Harvey

Perino's ranks highest in my casual count of men wearing white T-shirts in sit-down restaurants. In a boiled seafood house, this is a good sign. Boiled seafood is messy, and you don't want to wear your best tie while pulling a crab apart. The people who most love boiled seafood know this, and keep the restaurant focused.

Esplanade Ridge

Grab some chips and dig into the superb and offbeat salsa (it has a slightly smoky flavor). It's good enough that you will go for a second ration, for which you will have to pay extra--but probably without complaint. Margaritas and guacamole are excellent in their turns. After that, pretend you're in a gourmet bistro. Time for mussels, calamari, steaks, racks of lamb, big flanks of fish, and no small number of other specialties that might not remind you of anything Mexican. But so what? We let Italian and French restaurants get away with that. So why not Creole-Mexican?

Uptown 4: Riverbend, Carrollton & Broadmoor