Best of Rochester 2008
- Best Appetizers:
- Best Bakery:
- Best Bar:
- Best Bar For Friendly Service:
- Best Barbecue Ribs:
- Best Barbecue Sandwich:
- Best Beer Selection:
- Best Bread:
- Best Breakfast:
- Best Brunch:
- Best Buffet:
- Best Business Lunch:
- Best Chinese Food:
- Best Coffee:
- Best Deli:
- Best Desserts:
- Best Down-Home Cooking:
- Best Fast Food:
- Best Hamburger:
- Best Happy Hour:
- Best Health Food:
- Best Ice Cream:
- Best Italian Food:
- Best Late-Night Dining:
- Best Margarita:
- Best Mexican Food:
- Best Mixed Drinks:
- Best Other Ethnic Food (Greek, Indian, Thai, etc.):
- Best Pizza:
- Best Pizza (Take-Out):
- Best Place for Live Music
- Best Place to Eat Outdoors:
- Best Restaurant for Kids:
- Best Romantic Ambience:
- Best Salad:
- Best Sandwiches:
- Best Seafood:
- Best Service:
- Best Single Food Item:
- Best Soup:
- Best Steak:
- Best Take-Out:
- Best Vegetarian Selection:
- Best New Restaurant:
- The One Restaurant Rochester Needs Immediately
- Best Restaurant:
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Best of Rochester 2008
Best Appetizers:
APPLEBEE'S When people talk Applebee's appetizers, they're talking the Appetizer Sampler: Mozzarella sticks with marinara, Cheese Quesadilla Grande, Boneless Buffalo wings
Best Bakery:
DAUBE'S BAKERY We could tell you about their cakes, and pies, and cookies. But here's all you really need to know: In the eight years of our Best Restaurants contest, Daube's has won Best Bakery eight times.
Best Bar:
WHISTLE BINKIES PUB Best Beer Selection + Best Bar for Friendly Service + Best Happy Hour + Best Place to Eat Outdoors (at the new south location) = Best Bar. For the fourth year in a row. 'Nuff said.
Best Bar For Friendly Service:
WHISTLE BINKIES PUB Owner Randy Lehman insists that potential new hires don't have to pass a friendliness test before getting a job offer.
Best Barbecue Ribs:
ROSCOE'S BBQ Slow-cooked (at 230-245 degrees for six to ten hours). Sauced-up (made fresh with real brown sugar and honey instead of the cheaper corn fructose the mass-manufacturers use
Best Barbecue Sandwich:
ROSCOE'S BBQ The shoulder cut of meat is smoked for 12 hours using hickory, cherry, and apple woods before it is seasoned with owner Steve Ross' blend of 12 spices.
Best Beer Selection:
WHISTLE BINKIES PUB Whistle Binkies is running out of room to store the more than 200 kinds of ale it now stocks for beer connoisseurs who come to the pub to sample
Best Bread:
GREAT HARVEST BREAD COMPANY Honey whole wheat is the store's signature bread, but also popular are specialties like cinnamon chip, flax oat bran, and popular in February white chocolate cherry swirl.
Best Breakfast:
PERKINS We've said it for six straight years: Two locations. Three dozen breakfasts. Six pancake dishes (the Pigs in a Blanket features three sausage links, each wrapped in a pancake). Seven omelets. 24 hours. 500 restaurants in 35 states.
Best Brunch:
THE HANGER BAR & GRILL Waffles and omelets made while you wait. Cheesy hashbrowns. French toast stacks oozing with syrup. Succulent carved ham (or turkey, roast beef, or pork loin).
Best Buffet:
THE GOLDEN CORRAL With 400-plus locations, Golden Corral has taken smorgasbording to a new level.
Best Business Lunch:
MICHAEL'S Thanks to the restaurant's ability to seat large groups, its roomy booths, and the fact that it is connected to the skyway system,Michael's is packed during the noon hour.
Best Chinese Food:
HUNAN GARDEN Opened in 1985, Hunan Garden has captured our Best Chinese Food top spot seven out of eight years. Hunan Garden's 125-plus dishes highlight China's four cuisine regions.
Best Coffee:
DUNN BROS You may go in for the 12 types of fresh-ground coffees, the nine different teas, or the 40-plus drinks ranging from espressos to Ice Cremas
Best Deli:
CITY MARKET Every appetite can be satisfied at this bustling downtown deli. You'll find hearty sandwiches on fresh-baked bread (see our write-up for Best Sandwiches), leaf and pasta salads (like the Asian shrimp and noodle salad), gourmet soups
Best Desserts:
BROADSTREET CAFE From any seat in the elegant Broadsteet Cafe, a fine diner can watch the pastry chef preparing their dessert, whether it be chocolate lava cake with homemade coconut sorbet, a creme brulee trio
Best Down-Home Cooking:
GRANDMA'S KITCHEN Grandma's Kitchen has captured the competitive comfort food category for three straight years. Breakfast is still a staple.
Best Fast Food:
CULVER'S Two words (or is it one word?): Butter Burger (or ButterBurger). And two more words: Frozen Custard.
Best Hamburger:
NEWT'S The nine different burgers on the menu are all individually hand-pattied with at least half a pound of meat ground by a local butcher and seasoned with a top-secret ingredient.
Best Happy Hour:
WHISTLE BINKIES The happiest hour in town, according to our voters, isn't really limited to just an hour or two. The imaginative daily specials at Whistle Binkies last all day and night!
Best Health Food:
BACKROOM DELI One of Rochester's best-kept secrets is the Backroom Deli, an 18-seat all-vegan (they serve no animal products or byproducts) restaurant located in the back of the Good Food Store Co-op.
Best Ice Cream:
COLD STONE CREAMERY Made fresh in every store every day, Cold Stone's premium ice cream is, in our mind, made even more premium with mix-ins
Best Italian Food:
VICTORIA'S After eight straight years as Best Italian Food, we're running out of things to say about Victoria's. With 220 unparalleled Italian dishes and 7,000 square feet of first-class Italian ambience, the choices at Victoria's can get a bit overwhelming.
Best Late-Night Dining:
REDWOOD ROOM Stairs from the street entrance take you down into the lower level of the old grocery warehouse-turned bistro/ coffeehouse.
Best Margarita:
FIESTA CAFE Man has been trying to perfect that magical blend of tequila, triple sec and citrus ever since that first margarita was served
Best Mexican Food:
DOS AMIGOS After six years as the runner-up in this hotly-contested category, Dos Amigos has finally taken the top spot for the Best Mexican Food.
Best Mixed Drinks:
MICHAELS From using the best filtered water for the ice in the drinks to bartenders who exude the kind of class and expertise you would have expected during the Golden Age of cocktails,
Best Other Ethnic Food (Greek, Indian, Thai, etc.):
ZORBA'S GREEK RESTAURANT With tangy appetizers like fasolia salad to calamari, juicy gyros, grilled suvlaki, and melt-in-your-mouth baklava, there are options for almost everyone in the casual, diner-style restaurant.
Best Pizza:
BILOTTI'S The flaky, crispy crust, mild tomato sauce and choice meat and vegetable toppings are tantalizing in their own right,
Best Pizza (Take-Out):
NICK-N-WILLY'S Nick-N-Willy's relies on gourmet touches like their small batch' dough, which is made fresh daily and uses 100 percent pure olive oil.
Best Place for Live Music
REDWOOD ROOM Every night of the week, a musician or two will be stationed in the corner of the Redwood Room, skillfully serenading diners with a range of tunes from jazz to acoustical to folk to blues.
Best Place to Eat Outdoors:
WHISTLE BINKIES ON THE LAKE Whistle Binkies on the Lake, with patio seating for almost 200 overlooking tiny Wood Lake, made quite a splash when it opened near Rochester Market Square in March of 2006.Customers can request outdoor seating anytime, but the patio really gets popular on summer nights when it's rockin' with live music.
Best Restaurant for Kids:
LEO'S HOMETOWN PIZZA The arcade at Leo's, complete with video games, Skee Ball, and a squirt-the-water-at-the-target-game, is like Vegas for the kiddies. There's also pizza, pop, a climber and slide, and the plucky mascot Leo.
Best Romantic Ambience:
REDWOOD ROOM More marriage proposals have occurred at The Redwood Room than at all the other Creative Cuisine Company restaurants, including sister restaurants Broadstreet Cafe, City Cafe, and Newt's. Redwood Room staff have hidden engagement rings in desserts and glasses of champagne.
Best Salad:
VICTORIA'S From the Blackened Chicken Salad (grilled chicken with cajun seasonings) to the Carpaccio di Manzo (paper-thin cured beef with capers), Victoria's 16 salads cover the gamut of greens and toppings. We're one of those people standingin line at noon at Victoria's Express on a regular basis.
Best Sandwiches:
CITY MARKET The best-selling sandwich at City Market (which also took honors for Best Deli Food) is the roast beef and smoked gouda on a Portugese bun with chipotle mayo.
Best Seafood:
RED LOBSTER For seven straight years, all we've had to do is update the stats: 680 restaurants. 145 million guests served last year alone.
Best Service:
MICHAELS The classic waitstaff attire, black knee-length skirts or black trousers, freshly pressed white shirts, black ties, sensible shoes, sets the service stage for the kind of expertise and attention you'd expect from the city's 56-year food favorite.
Best Single Food Item:
PRESCOTTS: STUFFED PORK CHOP The stuffed pork chop at Prescotts is made of the tenderest pork and is stuffed with mache, a delicate green leafy lettuce.
Best Soup:
PANERA Served with freshly-baked sourdough bread, Panera's soup ranges from the French Onion to the Fiesta con Queso to the downright Minnesotan (Chicken Wild Rice).
Best Steak:
OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE My wife and I order, during every single Outback visit, the same thing. Looking at the menu has become an inside joke. Why mess with perfection?
Best Take-Out:
CHINA STAR With a restaurant design that allows customers to watch the cooks fry and package orders while you wait, China Star caters to the take-out crowd.
Best Vegetarian Selection:
BACKROOM DELI Located in the back of the Good Food Store Co-op, the Backroom Deli is one of the few all-vegan restaurants.
Best New Restaurant:
GREEN MILL What started with the Green Mill Inn, a St. Paul soda fountain in the 1930s, has grown into 30-plus pizza-focused locations across the Midwest. Rochester's 6,800 square foot, 250-seat restaurant opened in August with a 120-item menu,
The One Restaurant Rochester Needs Immediately
CHILI'S Once again, our readers want their baby back baby back baby back. Our readers want their baby back baby back baby back.
Best Restaurant:
CITY CAFE When City Cafe opened in 2003, it was one of the first restaurants in Rochester to offer "New American" cuisine, which restaurateur Denise Villeneuve defines as "fresh ingredients with no ethnic boundaries."