10. You bleach your hair blond, buy a junker Camaro, and run around saying things like, “Winner, winner, chicken dinner.” 9. You can sit through an entire episode of Top Chef without ever reaching for the clicker. 8. You believe Kelly Choi has talent. 7. Rachael Ray no longer makes…
Palm Beach’s version of Let’s Make a Deal Oh Pleasepleaseplease kicks off Wednesday, September 1, with the debut of Flavor Palm Beach for 2010. This third-annual promo to get you out of your house and into a local restaurant runs the entire month of September and features three-course, $20, prix…
• Once upon a time, it was pretty common for local restaurants to shut down for the summer. Now that the economy is in the shitter, it’s starting to happen again. Charlie reported earlier that Testa’s in Palm Beach had made like a door and closed until November, and now…
These Boys of Summer don’t make a billion-gazillion dollars a year to play what is grandly dubbed “our national pastime,” to gobble steroids like M&Ms and scratch their balls in front of a national TV audience. Thankfully, these Boys of Summer aren’t baseball players but, rather, chefs. Oliver Saucy (Café…
Paradise for $2.99? No, it’s not heaven on the layaway plan from the Rev. BillyJoeBob’s Church of the Contemptuous Redemption of the Blessed Holy Scam. It’s grains of paradise, a tiny peppercorn-like spice that is to your average black peppercorn what the Rev. BillyJoBob is to the Buddha. I heard…
• If you’re going to work in a restaurant, you may as well work in one that offers a killer selection of beer. That would be Yard House, which is opening next month in the Village at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach and is now hiring some 200 folks to…
In the bad old days, drinking wine-in-a-box had about the same cachet as swilling Mad Dog from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. In the good new days, drinking box wine is one of the smartest decisions a thrifty wine lover can make. It still may not have…
Whine not, wine lovers… Il Mercato Café & Wine Shop is here. The 3-week-old establishment is the brainchild of restaurant vets Mike and Emily Lynch. (He: certified sommelier formerly of such local spots as Bar Rosso and Govind Armstrong’s now-deceased Table 8. She: chef from a …
Tired of spending your hard-earned pennies on antique produce, meat that tastes like the styrofoam package it comes wrapped in, fish that’s fresh only from the freezer, and canned, bottled, and packaged stuff full of ingredients you can’t pronounce and don’t want to eat? If you answered yes, here’s the…
• National restaurant mega-chain Landry’s Restaurant Inc. is switching its Fort Lauderdale Charley’s Crab eatery over to the Chart House brand. Renovation of the space has added a new patio and lounge, and while no one at the Houston-based company responded to several queries, the difference in menus between the…
Yesterday the economy was booming, everyone was making money, and it was steak and lobster for all. Today the economy is in the shitter, everyone is broke, and it’s Hamburger Helper and ramen for dinner. It’s times like these that test a cook’s ingenuity. If you want to eat like…
If you want to catch a game on TV, drink a few beers, grab a burger or a pizza or some wings, you head to your neighborhood sports bar, right? Or you can head to Boca to the new Neighborhood Sports Bar & Grill, which staged its grand-opening party yesterday…
So let’s see, in my little orgy of list-making so far, I’ve managed to piss off professional restaurant critics, amateur restaurant critics, cooks, chefs, and servers. Who’s next? Hmmm… Ooh, I know. Customers. Assholes, cheapskates, the clueless, the entitled, and the just plain psycho all conspire to make the lives…
• The “farm to table” movement that’s hotter than organic habaneros in many food-conscious cities is coming to Fort Lauderdale with the expected September debut of Market 17 in the SE 17th Street space formerly occupied by Fish. Owners are brother and sister Aaron and Krista Gauberger (he, ex-Seasons 52;…
With the official start of Florida lobster season on August 6 and hordes of amateur bug hunters loosed on the unsuspecting critters during the two-day lobster miniseason last week, it seemed as good a time as any to start thinking about what wines to pour with your seafaring bounty. Whether…
They’re not letting any hops grow under their feet at the new Racks Downtown Eatery + Tavern in Mizner Park. Come Tuesday, August 3, the sleek modern American bistro will offer its first beer-food pairing dinner, with top toque Matthew Danaher dishing five courses to go along with a quartet…
Toby Cecchini has discovered that it’s hot in New York in the summer. Stop the presses! Writing last week in the New York Times, he weighed in on the heat-soothing aspects of the chelada and michelada, beer-based Mexican cocktails that include, in varying number and proportion, tomato juice, clamato juice,…
• You can never be too rich, too thin, or too full of pizza. Or at least, that’s the way it seems around here nowadays. Latest to jump into the local pizza wars is Stevi B’s, an Atlanta-based buffet-style pizzeria chain that has opened the second of what is intended…
Four top toques, including the latest gastronomaestro to pull up to the stove in our fair city, will demo and dish the fruits (and meats and produce) of their culinary labors to celebrate the ninth anniversary and reopened Lifestyle Center of the Fort Lauderdale Whole Foods Market.Mark Militello, now chef…
“OK, Mister Tight-With-a-Buck,” I hear you ask. “What’s the cheapest wine you know of that doesn’t suck?” So maybe you didn’t really ask. But I’ll tell you anyway. It’s the nonvintage Rene Barbier Mediterranean Red and White. I’ve already touted Barbier’s white wine — a blend of Xarello, Macabeo, and…
When is a hot dog a haute dog? When it’s a Snake River Farms Kobe hot dog, that’s when. This ain’t your granddaddy’s tube of vigorously emulsified petroleum binding polymers but a big, thick cylinder of rich and meaty-tasting beef. Now, Kobe beef has been the recipient of more hype…
Southern Comfort isn’t just the noxious blend of raw sewage and corn syrup that Janis Joplin made famous; it’s a major part of the South’s culinary tradition. Embracing the simple, local, seasonal thing long before it became the mantra of overpaid celebrity chefs who spend more time in front of…
