MONTGOMERY — “Baked Grits” at Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham and “ribs and white bread” at Dreamland in Tuscaloosa are just a sampling of the dishes shown in photographs on the Alabama Tourism Department's new website.

 The dishes are listed in the updated version of the “100 Dishes to Eat Before You Die” brochure which will be available for download later this month.

“The new website is top-notch and we are sure it will be a great experience for those seeking the great culinary dishes our state has to offer,” said Lee Sentell, tourism director. “We think it offers something for every taste whether it’s fine dining, a meat-and-three buffet, or BBQ. It’s also a great way for folks to search the 300 plus food events happening in 2012.”

Alabama’s top restaurants can be explored from its small towns to its biggest cities. Visitors to the site can find a restaurant among the more than 250 listings by city or they can search by cuisine type. The site also introduces some of Alabama’s top chefs. The bios and stories include

Wesley Tru in Mobile, Frank Stitt and Chris Hastings of Birmingham, and James Boyce of Huntsville.

For fresh produce a search feature on the site allows visitors to search for Famers Markets across the state from Pepper Place in Birmingham, to Mobile’s Market on the Square and Madison’s City Farmers Market. A click on the map will help locate more than 130 markets across 67 counties.

For travelers wanting to take in the sites and great food the website offers five culinary trails from each region of the state. The Coastal Cuisine trail offers fresh Gulf Coast seafood while the Heartland Trails takes travelers from historic restaurants to college towns with down home cooking and BBQ. The Lower Alabama trail offers a variety of eats in the Mobile area, the Magic City Trail offers everything from meat and threes to fine dining in Birmingham, and the North Alabama trail takes diners through Huntsville and the Shoals will offerings from a Harvey Milkshake to BBQ and steak.

Tourism will officially kick off The Year of Alabama Food, on Friday, January 27 during the FoodBlogSouth event in Birmingham. The event is a conference for food writers, bloggers and photographers.

Tourism will also unveil a thirty second TV commercial during the media event and will provide a sneak peek at the new “100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama Before You Die” brochure.