An Italian rice specialty made by stirring hot stock into rice, half a cup at a time, until all the liquid is absorbed. Carol, for $100....What is risottoçThat is correct. Okay, Alex. I'll stay with Holy Arborio for $200.He said, "People really know me in Coral Gables for my risotto. We make the best."Who is chef Willy Hernandez of Caramelo RestaurantçRight again. You know, this Dominican-born chef was heralded for his culinary skills at other Gables establishments such as Giacosa, Casa Rolandi and Café Vialetto before he started working at Caramelo. Sticking with Holy ArborioçYou bet.Goat cheese, shredded apple, and salmon carpaccio.What makes up one of Caramelo's most popular risotto specials du jourçGee, Carol, you really know your risotti! Last selection in this category: Earthy porcini mushrooms, meltingly rich foie gras, a salty peck of Parmigiano-Reggiano. For $500....What is the one heavenly risotto that is always on the menu at CarameloçCould you be more specificçWhat costs $32 and is the single most delicious risotto prepared in MiamiçCorrect! Time is up, and Caramelo — er, I mean Carol is on top. We'll be right back....

Inevitabilities of life include war, death, taxes, and the opening of fun, affordable, family-friendly Italian restaurants by the Belante clan. Luna Café is the latest venue from the family responsible for Bella Luna, Trattoria Rosalia, and Carpaccio, among others. Why do they keep starting up dining establishments? Because they're so damned good at it! Luna Café's atmosphere is comfortable; the service more professional than at much more expensive places; the menu's soups, salads, pizzas, pastas, antipasti, carpaccio, risotti, fish, chicken, and meats universally appealing. The Northern Italian fare, including standouts such as pasta e fagioli, lasagna, and a blistering wood-oven roasted chicken, are terrifically tasty, prodigiously portioned, and miraculously priced — pastas top out at $14, entrées at $22. Wait a minute — we have to make an update. Luna Café is not the latest Billante venture. Vivi Ristorante just debuted at First Street and Ocean Drive. Guess a South Beach branch was inevitable.

You feel like jumping off the roof of your downtown office. No, you feel like jumping off the roof wearing a vest made of spikes, so you can take out as many people on impact as possible. The thought occurs to you only in passing. You doodle a basic outline of the spike vest on a blank memo sheet, ball it up and throw it away. Spiking people to death is wrong. Another thought soon pops into your head: pear milk shake. So delicate and syrupy sweet. Once you put that sweet creamy potion to your lips, you'll be in love with the world again. So you duck out of the office. You dash up NE Second Avenue as fast as your legs will carry you. You burst into this odd, out-of-the-way little joint you've passed a million times, hand over a couple of bucks ($2.50, actually), and ascend to a wonderful, peary cloud of sweetness. Ahhhh....

In France, a bistro is a homey (and often family-run) everyday eating/drinking place, serving down-to-earth fare at prices that match. Unfortunately le bistrot has lost a lot more in translation than the final "t." Today's American bistros can be almost anything, including pretentious and pricey. At the three Valderrama sisters' friendly neighborhood place, however, the "bistro" part of the name is as genuine as Mama Lila (their Peruvian grandmother, and inspiration). In the kitchen, head chef Elisa and sous chef Lili turn out honest, eclectic fare that's basically contemporary American, with influences from the Mediterranean, Asia, and Mama L. Standout dishes include jalapeño, chicken, and cheddar soup ($3.95/5.95); and Lila's chicken salad, a succulent, nut-crusted chicken breast sliced on a mix of greens, grapes, and muenster cheese, with a tangy-sweet onion dressing ($9.95). In all dishes, everything is house-made, from the imaginative salad dressings to the luscious mayo on the sandwiches. And you get a lot of food for little money. Out front, sister Rosa's welcome makes everyone feel like regulars, and something from the small but thoughtfully selected and well-priced wine list induces a similar warm glow. French it's not, but a real bistro it is.

This charming roadside stand has fresh fruit and gourmet snacks, but its most faithful customers — kids and parents from Pinecrest Elementary next door, tourists on their way to Fairchild Tropical Garden, commuters from Old Cutler Road — come for the smoothies and shakes. For less than $4 they refresh themselves with icy concoctions in flavors like key lime pie, mango coconut banana, or banana honey. They sit at the plastic tables outside, relaxing in the shade and watching the cars go by. For a brief moment, heat and hassle are eliminated by merely sucking on a straw.

New Yorkers of all descriptions have been coming to Miami for decades to flee their bitter winters, so why wouldn't big-time Big Apple chef/restaurateurs do it too too? One of the latest such snowbirds is Christian Delouvrier, who has reprised the upscale bistro formula of the original Large Pippin Goulue, in Manhattan, at this outpost at the tony Bal Harbour Shops. While the new location's menu is more limited than that of the original, what Delouvrier does here, he does very well indeed. Of course there's not much a restaurant needs do to oysters on the half-shell, except serve the freshest sweet-briny bivalves possible. Which Goulue does. It also does an elegant foie gras and properly lusty variation on salad Lyonnaise as well as dead-on steak-frites. None of this comes cheap — witness $21 foie and a $32 half-order of risotto — but it's still reason to send our thanks to Old Man Winter.

We love Dragon, the sushi den set off to the side of, but within, China Grill — which we also love. Grab a seat at one of the hammered iridescent stained copper tabletops, or at the giant communal table that sits in the center of the space and seats fourteen, and get set for some very fine sushi. We love the sushi here, and we love China Grill Management, and we love Jeffrey Chodorow, too. But most of all we love the saketinis. The signature spirit, aptly named the Dragon saketini, is made from high quality sake, premium vodka, and freshly brewed green tea ($13). Drinking anything with green tea flavor has the sort of taste that makes you think you are going to live longer, but we would love it even if that wasn't the case. A lemongrass saketini is great, too, sweetened just a trifle with pineapple juice. We love pineapple juice, and the watermelon lychee saketini, and the Sobe saketini, which kicks in with pear liqueur, apple, and watermelon pucker. Not sure what pucker is, but we love watermelon, and did we mention we love Jeffrey Chodorowç We really really do, and we are hoping he loves us as well. Even if he doesn't love us we're hoping he doesn't say bad things about our very nice restaurant reviewer. But we're giving this best of because, in all seriousness, Dragon serves the sassiest saketinis in town. It has nothing to do with fear. Honestly.

The five or so authentic Chinese places in town have been done to death. Just Google "Chinese" and "Miami" and the names come up again and again. Lung Gong is authentic. Kon Chau's got dim sum on lock. But which restaurant is most Miami? Jamaica Kitchen — no doubt. Enter its nook of the Sunset West Shopping Center and find yourself in a whirl of homemade soups (made daily), patties, and a curry goat that will make you do a backflip. But something odd about the menu draws you to a totally different place: the pork and hamchoy (a preserved mustard green), the suey mein (a noodle soup featuring a crazy egg roll stuffed with pork and shrimp — $10 per quart). Or perhaps you are drawn to the simple delights of the "Chinese roast chicken." Prices vary from lunch to dinner, fluctuating between about $6 to $9. Sidle up to the long counter; enjoy the friendly banter of the mom and pop owners and the fine island beats playing in the background. Or don't. They've been around for more than 24 years, don't advertise, and have no interest in being reviewed or winning this award. Jah bless them — they know they're the bomb.

Miami is not a beer town. There are a few good brewpubs (the Abbey, Titanic) but generally, it's all Corona, pricey Italian piss-water, and domestic swill. As a result, the 50 paunchy members of the town's most beer-hungry citizenry have taken to brewing in their homes. On the third Monday of every month, they hunker down at a long table at the far end of the Titanic to compare brews. Of late, the pub's kindly owner has allowed them access to his equipment for custom batches. Their creations are then proudly poured for just a few days from the bar's hand-pulled cask. Every year hundreds of gallons of Miami-Dade County water are converted to Cuban coffee stouts, coconut wheats, avocado meads, and more. While you choke down $8 Heinekens on the beach, this intrepid band of cranks, weirdoes, and alcoholics of discriminating taste pump rivers of delicious drink out of their garages, closets, and tool sheds. Join them, or be doomed to drink what your distributor wants you to!

In New York, a bagel is a bagel. Everywhere else, a bagel is bread. Some say New York City's unique way with bagels has something to do with the water, but if you know where to look you can actually find a decent specimen in the sixth borough, too. Harriet and Bob, a pair of transplanted New Yorkers (go figure), know it's only a bagel if it has the right blend of hardness on the outside and chewiness within. Just follow the flocks of white-haired snowbirds and Q-tip-headed locals who jam the entrance of Harriet & Bob's on the weekends. Grab a table or stand in the to-go line, and order up a toasted sesame with butter ($1.89), an everything with cream cheese ($2.90), or onion with vegetable cream cheese ($4.99). The bustling Bagel Cove, opened by Harriet in 1988 (Bob is her third business partner), also offers everything under the Jewish-delicatessen-style sun — from challah french toast and blintzes to matzoh ball soup and smoked fish — but it's the bagels that'll keep you rolling back. If you're lucky a member of Bob's crew will be toting out a plastic laundry basket filled with a warm, fresh batch. You might even think you're in New York — except you can drink the water.