Not the Same As It Ever Was We once loved chic Maison Carlos for its nostalgic take on Italian and French “Continental” cuisine; the menu felt like a ’60s throwback plunked down in the middle of Clematis Street, from the oysters Rockefeller and vichyssoise to the soupe a l’ognion and…
Who said this? “I was the first one ever showed movies in a restaurant – we played The Godfather at my father’s restaurant, Anton’s, and this was back when you had to rent those big VCRs – I went and got the machine, I set it up in the bar,…
Here’s where Italy meets Philly meets the tropics: At Caffe Luna Rosa, you’ll dine on homemade breads, handmade pasta, and veal chop Milanese at outdoor tables just a hop from the beach. Somehow that salt air is all the seasoning Chef Ernesto di Blasi’s Northern Italian specialties need. The gang…
Steve Martorano’s heroes are tattooed across his six-foot, 240-pound frame. Frank Sinatra looks out from under his trademark fedora on one shoulder; on the other, the title of an Intruders song reads “I’ll Always Love My Mama.” Most of Martorano’s right calf is taken up with the image of Padre…
You never really know a man until you divorce him,” Zsa Zsa Gabor once said. She should have added: “You never really know yourself either.” Any girl who’s ever been dumped remembers that pit-of-the-stomach fear that she’ll never be the same again. The funny thing is, we can recover quite…
Food related bad news is everywhere this morning, beginning with this story: Money doesn’t buy happiness, as we know. But evidently fast food does. Researches at the University of Arkansas teamed up with the University of Taiwan to extrapolate from a long term study of Taiwanese children, a quarter of…
My friend Peggy Jean was in town over the Easter holidays. Peggy Jean is a real Southern cook, which means that just about everything she makes calls for many pounds of butter, cartons of heavy whipping cream, half and half, bacon fat, salt, and variations on the theme of sugar…
We celebrate our post-Easter holiday around here with a ritual: our annual Peeps Stations of the Cross, Peeps Crucifixion, and Peeps Heresy Trials. What is it about those little yellow, blue, pink, and purple marshmallow chickies that makes you wanna do nasty things to them? Why are there always so…
It may seem counterintuitive to dine on six-hour osso buco and goat milk ice cream so that the hungry of Darfur might eat, but Slow Food Miami and the Sagamore Art Hotel in South Beach are inviting you to do just that Wednesday, April 29. The new Whitehall Restaurant at…
I’d heard it anecdotally, but now it’s officially confirmed: A new study says that female primates will get down and dirty in exchange for meat. And not just one measly piece of meat either. Ladyapes prefer chimp dudes that share meat with them often: What we’re looking at here is…
Right along with that little uptick in the economy we’ve been hearing about this week comes more good news: Florida restaurants actually did a teeny bit better this year than they did last year. Florida Trend reports that a study compiled by NPD Group, which analyzes American foodservice trends, found…
Rufus Ribs 206 S. Federal Hwy., Boynton Beach. Open Saturday and Sunday from 7 a.m. till 7 p.m. Call 561-932-8206. The search for South Florida barbecue worth phoning home to Memphis about continues with Rufus Ribs: a humble, pull-away trailer that, on weekends only, appears in a convenience store parking…
Here’s where Italy meets Philly meets the tropics: at Caffe Luna Rosa in Delray Beach you’ll dine on homemade breads, handmade pasta, and veal chop Milanese at outdoor tables just a hop from the beach. Somehow that salt air is all the seasoning chef Ernesto di Blasi’s Northern Italian specialties…
Lots of food and drink this month, so mark your calendars: Tonight, April 7, 7:30 p.m. Lola’s on Harrison: Meet the Winemaker Dinner with Nada Guiseppe Vineyards, $75 all inclusive four-course dinner with pairings. 2032 Harrison St., Hollywood. 954-927-9851.Nightly, 4:30 to 6 p.m. Christine’s Appetite Stimulus Package. Three courses, $29.99…
Not a single frigging Best New Chef Award for Florida this year from Food & Wine, which announced its picks on April 1st. In fact, all the magazine’s Best New Chefs are far, far, away — the closest one is Linton Hopkins in Atlanta, who chefs at Holman & Finch…
Run clean out of political causes to get fired up about, since the election of Barack Obama? Here’s a burning issue that ought to scare the bejeesus out of us all: The plight of struggling US independent beer brewers. Tickets are on sale now for the one-night-only engagement of Beer…
Philadelphia restaurateur Stephen Starr thinks opening a restaurant is like going to war. Starr was named Restaurateur of the Year by Zagat, and he’s said in an interview that restaurant reviews “are the enemy. We’re like the Marines going into battle.” Well Starr and his crew are gearing up for…
Northwood Village , situated at the northeastern tip of West Palm Beach, has undergone a bizarre transformation in the past dozen years. When I first moved to Palm Beach County in the ’90s, I met lots of youngish, middle-class people who were buying modest houses there. They’d formed a close-knit…
Restaurants are scaling back plans for expansion. That new carpet for the foyer has been put on hold, and the chipped plates will just have to last another year. So it’s nice to see one Florida company planning to open 12 new locations this year: According to today’s Orlando Sentinel,…
I’ve been meaning to write something for quite a while about the new Cook’s Inc. at Abacoa Town Center. Abacoa, located in Jupiter in northern Palm Beach County, may be a long drive north for many of us, but Cook’s Inc. is doing something unique — it’s part gourmet market,…
Resident DJ Johnny Ramirez (pictured above) is gonna throw down against contender DJ Wady tonight at Ristorante Bova in Boca, where the Battle of the DJs takes off along with recession-proof vodka specials and $75 bottles of Orzel (Orzel was a WWII Polish submarine, OR, the “legendary vodka traditionally reserved for…
There are times when eating out is not all about eating. Which is to say, so much goes into making a restaurant meal the kind of experience that exalts rather than exasperates. It sounds corny to say it, but deep down, we’re all hungry for something that goes way beyond…
