Perhaps you’re not from these parts—or maybe you’re just plain lazy. Either way, you don’t usually do Thanksgiving. But you should this year, as Bouchees Bistro at Smooth’s offers a three-course turkey dinner for $24.95. Start with a goat cheese and baby-greens salad (with candied walnuts and a citrus vinaigrette); continue with oven-roasted turkey and [...]

Lunch is the best time to actually eat at Ma ’n Pa. In the afternoon, the grocery provides crucial convenience—there are the aforementioned dishes, as well as prewrapped sandwiches and ready-to-eat items that fit right into your lunch break. But Ma ’n Pa is just as good for dinner. Instead of eating in, drop by [...]

Danessi doesn’t dull the Peruvian skewer experience—the signature anticuchos here are threaded with slices of beef heart. While other restaurants spear only American-approved options like chicken or kinder cuts of beef, Danessi shoots straight to South America. For those fearful of any kind of offal, know that the heart is harmless—off the grill, the charred [...]

Although Kagura is full of small plates, it’s still best to start with a natural appetizer. The monkfish liver in ponzu sauce and Jidori chicken salad are both admirable beginnings, although the most elegant choice is the house-made tofu. Like all of Kagura’s dishes, the tofu is exceptionally simple, nothing but a few quivering blocks [...]

Baba Ghanouj is an admirable lunch destination, offering daily specials that pull from some of the more neglected corners of Lebanese cuisine. On Tuesdays, there’s eggplant stuffed with lamb and pine nuts in a light tomato sauce. On Wednesdays, there’s bami, a baby okra, cilantro, garlic and lamb stew. Even if you don’t opt for [...]

If it’s lunch, the Whale & Ale pretty much has your every craving covered—unless you skew toward smaller plates. Here, even the entrée salads read like mini-buffet tables. Included among such selections as an herb chicken breast salad, a miso slow-roasted duck salad, a baked swordfish salad and a cilantro salmon salad is the roast [...]

The quintessential plates here all originate on the grill. It’s there that the restaurant offers the greatest variety of fish, each option aimed at a different kind of diner. For fish first-timers, there’s trout, a couple of thin filets cooked to a flaky finish. (Halibut works just as well for entry-level eating.) A second or [...]

Some restaurants serve timid versions of the the torta ahogada, their bolillos barely coated in the customary chile de árbol sauce. But at La Chiva Loca, the sandwiches aren’t so much French dipped as they are actually drowned—they arrive almost floating in thatched baskets that are ahogada-proofed with a plastic liner to keep your hands, [...]

There aren’t any overstuffed links of sai krok or fleshy jackfruit curries at Tantalizingly Thai, but the rest of the usual northeastern staples are represented: larb, som tam, nam tok and all the salad-like dishes required to claim a connection to northeastern Thailand. Because of their shared heritage, many of these plates rely on similar [...]

For the most part, Habana Café’s main plates are reliably good. Dishes like ropa vieja (threads of shredded beef) and lechón asado (roasted pork cut with onions) are easy to like—simple, hearty meats bereft of heat but not of flavor. Similarly, arroz con pollo is another pleasant pick: chicken lodged in a pile of rice [...]