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Si Bon is located on South Lamar in a comfortable old home. Step through the door and you find a warm, friendly atmosphere: happy customers tended by smiling staff. A cozy bar. White tablecloths, a comfy fireplace and lip-smacking aromas. Before you ever get to your table, Si Bon makes a good impression.

On 620, about halfway between Mansfield Dam and Lakeway, in Lakeway Plaza, is one of Austin's best pan-Asian restaurants. It's a small spot with limited seating and tiny tables turning out some of the finest Thai, Cambodian, Laotian, and Burmese cuisine around. As a matter of fact, they turn out the only Cambodian, Laotian, and Burmese cuisine in Austin, and it's not even on the menu!

The Paggi House opened in 1980, and immediately became known as one of Austin's most beautiful and best dining establishments. Twenty years later, the restaurant is still one of Austin's finest.

While it's obvious that hours of work making stocks, sauces, marinades, and custards go into the production of every meal at Siena, the end result is an array of hearty and robust peasant dishes elegant in their simplicity and true to their heritage.

"East Side Cafe is obviously doing something right," Chronicle Cuisines writer Rebecca Chastenet de Géry writes. "You don't draw waiting crowds continually for over a decade without conscious effort. The cafe's menu certainly isn't Austin's splashiest, but for many, the cafe simply feels right. There's no place like home."

Sure, complaining about the heat only makes it worse. A long string of 100 degree days presents an unsolvable problem but it just so happens that there's one summer problem we can solve. What to do about dinner on a day when the ambient blast furnace is stuck in the triple digits and operating any appliance hotter than a microwave is a sure sign of madness? Where to go, what to buy, how to put a tasty meal on the table without working up a sweat?

City Grill hasn't lost its stride, Barbara Chisholm writes. In its early days, it was one of a few spots in Austin that offered good dining in a sophisticated atmosphere. These days, the competition in that arena is considerably more intense, and yet it remains popular and perfectly in style. It's not an easy trick.

In a time when upscale restaurants most often crop up in high-traffic areas or clamoring urban districts, Zoot, a nine-year-old stalwart of the Austin scene, thrives on a sense of quiet seclusion and implied formality.

Friendly service, great food, and reasonable prices make Crescent City Beignets a quick fix for Cajun cravings.

Reviewing the Central Market Cooking School

The New American fare at The Range in Salado alone is worth the 45-minute drive from Austin.

The Chronicle food staff has scoured Austin in search of the city's best down-home eateries; they're served up within.

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