Don't leave without these.

Vijay Kumar cooks the Tamil village food that never made it onto Manhattan menus: heat, sour, ferment, whole spice. It is the one starred restaurant in the city where the star feels beside the point.

OrderGunpowder dosai to start, nathai pirattal (snails, Chettinad-style) if you're willing, and the goat curry with parotta to finish. Eat the parotta with your hands.

Atomix's little sibling, and the better place to understand what the Park family does: Korean banchan logic applied to a short, sharp set menu at a third of the price. Every plate is built around one seasoning done exactly right.

OrderThe set menu — pick three from the list and let the table share. Whatever the current fried chicken or eggplant plate is, don't skip it.

Punjabi club cooking — the food of the Delhi and Lahore members' clubs — done with real technique and no restraint on ghee, char or spice. Newer than everything else on this roll and already the Indian table I send people to first.

OrderStart with the kebabs from the grill, then the butter chicken and dal, with the tandoor breads while they're still puffing. Save room for the kulfi.

Fidel Caballero cooks northern Mexico — Chihuahua flour tortillas, sotol, smoke — with a technique that looks east as often as south. New, starred, and still improving month to month.

OrderThe tasting menu. Whatever else comes, the flour tortillas alone justify the reservation.

A Tijuana-style taco counter that happens to be in a tourist market. The adobada comes off a vertical spit, the tortillas are made in front of you, and nothing on the menu costs more than a coffee.

OrderAdobada on a flour tortilla, with everything. Add a nopal taco. Eat standing up; there are no chairs.

The cart the office towers around Bryant Park queue for at lunch, and the one that outcooks the famous name ten blocks north. The chicken is marinated properly, the rice is yellow with real spice, and the white sauce isn't an afterthought.

OrderChicken over rice, white sauce heavy, red sauce on the side so you control it. Ask for the mixed if you want the lamb too.

Rawia Bishara's Palestinian kitchen is worth the R train to Bay Ridge. Home cooking with the depth of a restaurant — sumac, pomegranate, lamb, and the vegetable dishes that most places treat as afterthoughts.

OrderMusakhan (sumac chicken on taboon bread), lamb fetti, and the fried Brussels sprouts with tahini, which are the reason half the room came.

Hand-made pasta from one region, done properly, in a room that stays out of the way. The egg-dough plates here are the best in Manhattan; the ragù is cooked the slow way and tastes like it.

OrderThe Grand Tour of Emilia-Romagna pasta tasting. Solo, the tagliatelle al ragù bolognese and the tortellini in brodo.

The Flushing soup dumpling room that the Manhattan copies are measured against. Thin skins, hot broth, a wait that moves. Bring people who will finish a basket.

OrderCrab-and-pork xiao long bao, a basket of the plain pork, and the scallion pancake. Lift, bite, drink the soup, then eat.

Uncle Boons' owners rebuilt their restaurant as a diner and somehow made it better. Thai food at diner hours, with a Bib to prove the kitchen never dropped its standards.

OrderThai disco fries and the Thai tea babka French toast for brunch; the khao soi at night. The egg sandwich is a sleeper.