This year we went all micro in our Best Restaurants issue, laser-focusing coverage down to individual bites from specific plates of food that are, after all, where rubber hits road for a diner.

I’ve never had such a great time putting together a food package. Ever.

I began by unspooling memories from 52 glorious weeks of dining out, which brought a few great bites instantly to the surface. The smoky rib-eye steaks, or chuleton de buey, that come off the fire at Bar Sajor.  The perfect crunchy fries at the Wurst Place. The pink muhammara dip, bursting with fruit and spice, at Mamnoon. The ridiculously fine chocolate chip mint ice cream, alive with fresh mint, at Poppy.

Next I pulled out all of the year’s dining files, paging through the notes I surreptitiously scribble for every review, in search of my telltale tag of greatness: the all-caps exclamation. WOW, I’d scribbled beside my description of Crumble and Flake’s cheddar and smoked paprika croissant. OMIGOD I’d written (I think; there were big red stains all over the paper) on my notes about the raspberry jam buttermilk biscuits at Wandering Goose. PERFECT, I’d penned beside my long description of the salt cod okonomiyaki with romesco at Gastropod. And alongside the description of the spicy rice cake with pickled mustard greens at Joule—a simple, declarative HOLY CRAP.

In research for some of the year’s other restaurant packages, I’d found greatness in unexpected places. Researching our February seafood issue led me to the exquisite oven-roasted branzino with arugula-fennel salad at Branzino. The swoony gnocchi with black truffle cream from List came right out of my research for our April “Barstaurants” package. The vanilla malt at 8oz. Burger Bar was the direct result of grueling field work done for our Top Burgers cover.

Check out my picks for the 50 best bites of 2013. It was a very, very good year.