Food Town Throwdown

We asked you to tell us the best dining town around.

It used to be that when you had company in town and wanted to go someplace trendy, you talked about South Beach or Key West or anywhere but Broward and Palm Beach counties. Sure, we had Florida kitsch or Palm Beach glamor, but for some new food trend, you waited for vacation. Now, name-brand chefs are opening outposts from Fort Lauderdale to Delray Beach. New food movements like farm-to-table and small plates are dominating new restaurants. And -- yes, here it is -- our dining scene has arguably surpassed Miami's.

So in the spirit of competition, we pitted our eight best dining areas against one another in a March Madness-style bracket. We asked readers on our food blog, Clean Plate Charlie, to vote for a winner. And vote you did. We clocked 5,825 votes – more than a few recent municipal elections (we're looking at you, Wilton Manors).

Click here to read about the winner and all the voting that brought the title.

---

Untrendy: The New Cool

The big trend for 2012 may be the death of restaurant trends.

While other industries are touting electric cars and phones that give advice, chefs and restaurateurs are taking a step backward. And that's a good thing.

Though television might have us believe that every kitchen has a tank of liquid nitrogen, some of our favorite chefs and foodies insist that classic is best. We asked them to gaze into a crystal ball and foretell the future of food. From Mom's cooking to Mad Men-style drinking to a trip to the farm, the answers took on their own trend — everything old is new again. Continued>>

---

Farm-Grown in Florida

Getting locally grown anything isn't easy in these parts, but a few pioneers have begun pulling it off.

The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau likes to boast that Fort Lauderdale is blessed with 3,000 hours of annual sunshine and a year-round average temperature of 77 degrees. That's great for the beach but not so much for crops.

"Florida is the hardest state to grow produce in," says Jodie Swank of Swank Specialty Produce in Loxahatchee. She and her husband, Darrin, have owned the hydroponic farm, which supplies produce to almost every farm-to-table restaurant in South Florida, since 2002. Continued>>

---

Ethnic South Florida

Our status as the country's true melting pot makes for some great ethnic eats.

South Florida truly is a melting pot. People from all over the world, especially the Caribbean and South and Central America, have made our part of the world their home. This is good news for us, because that gives us access to authentic food. We've listed a few of our tried-and-true favorites below. Different flavors, different experiences, but they all have one thing in common — they put out delicious food. Continued>>

The Dish on Dive Bars

Legendary burgers, gumbo, and a few sticky floors await you at our best hole-in-the-walls.

They're the stuff of novels and television shows. Pablo Picasso traded sketches for food at a dive in Paris. Hemingway stumbled home from dives in Key West. Deals and friendships are made there, and there's at least one in every town, from Portland to Pompano Beach.

The neighborhood dive bar may not be flashy, and its food might never win a Michelin star, but you're not going to watch the big game at Jean-Georges, are you? We are fortunate to have some great dives in South Florida. From outdoor bars so close to the beach that you can taste the ocean in your beer to hideaways tucked away into alleys and strip malls, there's a place for you to call home. Here are some of our food-serving favorite dives. Continued>>