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• Personal Best: Health Food Blues (1 Comment)
  Juanita Dixon, Blues Singer
  "Give me a pigfoot and a bottle of beer," blues great Bessie Smith used to sing. Local blues legend Juanita Dixon is after more up-to-date fare. Give her a mixed green salad and a grilled fillet of tilapia. Maybe it doesn't have the old roadhouse resonance, but it fits the healthful lifestyle... More >>
• Best Meal for Cheapskates
  Beef Eater
  You're not cheap; you're just smart. And far-seeing. You know how to stretch a nickel till it howls for mercy. Let the grasshopper detonate his wad on some so-called "prime" or "kobe," along with the $9 sides of creamed spinach and the $15 martinis and crŹme bržlées. Come winter, that... More >>
• Best Pizza (1 Comment)
  Red Rock Coal Fired Pizza
  Better men than we have come to blows over the definition of good pizza -- the question of whether shellfish belongs anywhere near an authentic pie, the composition and thickness of the crust, the shape of the slice, the list of acceptable toppings and the proportions of each, the origin of the... More >>
• Best Pizza by the Slice
  Sassano's New York Style Pizzeria
  There are a few other victual options in the 1950s time warp that is the Riverland Shopping Center -- a Cuban cafeteria and a time-honored greasy spoon, for instance -- but Sassano's always has the perfect cure for midday hunger pangs. It's not just the superb, thin cracker-crust and home-made... More >>
• Best Wraps
  The Daily Squeeze
  Your temptation, when you enter this teensy shop downtown, will be to order everything on the sprawling palette of ingredients, but try to restrain yourself. Thing is, if you cram banana peppers and cherry peppers and pickles and olives and capers and jalapeños into the same wrap, all... More >>
• Best Pho
  Pho Nam Do
  The legendary 1985 cult film Tampopo searches for the perfect bowl of soup. A contemporary remake could easily find heaven in a bowl of pho at this tiny eatery that's staffed by a superfriendly, always-smiling family. The liquor-license-less joint serves a few other dishes besides pho, but we... More >>
• Best Chicken Fried Steak
  Lester's Diner
  Two amazing facts regarding the chicken fried steak served at Lester's Diner: One, its 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week availability; and two, its sheer size. As long as something as inherently unhealthy as a battered and deep-fried piece of pounded meat is permitted to exist, it only seems right... More >>
• Best Wings
  Tarpon Bend
  Like drag racers whose extreme speed sustains yet may destroy them, chicken wings live and die by grease. What are wings without it? Scalding orange lipids turn ordinary chicken into one of the great blessings our world has to offer. Yet who among us has not winced upon being served a plate of... More >>
• Best Falafel
  Exotic Bites
  If you've never eaten falafel, you're missing an entire world. Literally. Falafel, a fried ball of spiced fava beans or chickpeas, is arguably the number-one food in the Middle East, sold everywhere from street vendors to fancy restaurants. Mandoah "Manny" Ebaid, a tireless, friendly,... More >>
• Best Bagels (2 Comments)
  Boston Bagel Café
  "Ah, now that's a bagel! It's just like New York!" Why is it that every favorable bagel review, whether from a food critic or just the chump next door, has to reference New York? It's always Manhattan this, Brooklyn that. Try peddling that line at the Boston Bagel Café. Sure, the name... More >>
• Best Onion Pletzls and Bialys
  Bagels &
  Given the ubiquity of the bagel nowadays, the self-esteem of its fellow Polish-Jewish baked goods might be suffering. Though West Boynton's Bagels & produces a good version of its namesake, let's get one thing clear: Pletzl! Bialy! We love you too! The bialy is the Jan Brady of Polish-Jewish... More >>
• Best Black-and-White Cookie
  Family Bakery
  If you've never had a good black-and-white cookie, you won't understand why anyone would want to eat one. We've all been tempted by the two-tone discs the size of UFOs topped with dark-brown and white icing that call to us from behind the counter at every diner. But what's to like about a... More >>
• Best Reason to Renounce Vegetarianism
  La Granja's Peruvian Roast Chicken
  The problem with your raw food diet is that you have to eat many pounds of shredded carrots and arugula patties per day to meet your caloric needs. You find yourself pretty much giving up your hobbies, your social life, your volunteer work, so you can spend the bulk of your time foraging for... More >>
• Best Ice Cream Parlor (1 Comment)
  Jaxson's
  At the risk of repeating ourselves, have you been to Jaxson's? Like about 20 million times since it opened 50 years ago? As a toddler, as a teen, as a dad, as a grandpa, and now as a great granpadoodle? Such is the life cycle of South Florida Man: centered around visits to the oldest, most... More >>
• Best Gelato
  Nonna's Cafe
  No one should ever feel guilty about eating dessert. What's the point of ordering a hot fudge sundae if you're worried what'll happen to your waist? So if you want to pile on the cookie crumbs and caramel without worry, you'd better skip Baskin-Robbins and head over to Nonna's Café for... More >>
• Best Hamburger
  Hamburger Mary's
  You know when you're in high school and you're taking a quiz and the teacher has put three really simple questions at the beginning so that even the dumbest kid gets some points? That's how we feel about this category. It's like... duh. Where else would you find the best burger? Although we're... More >>
• Best Salsa
  Jalisco Restaurante
  "This is spicy," the waitress says, indicating the swarthier of the two bowls of salsa she places on a booth table along with a basket of unsalted corn chips. First, then, the milder salsa. It's a cool mash of tomatoes and onions, with a distinct but not overpowering blast of cilantro along for... More >>
• Best Carryout Chinese
  Pepper's Chinese Restaurant and Lounge
  Sure, there's some decent General Tso's chicken and moo goo gai pan at the hundreds of identical, stark white, fluorescent-lit Chinese-takeout storefronts that dot the land, but why settle for merely good? Pepper's has a full menu of the dishes you know and love, plus a second menu featuring... More >>
• Best Asian Market
  A Dong Oriental Food Mart
  Even in cities with large Chinatowns, shopping for Asian groceries is seldom a one-stop endeavor. One place may have the best selection of dried mushrooms, another the best prices on bottles of fish sauce and sriracha. Which makes A Dong in Lauderdale Lakes so useful. Though a Vietnamese market... More >>
• Best Tofu
  Myung Ga Tofu & BBQ Restaurant
  Bubbling bowls of soup are a mainstay of Korean cooking born of cold, harsh winters, and the chigae, wherein a fiery red broth meets some combination of clams, shrimp, pickled vegetables, and marinated meat, is about as extreme as a bowl of soup can get: tangy, sweet, sour, fishy, and hot-pepper... More >>
• Best Hot Dog
  Fat Lou's
  One caveat comes with this hot dog haven: The service is usually slow. Perhaps that's part of the shtick, though: Much of Fat Lou's appeal is in its big-city ambience and the high-minded way it has elevated itself above the mundane, no-frills hot dog stands that dot our suburbs. By contrast, Fat... More >>
• Best French Fries
  Hot Dog Heaven
  The world is aflutter with waffle fries, crinkle-cut fries, sweet potato fries, and parmesan truffle fries. But sometimes a fry is just a fry... and it's all you need. At Hot Dog Heaven, you get your straight-cut fries placed lovingly on a sheet of tissue paper in an old-fashioned red-and-white... More >>
• Best Sticky Sweets
  Nirala Sweets BBQ
  For out-of-the-ordinary desserts, it's hard to beat the creations at Nirala, the first American outpost of an Indo-Pak sweets maker with locations in Pakistan and the Middle East. Indian sweets, as they're commonly called, come in spirals, balls, and dense fudge-like squares. From simple orbs of... More >>
• Best Milkshake
  Doc's All American
  The 1950s -- a time when most 12-year-olds were virgins, rock music was as wholesome as Wonder Bread, and the frothy drinks Americans sucked down were not lattes or frappucinos (BlackBerry flavored to match their PDAs) but milkshakes. It's hard to imagine such a time unless you were there. Doc's... More >>
• Best Chocolate Shop
  Galler
  When you've been raised on Hershey's kisses, European chocolate may be an acquired taste, like graduating from applesauce to apple martinis. But Belgian candy wizard Jean Geller is betting that the American palate is educable, and his flagship store on Las Olas, opened last Thanksgiving, will... More >>
• Best Coffee
  Bacio
  No surprise that the best coffee in South Florida, with apologies to the Cubans, comes from Italy. Everything from the clean, polished design of Bacio's little shops to its kiss-inspired logo to the snowy peaks of gelato in ball-gown colors and textures of silk tulle to the dark-eyed girls and... More >>
• Best Crepe
  La Creperie
  There are 43 varieties of crepe to dither over at La Creperie (32 dinner, 11 dessert) -- to say nothing of the duck, frog legs, fillet of sole, and pepper steak -- all of them fashioned in the traditional Breton style from buckwheat flour and served steaming from the griddle. Dinner crepes,... More >>
• Best Farmers' Market in Broward
  Tater Town
  Forty-four years ago, Joan and Dale Jesus parked their truck full of locally grown fruits and vegetables on Sunrise Avenue and opened for business. They soon moved to an empty lot on the west side of NW 27th Avenue, put up signs that said, "You are entering Tater Town," and watched as their... More >>
• Best Farmers' Market in Palm Beach
  Woolbright Farmer's Market
  Turn-of-the-century foodie buzzwords: locally grown, organic, sustainable, cuisine de terroire. If you live in Santa Monica, California, you merely throw on your yoga pants and traipse down to the daily farmer's market. But eco-friendly virtue is hard to come by in South Florida, unless you... More >>
• Best Winetastings
  Naked Grape Wine Co.
  Wilton Drive got a bit classier when Brian BeCraft opened this well-designed store last year. Wines here are grouped by characteristics, such as fruity, earthy, etc., with more than 200 choices for under $25. Helpful placards accompany each selection and describe the wine's origin, flavors, and... More >>
• Best Raw Bar
  Southport Raw Bar
  Those scary written warnings that accompany servings of un-cooked shellfish are so uninviting, it's a wonder anyone eats raw oysters or clams. Risking hepatitis or vibrio just to swallow something salty and slimy takes a particular breed of cat (or kitten). But raw oysters are, in fact, a... More >>
• Best Fish Sandwich
  Tiki Waterfront Sea Grill
  Bikers, boaters, and bobos rub beer bellies under the thatched roofs of Tiki's upper- and lower-story bars at the Riviera Beach marina, shaking booty to live music on sunny Sunday afternoons. It's Old Florida meets Eastern Europe: luscious Romanian girls, wearing last-decades' gold eyeshadow and... More >>
• Best Sub
  Colombino Italian Bakery and Deli
  You make a submarine for 20 years, you get to know what you're doing. The current owners of Colombino took over the decades-old business just five years ago, but the family's carrying on a serious tradition to exacting specifications -- while Taco Bells and Subways have sprung up around this... More >>
• Best Croissant
  EuroBread & Café
  Let us school you on the croissant. The best ones are covered with a thin, tan crust that's hard enough so that it resonates a little if you tap it with your fingernail but thin enough to "break" when it's given a little squeeze, like the shell of a robin's egg. Inside, the bready material... More >>
• Best Bread
  German Bread Haus
  When it comes to the staff of life, Europe rocks. If you're looking for something awesome with which to mop up your gravy, go straight to the Italians, the French, and the Germans. While the first two favor a crusty, airy loaf, the German version is typically too heavy to carry one-handed. It's... More >>
• Best Bakery
  Le Petit Pain French Bakery
  Somehow during each year's Best Of search, we find ourselves inexorably drawn by the scents of baking brioche, cardamom coffee cakes, and fruit tartelettes, the mixed berry custard strips, the lovingly handmade baguettes and loaves of country and Vienna and dark sourdough, the chocolate mousse... More >>
• Best Prepared Foods
  C'est Si Bon
  When a wealthy Palm Beach matron throws a party -- which she does pretty often -- you can bet you won't find her in her kitchen six hours before the big night rolling hundreds of tiny pigs into hundreds of tiny blankets. More likely, she'll be perusing the flats of refrigerated finger foods in... More >>
• Best Seafood Market in Broward (1 Comment)
  Fish Peddler East
  It's a minefield, buying fish these days. Almost daily, headline news trumpets that the seafood we thought we were virtuously buying (our morally incorrupt, farm-raised, Omega 3-loaded friends) is actually radioactive Godzillas simultaneously decimating the entire food chain and wrecking our... More >>
• Best Seafood Market in Palm Beach
  Palm Beach Fish Market and Bistro
  Yeah, yeah, the only way to buy fresh fish is to get it whole, take it home, and fillet it yourself. Or better yet, put a worm on a hook, cast the hook in the water, blah blah blah. Here's another idea: Find a fishmonger you trust and let him deal with the smelly fish guts. Then you won't have... More >>
• Best Conch Fritter
  Calypso
  Many people can catch a conch -- after all, these shellfish don't move so quick -- but rare is the soul who can cook one. At Calypso, the kitchen staff takes what looks like a shred of blown tire (the ones you're always swerving to avoid on I-95) and turns it into something not only edible but... More >>
• Best Key Lime Pie
  Aruba Beach Café
  Take in a key-lime-flavored double feature at Aruba Beach Café: The key lime pie martini ($8.50) is a smooth, decadent cocktail for folks who like their desserts in liquid form, created to match a late-afternoon mood. It's made with Licor 43 (a potent Spanish citrus vanilla liqueur),... More >>