As a countdown to the Best Of Broward/Palm Beach 2012, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up 100 of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations here.
No. 41: Café Martorano Eggplant Stack
This dish right here puts a line in the sand between the Café Martorano lovers and haters. It's $24. That's two appetizers at most places. And we're talking an inexpensive ingredient like eggplant. But this dish also typifies what's special about Café Martorano, about a place that cares so much about every single ingredient. Those slices of eggplant come perfectly
crisp on the outside -- difficult when you're essentially stacking them
in a salad -- and warm and soft in the center. The mozzarella is of the
fresh-pulled variety, the greens dressed in a fantastic vinaigrette, and
the tomatoes are thick slices that seem right off a vine in Napoli.
Like all the dishes here, it's served family style, put down in the
middle of the table, sliced up by the waiter, and passed around. It will
be, perhaps, the first time ever that your family fights over eggplant.
Well worth that $24.
Click here for an archive of the previous 100 Favorite Dishes.
