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Best Retro Mexican Food

Maria Selma

Besides the fact that the orange building with hammered-tin ceiling and yellow-stucco interior is pretty retro in itself, the food at Maria Selma harks back to bygone times. Traditional enchilada dishes feature the meat and sauce on top of the tortillas, not rolled up inside. And the old-style Mexican flavors mingle in such soft tacos as carne asada con nopales (marinated beef steak with grilled cactus) and the tender pork loin in green mole. Comfort food doesn't get much better than the hearty caldo pollo and the pastor (pork) tortas made with thick telera bread. It's a Ret-Mex spin on soup and a sandwich.

Best Russian Restaurant

Russian Bear

The Russian Bear is actually two dining establishments in one. The front room is a charming little cafe with excellent Russian food -- a wonderful place to take the kids. But on the other side of the room divider, there's an exotic-looking nightclub with red velvet curtains, huge mirrors and crystal chandeliers that serves up dinner and Russian entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights. If you're a collector of bizarre dining experiences, don't miss the Russian Bear nightclub dinner. Make a reservation, gather six or eight of your strangest friends, and come prepared to party. When the folk dancers, the belly dancer and the singers are finished, the crowd takes over the dance floor for some swinging Slavic disco.

Best Seafood Restaurant

Goode Co. Texas Seafood

Jim Goode is a fisherman. If you don't believe it, check out the photos on the wall. Goode is the intense-looking character in the flowing ZZ Top beard and the chef's pants decorated with skulls. And he seems to have been photographed holding up a string of nearly every variety of fish that swims in the Gulf of Mexico. Goode Co.'s cooking is pure Texas. There's catfish, redfish, Gulf red snapper, flounder and shrimp, all of it simply fried or grilled over mesquite and served with a minimum of accompaniments. For appetizers there's boiled shrimp, crabs, raw oysters or ceviche campechana. The Mexican seafood cocktail comes with lots of shrimp, crab and big chunks of avocado in a spicy salsa with tortilla chips. The daily fishing report for Galveston Bay is blown up and posted on an easel in the dining room, just in case you want to take the rest of the day off.

Best Steak House

Brenner's Steakhouse

Brenner's was well loved by several generations of Houstonians, and there were a lot of moans and groans when it closed its doors last year. But the place has reopened after a complete renovation by its new owner. Landry's Restaurants Inc. CEO Tilman Fertitta had fond memories of eating here when he was growing up, and he gave the place a sentimental restoration. Sitting in the newly redone main dining room, you feel like you're visiting an antique inn out in the country. The impressive gardens and waterfalls have been further expanded. The steaks are wet-aged, USDA Prime, and they're served on an oval plate in a puddle of au jus. It's a smart idea. The meat juice soaks in as you cut each bite, so there's never a chance for the meat to get dry. The Gulf red snapper with crabmeat is also outstanding.

Best Transylvanian Restaurant

Charivari

An intense-looking man with very short dark hair and a Bela Lugosi accent, Charivari chef and co-owner John Schuster grew up in the Transylvanian region of Romania. He worked as a chef in Vienna and Budapest before opening his first restaurant in the Black Forest of Germany. So as you might expect, Schuster's shredded veal "Zurich-style," as well as all the rest of the Austrian, Russian and German cooking at Charivari, is stunning. Particularly spectacular is the Alsatian seafood choucroute, a platter of sauerkraut in Riesling wine sauce topped with lobster and fish. And don't miss Schuster's white asparagus festival every spring, when he cooks four or five white asparagus dishes each night.

Best Sushi Bar

Sasaki Japanese Restaurant

If you're bored with the minimalistic architecture and uncluttered decor of Japanese restaurants, you'll find Sasaki refreshingly bizarre. The place goes overboard on goofy serving contraptions and Japanese tchotchkes. But Sasaki is on the opposite end of the hipness spectrum from popular sushi restaurants like Coco's and The Fish. There aren't many guys with piercings or babes in little black dresses eating here. Nor are there any Godzilla rolls, jazz rolls or crazy rolls on the menu. But if you're looking for a Japanese sushi guru, someone who takes the time to talk to you and who really cares about your individual tastes, chef Toda is your man. His sweet and salty eel and rice rolls (unagi) are best saved for dessert. They're so addictive that, otherwise, you wouldn't be able to stop eating them.

Best Tex-Mex Restaurant

Molina's Mexican Restaurant

The two-plate Mexico City dinner at Molina's is a classic of the genre. The salad plate includes a beef taco, a bean tostada, a puffy tortilla with queso and a guacamole salad. And on the hot plate, there are gooey cheese enchiladas in chili gravy with onions, a tamale with chili con carne, and rice and beans. A pecan praline is included with dinner, just like in the good old days. But if you think the Mexico City dinner has something to do with the Mexican capital, guess again. The name refers to the Mexico City Restaurant, a once-popular Tex-Mex joint on South Main that the Molina family purchased in 1940. "Restaurants were run by families then. Mom cooked, Dad waited tables, I washed dishes," remembers Raul Jr. of the early years. The Molina's Mexican Restaurant operation is now run by the third generation of the Molina family, including Raul the third.

Best Atmosphere

Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse

The martini is icy, the club chair is plush, and Frank Sinatra is crooning on the sound system in the cushy lounge at Vic & Anthony's, the opulent new steak house across the street from Minute Maid Park. On the back wall of the bar is a small black-and-white photo of a smiling Old Blue Eyes posing with owner Tilman Fertitta's cousin Anthony. It's a nice touch. What a joy to have a steak house with a Houston atmosphere. The Morton's chain builds shopping center clones of their original Chicago steak house; Capital Grille builds imitations of their Washington, D.C., operation; and Palm apes a chop house on Second Avenue in New York. At Vic & Anthony's, the exterior architecture matches that of Union Station and the baseball park down the street, and the interior is decorated with old photos documenting the history of downtown Houston and Fertitta's colorful Italian family. What a difference a little local pride makes.

Best Turkish Restaurant

Empire Turkish Grill

Some say Turkish food is the mother of all Middle Eastern cuisines. The overloaded mezeler plate at Empire Turkish Grill proves the point. The dish includes foods from many different regions, few of which lie within present-day Turkey. But it was the Turkish sultans who first brought Asian eggplant and okra, Persian spinach and caviar, Arabic hummus and tabbouleh, and all the delicacies of the Ottoman Empire together on the same table in cosmopolitan Constantinople. Empire Turkish Grill follows in their footsteps. Along with the incredible selection of appetizers and hot-out-of-the-oven flatbreads, the restaurant boasts tangy kebabs and succulent marinated lamb. Most of the kebabs are also available in the form of a "yogurt grill," in which seasoned bread cubes are covered with yogurt and then the kebab meat is placed on top. The iskender kebab is the best of the bunch. Wine aficionados will love this place for its free corkage policy.

Best Vegetarian Restaurant

Soya Cafe

This new Spring Valley strip mall spot offers a surprising multiculti take on vegetarian food -- from its steamed veggie dumplings to soy sausage hot dogs to roasted eggplant Parmesan. Although Soya Cafe exudes the antiseptic aesthetic typical of vegetarian restaurants, the food here is much tastier than what you get at the old standbys. The stir-fried rice, loaded with big pieces of fresh vegetables, is refreshingly light on the oil. And the tofu, mushrooms, onions and other treats in the Soya kabobs are lightly dressed in a tangy red barbecue sauce. Plus, the portions are as satisfying as the ingredients. One off-the-menu burger consists of three patties -- two crispy, oregano-dusted "codfish" squares and a meaty breaded soy circle -- in addition to all the usual fixins.

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