Opened in 1906, Galatoire's deifes categorization. Creole bistro? Steaks and seafood? Yes, and more. The service is impeccable, no "Hi, may name is, and I'm going to be your waitperson today". Most of the waiters have been around for decades (My favorite came to work in 1963). Your waiter will always tell you what's fresh in the kitchen if you ask. Take the recommendation and you won't be disassppointed. The lamb chops are always magnificant. While the hous usually recommends a bernaise sauce with the chops, you migh try the marachad du vin for a delightful change. Everyone waits in line, so be prepared for a wait if you come during prime time. I usuall try to get there between three and four o'clock -- a marvelous time for a couple of bottles of champers, the Canapes Lorenzo appetizer (crabmeat in a bechamel sauce) and whatever's fresh that day. If you can only go to one tablecloth place is New Orleans, this is it. A bit if advice: Over the years, this place has loosened up its dress code at lunch, but coats and ties are de rigeur for men who want to blend in with the New Orleans business crowd, who are usually a little more welcome than others.

This place is a close to fifth star as it can get without having one. In a former grocery store in a relatively dangerous part of town, Lusco's invites you to set your watch back half a century and savor an era gone by. The rooms are private with tattered curtains, and there's a wall buzer for service. (This is a throwback to Mississippi's dry daus. The last state to remian dry, Mississippi didn't go wet until the 1960s. For years, rivers of brown-bagged, illegal whiskey flowed in the backrooms of Lusco's.) The partitioned cubicles are open at the top and the plave gets noisy under uts high ceiling. People use to routinely flip butter pats to the ciling, but that habit is now completely taboo. The food is very good -- man-sized steaks, shrimp and other delights as the seaspns change. Park your car withing sight of the security guard and live the life of a welathy planter during an age gone by.

Some things are just the way they are and this is one of them. You come to the Acme for Oysters on the Half Shell, period. Sure, they have other things on the menu, and most of it is pretty good, but half shells are the deal here. The place is a hole in the wall with neon everywhere, football jerseys and a sign by the stand-up oyster bar where the record number if oysters consumerd in recorded (30 dozen plus and counting). Bottom line: Oysters here get five stars, everything else gets three.

If you look behind the port cochere, itself sort of a 1960s relic, it's plain to see that this place started as a private home, then expanded in a willy-nilly fashion before ending up in its cuurent configuration. It's still simaewhat small, yet it's still very successful in a town that sprouted oversize steakhouses that finally gave way to the casin-operated restaurants. Through all of this, Gorat's kept doind what it's always done: namely, very good food at very fair prices. Steak is the main event here as opne might expect from a town that was once the beef capital of the USA. It's all good meat, it comes out the way you ordered it and it comes in the classic Omaha manner: with salad and potato AMD pasta. If you're truly hungry when you arrive, start with their onion rings (truly glorious).

This place is where just about every Ole Miss loyalist ends up sooner or later -- as much for old times' sake as for the highly overrated ribs. Rendezvous' ambience is at best basement dumpy. In the right spirit or owth the right amount of spirits consumed, it's possible to have a wonderful time in this landmark of hyperbole over cooking. Just remember to eat before you come.

This is one of those Tex-Mex places that seem to sprout up next to shopping malls all over America. The staff is so Mexican I think they'd stampede through the back door if someone yelled "Carta Verde!" The food is good. It is what you'd expect -- fajitas, chimichangas, quesadillas, and the like -- but it is for the most part fresh and good. The salsa has a nice gentle zip to it. The service has the problem of not being fluent speaking Bubba which can cause the occasions humorous miscommunication. The music leans toward the Mariachi, the decor toward the absurd, south of the border style. I love this place.