stuff. You mix just the right amount of coffee into the milk. Today it’s full-on, dump the caffeine in. You’re going to need all the help you can get. You sip. The coffee is sweet and strong, the milk is warm and comforting. Suddenly things don’t seem that bad. There’s that cutie on the second floor you want to ask out, and you just remembered your boss is gone half the day. You take another sip. Yeah, things are looking up. You smile. The waitress smiles back. Best damn dollar you’ve spent in a long time.

The barbecue is the best at The Pit, but there’s no law against also frying up the best catfish this side of Lake Pontchartrain. After all, The Pit’s wood shack and tiki huts on the edge of the Everglades have a definite swampy, boggy feel. That special touch with the barbecue somehow carries over to The Pit’s catfish-frying technique. Certified barbecue gourmands have been converted to a more diverse diet by only a few bites of the scrumptious fish, which comes out so crunchy and tasty on the outside and so moist and succulent on the inside, you just may never order those ribs again. Or maybe not so often.

Since Miami no longer is the nation’s southernmost city but Latin America’s northernmost, a yearning for Old South Florida cuisine rarely becomes urgent. But after a day gaping at gators in the Glades, nothing hits the spot like cracker cuisine, primo of which is barbecue. And the primo place at which to get it is the Pit, conveniently situated at the outskirts of the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail, miles before the road morphs into Calle Ocho. The décor in this small spot is perfect for a Florida barbecue joint: rustic wood booths inside, tiki-hut-covered picnic tables outside. And the food is even more perfect. This is genuine you-can-smell-the-smoke-for-miles pit barbecue, cooked slow over smoldering blackjack oak. The tender yet toothy ribs are terrific. But hard-core classicists order the $3.95 triple-winnerer: juicy pulled pork topped with crunchy, slightly sweet chopped coleslaw right on the sandwich, just like in North Carolina. And for noncarnivores, there’s elegant fried fresh catfish. Among side orders, lightly floured crisp real onion rings are required eating, as are tangy-sweet barbecue beans. For dessert skip the overly sweet key lime pie and order another beer, since the Pit has imported Beck’s and some Hank Jr. (or Senior) on the jukebox.

The loiterers near this hipster health food market’s deli department hover for a good reason. Their pacing near the salad bar and fancy meats section may seem aimless, but they are waiting for a signal that comes just before 10:00 p.m. When the deli guy begins to wrap leftover gourmet sandwiches in plastic, the rush is on to grab fine grub for a buck. Join the hungry bargain hunters for the best dollar meal in town. The upscale deli usually sells its Sonoma chicken wraps and albacore tuna melts for four to five dollars a pop. But once the tofu and spinach wraps and smoked turkey with Provolone panini are removed from the display, they go for just a few cents more than a Snickers bar. Like most deals in town, however, this friendly markdown is threatened by heated competition. The fire sale has cultivated a core group of regulars who queue up well before the prices plummet. Be prepared to duke it out for that mozzarella, basil, and tomato focaccia. Early birds try to cart off as many dollar sandwiches as they can, but if you arrive by 9:45, you’re in a good position to score. Wild Oats’ Pinecrest store on South Dixie Highway also unloads its leftovers at sale prices, but a dollar won’t get you one — those are sold at half price.

Most of us are introduced as children to The Sandwich, various processed foodstuff squeezed between two slices of white bread. People ask, “Did you eat?” and we reply, “I had a sandwich.” Everyone knows it isn’t the same thing. Well, everyone except the Sandwich Mill’s John Rossetti, whose inspired creations include the Tuscan Tower (roasted Italian vegetables with basil cream on a French batard), the Smokestack (roasted pork, caramelized onion, stewed apple, and vinegar mayo, also on a French batard), and the Taste-o-Tradition (roasted chicken, caramelized onion, and sweet potato spread on sourdough). And Rossetti makes everything, including half-a-dozen varieties of bread, right on the premises. Now that’s good eatin’.

Molina’s has a large and dedicated fan club; it’s certainly among the best Cuban restaurants in town. Thus Molina’s black bean soup, as a staple of any Cuban cuisine, has to be perfect, and it is. Very hearty, a nice thick broth enriched with just enough of the right seasonings to complement, not overpower, the succulent legume.

Until there is an outbreak of foot and beak disease (or, God forbid, mad chicken) this Anglo version of Pollo Tropical is still a tantalizing investment for a quick healthful meal. The Brickell locale is a favorite lunchtime or postworkout pit stop for the calorie- and cash-obsessed professionals of our shimmering financial district. (You’re usually out of there for less than five bucks.) The Kitchen is a pioneer in the merger of salad and entrée: broiled chicken (or beans for the truly health-minded vegetarian) on a bed of rice with fresh tomato, lettuce, and sour cream on top. A clever variety of salsas/dressings make this culinary conglomerate complete.

Zesty, refreshing, cool, and minty. Yes, minty. Making lemonade may seem trivial, but at Eat’n Colors it’s become almost an art form. Mixed with bits of fresh mint leaves, a tall glass will quench your thirst and offer respite from not just the heat but the overwhelming demands of life. Nature supplies the crew of Eat’n Colors with lemons, and they make wonderful lemonade for us to enjoy. So enjoy!

This isn’t a confection shop; it’s a chocolate gallery filled with objets d’ cocoa: miniature pianos, magnum-size champagne bottles, and swans, all sculpted out of milk, white, or dark chocolate. Tired of chewing on a dry bird at Thanksgiving? Order a solid chocolate turkey. They make ’em. Don’t know what to give the man or woman who has everything? Try an oversize check, made out for a million dollars and printed on 100 percent solid chocolate. It’s just one of the many custom-made creations the folks at Le Chocolatier have cooked up over the years. Order anything you see on display, come up with your own chocolate fantasy, or grab for the goodies in the case: chocolate-dipped biscotti, pretzels, fruit, and, of course, truffles — tons and tons of truffles — including tropically inspired mango, banana, key lime, and piña colada. Le Chocolatier? C’est magnifique!

Just the name, written in big old-fashioned script above the entrance to this 32-year-old bakery, makes you think of sweet treats. And here there’s an abundance of just about every Latin-American-style treat that can be baked. Homemade tamales simmer in a crockery pot by the cash register, and periodically a kitchen helper carries out fresh loaves of Cuban bread. In the morning and afternoon, people stop in on their way to or from work to pick up empanadas or pan gloria, maybe some pasteles de guayaba, cookies or cupcakes for the kids. The cakes at Bon-Bon are beautiful (it’s best to order first and pick up later to ensure freshness), and the pies are dense and heavily crusted. The chocolate, coconut, and almond brazos — a rolled log of cake that looks like an arm — are festively decorated and even more fun for the palate.

Incredible but true: Peruse the produce shelves of local markets here in one of the nation’s major tomato-growing counties, and can you find a truly ripe, truly red specimen spurting with sweet-tart juice, even during seasons when mouthwatering morsels are nearly falling off the vines half an hour southwest in the Redland? Nah. Not so you can count on it, anyway. What you’ll probably find is a “vine-ripened tomatoes” sign over a pile of pinkish orbs hard as billiard balls. Except at Norman Brothers. If the store’s buyers can’t find truly ripe tomatoes — local if possible or from somewhere like the Carolinas — shoppers won’t find tomatoes on the shelves. And in addition to carrying a full line of the usual suspects (in an unusual state of peak ripeness) and rare specialty-shop produce, the store is a treasure trove of tropical fruits and vegetables that grow and thrive in our climes yet are almost never seen in our stores, such as fresh tamarind and jicama. There’s also a sizable selection of prepared foods, cheeses, fresh fish, and fancy imported items, but pricewise Norman Brothers is no ultra-upscale gourmet shoppe. You won’t find a better buy on whole fresh Florida lobsters — in season, naturally — anywhere.

Once was a time when picking a good key lime pie was simple. A half-dozen well-known ingredients and a straightforward preparation added up to a consistent product that would always deliver that sweet-tart bite. You don’t meddle with a good thing once it’s perfected. But this is South Florida. People meddle. So you never know just what to expect from a particular establishment. Some places produce a sort of lime-flavor cheesecakelike confection, while others prepare a bright green yet bland sliver of custardy pie. Let’s not even get into the variety of crusts and overdone whipped cream or meringue toppings. Ideally you want a pie that’s a pale green and tart as a Granny Smith apple but with an underlying creamy sweetness that takes the edge off. It’s a good finish to a meal of sweet, smoky barbecue ribs. Shorty’s, a south-county throwback to the Fifties, delivers both of these well. Belly up to the long wooden benches and eat yourself silly. But save room for the bakery-delivered pie, $2.79 worth of simple delight. Open Sunday through Thursday 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday till 11:00 p.m.

Owner and chef Philippe Torchut is French and he bakes every morning with that joie du vivre and that je ne sais quoi. What we do know is that these croissants are fluffy in the middle and a little crisp around the edges. What more does one need to know? His staff also serves a proper café au lait (and a variety of sandwiches and entrées, si’l vous plaît).

This mini-empire of restaurants and cafeterías would have been cerrado a long time ago if the most basic ingredient to any Cuban, let alone Miamian, repast missed the mark. One could say La Carreta’s success is founded on a thimbleful of thick, dark, sweetly bitter coffee. The restaurants are able to consistently produce cafecito that is neither too sweet nor too watery. If you don’t cheat on the amount of grounds used for each brew, your customers will happily return. “The secret is to use the best quality coffee and buy the whole bean,” explains Felix Jimenez, manager of the chain’s flagship Calle Ocho locale. La Carreta buys from different suppliers, primarily Pilon, and grinds the beans fresh each day. Jimenez adds: “The other secret is to use a ceramic cup. This is what gives it the special taste. If you use a paper cup, it won’t taste the same.” Hmm, there’s a certain coffee chain from Seattle that might want to know this.

Located just a few blocks west of where downtown Miami begins to get graceful and tree-lined, this little shop has been satisfying Miami’s pita, falafel, and baba ghannouj cravings since 1954. Okashah Monem and his sons have stocked the shelves and refrigerators with all manner of Middle Eastern goods, plus music and videotapes and an odd assortment of trinkets. The shop also features a bakery and deli offering a falafel and pita sandwich for $2.50, as well as plates of kibbeh, tabbouleh, shish kebab, and baba ghannouj, for $3 to $5. A small collection of plastic outdoor tables and chairs is crammed into the deli area, perfect for a quiet lunch spent contemplating the comforting piles of nuts, cheeses, and breads. Or spend the time eavesdropping on the teasing exchanges between the Monems and their many regular customers. The Oriental Bakery & Grocery is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Strolling along Collins Avenue you can single out Argentines from other Latin Americans by the telltale gourd in hand filled with a stuff called yerba maté. This is not just a drink. According to those from the pampas, yerba maté is a gentle diuretic that possesses incredible powers: It stimulates mental alertness, aids in weight loss, cleanses the colon, energizes the body, accelerates the healing process, relieves stress, calms allergies, fortifies the immune system, and increases longevity (we dare any Chinese herb to beat that!). But drinking it also is a cultural and social affair dictated by rules of consumption. The Guarani Indians of South America were the first to begin sipping yerba maté (commonly known as maté), a practice that was picked up by the gauchos, who would share a maté around the campfire to enhance their communal bonds. (In traditional maté ritual, the cup often is shared among close friends and family using the same straw, or bombilla.) The characters in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land became “water brothers” and “water sisters” when they drank from the same maté gourd. Now you too can join the family. Buenos Aires Bakery offers the largest variety of maté brands: Taragui, Rosamonte, La Merced, Canarias, Nobleza Guacha, Union, and our personal favorite, Cruz de Malta.

The Idaho potatoes are cut fresh every day, long and thin. The restaurant buys them from a distributor who ensures uniform size and quality. The vegetable oil in which they are fried is changed daily. “And we make every batch to order,” says manager Patricia Ferraro. After all, the restaurant has a reputation at stake that precedes its three-year existence on South Beach. The flagship Joe Allen on Manhattan’s 46th Street is 35 years old. Sister restaurants in Paris and London both boast more than twenty years. And among them all are certain simple, signature American dishes: the calf’s liver, the sirloin, the hamburger, and, of course, the French fry (which, grouped as a serving, costs $3.50). Joe Allen is open from 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 p.m. daily.

This isn’t a big sweaty American slab of beef hanging out of a bun. It’s a Cuban twist on the he-man classic and thus must have some pork in it somewhere. And so it does — a slice of roast beef atop a slice of roast pork, lettuce, and tomato, all pressed between two pieces of toasted Cuban bread. Melts in your mouth, not all over your shirt.

Caesar salad has become such a mainstay of contemporary cuisine that even fast-food joints offer a version. But we like places where the salad is tossed fresh and made to order with whatever you want put into it. The friendly salad makers at Perricone’s serve a hearty and delicate caesar at the rustic restaurant’s deli counter. With or without anchovies, this salad is a winner. The crisp romaine leaves are coated in a creamy egg and garlic dressing, accented with a perfect hint of Parmesan. Have it with a nice chardonnay and your lunch in Perricone’s tropical garden beneath the banyans becomes downright dreamy.

Lunch counters like this, squeezed along a back wall in a little grocery, abound in Little Havana. A lot of them serve up some pretty good meals. Some aren’t so great. But the food at Nuevo Siglo is always the best Cuban cooking around. Nothing fancy, just right. You would expect, then, a just-right Cuban sandwich. And you would get it. They don’t try to make a gourmet delicacy, maybe slip in too much lean ham or try a fancy cheese. No. It’s just a basic Cuban sandwich, the kind you can’t improve upon.

Don’t get us wrong. Steve’s pizzas — hot wheels of steaming mozzarella on firm, chewy crusts — are a delicacy any time of day (and Steve’s starts baking ’em around 11:00 a.m.). But sometime around 3:00 a.m., when you’re on your way home from a long night of bar-hopping or you’re already in bed, wishing you had just a little something to nosh on, a slice from this (nearly) round-the-clock pizza stand acquires transcendental meaning: Someone in the universe cares — cares enough about you to stay up slingin’ dough, running the oven, churning out pizza pies (all the way to 4:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays). It’s just so beautiful, man.

A nice big bowl of hot chili doesn’t require the commitment that a cheeseburger does. To get the full enjoyment from a burger, you have to eat it while it’s piping hot, straight through, before the juices seep into the bun and before the cheese coagulates. A bowl of chili can be spooned into your mouth at a leisurely pace, between gulps of beer. It even tastes better that way. A spoonful of chili, a sip of beer, a spoonful, well, you get the point. The beer cuts through the tomato flavor and gives your tongue a fizz. The tomato in the chili makes the back of your throat feel good. If you’re doing some serious beer drinking, there is no better accompaniment than an order of chili. With cheese, sliced jalapeño peppers, and onions on top, like they serve it at Tobacco Road, it’s a balanced meal in a bowl: protein in the hamburger, niacin in the kidney beans, vitamins A and C in the tomato, calcium in the cheese, and antioxidants in the onions. Sit at the pecky wood bar at the place that boasts the oldest liquor license in Miami and order another Foster’s. You all fired up?

One of Havana’s most beloved attractions for tourists and locals alike is the Coppelia ice cream stand in the Vedado district. There are those who believe Cubans would rather give up rum, or roast pig, than live without ice cream. Thus Miami’s Coppelia has quite a reputation to live up to. It does — even if it looks like any other strip-center storefront in Flagami. In a random survey, one Cuban visiting from Havana pronounced the Miami ice cream “better” than the Cuban Coppelia (which is a state brand sold throughout the nation). The flavors and the special sundaes here all recall those offered on the island, though in greater variety: marvelous mamey and mango, coconut, orange-pineapple, and peach. Of course you can’t go wrong with the all-American flavors like chocolate almond, chocolate chip, and cukis con crema (cookies and cream). A high note: the Pico Turquino sundae, an original Coppelia creation named after Cuba’s highest mountain peak and featuring clouds of whipped cream raining multiple flavors of syrup over mounds of ice cream perched on a cliff of cake.

The old and rather large woman makes her unlikely way through an unruly flotilla of tables crammed with far too many revelers. She tips her ample belly first one way and then the other over each table as she makes the usual rounds. Roses for your lady friend? Perhaps the secrets of her palm are itching to be told? Most ignore her, too busy with wine and plates of tapas that keep magically appearing on the tables. Such tapas! These are appetizers that would make the king and queen of Spain feel welcome, assuming they’d be inclined to while away a humid night in a Calle Ocho tavern. There are some 35 different tapas from which to choose — from hot, salty, garlic-kissed shrimp, squid, and chorizo dishes, to a cool, fluffy Spanish tortilla or creamy potato salad. The median price hovers around five dollars per plate. It’s Thursday evening, so the two flamenco dancers are stomping up on the small stage in time with the guitarist, who is singing Iberian tunes, from fast party music to forlorn Gypsy tales. At eleven o’clock a basket of white candles is passed from hand to hand in preparation for a group sing, a prayer to the Spanish saint, La Virgen del Rocio. Come before eight o’clock on Tuesday and Thursday evenings if you want a table near the action.

Have it your way — a real tuna sandwich. Broiled, blackened, sautéed, it’s this big thick tuna steak that dwarfs the roll on which it sits. You can pile on the lettuce and tomato and tartar sauce, or go with a simple squirt of lemon juice, whatever rows your boat. It’s a lot of fish for $7.99.

What makes Spris’ baked-to-order, personal pies supreme: a pizza chef from Naples, originating city of modern custom-made whole pies; a wood-burning oven, indispensable for those irresistible charcoaled thin crusts; and fresh, authentic adornments. Frankly the recent opening of also-authentic-Italian Piola just a few blocks away on Alton Road made this category a close call this year. The newer pizzeria also bakes its pies in a real forno a legna, and crusts are a bit more appealingly crunchy around the edges from the get-go. At Spris diners must request a crisp crust, or slices will arrive limp enough that folding them double, or eating with a knife and fork (as is customary in Naples), pretty much is de rigueur. But what really makes Spris’ pizzas tops is what’s on top: The tomato sauce is full-flavored and spicy enough to stand up to whatever other embellishments are piled on — fresh porcini mushrooms, quality mozzarella, and raw arugula (thrown on at the last minute) is a typical combo. There’s no canned crapola and no precious Hollywood designer-pizza pretension at Spris, just the toppings you’d find in Italy.

Freshly chopped chicken, coated with flour batter flecked with ground black pepper, deep-fried en masse to a golden crunchy brown, done on the inside but not overdone, and always hot off the serving tray, Publix fried chicken is so good it brings back memories. Serve it cold, and it makes you hanker for a grassy lawn, a shady tree, and a picnic basket packed with lemonade and potato salad. Serve it hot, and you’ll long for macaroni and cheese, a heap of greens, and cornbread seasoned with diced jalapeño peppers. Meets the mom bar, which says a lot about a supermarket deli.

Nobody denatures raw-fish proteins in citrus juices like the Peruvians. So it should come as no surprise that this low-key restaurant that calls itself Chabuca’s Place, dedicated to the memory of famous Peruvian composer Chabuca Granda, serves some damn good ceviche for $12. Get it Chabuca-style and you’ll get to try an unusual starchy corn from Peru. If you must have your fish tempered with heat, there are plenty of dishes from which to choose, including an excellent mixed seafood platter that comes as a mound of rice loaded with shrimp, mussels, scallops, squid rings, and itty-bitty octopi. The restaurant is open from noon till 10:00 p.m. most days, and until 11:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Cheese and wine can be a match made in Heaven, but only when in harmonious union. Such are the laws of nature. At Whole Foods Market another perfect pair can offer advice on how to achieve this delicate balance. Specialty cheese buyer Claudia Roldan will offer suggestions on choosing and combining just the right cheeses for any occasion, from the grainy Parmigiano Reggiano for an authentic Italian feast, to the drunken goat cheese from Spain. There are more than 35 cheeses from around the globe, and wine connoisseur Marguerite Roldan, related to Claudia by marriage, knows how to pair them with just the right wine from France, Italy, Chile, or Spain. For instance the Pyrenees with pepper, a semisoft rich and creamy cheese with a buttery taste, goes well with a red wine from Chile, offers Marguerite. The sumptuous Belletoile Brie, which Claudia says is perfect with raspberries, should be flushed down with a light red French wine. And Leerdammer, a baby Swiss, should be combined only with a sauvignon blanc. For further education on cheeses and wines, there’s even a small shelf with reference books on the subject.

People’s Bar-B-Que, in the heart of Overtown, dishes up comfort food with a smile. They pay attention not only to the way the food is prepared but also to how it’s served. And it shows in the soul-satisfying fullness that sticks with you long after you’ve gone on your way. The iced tea is sweetened the way it should be: while it’s still hot. The cornbread has a nice chewy crust. The greens are seasoned just so. The mashed potatoes are made from scratch. And the chicken, dipped in flour and deep-fat fried, is cooked to order. It comes to the table so hot it’s still sizzling.

Kevin Rusk took a risk when he named his brewpub for the doomed ocean liner that sank in 1912, but he’s managed to keep it afloat for the past two years. Drawing on his success at Tobacco Road and Fishbone Grille, Rusk has created an eclectic menu that’s designed to complement Titanic’s handcrafted award-winning beers. Bypassing the uncharted (but tasty) waters of gangplank salmon and steerage skirt steak sandwich, we’ve found our safety zone in something tried and true: the essential burger. One-half pound of fresh ground Angus beef grilled to juicy perfection, crisp romaine lettuce, and a ripe-red tomato slice sit atop a toasted onion bun and are accompanied by a choice of caesar salad or fries. Extras (add fifty cents to a buck to the ample $5.95 burger) include grilled onion, jalapeños, cheese, mushrooms, and bacon. We’ll be enjoying these consistently savory beefburgers until an iceberg forms on the UM campus.

The sun may have set on the British Empire long ago, but one of its key rituals continues weekdays at the Biltmore Hotel. The rapacious guardians of civilization knew that whether it be the languid tropics of the colonies or the drizzly comfort of hearth and home, nothing beats a good cuppa as the day turns dozy around midafternoon. Beneath the vaulted ceilings of this grand hotel’s lobby, for an hour and half starting at 3:00 p.m., the tradition continues as high tea is served. It all begins with the raw materials from a 115-year-old English tea company. A gracious attendant wheels in a cart filled with teas accented by exotic flavors that carry names like Imperial Gunpowder, Afternoon Darjeeling, and Tippy Assam. The last of these is harvested each year, between April and June, from the Brahmanputra Valley in northeast India. Off to the side a woman plays piano softly. The server pours the tea into china cups, through silver strainers that are then placed into individual silver bowls. She brings fresh fruit and a selection of crustless finger sandwiches that range from salmon to cucumber. Next come wickedly rich scones made of fluffy shortbread dusted in powdered sugar. A dish laden with whipped butter and a complete selection of fruit preserves complements the pastries. At this point, rather than risk the perils of overindulgence, pause and appreciate the beautiful orchids atop the five tables, the plushly comfortable chairs, and, of course, more of that delightfully calming elixir. The last course arrives as if by magic, a plate brimming with confections: little macaroons, diminutive lemon tarts, and mini-pecan pies. When the $15 check comes, it seems a small price to pay for the burden of being civilized.

Forget chicken mole and everything else you know as traditional Mexican food. Consider instead cutting-edge nuevo Mexicano inventions featuring upscale ingredients and light but big beautiful flavors: a subtly spicy carrot and tomato chipotle chili soup; a seared foie gras and lobster sandwich on poblano cornbread with apple jalapeño sauce; or a precisely grilled-to-perfection beef filet with creamy corn and chili polenta, nopales cactus, and black beans in a complex chorizo/guajillo sauce that hit one’s palate a half-dozen different ways. Creator of this unique personal vision was Mexican-born chef Guillermo Tellez, for years second in command at Charlie Trotter’s culinary temple in Chicago. Icing on the cake — which here would have been something more like a liquid-centered dark chocolate and chipotle ganache with crunchy caramelized bananas — was Tellez’s domestic partner, pastry chef Leslie Swagger. The restaurant was Mayya, which closed last spring, barely a year after opening. Why? Well, restaurant powers that be dissed South Florida diners as too unsophisticated to pay a premium for sophisticated fare. Meanwhile the rumor mill blamed restaurant powers that be for appalling cost-cutting suggestions (“canned lobster!” was reportedly the kicker for Tellez and Swagger). Admittedly haute Mexican cuisine is a hard sell. Even savvy Northern diners balk at paying prices like Mayya’s ($24 to $37 entrées, a $70 ten-course prix-fixe tasting extravaganza) for what they consider refined versions of fast food. The tasting dinners at hopefully immortal Norman’s, however, are almost as high ($55 to $65) for five fewer courses. And unfortunately all the publicity Mayya’s high-profile owners garnered obscured the fact that the food was much more about Norman Van Aken (or Charlie Trotter)-type creativity than about Mexico. Yes, Mayya was expensive — and worth every peso.

We’ll tell you straight off the bat — or fishing line, if you prefer: This seafood market and restaurant has absolutely no charm. Bare (fish) bones to the extreme, the market features only a few kitchenette-style tables, plastic and paper tableware, and a powerful aroma of freshly scaled fish. So why does it win? Easy. In order: Captain Jim’s fresh garlic crabs, a three-and-a-half-pound bucket of which will run you only $16.95. A pile of fried Key West shrimp for $7.95. (Captain Jim does a lot of fishing in the Keys.) Cracked Caicos conch, which comes with hush puppies or beans and rice for the same amount of dead presidents. And “extras” like fried clams, conch chowder, smoked fish dip, and smoked marlin. Get the picture? Good. Now go get the seafood before Captain Jim runs out of those garlic crabs — at his prices, the eats go as fast as his reel.

This wonderful little joint answers the question Can man live by meatball alone? with a resounding yes! Of course there’s plenty of other fare here, including some really good pizzas, homemade sauces, and a variety of dishes inspired by chef-owner Michael D’Andrea’s family. Check out Grandma Lena’s soup, Josephina’s asparagus purée, or Vito’s ricotta cheesecake. Whatever you choose, it’s not only namesake; it’s guaranteed authentic, made-on-the-premises, primo stuff. Naturally we can’t get past the garlic-studded meatballs quickly enough to have any room left for cannoli, but that’s why we’re repeat customers: We have hope for the future.

Sango’s has won our hearts before as the best Caribbean take-out — but why stop there? Rosie Hollingshead’s jerk is so good, her little counter in Perrine can take on all dining-room challengers. If the huge portions don’t fill you up, the Arawak-inspired pepper pot and pumpkin soup will. Or do true honor to Jamaica with the national dish of ackee and codfish. If you’re carrying a meal home for a little romance, be sure to order the home-brewed love juice, Sango’s planter’s punch. If that’s not enough to get in the mood, stop in at Aquarius Records next door while you’re waiting for your order and pick up some deep luvy dub to listen to back home while you tickle your honey’s lips with coconut drops.

The main body of the White Lion Café is nestled in a converted Twenties-era Florida bungalow-style home. Constructed of Dade County pine, the house is warm and hurricane-sturdy. Placed around the rooms are touchstones of a bygone time: a wooden wall phone, a metal icebox, a Fifties-era Coca-Cola machine. Even the prices, which happily feel a few years behind the times, seem faithful to the antique ambiance. There is no corresponding stuffiness, either. Intermixed among the pieces are whimsical notes that help set a light tone. On the wall of one room is a mounted jackalope (a rabbit with horns, for those who have never seen one). Attached to the side of the house is a covered patio where animal-shape Christmas lights are strung from the rafters, picnic tables stand ready, and cats lounge underfoot. In contrast to the antique theme, the food is prepared with fresh ingredients. Simple fare like fried chicken and grilled snapper is tastily cooked to perfection. Sometimes though, the old ways still are the best. No new-fangled instant mashed potatoes served here. Delightfully seasoned, they are made by hand.

To be honest we tried really hard not to love this place so much this year. After all, while Anokha pretty much is responsible for bringing ethnic food back to the Grove (and keeping it there), spicy Indian contenders are hot on the restaurant’s well-shod heels. But just when we got to the point where we weren’t craving the rogan josh or chicken vindaloo for dinner, Anokha did something really evil: It added a lunch buffet. Now, with an assortment of expertly seasoned goodies for lunch Tuesday through Saturday, we had little choice but to rename Anokha numero uno.

If “There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall,” as Colette writes in Earthly Paradise, then surely Atlantic is the restaurant that suits all three states. When solitude is a heady wine, there is Sheila Lukins’s modern American menu to savor by oneself, along with some more literal vino. When solitude’s a bitter tonic, there’s the view from the outdoor dining area of gently rolling sand dunes and clear, bright azure waters — of the pool, that is. And when solitude makes you want to bang your head against the wall, well, at least Atlantic’s walls were designed by the Ralph Lauren team. It doesn’t make ’em any softer on your scalp, but it sure makes ’em pretty.

The late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer and his wife, Alma, used to visit this soda fountain and drugstore at least once a day, sometimes twice. For lunch Singer often ordered the grilled cheese on white. The prolific short-story writer and novelist was at Sheldon’s in 1978 when a courier from the Nobel Prize committee showed up at his Surfside home with the news he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sent to the drugstore to find the author, the courier interrupted Singer’s midday meal. The unassuming writer reportedly replied with characteristic aplomb, “Oh, okay,” and resumed eating. Singer probably liked the place, says owner Ethel Spector, wife of the late Sheldon, because the backstore diner treated him like any other customer. A sign printed on typing paper above a table near the coffee station states that Singer learned he won literature’s greatest award in 1979 while sitting at “this” table. Even if they got the year wrong and have since moved the tables around, there’s something inspiring about eating near where genius dined. In addition to its literary charms, Sheldon’s is a soda-fountain aficionado’s dream. They serve old-school sundaes with pineapple goo and chocolate sauce; banana splits; New York egg creams; phosphates; ice cream sodas; and thick, rich milkshakes in tall frosted glasses with both a straw and a spoon.

Three-radish salad with soy-lime vinaigrette? Crisp oyster rolls? Lobster tempura? Green tea cheesecake? And cold sake on tap to wash it all down? An establishment that treats Japanese cuisine with respectful innovation, Shoji is the latest product to debut from the Michael Schwartz-Myles Chefetz team. Like the partners’ other restaurants, including Nemo, it seems Shoji was destined for success from the get-go, thanks to flavorful drinks like the sakatini (like a cosmo but with sake). Indeed we’ve been waiting eagerly for it to open for almost a year — and hey, we’re not all that patient. So it’s all the more satisfying not only that Shoji lives up to its implied reputation, but that we can award it for its high cuisine so readily.

As one of the original Mango Gang of chefs who put New World cuisine on the serious dining map a decade ago (and the first to win a James Beard Award), Mark Militello is a certifiable culinary star. But at his South Beach eatery, the real star is Militello’s almost impossibly well-flavored fusion food — and it’s obvious from the clientele. Although Washington Avenue is South Beach’s nightlife central, Mark’s doesn’t attract club kids but a casually classy twenty-five-to-fiftysomething crowd that knows from noshing. So settle back in the exotic movie-set glamour of the black-enameled, hardwood-paneled Deco dining room (or better yet the balmy, multipooled outdoor tropical terrace) and swoon over the masterpieces: succulent West Coast oysters in a golden-brown potato wrapping, topped with horseradish crème fraîche and osetra caviar; a “millionaire” organic green salad with Maine lobster, foie gras, and truffle vinaigrette; crisp anise and hazelnut-crusted soft-shell crab; spot prawns with silky black truffle sabayon; or a mushroom-dusted pompano with foie gras, warm green lentils and chanterelles, and rich, naturally sweet aged balsamic vinegar sauce. The extensive menu changes nightly, but thanks to the skill of the guy who actually cooks at Mark’s while Militello supervises his ever-expanding empire, executive chef Tim Andreola (a protegé of fellow Mango Ganger Allen Susser), one can count on mostly magic.

The name sounds like an Argentine steak house, but the Gaucho Room in the landmark St. Moritz Hotel, part of the oceanfront Loew’s complex, really is more an Argentine-theme restaurant. Family portraits on the walls and plush faux-steerskin dining couches instead of chairs feed the fantasy that you’re eating in the living room of a wealthy pampas cattle rancher, while twentysomething Boy Wonder chef Frank Randazzo more literally feeds fantasies. In fact while the Gaucho has never hyped its steaks, the all-American cuts beat any in town (assuming you’re looking for quality rather than quantity), and the superbly flavorful beef, grilled on a traditional parrilla grill and served with three garlic and chervil-spiked chimichurri salsas of varying heats, is even better. But inventive South American/Southwestern fusion specialties such as savory wild mushroom tamales, queso fresco pulled duck empanadas with smoked chili sauce, or annatto-glazed Chilean sea bass with a crunchy jicama/spinach sauté (not to mention desserts like poached fresh exotic fruit with bittersweet chocolate-coated coconut mousse and Malibu rum consommé), would tempt even a genuine gaucho to bag the beef.

We thought proprietor Alejandro Garcia and chef-wife Lorena Vega-Beuggie were completely nuts when they reopened Divina. They’d formerly operated this Mexican haute-cuisine restaurant for only seven months a couple of years ago, and while they got great reviews and built a loyal clientele, landlord problems forced them to give up the space. But when they saw that Divina’s successor, Chow, had gone out of business, they decided a little resurrection was in order. Can’t say any of Vega-Beuggie’s fans were dismayed; that corn torte with poblano cream sauce she makes produces a powerful craving, and, admittedly, we also were suffering without our regular fix of squash blossoms and cuitlacoche. Our goal now? To let everybody in on the secret of their success, so the duo will have no choice but to expand their hours to include a divine lunchtime.

The best Jewish deli in South Florida is the Rascal House, of course. Need we say more? Of course. This isn’t some sissy Southern-belle category like Best Sorbet. This is the real thing. You got your pastrami and corned beef, both as fatty as you could get at the Carnegie, or even Katz’s, in Manhattan. (If you don’t like it fatty, maybe you should move to Califrigginfornia.) You also got your blintzes, which at the Rascal are homestyle, meaning that the cheese — or blueberry, or whatever — filling is enclosed by delicate French-type crêpes rather than the thin but tough layer of pastry cement you’re probably used to. You got your genuine grated-not-mashed potato pancakes — oniony, crisp, and reasonably thin — not those fat squashed potato puffs many establishments sell to those of you who don’t know their latkes from their tushies. You got your clientele at surrounding tables that’s a typically Miami mix of Cuba and New York: “¡Mira! Oy!” And Rascal House’s very firm waitress-dominatrixes will make sure you return often enough to keep your soul filled. If these mother figures make you feel guilty about not calling your own mom lately, you can FedEx a Rascal cheesecake home. Strawberry is best. In short you got somewhere not even a visiting New Yorker could complain about. So, what’s not to like? Come! Eat!

Café Demetrio has everything we demand in a coffeehouse. The atmosphere, with its blond wood and tall windows, is comfortable and pleasing to the eye. Regular art shows keep the walls interesting. The food and beverages are exquisite. Demetrio’s has an extensive coffee selection that runs from plain old espresso to caramel lattes. While the food tends toward sandwiches, the desserts are more adventurous and include an amaretto tart and linzer tortes. Finally Demetrio shares that great legacy of the modern coffeehouse: music. Generally Friday evenings feature romantic pop, and Saturdays are devoted to jazz.

The name means “Russian ravioli sold here.” Scoop up your fill of pale meat dumplings, pierogi stuffed with cheese, potato or cabbage stew, and cherry varenikis for about four dollars a plate. A variety of soups includes Moscow-style borscht. Communication with the staff is limited if you don’t know Russian; they do, however, speak the universal language of grunt and point. The little bistro is situated inside the Driftwood hotel, in a second-floor overlook bubble. The front window looks out over Collins Avenue, with its pedestrians blithely ignoring traffic and lines forming outside Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House across the street. The view out back is of the hotel’s innards and a small tiki bar and, beyond that, sparkling Biscayne Bay. For some reason the modest dining room is divided into “bistro” and “café,” with signs proclaiming that patrons are expected to tip ten percent if they sit on the bistro side of the room and fifteen percent if they sit on the café side. They claim to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Those wacky Slavs.

Let’s hear from the Cubans on this one. Although it’s won Best Cuban Sandwich three times, isn’t this still your favorite place for more than just that? Ask your viejo — he’ll be sitting with us. This particular location was chosen not just because it is housed in an old Arby’s with a huge U-shape counter, but because it serves outstanding Cuban food at amazingly reasonable prices. And some form of free entertainment — checking out the people on the other side of the counter or listening to myriad conversations going on –is always included. The waitresses, though not young, deliver a healthy amount of attitude, no doubt from dealing with all the humanity that pops in after midnight for a batido de fresa, with their homies along for the ride. The staff is made up of seasoned pros; if you’re a regular, they’ll start your order the minute they see you walk in. Your choices are varied no matter if you’re sitting at the counter, the outside dining area, or just picking up something at the ventanita. A breaded steak that hangs over the platter it’s so big? It’s here. An assortment of sandwiches alongside full meals of fish, beef, and chicken prepared numerous ways? Here. And the place is known for pouring thick, creamy milkshakes in flavors ranging from vanilla to mamey. Mom’s house is the only place to get a better Cuban meal, and even she has her days off.

It’s the eternal Zen question: How many links does a chain make? In chef-proprietor Mark Militello’s case, we think the answer is several, all located in the South Florida area. With the recent addition of Mark’s CityPlace in West Palm Beach, “Trade-Mark” Militello has expanded the empire he began in North Miami, then moved to Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and South Beach. Many chefs of his James Beard Award-winning caliber think a namesake restaurant is sufficient, but we know when it comes to talent, a single venue is only one hand clapping. But four — now there’s some real regional noise in the making.

A view overlooking the bay, back toward Miami, and down sparkling Brickell Avenue is the first thing you notice when walking into the elegant, nouveau-Asian lobby of the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Then, at the entrance to the restaurant, you glimpse the waterfall that separates the open kitchen from the dining area. The absolute succulence of the dishes devised by celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein dazzles you next. And finally a bill that surpasses monthly car and mortgage payments combined makes you gasp. If you stopped at the bar first, refinancing could be necessary. But if you’ve gotten someone else to foot the bill, this is the place to dine (and to stay warm; house pashmina shawls are available to wrap the chilly). Hamachi carpaccio in an Asian-spiced citrus sauce to start? On your own dime, maybe such an appetizer would be out of the question. On someone’s else’s — go for it! It’s sublime. Foods from the sea remain the best choice for a main course (no need to look at prices this time!). Signature Bernstein dressings, often combining an Asian flavor (a nuac nam or hoisin sauce?) with, say, rose water or papaya, enhance snapper, sea bass, and other fresh cuts. Add up the outdoor vista, the indoor décor, and the internal satisfaction, and Azul reaches the pinnacle of, well, good taste.

Buried in a tiny nondescript minimall, Macau does not look impressive from the outside. And the interior décor is humble, too. But so is the décor in many of China’s best restaurants. And Macau’s food is Miami’s most authentically Chinese. Since Macau is an ex-Portuguese colony and major South China trading port island, people from all over the world have passed through for centuries. So chefs there know how to punt — and so does Miami Macau’s chef/owner May Yuen. If some menu item sounds appealing but not quite appropriate, negotiate; May is happy to improvise for diners with special diets or tastes. Even confirmed carnivores, for instance, will find an unlisted invention of vegetable ho fan (usually called chow fun), chewy broad bean noodles sautéed dry-style with snow peas, bean sprouts, and several other fresh Chinese vegetables. There also are at least a dozen nonmenu specials nightly, often featuring exotic seasonal ingredients. Don’t miss delicate sautéed pea shoots with crab or deceptively simple-sounding Maine lobster with ginger and scallion when on the board. But some of Macau’s tastiest treats are available always, like salty pepper shrimp. To ensure protection against Macau’s only likely disappointment, phone first. Since May is the only cook, Macau closes when her kid has a cold.

The boulevard was abuzz when Pascal Oudin opened his eponymous eatery last year, and the place certainly hasn’t lost any of its charge. Chef Oudin has crafted a contemporary French menu that’s exciting but accessible, leaving the steak frites and escargots to neighbor Les Halles (which prepares those dishes simply and beautifully). Pascal’s offerings aren’t extensive, but with captivating choices like tenderloin of beef with snails, wild mushrooms, and garlic with Bordelaise sauce; magret duck breast with savoy cabbage; and sautéed yellowfin tuna au poivre (for those who can’t do without peppercorns), diners will still need time to peruse and decide. And when the dessert arrives, warm and lovely after all those other courses, you’ll be reminded that it’s never too early to plan for the future. The 55-seat restaurant is intimate without seeming cliquish, and the waitstaff is attentive and knowledgeable of the menu and the wine list. Prices are reflective of the fare’s essence: not over the top. Pascal’s is open for lunch, too, where such sensibility is even more obvious.

It is indeed a cozy, homey sort of diner on a bustling corner of Miami Springs’ business district. The walls are hung with fancy quiltwork and needlework, old black-and-white photos of the town circa 1930, and antique Coca-Cola paraphernalia; real and fabricated ferns and flowers are everywhere, and delicious-looking cakes, pies, and pastries sit on counters in those covered glass stands. It’s plain country-good eatin’ here: meat loaf and mashed potatoes, eggs and grits — even one of the greatest dishes ever to come out of the South, biscuits and gravy. Breakfast is served anytime, and there are many excellent and reasonably priced specials. But the real test of a kountry kitchen is the waitresses. You won’t find the actress-student birdbrain type at Cozy Corner. Here the food servers have weathered years on their feet, memorizing prices, and carrying three plates on one arm (if they have to). In other words they’re much like the unpretentious throwback the restaurant is.

Was it propaganda? Was it fixed? Was it a given? In order: No, no, and yes. When Pascal Oudin, one of our all-time favorite chefs of Grand Café fame, finally opened his own restaurant in the Gables, we knew it was only a matter of time till Best of Miami named it a winner. That’s because the French-trained Oudin, who has noodled around the area with interim projects like the erstwhile Sweet Donna’s, has always deserved a neoclassic place in the Florida sun — and we’re determined to keep him here. So simply put, he keeps producing dishes like lobster bisque with fish quenelles or his justly famous soufflés, and we’ll keep buying ’em. And giving him the kudos he deserves.

Tony’s represents Miami-Dade County the way it used to be, with a small-town rural feel. Breakfast at this greasy spoon begins at 5:00 a.m., daybreak being the time farmers usually go to work. Plopped in the middle of each of the two dining rooms are two big tables, one square, one round. These are where regulars who are eating alone but want to chat with their neighbors can sit. A prime topic of conversation is the weather (did we mention this is rural farm territory?). The food at Tony’s is basic, but one can usually fill up on a good, complete breakfast for less than five dollars. Still doubt that this establishment isn’t just another joint shoveling hash for cash? A toy train motors through the restaurant on tracks built high into the wall — can’t get more country than that.

Just north of the bustle and hustle of Little Haiti and just south of the suburban meadow of Miami Shores squats a 28-year-old shrine to past greatness. Various shades of pink and the words “Home of the Zonker” transform what once was a gas station into a place where mere salami, ham, Provolone cheese, and a generous layer of mayonnaise become divine inspiration for less than four dollars. Take your zonker and a beer to one of the outside tables, or lean against the guardrail overlooking the Little River as it flows past the parking lot. But sit inside if you want the real deal. The walls are plastered with posters and memorabilia from Old Hollywood and every major sport in the Western Hemisphere (except soccer — like that counts). There’s a virile young Ronnie Reagan as gunslinger, Jackie Gleason as pool shark, Marilyn Monroe as pneumatic nitwit, the Babe and Joe DiMaggio as baseball icons. Even the Hialeah racetrack has a spot on the wall. But it’s Dan Marino who will take your breath away. Really. An artist lovingly drew just the head and naked shoulders of Number 13 rising from a sea of blue, as if he were the Greek god Poseidon. Lightning sparks distantly in an ominous black sky as dolphins leap over Marino’s prodigious shoulders and into the water. Eat it up.

Perhaps it’s the music, spun by DJs who damaged their own hearing so long ago they have ear-practice pads rather than ear drums. Possibly it’s the ever-playing Kama Sutra movie, inspiring both moans of delight and screams of “No, not again!” Maybe it’s the fashionable crowd, whose very clothing is loud, or the ever-present buzz that follows celebrity diners Jim Carrey or Will Smith like tinnitus. But the requirements for getting past the big boys holding the ropes at Tantra no longer stop at having a reservation. Now you have to be able to lip-read and speak in American Sign Language as well. And it’s no use throwing a tantrum — the only person likely to hear well enough to pay attention is, well, you.

We usually don’t rely on anybody’s good taste but our own, so the fact that this high-end Italian destination has attracted notice over its decadeslong life span from reviewers ranging from Wine Spectator to Fodor’s doesn’t impress us all that much. But the fare here, along with the sophisticated stylings from the service staff, speaks for itself: stuffed pastas topped with Béchamel sauce; lamb chops glistening with juice; snapper so fresh it, well, snaps. We also should note that given the rising prices in our South Beach establishments, suddenly this menu doesn’t read all that rich. Just richly delicious, and reliable, to boot.

South Beach has been sushi central for almost a decade now, and in the past few years the ranks of stellar traditionalists such as Maiko, Sushi Rock, and Sushi Hana have been swelled by star-power newcomers like Bambù and Bond St. Lounge — not to mention Nemo’s super Shoji Sushi outpost taking off with a bang. Whew! But currently the best Miami sushi, with proven seaside freshness and solid creativity, can be found at BlueSea. This tiny (eighteen seats — all at one marble, diner-style countertop) eatery has somehow escaped terminal trendiness despite its location in the lobby of the hyperhyped Delano Hotel. Instead of a star chef, BlueSea has a layered sashimi arrangement of hamachi and avocado with rich blackstrap rum and lime dipping sauce; a sesame-flavored tuna tataki tower with spicy daikon radish chips; a crisp salmon skin-garnished plate of green tea noodles topped with a quail egg and spicy mayo; imported Russian caviar; and an assortment of the usual sushi fare. All come with a very non-Japanese assortment of mix-and-match dipping sauces. Don’t dig standard soy stuff? Try inventive Indonesian asam manis, rich Thai peanut, incendiary Korean kim chee, or citrusy ponzu. And though BlueSea doesn’t take reservations, waiting in the Philippe Starck-designed space, with its cocktail bar and comfy couches, is no great hardship.

First, an apology. We know the place looks as if it has been attacked by sea breezes and salt water for the past couple of decades. We know it’s not much to look at. We know if you’re not in the know you’d drive right on by. That’s because of what you don’t know: the genteel atmosphere. The unobtrusive service. And the creamiest, richest peanut sauce in the industry. We like ours over the “swimming angels” — chicken, shrimp, steamed broccoli, and tomatoes. But we also can’t resist items like the honey beef, the squid with mushrooms, or the duck curry with pineapple, cashews, and peas. As an added bonus, Siam Bayshore also features a sushi bar, which hardly is an afterthought given the quality of the raw goods — and it’s certainly less fattening than the Thai fare. But when it comes to the blue ribbon, to be honest we’re just not all that concerned about the ol’ scale, unless it’s the one we use to weigh quality. In this case that’s off the scale.

At first glance the gustatory enticements on this stretch of Biscayne Boulevard seem flatter than the landscape. The eye gets caught on the bright ubiquitous colors and familiar logos of McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell and sees little else. But the neighborhood also boasts eateries that speak not to the comfort of national fast-food dining but to the richness that waves of immigrants have brought to Miami’s cuisine. Within a few blocks there is Honduran, Nicaraguan, Peruvian, and Haitian cuisine served at the kind of down-at-the-heels-looking joints that you pray have great food. Housed in a building with a lime-green shingled awning on the corner of 30th Street and Biscayne Boulevard, Delicias del Mar Peruano offers fresh seafood seasoned with lime, basil, mint, garlic and other pungent flavorings. Portions are large enough for two. The fiery jalapeño salsa with sliced baguettelike bread is worth a visit alone. The restaurant prepares six kinds of ceviche, heat adjusted to order; seafood soup (with octupi, large shrimp, and mussels in a clear broth); and perfect arroz con mariscos (shrimp with yellow rice) with flaky rice and just-cooked shrimp. Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, just like a neighborhood restaurant should be.

The Cracked Conch is not to be confused with the Cracked Conch Café further down on Marathon Key, more expensive and not as down-home-tasty. The Cracked Conch also is not to be found by street address; it may have one for official reasons, but, the attitude about official stuff being what it is in the Keys, the address is not visible as drivers whiz down the Overseas Highway. Just look on the left side of the road, around Mile Marker 105 in Key Largo, for a small overgrown wooden shack with lots of hopeful cats on the roof licking their chops. Relax. You’re there. Also there are a rustic room with booths, not tables; a terrific country jukebox; an informal take-one-now-leave-one-later bookcase of delicious vacation trash reading; even more delicious always-fresh local seafood and homemade specialties (several variety platters let you sample most everything including — surprise!– tender deep-fried cracked conch); a beer list longer than the food menu; and a great sense of humor: A note on the menu states that the Conch is run by “a very close staff and family. Close to broke. Close to insanity.” The Cracked Conch is closed Wednesday. But if you begin a Key West weekend on Wednesday, you’ve been listening to waaay too many Jimmy Buffett songs.

The wreath of laurel goes to Mylos for the third time. Surely the gods must descend from Mount Olympus from time to time to mingle with mortals and partake in the great feasts offered here. How else can such favoritism be explained? There’s the paidakia, broiled baby lamb chops sautéed with mushrooms; the dolmades, stuffed grape leaves with rice and meat; and moussaka, ground beef, eggplant, and potato topped with layers of Béchamel. A favorite of Hermes — so much that it was named after him — is the platter of grilled lamb chops, filet mignon, and shrimp. Dionysus prefers simply the plate of grilled filet mignon and shrimp that’s named for the god of wine.

“Welcome to Bavaria,” the menu reads, and it’s true on both counts: You are welcome, and Edelweiss is like a restaurant in Bavaria. By that we mean the homey, old-world décor, coupled with the traditional, finely wrought German fare, gets us salivating for a weis bier every time. We always enjoy sopping up the brew with the bread dumplings with mushroom sauce; the pan-seared trout with sherry sauce; or the grilled pork sausages over sauerkraut. And finishing off the meal with Black Forest torte doesn’t suck either. But the part of the experience we think is most essential? Bestowing a pat or two on the owner’s shaggy white dog, who is always resting eagerly at the top of the stairs, delighted to welcome you to — and say goodbye from — Bavaria.

Yes, it’s him again. And we might as well permanently retire this category to Norman Van Aken until he retires — which he shows no signs of doing, possibly ever. While other superstar chefs would rest on their laurels — especially if they had as many as Van Aken does — or clean up financially by opening clone eateries, Van Aken remains in his Gables kitchen. And remains energetically, unceasingly inventive. How to equal still-superb old favorites like yuca-stuffed crispy shrimp with mojo and habanero tartar sauce? With Fire and Ice (a combo of warm lobster/boniato hash and cold tuna tartare, with wasabi granite and vanilla sabayon), or sautéed soft-shell crab with pancetta and basil/lemon butter, among many recently invented creations. As for tasting menus, there are always two. One is a weekly changing five-course feast based on seasonal ingredients and events, as well as Van Aken’s sense of humor. A recent Judeo/Christian holiday menu, for instance, included both an amusing upscale Easter egg salad (quail egg halves stuffed with lobster or foie gras mousse, with a caviar crema and local spring vegetable accompaniment) and a Seder-ish dish of sea bass on a crisp latke topped with a “Balsamic Blessed ragout of teardrop tomatoes, accompanied by hearts of palm.” The other is a tasting menu of signature dishes, for diners who don’t want to gamble — though no diner, no matter how high the bill, ever loses at Norman’s.

Between 6:00 and 11:00 a.m., a cross section of Miami’s working stiffs — from car mechanics to Design District dandies — jostle for a spot in this efficient little sandwich shop. Not because it’s typical chaotic Miami, but because of the morning draw, the desayuno especial. For $3.15 one gets two eggs, bacon or ham, Cuban toast, café con leche, and the pièce de résistance: a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice. For $3.15. It’s unmatched anywhere else in the city. The service, by the way, also is a Miami anomaly, swift and friendly.

In 1994, back when Lincoln Road was just emerging from its rutted, nearly abandoned phase, Alfredo Gonzalez and his sons Alex and Adrian opened David’s Café II. Their original David’s Café had been up and running on Collins Avenue since 1977, offering Cuban fare in a diner setting. But the family was looking toward the future, and it looked to be on the Road. They were right. Their business has only grown since then, expanding to add a café to David’s II in 1999. But the Gonzalezes never strayed from their roots serving simple, tasteful Cuban dishes — such as tostones stuffed with seafood, and churrasco steak — even as all manner of hip restaurants (drag-queen waiters) and celebrity-owned bistros have opened and closed around them. Perhaps their biggest challenge came a year ago, when the weedlike Starbucks set up shop across the street selling $1.50 espressos. Despite it all David’s has thrived. Thank God there’s still a place on the Road where locals can buy 50-cent cafecitos. The café is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The restaurant is open from 7:00 a.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday.

Ah, the Grove, where people live in trees, bartenders look like clowns, and rickshas run wild through heavy traffic. Like a lot of Grovites, Mezzanotte is a little kooky. But in a good way. Take, for instance, the bistecca pulcinella: steak with peppercorn, brandy cream, and a touch of demi-glace. Kind of crazy! Or the insalata parmigiana: mushroom salad with thin slices of Parmesan cheese, virgin olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Positively flaky! Or how about the calamari della casa: calamari, scallops, fresh tomato, peas, and a touch of cognac. Now that’s outlandish! Or the pollo contadino: chicken with sirloin steak, sausage, mushrooms, potato, garlic oil, and white wine vinegar. Absolutely wacky! Even more insane is the fact that, in an area once bereft of good restaurants, Mezzanotte has several fabulous contenders, including Anokha (Indian), Baleen (seafood and steak), Bice (Italian), Le Bouchon du Grove (French), and Las Culebrinas (Cuban/Spanish). But Mezzanotte’s prices (beef, chicken, and seafood entrées start at $14.50) are less absurd than most of them.

This Jamaican joint is reminiscent of a grandmother’s kitchen in Kingston. But no need to travel to the island and make good with locals in order to have delicious braised oxtail or curried goat. Try the brown stew fish and fried dumplings. Until 3:30 p.m. eat the best jerk chicken in town for just $3.99. Thirst quenchers include a variety of Jamaican sodas, sea moss, and ginger beer.

Never underestimate the power of an old maxim: Power is as power does. If you want to be perceived as powerful, act it. And eat some power protein for lunch. At this Brazilian rodizio eatery, you don’t have to be a glutton to prove you’re worthy. Order the “executive lunch,” a complete meal for $12.99, which includes soup, caesar salad, side dishes, and a main course ranging from sirloin steak to salmon in white wine-caper-mushroom sauce. Or go all out and sample everything on the 30-item salad bar, then give the green light to the skewer-carrying meat carvers, who will feed you until you feel like having a power hurl, for $25.99. ‘Course we don’t recommend that if you’re trying to impress a client or a senior partner. What we do advise: Check out the free valet parking, then tip big. Your power is in the (doggy) bag.

When Picanha’s opened a couple of years ago in the former Tark’s, which was attached to a Dairy Queen, we thought it would be another restaurant serf, dredging the lower realm of the dining public for customers. We’re not ashamed to admit we were wrong about this honest Brazilian eatery, which is named for the cut of rump roast called a pincanha. Indeed the eatery was so successful with both Brazilians and the uninitiated alike that it recently took its meaty linguincinha sausages and rich prawns sautéed in palm oil and coconut milk to a more conducive venue: the former Mark’s Place. Now the Grille is even more packed, especially on Thursdays for Brazilian-style karaoke and caiprinhas, and on weekends for executive chef Edson Milto’s traditional feijoada. And here we thought nothing could ever take the Place of Mark’s.

With 222 wines on hand, ranging in price from moderate to expensive, oenophiles and novices alike can enjoy Bice. In fact when it comes to vino, the restaurant walks confidently between egalitarianism and elitism. There is no wine steward, an old-school vestige that had more to do with pomp than practicality, according to restaurant manager Jason Bruce. Instead the entire waitstaff takes part in weekly wine tastings by experts in a continuous training exercise, where they are taught how to isolate the components of taste in a wine. “We’d rather have the whole staff know about the wines rather than just one specialist,” says Bruce. Management is as proud to offer a $780 bottle of Chateau Margot, or a $295 of Gaja Barbaresco, as it is to offer a $26 bottle of Roggiano super Tuscan (meaning all the grapes come from the Italian region of Tuscany). The wine “cellar” actually is part of the dining room, where, with reservations, up to eighteen diners can enjoy their meal surrounded by racks of wine.

This food is so good you have to pass through a metal detector just to get to it. Hang a right just past the bathrooms in the Juvenile Justice Center, and there it is, the colorful little trailer from which at-risk teenagers on probation in the juvenile court system serve up fresh food for low prices five days a week. You can get sandwiches, salads, chicken wings, and daily specials flavored with vegetables and herbs grown onsite by the teens. Park yourself at a picnic table or lounge in the sun-filled courtyard where you can watch the mingling of cops, judges, social workers, and children. An average breakfast or lunch will run you from $2.75 to $4 and is almost always healthier than fast food. Teen Cuisine also offers catering.

Contrary to the icon stenciled on the door, Irving Fields looks nothing like an iron Granny bent on reforming the eating habits of a decidedly pudgy nation. To look at his round, avuncular shape, one might not immediately guess that he has operated a health food restaurant in downtown Miami since 1971. But just watch him bustle around the restaurant and store. He’s hawking vitamins, mixing strawberry-banana protein shakes, and ringing up the bill — all the while maintaining a constant stream of banter and gossip directed at newcomers and regulars alike. The restaurant is only a short walk from the county courthouse and county hall, so many of the regulars are a mixed lot of Miami’s most famous and notorious denizens. “Mayors, commissioners, judges, lawyers, and cops, I know ’em all,” Fields declares. One of his favorite customers is former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, who he says confessed that she missed coming into the shop while she served out her term up in D.C. “She said, “Irving, I’ve got to tell you I fantasized about your fresh fruit and yogurt,'” Fields recalls with evident pleasure. “Fantasized — that’s a strange word coming from her.” Oh yes, about the actual food. The menu is large, with well-priced items ranging from tasty veggie burgers and spinach lasagna to chimichangas to a variety of chicken or fish dishes and a selection of salads and fresh juices. The restaurant operates on the downtown’s bustle-and-bust cycle, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

In Miami Beach there are two kinds of happy hours: the ones that begin at midnight, and the ones that begin at 6:00 a.m. But in downtown Miami, where the business people — yeah, those with day jobs — play, there’s only one happy hour. That’s when work is over, the stuffy execs go home, and the unbuttoned professionals come out to play. And there’s no better place to relax than on the patio at Gordon Biersch. Located in the heart of the Brickell streetscape, the brewery has even the sharkiest of lawyers relaxing with a homebrewed lager and a plate of fried artichoke hearts. In the end the crowd here, especially on Fridays, may make it tough to negotiate some space for yourself. But if you consider the salubrious effect of a little cheer on a lot of hard-working suits — those you’re likely to be negotiating with come Monday — then the order of business becomes clear: Drink up, shut up.

It might take a little while to get used to. Here you are, all ready to enjoy the best seafood in town, and not a chair in sight! Yet the place is packed, and hardly anyone is ordering take-out. Amid all the roiling humanity, keyed up further by the salsa music on the radio, giving everything a (very) slight beach-party ambiance, you manage to order. You don’t have to wait too long. Pretty soon you’re leaning against the counter along with everyone else, diving in, and, you got it, thinking it’s fun to eat standing up! Next time, sneakers instead of platforms. There’s a brand new Fico on South Beach, and the food is probably just as wonderful, but they surely couldn’t improve on the original — seated, standing, or prone.

At all-you-can-eat buffets of the cafeteria-inspired kind, the urge to gorge overtakes most diners. Maybe it’s a Thanksgiving-related syndrome. Get it now or your brothers will be asking for seconds before you’ve taken the first bite. That experience is the opposite of eating at the Brazilian churrascaria Porcao in the Four Ambassadors Hotel. Although porcao is Portuguese for “pig,” and one essential element is the same — you can eat until you decide to stop — the experience is more like theater for the tongue. You are attended to by a cast of waiters. There is a constant flow of different foods to sample. The tongue remains surprised. A churrascaria is a restaurant that specializes in meat. The style of cooking is rodizio, Portuguese for “rotisserie.” Each table has a card, one side green and the other red, like a traffic light. If you flip up the green side, you will be approached by the phalanx of waiters streaming from the kitchen and fanning out through the dining room. Each waiter carries skewers of fresh-grilled meat. One time it will be pork sausages and grilled chicken. The next, buttons of filet mignon wrapped in bacon, perfectly charred roast rump, salmon with mushroom-butter sauce. If you want time to digest all that protein, flip over the card to the red side, order a drink from one of the carts wheeled through the dining room, and indulge in conversation. There’s no rush. Or if you just want to give your taste buds a change, take a trip to the salad bar. The array of choices and the quality of offerings are dazzling. And then there is the dessert cart. Yummy. Gluttony never felt so good.

Many Miami brunch venues are beautiful (the Biltmore’s spectacular Spanish fountained courtyard immediately comes to mind), with prodigiously packed buffet tables. But few settings are waterfront. And cuisine, no matter how impressive in quantity, rarely is of cutting-edge quality in typical Sunday brunch steam-table settings. Which is why Baleen, whose executive chef is Robbin Haas, beats the competition. Luxuriating at an oceanside table in Baleen’s elegant outdoor dining area, separated from the sea by only a few lush palms and a waterfront walking path, brunchers enjoy plate after plate of appetizer items atop several big buffet tables in the indoor dining area: fresh fruit, just-baked croissants and breads, and the usual smoked salmon/cold shellfish assortment, plus unusually imaginative cold salads such as chicken with fresh cherries and walnuts, seafood with impeccably fresh briny clams, and caprese with top-quality tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Move on to hot entrées: grilled shrimp with citrus beurre blanc and risotto, tiny tender lamb chops with rosemary/ricotta polenta, Belgian waffles with real whipped cream, and smoked salmon as well as standard eggs Benedict. Definitely save room for the hazelnut/mocha cake, chocolate-covered strawberries, mousses, flans, and buttery homemade cookies on the dessert buffet table.

If you judge Haitian restaurants as we do — solely on the virtue of the lambi — then you’ll agree with us that Le Pavillon is tops in conch. The pounded conch, smothered in a tomato sauce and served so tender you know the chef has carpal tunnel syndrome from all that whacking, justifies the honor alone. Fortunately that’s not the only qualified dish at this smartly trimmed eatery, which has been open for several years but is under new management. The beef-vegetables stew and the goat with gravy both rule their categories, as does the rice and peas. And while this eatery clearly is Creole to the nth degree, you won’t find better fried chicken — available every day — served anywhere in the Deep South. Le Pavillon’s motto is “home of many cultures,” but really we think it’s the place for just one: the culinary society.

In The Beach, a novel about traveling, the central characters are constantly looking for the next undiscovered Eden, where they can play in splendid isolation. Take that concept, transfer it to dining on South Beach, and The Abbey becomes an oasis of an island. Although it’s “undiscovered” by the masses, it’s not so far off the Ferragamo-trod path that it’s unfashionable. Thus the sophisticated eatery, featuring executive chef Philippe Baguette (can his name be any more apropos?), an eclectic menu, and a darling eight-stool bar, plus an airy but formal Mediterranean dining room and a beautifully landscaped terrace for outdoor dining, offers a temporary escape from the madding SoBe crowd. In other words it’s the perfect place to talk about your friends, because while their ears may be ringing, they don’t yet know where you are. And we won’t tell if you won’t.

Fact of the matter is, Donna’s is a market with a restaurant inside. So you can purchase a number of gourmet foodstuffs to take back to your office or home with you to snack on in front of the TV. But if you’re smart — as we know you are — you’ll order take-out from the bistro menu. Summer-yellow cherry-tomato gazpacho travels exceptionally well, even with the addition of the Maine peeky toe crab centerpiece (though you may have to do a little fishing to find it once you get it home). Chef Donna Wynter and sous chef Philip Brock also pack up a delish “mosaic of Montrachet,” goat cheese seasoned with roasted vegetables and then wrapped and baked with thin slices of potato, that beats the chips you pour out of a bag any day. Sturdier fishes like the salmon steak with Creole mustard survive beautifully, and even sweets like the Bahama Mama — a mélange of sautéed mango, papaya, and pineapple in clarified butter and dark rum — give the phrase “home-replacement meals” a whole new (and truly valid) meaning.

If one had to name just a single Miami restaurant trend for the past twelve months, it’d be restaurant/nightclubs. Or is it nightclub/restaurants? Whatever. The idea is having it all in one place: Diners eat and then stay to dance the night away. That’s in theory. In practice these allegedly one-size-fits-all eats-and-entertainment spaces satisfy serious clubbers much better than they do serious diners. The latter tend to find the sounds too pounding for dinner conversation or digestion — and having to run a gauntlet of velvet ropes and doorfolk with attitude to reach one’s rib eye tends to ruin the appetite. At “American grill” restaurant/nightclub Touch, the rib eye is an intensely charcrusted, subtly spice-rubbed 24-ouncer with a generous topping of thin-cut onion rings just peppery enough to tingle one’s tongue. And other food offerings are equally first-rate in terms of ingredients and preparation: a lobster blini featuring Maine lobster, or a custardy smooth ice-cream-topped bread pudding that’s the sexiest thing most SoBe club kids have experienced in years. What makes Touch superior as a restaurant/nightclub is that you get to enjoy the experience. While Touch opened a year ago with the standard senses-smashing sounds and faux-glam ambiance, dinnertime music now is seductively smooth — and subdued in volume (after the kitchen closes, all bets are off). Best, there’s little velvet-rope snobbery; personnel are genuinely welcoming, even to those who don’t look like J. Lo.

Okay, it’s an archaic term. So we’ll go with the euphemism and allow that Andre’s “sunset specials” are the best in the biz. And that’s not only because the restaurant offers complete meals, including soup or salad and dessert and featuring elegant pastas and tender meat dishes, for a measly nine dollars. It’s because the let’s-make-a-meal deal goes on and on: Monday through Thursday, Andre’s offers “between specials” as well, which are full-course meals plus a glass of wine ranging from $14.75 to $16.75. These are so tough to beat because chef-owner Andre Filosa, a legendary local aficionado of Northern Italian fare and French-influenced dishes, puts out a great product. Quite frankly the more you get of Andre’s at the cheaper the price, the more you can afford to go. And if that’s your goal, as it is ours, then all we can say is, “Score!”

They say that Costa Rica is the Switzerland of Central America. Then Nicaragua must be the Argentina of that historically embattled isthmus. Why? Churrasco. You know, charbroiled beef. The Nicaraguans are as crazy for it as their Southern Cone cousins. But whereas the Argentines often credit Italy for some of their culinary inspirations, the Nicaraguans tend to look north. Hence dishes such as tenderloin tips a la jalapeña (i.e., with a creamy jalapeño and onion sauce). You, however, need only travel west a few miles to this modest yet elegant establishment on West Flagler and SW 107th Avenue. The menu also offers a wide variety of appetizers and chicken, pork, and seafood entrées. And ask your very cordial waiter for that spirit enhancer that crosses all north-south divides: a carafe of sangría.

Owner Robert Siegmann has created a virtual dessert oasis in the heart of Lincoln Road. And the former New York caterer has done it by taking classic desserts and giving them a modern flair. Take, for example, the pink coconut layer cake. The color isn’t the only thing that stands out. Each slice is immense, a towering testament to days gone by. Indeed the enormous dimensions of his creations are Siegmann’s trademark. But size alone doesn’t matter. (At least that’s what we’ve always been told. Really.) The true test is in the taste, and once again Icebox doesn’t fail. The carrot cake is so fresh you’d swear the carrots were picked that morning. The mouthwatering banana cheesecake will make you want to swing from the trees. And don’t get us started on their pound cake. The only problem you’ll encounter is whether to order the marble, the coconut, the chocolate chip, or the lemon-poppyseed variety. In every category Icebox offers the widest selection of desserts and pastries of any restaurant in Miami that we’ve seen for a long time: banana cream pies, raspberry-chocolate mousse cake, and an assortment of ice cream cakes too long to list.

Unlike some of our other more blatant eateries — Tantra or Touch, for example — chef-proprietor Kris Wessel’s Liaison isn’t all about sex. It is, however, all about the sensual: the feel of a large airy dining room with a high ceiling and billowing linens. The look of a sleek bar that has the friendly, open-door ambiance of a corner shop. The taste of Wessel’s restrained yet exuberant New Orleans-inspired cuisine that combines classic French technique with local and seasonal ingredients. Don’t look for too much blackening seasoning, though. This restaurant doesn’t hit the diner over the head with Cajun flavors and drag her off to a cave for a bout of postprandial feasting. Rather Wessel seduces the sophisticate in all of us with items like filé gumbo with blue crabs; grillades of veal served over grits; crêpes stuffed with oysters; or zesty short ribs. Wash it all down with a sparkling kir royale, and you’ve got the perfect introduction to the main course after the dinner, if you know what we mean (wink, wink).

It’s just a simple ground-beef sandwich, dressed with a bit of sauce and the obligatory vegetable matter. Yet somehow it’s like biting into a memory of your favorite comfort food Momma used to make. Wash it down with a tropical juice: banana, mango, passion, papaya, guava, or Jus Tropical special blend. About as much lunchtime bliss as you can expect for five or six dollars. There are a handful of other sandwiches — chicken, tuna, or a daily special– and some sweet snacks for dessert. Friday and Saturday nights the place stays open until 1:00 a.m. so patrons can lounge at outside tables and listen to the sounds of Haitian musicians like Sweet Vibe play at the front of the shop. During the week Jus Tropical is open from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Okay, we admit that the interior of this freaky circus-theme restaurant, with its banquettes shaped like jesters’ hats and papier-mâché harlequins dangling from the rafters, is striking. But it’s also a little scary, especially if Cirque du Soleil just really ain’t your game. All in all we prefer the seaside terrace, which provides the prettiest seating in North Beach. There you can enjoy executive chef Paulo Barroso de Barros’s intriguing ginger duck confit with ravioli and fresh mango sauce as it should be: out in the tropical air under a full Miami moon. When it comes to magical entertainment, sometimes nature, with a little help from a chef who knows how to cook a really good osso bucco, is all you need.

A little piece of Spain is hidden in the heart of Little Havana. Step inside Casa Panza, wind your way past the old wine barrels, and chances are you will be greeted by the owner himself, if not some other family member, who will guide you inside. The first thing you’ll notice then is how big the place is. After the sangría starts to flow, you realize there are chunks of fruit in there, and not the Libby’s cocktail variety. Four days a week there are live flamenco performances by world-renowned dancer Celia Clara and her singer/guitarist husband, Paco Fonta. Despite all the heel thumping and hand clapping, you’ll still be able to hear the grease sizzling as waiters serve up tasty fried chorizo. For large parties the paella is a must. We say large parties, because otherwise the plethora of seafood and meats will go to waste. Dining alone? The tortilla española is a light and fluffy treat. Whatever you choose, rest assured the taste will be authentic, the entertainment will be rousing, and the service will be impeccable.

Don’t be fooled by the name Hanna — this is the same beloved Gourmet Diner of old. And by old, we mean oldie but goodie. Original chef-proprietor Jean-Pierre Lejeune sold his signature place six months ago to new owner Sia Hemmati, who vowed to keep everything the same. Well, he broke his promise. By adding white linen tablecloths, fresh flowers, and the use of credit card machines, he actually made the stainless-steel diner with its hallmark French-inspired chalkboard specialties better. Not that we’re complaining about the most perfectly herb-roasted chicken in Miami, or the meatiest veal Bolognese sauce, or the slickest steak au poivre. And of course we certainly can’t bitch about the custard fruit tart, the recipe for which is exactly executed each day with vine-ripe strawberries and fresh kiwis. Call us sentimental if you must, but we’re just darn glad that neither new owners nor faithful followers have lost sight of the Diner.

There is a moment in the night, usually after the clock passes 3:00 a.m., when if awake, the body hits a crossroads. Either go to bed or push on to the dawn’s first light. If the choice is to forgo sleep, sustenance is usually a must. For a hot meal there is no better place than the 24-hour 11th Street Diner. Whether it’s pancakes or fried chicken, the diner serves quality food at reasonable prices. An added bonus for late-night owls is the possibility of a celebrity sighting. The proximity to South Beach clubs makes the eatery a natural stopping place for the famous. Recent hungry partyers seen chowing down include pitcher Livan Hernandez and rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J. (See, the famous haven’t departed the Beach; they’ve just moved on to better and cheaper places.)