Brooklyn's best budget restaurants

— -- Cost-conscious travelers can enjoy bountiful pleasure at mealtime if they choose their itineraries carefully and order smartly. To help with the planning, USA TODAY's Jerry Shriver regularly offers a menu of suggestions from a major destination.

Down-home dining: Profiles of cheap-eats classics

1. DuMont Burger 314 Bedford Ave.; 718-384-6127; dumontrestaurant.com

The name of this tiny no-frills restaurant in the Williamsburg neighborhood touts the sandwiches, but it's a side dish that steals the show: the meal-in-itself DuMac & Cheese, which almost lives up to its $14 price. It arrives in an oblong crock, topped with a glorious golden crust that protects a luscious mix of radiatore pasta, bacon and cheddar and gruyere cheeses. Once you dig in, you can't stop. Those burgers are very good, though not transcendent: The $12.50 DuMont comes on a grilled brioche bun with lettuce, tomato, red onion and pickles; a $9.50 mini version substitutes toasted ciabatta for the brioche (stick with the brioche, and be alert for overdoneness). Vegetarians can munch a $10 chickpea burger on brioche.

Top treat:DuMac & Cheese, $14

2. Beer Table 427 B Seventh Ave.; 718-965-1196; beertable.com

Anytime the entries on the brew list outnumber the seats, it's a very encouraging sign. In this Park Slope neighborhood outpost, it's 24 seats vs. 25-30 beers ($9 to $106 per bottle), almost all of them rare and/or exotic and chosen with connoisseurs in mind. The upscale snacks created to accompany those brews set the bar even higher: caramelized thick-cut bacon with salted potatoes ($10); German pork sausages with frisee, potatoes and dark mustard ($16); deviled eggs ($4); and especially a slice of rustic bread spread with olive oil and ricotta cheese and topped with roasted almonds and fruits (apricots, golden plums or whatever is in season) that have been stewed with onions and lemon to give them a savory bent.