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Best African-Mexican Food Store

Mex-African Foods

Here's an only-in-Houston experience that defies easy explanation. The owner dresses in authentic Nigerian garb, and the music pulses with the beat of big African drums. And the place sells African, Caribbean and Yucatecan cooking ingredients. If you're wondering what East Mexican and West African foods have in common, check out the shelves of this little market. You'll find all kinds of peanuts, plantains and fresh herbs common to the two cuisines, and things you've never seen before. Like giant dried fishes and little bags of dehydrated wild greens. Mex-African Foods also is a popular place to rent the latest African movies and buy African music on cassettes.

Best Cheese Selection

Spec's Liquor Warehouse

If they don't have the kind of cheese you want, and it's available in the United States, they'll find it and order some. That's one mighty big if, though, with a selection in the neighborhood of something like 500 different cheeses, with 588 ("weighed" and "not weighed") listed on their Web site. If you haven't found the section of Spec's dedicated to gourmet foods and the deli, you haven't truly experienced Spec's. Uwe Perschke is the buyer for specialty foods and cheese. His favorite is from his homeland, the German Tilsit. That's just one of the many imports Spec's carries, along with countless domestics. They've got hard cheeses, soft cheeses, semisoft, hard rinds, various different fat contents, dessert cheeses, goat cheeses, Brie -- the list goes on and on. The most expensive cheese in the refrigerated cases is the Roquefort, owing in part to the tariffs from France. The nutty but sweet Emmentaler, a cheese from Switzerland (with holes, natch), is the most popular, although sales of the creamy English Stilton have classified it as the "yuppie cheese." Even if you don't know much about cheese, Spec's employees can look up what cheese goes with a particular wine. Your secret's safe with them.

Best Place to Buy Stuffed Animals

Animal Creations

Lions and tigers and bears -- oh, my! You'll find these creatures plus monkeys and turtles and alligators at Animal Creations. All sorts of fuzzy friends await you in this plush menagerie. Like the jungle, Animal Creations is home to a varied and diverse population. Say you're looking for a snake in this Year of the Snake, well, you have many to choose from. There are soft ones with silly cartoon tongues and droopy eyes, long ones that can wrap around you, and little ones that bend and keep their shape. As if this place weren't cute enough already, it also carries a decent sampling of Sanrio products.

Best YerberĆ­a

Yerbería Guadalupe

From an unassuming shopping strip off Bellaire Boulevard, Francisco Garza offers customers "cures" for their heartbreaks and health woes in the best healing tradition of Mexico. His yerbería is chock-full of the teas, herbs, soaps and votive candles that folks believe will win them love, luck and even cures for diabetes and other ailments. Shelves overflow with a rainbow of perfumes, which include the scarlet-hued chango macho (male monkey) which believers say brings luck with money; and the deep blue Yo puedo, tú no (I can, you can't). The shop has an array of soaps like Ven a mí (Come to me), whose box features a picture of a woman dreaming about a man. There are big jars of herbs like epazote, and nopal-cactus powder for diabetes. Visitors will find a full range of saint statues, and votive candles in a variety of colors, dedicated to the likes of St. Anthony and Pancho Villa. Garza, who founded the store 11 years ago, says that many of his customers choose his wares over seeing a doctor.

Best Watch Repair

Wheeler Watch Clinic

For more than 30 years the Wheeler Watch Clinic sat near the grubby corner of Wheeler and Main. Now it's nowhere to be found on Wheeler. Don't worry. It kept the name, but moved down the street more than a year ago. Now the modest little shop sits at Main and Anita and watches as Metro tears up the street in front of it. Wheeler Watch Clinic is a family affair; it's not unusual to see three generations of the Galvan family in the store at any given time: Grandpa and Grandma, the couple's sons, and wide-eyed toddlers who take shaky steps around the shop. The Galvans have built this business on honesty, and the prices prove it: They're so reasonable. Getting a battery changed costs $6.50 for most models. One customer reports that she had her watchband fixed there for a mere $2. "Two dollars!" she enthuses, "You can't buy anything for $2 anymore." Wheeler Watch Clinic also has a little pawn-shop area and is an authorized Pulsar dealer, but the selection of watches is not as good as the service.

Best Place to Buy African Clothing

Citalis

Vitalis Onu recoils at flowing, overelaborate garments that prompt onlookers to query, "Who's that prince?" For Onu, the creator of the fashion line Citalis, the key is graceful simplicity. That principle is evident throughout the native Nigerian's vibrant showroom in an office building on Richmond near Hillcroft. The racks overflow with robes, caftans and woko suits made of silk, linen and other materials in a variety of shimmering colors. Each piece bears Citalis's stunningly elegant embroidery work. A lovely dark gray caftan comes with swirls of blue stitching down the front. A checkered silk robe features olive-green squares set against a pea-green background. Citalis offers men's and women's wares, custom-made and off-the-rack. Prices for blouses with matching skirts, and for men's outfits, range from $200 to $350. The store also offers velvet hats decorated with lace. While distinctively African, Onu's designs include crossover lines for American buyers. His wares can be found in stores like Festari for Men in the Galleria area. A tall, elegant man dressed in a gleaming black woko suit, Onu summarizes the exacting standard to which he holds himself: "If I can't wear my clothing, I can't sell it."

Best Place to Rent Anime

Planet Anime

For selection, you just can't beat Planet Anime. This Rice Village store has more than 2,500 tapes for rent, and many for sale, though approximately 400 were destroyed by the flood. Looking for Cowboy Bebop, BubbleGum Crisis, Martian Successor Nadesico, Ranma 1/2 or Tenchi Muyo? Planet Anime has got them in subtitles, so you don't have to watch bastardized, dubbed American versions. The small store, which also does mail-order business, carries manga (comic books), T-shirts, wall scrolls, action figures, stuffed animals and other enticing imported goodies that won't let you get away without paying through the nose. Where else can you get an adult-sized costume of a furry animal from one particular anime series? (And where else could you spot a store clerk wearing one of these?) Perhaps the oddest touch is the TV behind the counter that often blares music videos by the Japanese versions of 'N Sync and Blink 182 with nonsensical English names like Bump of Chicken and Da Pump.

Best Consumer Advocates

Houston Area Mental Health Advocates

It's a widely held view that inadequate state funding for the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County is to blame for the steady collapse of the local public mental health system. That's certainly how MHMRA incessantly spins the situation, and policy makers and elected officials, out of ignorance or convenience, largely have gone along. Last winter, a handful of rabble-rousing patients and advocates began challenging the performance of MHMRA administrators and, to the discomfort of the agency's die-hard apologists, pointing out the human cost of repeated budget cuts. Rejected as contrarians, the group decided to organize as a nonprofit organization committed to bringing greater attention to patient needs. Recently, Houston Area Mental Health Advocates' president, attorney Robert Hager, was awarded seats on two mental health advisory councils. While Hager is still the proverbial voice in the wilderness, HAMHA finally lends something other than an obsession with the bottom line to the debate over mental health care.

Best Car Wash

Minit Man Car Wash

This business has been in operation since 1949, a pivotal year in automotive history. It was the first year Detroit issued brand-new models after the war. Back then, the average family car was almost a decade old, and Americans finally had money to purchase some new wheels. And when they did, they wanted to keep 'em clean. Back in the day, it was Olds Rocket 88s, Jeepsters and Studebakers. Now it's everything from SUVs and Cadillacs to pickup trucks, sedans and even clunkers. Taking your car to Minit Man on South Main is like hiring maid service for your vehicle. They do an outstanding job cleaning your car, inside and out, paying attention to detail and leaving it with your choice of air freshener. And if, by chance, you're the kind who abandons logic and believes in the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, Minit Man issues a rain check to every customer for a free wash if it rains within 24 hours of bringing it in, because everyone knows that getting your car washed is a sure sign of a downpour.

Best Mexican Bakery

Taqueria del Sol Restaurant & Authentic Mexican Taco House

After spending way too much money on Day of the Dead bread at a bakery inside the Loop last year, a friend-in-the-know pointed us to this bakery, fused to the side of a taqueria near Hobby Airport. Order your Day of the Dead bread early, as this popular panadería gets muy busy closer to the holiday. No need to wait if you've got a taste for some pan dulce. Walk in, grab a tray and tongs, and help yourself: empanadas, galletas, maranitos, whatever you fancy. It's all there, and it's all delicious. After you make your selections, they'll ring you up and bag your goodies. A recent visit cost just a little more than $5, with two bags of delicious desserts tantalizing us in the car the whole way home.

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