This mixed-use development is a strip of über-contemporary industrial design with an angular vertical emphasis containing luxury lofts, shops (Virgin Megastore, Urban Outfitters, pictured above, Bath & Body Works and more), restaurants (Cafe Patrique, Cafe Express, Rockfish and more) and the eight-screen Angelika Film Center & Café that features art films. This is a strip mall urban village industrial collage jumble that's just plain cool.

No place in the metroplex, maybe the universe, has the selection of buttons that you'll find at Pursley Discount Fashions. From designer to your everyday plastic, all sizes and shapes, ranging from 2 cents up. There are tens of thousands to choose from. If you sew and are looking for notions, this place is like a trip to Disneyland. While you're there, you'll also be impressed with the selections of designer fabrics at discount prices and ladies' sample clothing.

Outlet stores being what they are--discounted, picked-over merchandise that didn't sell well the first time around--it's hard to gush about this genre of retail. But Nordstrom brings in its goods fresh from its main stores several times a week, and the discounts are deep enough to make being slightly out of fashion, fashionable. The Rack is a Nordstrom-in-miniature, selling everything from swimwear to underwear to ready-to-wear. But it's the well-stocked supply of name-brand footwear that makes bargain hunting worth the hunt.

You can try all the discounts and chains. But when you have cleaning residue mucking up your carpets, call these guys. They don't stop until the water from their machines runs clear and your carpets are clean. And, well, that's what rug cleaners should do. Right? Clean your rugs. See the reason they are designated "best"? Good. Then have your rugs cleaned. So there.

For those of you who wouldn't think of squirting even every now and then from a bottle of WeedBGon, this is the store for you. They know how to do everything the right, organic way. Compost your hearts away, and pick up your ladybugs and a few good plants while you're at it.

Just the right size (pretty darned big but not overwhelming), owned and run by a family, easy to get to (Abrams and Gaston), the right mix of staff (grown-ups who know stuff, kids to load your car): Lakewood Hardware is still the best. You will almost never leave without the gizmo you need. You will never leave mad. Some people never want to leave at all.

There's no downtown-area grocery store, a major albatross for development hopes in Dallas' near-abandoned skyscraper zone. Adventurous urbanites downtown and in Deep Ellum must slog the distance to faraway groceries to stock their fridges and pantries. At least there's Henry Street Market. Lacking the requisite beer, lotto or cigarette come-ons in its front windows, you may overlook this humble Deep Ellum storefront. But inside are goodies you need in between shopping forays--Tostitos, toothpaste, pickles, cake mix, fresh fruit, Maxim magazine--and a few dry goods not normally partial to quick-stop joints: candles, picture frames and something called Ayurvedic soap.

After you sign your apartment lease, do not pass go and collect $200. Instead, point your large automobile toward Deep Ellum and cruise over to Home Concepts, the one-stop shopping location for futons, CD racks, couches, lights, computer desks and whatnot. The eclectic and large selection of merchandise is very affordable and not at all stodgy. Also good for decorating the college dorm room or (shudder) the condo.

Sure, you've got your young bucks, trying to get to the top of the courthouse food chain, winning trials and making names for themselves on the backs of baby prosecutors who are still cutting their teeth on DWI cases. But there is something reassuring about choosing George Milner to represent you. No one can evaluate a case as well as Milner; no one can analyze the collective passions and thought processes of a jury as well as Milner. What he lacks in flash and youth, he makes up for in finesse and wisdom. If you are in big trouble and you have big money, he is still the man in town to see.

This is the real thing. An original. In business for more than 100 years, Rudolph's looks like a meat market should--big and echoing--and has enough fine aged beef and sausage on hand to gag a tiger. In the long L-shaped counter are strip steaks and made-on-the-premises sausages that are wholesaled to barbecue joints across the state. The filet mignons--cut as thick as you want at $18 a pound--bring your backyard grilling up to four-star standards. The hot dogs and spicy sausages make you swear you'll start working on that diet next week.