​As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

No. 1: Trout Amandine from Rack's Downtown Eatery + Tavern

How do you pick something like the number-one dish out of a list of 100 greats? To me, it's got to boil down to something unexpected and memorable -- a dish that stays
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As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

No. 2: Gnocchi from Caruso Ristorante

 Alchemy is the ancient "science" of turning lead into gold. Culinary alchemy is the modern art of turning potatoes, eggs and flour into gnocchi. I know, you've eaten gnocchi at places other than Lillo Teodosi's charming little Boca ristorante and you believe it's really Italian for, "Oh, shit, I've got a giant dough barbell sitting in my stomach." Those are bad gnocchi. Caruso's gnocchi are wondrous--light, delicate, fluffy pillows of finely mashed potato combined with as little egg and flour as possible and then kneaded for just as long as it takes to make a dough. The starchiness of the potatoes, the precise amount of egg and flour, the precise amount of kneading, the feel of the dough, every one of those has to be taken into account and mastered before dough barbells become featherly lumps of deliciousness. They're usually served with a classic Bolognese sauce but ask Teodosi and he'll whip up a wicked gorgonzola cream sauce, which incites its own personal bit of alchemy: making an entire plate of gnocchi disappear. 

Caruso Ristorante
187 SE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton

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Follow Clean Plate Charlie on Facebook and on Twitter: @CleanPlateBPB.

​As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

No. 3: Seared Wahoo from 3030 Ocean

The amazing thing about Fort Lauderdale's 3030 Ocean is the deftness with which the restaurant puts local seafood and produce on display. Take the seared wahoo,  More >>

As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

No. 4: Gyu San  from Kubo Asiatic Cuisine

​ Meat, heat, eat. Even a few gazillion years after Og the Caveman bashed a woolly mammoth upside the head and roasted the chops over an open fire, that's still the basic equation of steak cookery. And while most everyone (at least of the carnivorous persuasion) can appreciate a big, thick hunk o' tender, beefy love, we all have to admit it can get pretty boring. More >>

Photo by C. Stiles

​As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

"Pizza is the Cheers rerun of the food world," my friend once told me as we were sampling a slice at Pizzeria Oceano. I paused for a minute to consider the comment before he explained. "Ninety percent of both are completely average. Satisfactory."
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As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

No. 6: Dover Sole from La Cigale

With food as with many things, simple pleasures are almost always the best. Take the whole Dover sole at Francis Touboul's casually elegant Delray Beach restaurant. It has only marginally more moving parts than a rock. There's a pristinely fresh Solea solea, a big gray flatfish that resembles a pieplate with eyes. There's a gloriously rich, creamy, tangy lemon butter sauce. There's a cook who prepares the fish--whole, on the bone--so the delicate, flaky, buttery flesh soaks up every bit of sea-sweet flavor. There's a server who expertly debones the succulent result at your table, placing the snowy filets on your plate and drizzling them with the golden sauce. Then there's you, who inhales every last morsel, sucks up every drop of sauce, then leans back to revel in simple pleasure at its very best. 

La Cigale
253 SE Fifth Ave., Delray Beach

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Follow Clean Plate Charlie on Facebook and on Twitter: @CleanPlateBPB.

​As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

I have a request for you, Mr. Italian Restaurant Server. Please, don't tell me about the branzini you flew in from the Mediterranean for tonight's special. I don't care about the
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As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

No. 8: Truffle-Parmesan Fries from Il Mercato

The potato is a culinary chameleon. Roast it, bake it, boil it, fry it. Puree it with butter and cream and you have everyone's favorite mashers. More >>

​As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

Steve Martorano is as divisive a culinary figure as we have in South Florida. He's brash and bold, unquestionably showy, and his food is ostentatiously pricey,More >>

As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

No. 10: Tuna Ceviche With Tomatillo Broth From Cabo Flats

Have you noticed the relationship between ceviche and the kitchen sink? Really. Take a look at your kitchen sink. There's probably a couple of bowls in it, a couple of plates. Some utensils. A few glasses. More >>