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Best Macaroni & Cheese

Shade

Jeff Balke
This little side order of macaroni and cheese is not your typical version. Made with Gruyère, with a drizzle of truffle oil finishing off the creamy pasta, Shade's mac & cheese is distinct, yet not pungent. The overall impression is of a dish rich but delicate in flavor. It usually accompanies the grilled pork chop, but you can order the Gruyère mac & cheese as an individual side dish, an appetizer or even as a dessert.

Best Chinese Restaurant

Chinese Cafe

The original location in Chinatown has been serving up savory Chinese food for decades. Now, with a second location in the Galleria area just outside the Loop, both Chinese Cafes are popular destinations for diners wanting quick, delicious Chinese food. Catering to both American and Asian palates, the place is often crowded with patrons ordering individual inexpensive specials for lunch or several dishes to share family-style for dinner. Pictures of the dishes hang on the wall to whet your appetite and make ordering easy. Some favorites include shredded pork or beef with green beans, spicy tofu in black bean sauce, and hot and sour soup. The fried rice is cooked in an authentic hot wok, which makes each grain crispy and flavorful. Hot tea is free of charge.

Best Oysters

Wild Cajun

Most people come to Wild Cajun for the crawfish, and with good reason — the Vietnamese sports bar's two crawfish blends are hopped up with spice and finger-licking fantastic. But the hidden secret here is the chargrilled oysters, each plump bivalve individually topped with shallots and a nose-clearing, eye-opening ginger puree that will make you forget all about horseradish and cocktail sauce.

Best Indian Restaurant

Gourmet India

Batli Joselevitz
One wouldn't expect to find such a delightful Indian restaurant located outside of the Mahatma Gandhi District of Houston, but Gourmet India is an oasis on the west side of town serving up some of the best Indian food in Houston. Lunch is an all-you-can-eat buffet of breads and dips, salads, curries, vegetables, and grilled and saucy meats. Dinner is à la carte, with everything seen in a traditional Punjabi restaurant: samosas, saag paneer, chicken tikka masala, tandoori prawns, lamb curry. The saffron-seasoned basmati rice, which is distinct yet delicate in flavor and comes steamed with peas, is a perfect complement to the rich dishes. Use the naan — flaky, buttery flatbread — to mop up the spicy sauces. The staff is friendly, eager and helpful. Whether you like your food spicy or not, whether your companions are carnivorous or vegetarian, there is something for everyone at Gourmet India.

Best Pita Bread

Phoenicia Specialty Foods

Phoenicia Deli has been a popular destination on the west side of town since 1992.  In more recent years, it opened an international and specialty food market just across the street from the original deli and started turning out fresh pita bread.  In the middle of Phoenicia Specialty Foods sits an impressive pita-making machine where you can watch each doughy circle of goodness, still warm from the oven, slide down the conveyor belt to the ground floor, where it is then packed for purchase.  A bag of nine large white pita rounds costs only $1.50.  And if you want variety, there's also wheat pita, pita topped with Ackawi cheese and pita topped with sesame and black caraway seeds.  All are made fresh daily.  Later this year, Phoenicia Specialty Foods will open its second location, downtown, making everyone inside the Loop very happy.

Best Falafel

Niko Niko's

Fat and fluffy, the chickpea patties at Niko Niko's are equally tasty on their own, but we prefer them tucked into one of the restaurant's signature breakfast pitas with scrambled eggs, sautéed onions and tomatoes. They're alluringly crispy outside, the crunch giving way to a dark green interior that's soft without being mealy or mushy. And, yes, they're just as good in a regular, tzatziki-smeared pita at lunch, too.

Best Korean Restaurant

Nam Gang Restaurant

Located on Gessner and Blalock in Koreatown, Nam Gang is the place to go for Korean barbecue. You can order plates of beef short ribs (galbi), pork belly (samgyeopsal) and thinly sliced cuts of meats (bulgogi) — all of which you cook yourself on a griddle in the middle of the table. The mini complimentary side dishes taste fresh and consist of pickled vegetables, tofu, seaweed, fish cakes and more; these banchan are spread across the table to be eaten as accompaniments to the main dishes. Other à la carte items include panjeon, a scallion pancake, and a stir-fried-vegetable-and-glass-noodle dish called jap chae, in which the noodles are made of sweet potato starch. Pressing the button at your table will signal the attention of the wait staff. Korean barbecue is interactive, but if you prefer not to reek of grilled meats afterward, your meats can be cooked in the kitchen upon request.

Best Hidden Treasure

Jonathan's the Rub

Most people were stunned when tiny Jonathan's the Rub — perhaps the darkest horse of 16 competitors — took home first place in the Houston Press Burger Bracket competition this year. The little restaurant in Spring Branch certainly knows how to grill a great burger, but that's not all: Chef and owner Jonathan Levine and his family also turn out beautiful steaks and stellar bowls of shrimp and grits. In fact, you'd never even guess Levine's originally from Brooklyn until you hear him cracking wise with friends and customers from across the line. Although the casual neighborhood cafe is usually packed, a new addition should be able to accommodate the crowds that are quickly becoming regulars once they find the place.

Best Pizzeria

Pink's Pizza

Stephanie Meza
The specialty pies at Pink's Pizza include such interesting concoctions as Deuce (goat cheese, mozzarella, spinach, portobello mushroom, roma tomatoes, and garlic with pesto sauce); Double Down (rosemary chicken, bacon, mozzarella, spinach, tomato, and roasted garlic with alfredo sauce); and Santa Monica (gorgonzola, mozzarella, prosciutto, eggplant, artichoke, sun-dried tomato, and cranberry with a garlic-infused olive oil). These unpretentious, gourmet fresh pizzas are already a Houston institution. But perhaps the best item to order is the simple pizza by the slice. The slices are huge — they require two paper plates each — and seasoned with plentiful Italian herbs. Pink's recommends ordering only one topping or just plain cheese for their pizza by the slice — any more weight, and the thin crust may fall apart. The pizzeria is small, with only a few bar tables, so delivery and pick-up orders are preferred.

Best Jewish Deli

Kenny & Ziggy's Deli

When it comes to the canon of New York-style Jewish delicatessen food, it ultimately boils down to that old gastronomic proverb: It ain't the meat, it's the motion. Any of the top deli owners in this country — whether in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Palm Springs, or Houston — will tell you the same thing: They all buy their smoked fish from the same group of purveyors based in New York, and they all prepare their meats — pastrami and corned beef — using roughly the same recipes. What sets the great delis apart is not the quality of the raw materials (because they all have access to the same products) but rather in how they slice and dress the fish and meats. Kenny & Ziggy's Delicatessen on Post Oak is not just the best New York-style deli in Houston. It may be the best sit-down deli in the country right now. That may seem like a very tall gefilte fish tale. But in the age of the dying art of the New York-style deli, when healthier eating habits and changing demographics have shifted the average urbanite's culinary awareness and eating habits and the deli greats of New York and Chicago are struggling to survive, you have to wait for up to 20 minutes for a table for two on an average weekday lunch at Kenny & Ziggy's. Why? The food is that good.

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