You are over the long lists of ingredients and fusion cooking in fanciful presentation and hungry for a pork chop or striped bass, fixed simply but elegantly with perfect side dishes and killer sauces.

You want to dine in a modern restaurant that's gracious and sophisticated without a lot of hand-kissing and Continental airs.

You've dined in too many theme parks and you're curious to see how the plainest space, a former Applebee's, can be remade into sophisticated rooms that are spacious and cozy at the same time.

In short, Tampa Bay area diners and restaurateurs who want a contemporary helping of good taste should check out Zazarac. Yes, it would be nice to have more independent restaurants this sharp, but you'll like what big corporate bucks can buy when they are well-spent.

Zazarac has some trademark New Orleans pleasures such as tasso ham, andouille gumbo, the addictive kiss of absinthe in the oysters and a signature Sazerac cocktail. But its ultimate taste is a tradition of fine dining and sophistication that New Orleans has year-round.

Chi Fai's Gourmet

531 Main St., Dunedin

(727) 736-7457

Hin Lee Malaysian-Chinese Restaurant

1757 Main St.; Dunedin

(727) 736-3366

David Yong put it in the red and gold lettering outside his new restaurant to make sure that we know he's trying to make a distinction in his food: It's Hin Lee Malaysian-Chinese Restaurant.

When Chi Fai Kemp and her husband arrived from Hong Kong, she made sure that the sign on her six-table restaurant said "Gourmet."

Hin Lee's crackling salted shell-on shrimp and Chi Fai's homemade noodles with eggplant speak louder to the Nibbler and made the same point. Both are attempts by restaurateurs to announce that their places are more than the average Chinese restaurant.

Although Chi Fai Kemp came to Dunedin from Hong Kong, her heritage is from Shanghai, and she has a penchant for the wheat flour of the north. She renders their regional flavors with such authenticity, the host warns/brags that this is not the Chinese food you know.

Barely a mile away at Hin Lee, the taste is different because the owner's version of Chinese was born 2,000 miles to the southwest of Shanghai on the Malay peninsula in the crosscurrents of Chinese, Thai and Indian cooking.

The dishes are not highlighted on the menu, most of which is familiar Chinese-American fare, including a lunch buffet. But if you ask, the servers are thrilled to round up their specialties.

Satay, skewers of meat with a punchy peanut sauce and crab angles, pasta pillows with a crab and cheese filling, will seem familiar; others will be impressively different.

Buca di Beppo

11511 N Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa

(813) 962-6673

There are ample reasons to like Buca di Beppo, the new good-time Italian restaurant in Carrollwood. Everything about the place, the 37th unit of a theme restaurant chain, is more than ample: the photo-clogged decor, the 18-seat tables, half-pound meatballs and SRO crowds.

The true surprise in the food is its high quality. That's the beauty of the southern Italian gimmick: It's food we like, and Buca does it with gusto, modern nods to fresh ingredients and too much uncooked garlic.

The best in my book was veal limone, four remarkably tender medallions, with a light lemon cream, served on a platter of cannellini beans and escarole. Bravo for vegetables. Buca wisely offers beans and greens in tomato sauce as a side dish ($7.95 for a big bowl, worth it if your entree doesn't include them. You'll try this at home.)

Children of all ages will enjoy Buca and want to go back at least once to revel in what grumpier grown-ups consider artificial, contrived fun.

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