Owner-chef Brahim Hadj-Moussa, a native of Algiers, presents tasty, colorful North African dishes such as long-cooked stews and couscous in his simple but attractive setting. Small upstairs dining room, large outdoor deck.

At his Warehouse District people magnet, chef/owner Isaac Becker does beautiful work with such high-brow fare as sea scallops with wild mushrooms and seared ahi tuna with chimichurri sauce. But don't miss his great takes on basic bar grub: the sweet-and-sour crab salad, cold cuts-pickles plate, bacon-harissa sandwich, one of the Twin Cities' best burger. Reservations a must; be sure to ask for a main-floor table. The restaurant was the Star Tribune's 2005 restaurant of the year. Becker is a 2008, 2009 and 2010 nominee for Best Chef: Midwest by the James Beard Foundation Awards.

Walk into the lobby of the Country Inn & Suites for an eerie sense of déjà vu: Is this Indianapolis? Rockford, Ill.? Oconomowoc, Wis.? That’s what happens at these chain hotels, as they all look exactly like one another. So it's a pleasant surprise to encounter the entirely unexpected Whitney Bistro & Onyx Bar. The bar just might be the coziest place to nurse a Lemon Drop in the 952 area code, and the lovely dining room could pass for the greenhouse at the palatial residence. Chef Adam Levitt takes his cues from his convention-defying surroundings. Starters ($6 to $13) include flatbreads topped with smoked salmon and the complementary flavors of caramelized onions and roasted garlic, nicely grilled shrimp paired with guacamole, skewers of tender beef, and crispy wontons stuffed with chicken and sweet green onions. Entrees (most under $20) include a half-dozen sandwiches, a handful of salads, four pastas, beef tenderloin medallions paired with wilted spinach, juicy burgers and a pork loin with sweet potato hash. Service is perky and fast.

At this laid-back coffeehouse, expect to find an ambitious live-music schedule (performed in an adjacent music room), a nicely retro setting and inexpensive fare that effortlessly swings from breakfast (burritos, oatmeal, waffles) to dinner (black-bean burger, smoked trout salad, aoili/three-cheese grilled sandwich). Beyond coffee, there's an impressive beer selection (including 24 tap choices, from Bell's Oberon Ale to Frostop root beer) and more than a dozen affordable wines by the glass.

A rare bastion of tableside preparation, with a charming country house warmth and ambience that suggests chicken pot pie rather than steak Diane. But its ambitious menu offers not only flaming steak Diane but authentic Caesar salad and those virtually extinct flaming desserts, bananas Foster and cherries jubilee, with all the appropriate hoopla and pyrotechnics. The performances are first-rate, but the result is often not. So it goes. Times change and culinary fashions change. It's easy to get sentimental about those dishes, but the reality is that they often weren't really that good, even in their heyday. What was different? We were.

A Minnesota dining icon. Unscripted short-order theatrics ("Short stack, two smoky mush with ham on a round and short-short whole-wheat Wally blues") are an off-the-menu side dish that's usually served up at tiny, 14-seat Al's. And the main course? Pancakes. You can't find better ones anywhere, particularly the slightly tangy buttermilks, which fry up hazelnut brown and laced with crunchy walnuts and pert blueberries. Al's griddlemasters also craft the best waffles in the state, sizzling bacon, perfectly poached eggs and big fluffy stuffed omelets. A Dinkytown institution, Al's is a 2004 winner of the James Beard Foundation's "America's Classics" award.