1. Most Robotic Experience

In July, I sample pizzas baked in a vending machine in an Entertainment District parking lot. Pizza Forno loads uncooked pies inside the machine’s refrigerated compartment. When a customer places an order on the touchscreen, a robotic arm moves the pie into the oven, then boxes it and slides it through the slot.

Hot, fast and available 24/7, the pizza is surprisingly decent ($11 to $14).

The same cannot be said of the cake slices dispensed by Carlo’s Bakery machines. These cake ATMs, launched last month in the PATH, hold refrigerated products from TV’s “Cake Boss,” Buddy Valastro Jr.

The $8.99 slices are shipped in from New Jersey but could easily come from your local supermarket. Pasty and sugary. Not worth lining up for.

2. Best Legacy

Hearkening back to a simpler time is Athens Restaurant on Danforth Avenue, a Greek restaurant where you enter the kitchen to see what to order.

This is how it was done in the 1970s and ’80s, when we let our senses guide us instead of the menu.

These days, “some people think it’s weird,” says second-generation owner George Avgeropoulos.

I don’t understand. Transparency is good.

3. Most Flavourful

Even without the security guard on weekend nights, King Tandoori impresses.

A Punjabi family restaurant with four GTA locations, its flavour outstrips the decor. It is also the only restaurant I rated four stars, or “outstanding,” in 2019.

I ate tandoori quail at midnight at Brampton’s 24/7 Kennedy Road South location. At the original Rutherford Road location, there were stuffed flatbreads and complex curries for lunch. Even the raw vegetables to reset the palate between bites — white radish, red onions and carrots dressed in anise and onion seeds — are amazing.

4. Most Amusing Menu

In this or any other year, that title goes to Storm Crow Manor, the Church Street restaurant by and for nerds.

So seriously does the restaurant take genre entertainment that its Star Fleet drinks menu contains a Harry Potter Butterbeer “that will have you speaking Parseltongue in no time.”

The food menu is equally full of clever sci-fi/fantasy/comic references. There are Teenage Mutant Ninja Pickles, Rebel X-Wings and a French Dip de Monsieur Mallah. The Optimus Prime rib is both a proper slab of beef and a good pun.

5. Biggest Bust

In a one-star review of Neruda in May, I called the Ashbridge’s Bay restaurant “dismal,” “a disaster” and a “hot mess.”

Owner Alex Haditaghi served a libel notice.

This happened to me once before, with the now-defunct Centro Grill and Wine Bar in 2002. Centro dropped the matter after we published a clarification that the review “did not intend to suggest that any food served ... was spoiled.”

This time, the Star’s lawyer Bert Bruser tells me the column is fine. No one has greater latitude to express opinions than a critic — as long as the critic gets her facts right.

6. Best fish

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As much as I liked Anna Chen’s whole fried sea bass at Alma, 1194 Bloor St. W., in March, the winner by a fin is Churrasqueira Martins and Grill House at 605 Rogers Rd.

Martins uses hot charcoal, organic sea salt and its own olive oil to grill whole fish just so. Fresh specimens sit on ice in a small display case: Greek farmed sea bream, fluke from Florida and black scabbard fish from Madeira.

Simple food, done well.

7. Lushest Room

Both Arthur’s in midtown and Harry’s Steak House in the Kingsway brought big bucks, and baller style, to their dining rooms. But it was Donna’s many plants that made the most memorable design statement.

Greenery fills the west-facing window inside the Wallace Emerson restaurant. Co-owner Ann Kim is the green thumb behind the potted pileas, succulents, philodendrons and reddish Hawaiian ti plants. The glossy leaves contrast nicely with the white walls.

Sustainable and beautiful, a good combo.

8. Best Vicarious Eating

North York restaurant Pho Anh Vu serves food from across Vietnam.

Chef Hana Vu comes from Ho Chi Minh City in the south. Husband Michael Vu is from Hanoi in the north, which is where Barack Obama once sat down with Anthony Bourdain for a meal in “Parts Unknown.”

The dish they ate, Hanoi bun cha, is on Vu’s menu. Juicy pork patties and grilled pork belly slices sit in a bowl of tangy sauce. A skein of thin rice noodles sits to one side, a bouquet of fresh herbs to the other. The idea is to “dip and stir and get ready for the awesomeness,” as Bourdain instructed the-then Leader of the Free World. Follow his lead for a vicarious presidential thrill.

9. Most Memorable Chef

When Jenna Iacutone emailed me about her husband, a Buddhist monk-turned-chef, I knew it was a story.

Tsering Phuntsok and his Parkdale restaurant Garleek Kitchen didn’t disappoint. There is monk bread on the menu and joy in the air.

He’s unlike any chef I’ve encountered. He learned to cook over yak dung fires in Tibet then joined a monastery at age eight. His tiny kitchen is entirely free of Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” swagger.

10. The Ultimate Meal

Last month’s review of Eataly in the Manulife Centre at Bay and Bloor streets turned out to be my last review meal for the Star. The restaurant critic job is now done like dinner as the newspaper redeploys its resources to better serve readers.

It’s been a wonderful run of almost 18 years. Thank you for joining me. Happy eating!