One by one, each of my dining companions illuminated the same point: Every entrée we ordered at the seven-month-old Maison Carlos, perched on the eastern end of Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, was plated with identical architecturally composed vegetable and starch. Clearly, they all thought this was something I…

A craving for a good hamburger can be satisfied only by a good hamburger. Window dressing — or garnishes, condiments, and buns — aside, it’s a truth that should be self-evident. In much the same way a dirty pane of chipped glass can hardly provide a picturesque view, a tough…

I had an extremely visceral reaction when I read “Chinese modern: Traditional fare stylish again,” one of the latest stories in Nation’s Restaurant News — I got really, really hungry. I’ve never made a secret out of my love for familiar Chinese dishes such as egg foo yung and lemon…

Thanks to my best friend, the chef at Bizcaya Grill in the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove, and my past positions as a waitress in formal dining rooms, this is what I know to be true concerning high-end hotel restaurants: They are part and parcel of a much larger corporation. As such,…

Summertime, and the lobster is easy. Homarus americanus, belonging to the family Nephropidae and commonly called Maine lobster, can be effortlessly found these days in restaurants all over South Florida in sizes ranging from one to ten pounds. And they’re a snap to afford: Market prices reflect a sudden glut…

Now that the scent of rotten mangoes has (mostly) ceased to waft across my yard, thanks to an early peak season, I have begun to detect other aromas in the air: The prix-fixe, all-you-can-eat, kids-eat-free, free-wine-with-entrée, early-birds-get-soup-or-salad, 20-percent-off-the-total-check,20-bucks-off-checks-over-50-bucks,buy-one-menu-item-get-one-at-equal-or-lesser-value-free special. Yup, I can sniff out just about any restaurant’s summer promotion…

We Americans are ridiculed the world over for our use of ketchup. We put it on everything, critics say, without discretion. Probably so, but in culinary reality, just about every culture has its singular condiment. The Brits love brown sauce. The French adore aioli. The Chinese couldn’t do without duck…

The scenario should be a familiar one — big-name New York City chef-proprietor decides to open South Florida outpost, wants ritzy hotel either to house it or something nearby for a given supply of upscale clientele, chooses South Beach as the likeliest location. Enough celeb chefs have followed this path…

“My dick hurts.” As far as opening lines go, yup, that’s an attention-getter. But it’s hardly an auspicious beginning to a serious poem. When it’s being shouted in a sing-song rhythm that would translate to paper as something like, “Maaahh diiick HURTS!” that elicits more titters of derision than oohs…

Innate skepticism has always prevented me from relying on religious relics in my personal life, and a loathing of clichés has long stopped me from referring metaphorically to them in my writing. But in this case, I just can’t resist: I have found the Holy Grail of chain-restaurant dining. It…

The mangoes are falling, the temperature is rising, and the tourists are leaving. What does it all mean? The obvious and inevitable, of course — summer, with all its vacation implications, is upon us. The bad news is that this is going to be a very domestic summer. Wars and…