Dining out on a regular basis incites a host of direct responses ranging from comfort and excitement to indifference and aggravation. No doubt, a year in review garners numerous cherries and sour grapes that I can’t always fit into a weekly restaurant review column. Below are a few of the culinary standouts (good and bad) culled from a 52-week stretch of poking my fork into the local bounty.

If you’ve never had authentic wiener schnitzel, this is the place to start. A surprising find in this neck of the woods, both food and ambience send you directly to the old Bavarian regions of Europe. Aside from pork and veal schnitzels, which are breaded, pan-fried meat filets garnished with fresh lemon, the restaurant serves up outstanding sour red cabbage, homemade spätzle noodles and kick-ass imported Gosser beer.

Just when you thought you’ve become familiar with all the fish today’s purveyors have to offer, the menu at Oceanaire comes along with a mind-boggling wave of choices served in a luxury ocean-liner theme that is sleek and retro. More than 25 varieties of fresh seafood are flown in daily from around the world.

I’ve sampled the nachos at more Mexican restaurants than I care to admit, and yet I’m stuck on the ones served at a fiercely American diner, of all places. Here, a blockade of warm, thin tortilla chips takes on scads of shredded roast beef made fresh daily, plus melted cheese and jalapenos that are evenly dispersed, and giant dollops of guacamole and sour cream. Put your head in the pile after a night of bar hopping, and you’ll scream, “Yeah, baby!”

Last year it was D.Z. Akins, and the year before City Deli. Now it’s at Del Mar’s palatial Jewish deli, where on two different occasions I paid a whopping $12 for a disheveled stack of wet and rubbery corned beef sliced into unappealing tongue-shaped strips. I’ve given up on ordering my favorite sandwich at Jewish delis in this town as I hold out for the wishful day that a place like Katz Deli in New York City opens a location nearby.

Aside from its stunning interior design, the food at Rama goes down in my book as serving the freshest and most colorful Thai food I’ve encountered all year. The restaurant marks the second kitchen for Alex Thao, who also owns Celadon in Hillcrest. At Rama, the menu is fatter and caters to the fine-dining set with elaborate presentations and more seafood entrées. Standout dishes include duck red curry, crab fried rice and crying tiger.

If you’re lured by thoughts of “Jackaroo” burgers and Aussie meat pies, you’ll find them here but swear they suffered during some long flight from the land down under. The “pub” is nothing more than a kicked-out greasy spoon that happens to serve a few Australian labels such as Tooheys New, Victoria’s Bitter and the all-too-familiar Foster’s Lager. Oh yeah, and there’s that vile Vegemite on the menu, too, which the PB jocks dare each other to eat after drowning themselves in Bud Light.

Restaurateur Tracy Borkum has done wonders with the old Laurel, turning it into a fashionable space that appeals to a wider age demographic and features a mutating menu of cutting-edge small bites and entrées that don’t disappoint.

Equally hip and upscale is JRDN restaurant in the new three-story Tower 23 hotel on the Pacific Beach boardwalk. The menu speaks well to carnivores with an appealing selection of meat and fish that take on a choice of rubs, butters and sauces. The beautifully lit atmosphere is clubby and the wait staff is pure eye-candy.

Words like “yummy” and “great” fill the vocabularies of BJ’s wait staff to an annoying degree when asking for the specifics about specialty beers, which could be better described by their complexities and blends. If you’re looking for a goodie-two-shoe, theme-park service experience, this is it. As for the burgers, sandwiches and “famous deep dish pizzas,” they don’t quite live up to the franchise’s motto, “It’s great to be here!”