What better time to launch our new “My Favorite Things” feature than right smack in the holidays?

Well, there’s no room for confusion here. … A couple of months ago, Open Flame Bar and Grill opened at Poplar and Highland, serving Middle Eastern food. Earlier this month, Flames Mediterranean Grill opened on Highland, serving, um, you know. Middle Eastern food.

In April, Restaurant Iris turned 10 and in June, owner Kelly English shut it down for a complete re-do, the kind where walls get knocked down and menus tossed out. It was a gamble, a throw of the dice. Iris was beloved as it was and after my first visit, I wondered if the coin was going to land heads up.

Sakura has been serving big fat sushi rolls for about 30 years, and we all love 'em. From the crunchies on top of Pickwick to the Big Mac extravagance of the Joyce roll, we can’t stay away. I’m there about once a week and I know that many of you are too, because we say hello.

Open Flame Bar and Grill opened last month in the former Rock ‘n Dough at Poplar and Highland, but don’t get too excited about the first part just yet. The bar is still there but so far the only alcohol sold is beer.

When the weather turns chilly, we turn to soup. When it gets chilly and wet, very little beats a bowl of Vietnamese beef stew, pho no. 20, at Vietnam Restaurant on Cleveland.

Asian Eatery is the restaurant that started life as Tao Too and has changed its name a time or two. But it’s the same place with mostly the same menu it had when I ate my first bowl of Devil’s Nest Soup in 2010.

When the doors of Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen opened in 2008, the owners had a good idea where they’d be in 10 years but we diners did not. What we saw was a cozy Italian restaurant run by two baby-faced kids who surprised us by actually knowing what they were doing.

Gary Williams can cook and Memphians know it: We’ve been eating his mashup menu of Creole, soul and vegan food for 10 years now. But there have been some ups and downs – including a complete shutdown – in that time.

Nabbing a $10 deal at a Mexican restaurant for lunch doesn’t take much effort – go to just about any place in town. But Steak Monterrey at Las Margaritas in Cordova is heads above your typical tacos and tamales with rice and beans.

P.O. Press Public House and Provisions opened in Collierville on Monday and it’s fair to say that owners Jimmy Gentry and Chris Thorn have pulled together an excellent team and created a top-notch fine-dining restaurant with reasonable prices.

After a couple of weeks of serving a limited menu to invited guests, Ronnie Grisanti’s Italian Restaurant opens its big mahogany doors and its full menu to the public Friday, Sept. 28.

Almost everyone loves pizza, and Rock’n Dough Pizza + Brew Co. makes, hands down, one of the best in town. From the USA! USA! (always known in my family as LISA! LISA! because of a boxy font used at the closed Poplar and Highland location) to plain pepperoni to the superb and odiferous Garlic My Pie, the pizzas are solid from the crust up.

Pete & Sam’s celebrates its 70th anniversary this year in a spiffed up restaurant, thanks to the Bomarito brothers taking on local investor partners and a late 2017 fire that caused the place to close for almost five months for cleaning and updating.