Tables

We turned up on a rainy night with no reservation and no expectations, and they walked us to the chef's table. That night we happened to get the best seat in the house.

Honolulu's Chinatown feels alive, which I can't say for a lot of Chinatowns across America — and Senia is the place to grab a table, or better yet, a seat at the bar.

I'm not even a big pasta eater, but the lemon ricotta ravioli got me before I'd taken a bite — candlelight, a record player, and pasta drying in the window.

There is something I really like about places that don't make a big fuss about themselves — the corn-and-masa offshoot of Pujol is one of those places.

Pretty red-tinged lanterns and little bistro tables on the street — where I'd start a Condesa evening, with a drink at Lounge Fernando.

Tables spilling onto the leafy street, and bluefin tuna from the Gulf of Baja. If you see it on a menu, order it.

They really know how to do sauces here. They aren't an afterthought. They are what make the dishes. Take a seat at the bar.

Enrique Olvera's two-Michelin-starred flagship, where we had my birthday lunch. Noah has been dying to try the mole madre forever. It did not disappoint.

I love anything that feels like a secret. A hidden supper club down a residential soi in On Nut, no ordering required — just Dylan's food, Chow's company, and a long conversation about curry.

Our favorite meal on the North Shore wasn't at a restaurant at all — poke from Foodland, eaten on the rocks behind the fire station, with the best snorkeling we'd found right there.

Three blocks from our apartment in Casco Viejo. So, naturally, we went. And then we went back. And then we went back again. It became our place.

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Nosara's coastline was protected from development, which is why so few tables look at the ocean — and why La Luna, above its little rocky cove, is worth booking ahead.