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Best Breakfast Tacos

Huarache Azteca ­Express

Troy+Fields
For+more+authentic+huaraches%2C+you%27ll+have+to+travel+to+Mexico+City.

The meat used for the barbacoa de Borrego is lamb, and it's lighter in color and slightly sweeter than the traditional beef used in most barbacoa found in the finest taco joints in Houston. It makes for a great taco, whatever the time of day. The lamb is slow-cooked in traditional Mexican spices until it falls apart. In a homemade corn tortilla smeared with refried beans and topped with nothing but chopped onions, cilantro and hot sauce, it is one of the best tacos you'll ever eat — and at $2, one of the cheapest, as well. Pity it's available only on weekends. Readers' Choice: Taco's a Go-Go

Best Brunch

Seco's

Jeff Balke

Apart from the fabulous food served here every Sunday, it's also the best bargain in Houston with a sumptuous buffet priced at an incredible $12.99 per person. And as if that weren't enough, bottomless mimosas go for $7.99 and bottomless sangria for $8.99. Start out with a warming bowl of sopa de camarones, a cream-based soup that is as chock-full of seafood as it is with veggies. Skip the made-to-order omelets and waffles — unless you just have to have them — and try the shrimp-stuffed jalapeños, the Salvadoran pupusas wrapped in banana leaves, the migas or the corn or spinach enchiladas. End with the chipotle beef or the pan-fried tilapia. But make sure you try the unbelievable desserts, which include a flan, an incredible tres leches and a bread pudding with whisky sauce.

Best Burger

105 Grocery & Deli

The 105 Grocery & Deli is located in the rural hamlet of Washington, not far from Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park. Inside, there are a lot of cold drink cases and about six tables scattered around the interior. The burgers are made on a griddle behind the cash register. They come wrapped in tissue paper in a paper-lined blue plastic basket full of golden fries. The meat bulges out of the bun. It is unevenly shaped, with a lot of charred crispy areas along the edges. Each patty appears to be around two-thirds of a pound. A round piece of iceberg and two tomato slices are positioned underneath the burger in the "upside down" configuration with a modest sprinkling of chopped onions and a couple of pickle slices. The puffy oversize bun is well toasted and spread with yellow mustard and Miracle Whip. If they switched from salad dressing to real mayo, it would probably be the best burger in Texas.

Best Burger Joint

Lankford Grocery and Market

Like many quintessential Texas burger joints, this place started out as a convenience store. The grocery opened in 1939, and when owner and head cook Eydie Prior was growing up, her parents really sold groceries. But it was the hamburgers that brought in the crowds, and so they took out the store shelves and put in some tables. Today, Lankford Grocery is a homey restaurant with a rural vibe in a part of town where all the old buildings have been leveled and replaced with towering townhouses. The dining room is enclosed by garage doors. The smoking section is on a former driveway where two picnic tables are adorned with orange marigolds growing out of coffee cans. Every couple of months, Eydie goes on a decorating binge and decks the place out with a seasonal theme. Readers' Choice: Becks Prime

Best Cajun Restaurant

Floyd's Cajun Seafood House

Go eat some of Floyd's fried oysters with hand-cut French fries or his wildly spicy crawfish or his awesome poor boys, and you will remember why Cajun food used to get us so excited. The boat-shaped bar on the southbound side of the Gulf Freeway is now one of two Floyd's locations. It's great to see Floyd Landry building another Cajun seafood empire. Say what you will about Floyd's business sense, there's no denying that the man is a genius at cooking Cajun seafood. The other Floyd's is located in a former Don's Seafood restaurant in Beaumont and, according to reports, it is wildly popular. Kind of ironic, since Don's was started by Don Landry, Floyd Landry's father.

Best Calamari

Lomonte's Italian ­Restaurant & Bar

Perhaps it's the flour, seasoned with Italian spices and parsley, used as the batter which makes them so incredibly crispy and greaseless; maybe it's the homemade picante sauce Lomonte's serves along with a terrific marinara sauce that you dip them in; then again, maybe it's the tiny pieces of squid the restaurant uses — no jaw-breaking pieces here — that make them the best in town. Whatever it is, these things are addictive, and once you start eating them, they go down so effortlessly that you'll soon be staring at an empty platter wondering where they all went.

Best Campechana

Pan y Agua

Pan y Agua is a new and already packed upscale cantina where the elite meet to pay a premium for Latin food. If you're not up for an expensive steak, there are some real standouts on the appetizer menu. One such standout is the campechana. Beautifully presented, well-flavored and full of plump, fresh, high-quality seafood, the campechana is well worth the price. It's garnished with avocado and substantial homemade tortilla chips, and you'll fight over who gets the last bite.

Best Cevaps/Kebabs

Café Pita +

Photo by Troy Fields

Cevapcici, or cevaps for short, are the Slavic version of kebabs. It's also the Bosnian national dish and the signature item at Café Pita +, Houston's favorite Bosnian restaurant. To make cevaps, ground beef and lamb are mixed with pureed onions, herbs and spices, formed into cylinders and grilled. The result tastes like a hamburger and looks like a hot dog. An order of cevaps at Café Pita + gets you six meat cylinders sandwiched between the top and bottom of a hot lepinja, the spongy Bosnian bread that's a cross between pita and focaccia. The bread is split open and laid over the sizzling meat to soften it. Don't make the mistake of picking up the whole thing like a hamburger — your cevaps will end up on your shirt. Instead, tear off a piece of the flatbread and slather it with the red pepper and eggplant paste called ajvar and the white dairy spread called kajmak. Put in a cylinder of meat and some chopped onions, wrap, eat and repeat. You will soon be back for more.

Best Chain Restaurant

Becks Prime

Daniel+Kramer

When it comes to local chains, no one does burgers and steaks faster or better that the folks at Becks Prime. Originally only on Kirby Drive more than 20 years ago, the chain now has eight locations peppered throughout the Houston area, five of which sport the all-important, convenient drive-thru windows Houstonians know and love. But just because the food is fast doesn't mean it's fast food that you have to eat on the run. Here you can enjoy the never-frozen, mesquite-grilled burgers made to order while relaxing under an umbrella on the patio with a cool glass of white wine or a beer. When you're done, polish it all off with a thick and delicious shake made with Hershey's chocolate or fresh strawberries, and you'll see why Becks Prime has been a local favorite for years.

Best Cheap Seafood

Connie's Seafood ­Market & Restaurant

Jeff Balke

Across the street from the Heights farmers market, this kid-friendly seafood spot has a myriad of fresh offerings at very reasonable prices. The menu provides many choices in preparation and serving size, so even the pickiest eater will be satisfied. The calamari and campechana are fantastic, and the fried-seafood platter is definitely enough for two. Shrimp fried rice is a crowd favorite at Connie's — although eating shrimp-fried rice while being entertained by mariachis can be a bit disorienting. No worries; after a few micheladas and a trip to the seafood case, all will seem right with the world again.

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