Best place to brunch? Most romantic restaurant? Best Italian? Those other best of guides are way too general. Eat Me! is a guide to dining out in real life situations. Many of these are actual situations I have been asked to advise on. I’ll let you figure out which ones are real and which ones I made up.

Need advice on your situation? Email me at ganda [at] eatdrinkonewoman [dot] com. I’ll be happy to put your ass on parade too.

You're going to dump your boyfriend/girlfriend: You don't want a scene. But you do want an easy exit. You can go ahead and use one of your regular joints -- your partner certainly won’t want to return to the scene of their heartbreak. Go to Employees Only. It’ll be packed, and hopefully your partner won’t kick up such a fuss in front of so many strangers. Maybe you can get it over with while you’re still in the front room with all the yuppies who are most likely paying too much attention to themselves to notice your violin scene. After your newly ex-ed partner storms out, you can call your friends to come join you for a round of commiseratory cocktails. (Did I just make a word up?)

You think you're about to get dumped by your boyfriend/girlfriend. Chances are, your lover's feeling a little guilty for having led you on for as long as s/he has. Avoid your favorite restaurants or you'll have to relive your devastation every time you eat there. Also, you know you're going to make a scene so you better not embarrass yourself in front of people you have to see regularly. I say milk the situation and go swanky. Gramercy Tavern front room – not too romantic, but nice and pricy, and no reservations required. Make your lover buy you an expensive bottle of champs, drink it all yourself and make a scene. That copper bathroom has already caught some of my tears.

You want to tell your friend that you've been secretly dating his ex- for the last three months: You need a place where the people at the table next to you won't be listening in on your conversation. You need a nice long wine list, maybe some strong cocktails. And you want a public place where your buddy will have to suffer a modicum of embarrassment in the event that he decides to punch you in the face as you so deserve. You're in New York. You're not going to get four feet between each table. Your best strategy for nixing the eavesdroppers? A really loud restaurant. Mario Batali's Otto on 8th and 5th Ave. has a stupidly novel-like wine list to help you loosen up your tongue and build up the nerve to tell your friend about the affair you've been having. And there'll be plenty of people around to call the ambulance in case your buddy tries to beat the living crap out of you.

Your parents are coming to town. For some people, that might mean rolling into Jean-Georges in Trump Tower and taking advantage of daddy's black Amex. For a lot of us, though, that means suburban immigrants who think $8.95 all you can eat salad bar at Claim Jumper is a big splurge. Where do you go so you don’t have to call the paramedics to resuscitate your ‘rents from sticker shock? New York Noodletown. It’s an honest to goodness New York institution, you can show your parents how cosmopolitan you are by ordering soft shell crabs, and the bill will be reasonable enough that you can treat your hard-working folks for the same amount you might normally pay your local bartender on a Friday night.

You have a secret date with your ex-, unbeknownst to your current partner. You'd love to make out with him, but you really can't afford to get caught by your friends and co-workers, your ex’s friends and co-workers, or your partner’s friends and co-workers. It’s hard to hide in this city. Your best best bet would probably be a Latino bar in Sunnyside or anywhere in the Bronx. But I say go to Angel’s Share on 9th St. Okay, the place isn’t entirely unknown. But it is on the second floor, behind a restaurant, and it is not currently on the hipster radar. And if you ask for the room behind the bar, behind the closed curtain, you might just get the whole room to yourself. It’s fun to order old-school cocktails like the Diablo and the Mai Tai, expertly made with the proper glasses and enormous ice cubes. I bet those inscrutable vest-wearing Japanese bartenders can keep your secret.

You're meeting a bunch of friends for dinner. One's a vegetarian, one's allergic to shellfish, one only eats red meat, one only eats foods that are white. Wow, your friends are a mess. You can’t please everyone, but you can try and give them lots of options. Dressler’s consistently delicious take on Modern American features dishes suited for many kinds of palates. It’s especially good for the pescatarians, as there are three or four different fish options on the menu. And your white food friend is in luck – the pale smoked sturgeon on potato galette is one of the best dishes on the menu.

You're meeting your friend for brunch on Sunday morning but he's a lazy bum who can't get up before 11 on the weekend. Don’t bother with the insane, rage-inducing lines at your normal coffee and mimosa joints. The brunch at City Bakery is always delicious – you can get savories or sweets, coffee or iced tea, or all of the above, any time before 4 p.m. And two levels of serve yourself seating means you won’t have to leave your name with a harried maitre d’ to get a table. When your friend calls again to say he’ll be half an hour late, you can order a cappuccino and make a fruit and granola parfait from the yogurt bar while you wait.

Your foodie friends are coming in from San Francisco. You think New Yorkers are narcissistic? S.F. foodies are the most difficult to impress motherfuckers on earth. Where do you take them? Lombardi’s. Cali may have plenty of wood-fired ovens, sprightly organic produce and lovingly nursed poultry, but you still can’t get good New York style pizza in the Bay Area. Added points in the foodies’ minds for taking them to the oldest pizzeria in the nation. If they still prefer deep-dish from the East Bay’s Zachary’s, kick them out of your apartment and send them back to touchy feely land.

Your fashiony friend is coming in from L.A. She could give a shit about food -- what she wants is style and status. But you don't want to waste your money on some overpriced celeb joint just so she can be seen. Your compromise? Balthazar, bien sur. Their chicken liver foie gras mousse with grilled bread is one of the most delicious dishes in the city. You can pick off your friend’s salad with roasted beets, perfectly cooked haricots verts and fourme d’ambert while she cranes her neck for a glimpse at that lanky Brazilian model from the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Slurp down fine Kumamotos and a few glasses of Veuve together and bask in a little New York glamour for once in your life, you shlub.

You're meeting up with a guy you used to know in college. Maybe you made out with him during college under the influence of alcohol at an Alice in Wonderland party on Greek Row before you puked three Dixie cups of Bud Light on his Air Maxes. He's trying to be flirty over email but you want to make sure he knows that this is NOT a date. Try Da Andrea. The homey Italian food is filling and delicious, the place is brightly lit, and tabletops are nice and roomy so if he tries to grab your hand from across the way, you’ll have plenty of time to jerk it back and get the check.

You're broke. Not $10 worth of sashimi broke. I mean really broke. Like almost at the overdraft limit and won't get paid for three days broke. You already dipped into your Thailand trip fund and rolled all your change because you’ll be damned if you’re giving Coinstar 9 cents on the dollar. Buy a pupusa and a tamale jarocho from Ines Bakery in Sunset Park. This new neighborhood gem is one of my latest discoveries. Pupusas are each hand-patted masa patties and filled with either cheese, beans or chicharron (fried pork bits). Each are the size of a small corn tortilla and the thickness of a Shake Shack hamburger patty, and they come served with tub of hot sauce and a cup of piquant sauerkraut for only $1.50. Tamales jarochos are huge, filled with spicy chicken and steamed in plantain leaves with hoja santa, a fragrant shiso-like dried herb for only $1. Eat it at the counter or take it home in a foam container. Even better, Ines Bakery is the only place in my hood that I know of that stays open 24 hours. Another great option is the carts in Chinatown by the East Broadway stop, where $1 can get you a foam box of steamed rice noodles doused in sesame sauce, soy, and hot sauce, sprinkled with a few sesame seeds and topped with a couple of fish balls. This is the breakfast of champions, but it makes a pretty good poor man’s dinner too. And if you’ve still got a dollar left, you can walk up Essex a bit and buy 5 dumplings for $1 while you watch the experts roll each circle of dough out with a Lilliputian rolling pin. You can’t buy entertainment like that. No tipping necessary.

You got a little raise and you want to celebrate. Alone. Do yourself a favor and take yourself to Sushi of Gari. Sit at the bar and order omakase in front of the master. Shabu shabu toro swished in garlicky soy, pristine mackerel, tiny, inky amaebi (sweet shrimp), hamachi with jalapeno – it’s Nobu without the attitude, and you can get full with sushi and kitchen dishes for about $100. Just don’t go too early or the Upper East Side kids stopping at the sushi bar with their nannies for an afternoon snack will depress you.