A six year old spit out Tom Colicchio’s food on a stage in Washington earlier this week, reported Tim Carman of The Washington Post. Part of the Great American Family Dinner Challenge, Austin Jackson rejected two dishes prepared by teams of top chefs cooking meals based on a food stamp…

The end of the year means lists of all sorts, including Zagat’s, the dinosaur of reader generated rankings.  Nice weather and a range of affordable dining options encourage South Floridians to eat out 3.4 times a week says the dinosaur, compared to Boston, where residents eat out 2.5 times a…

Esquire’s Eat Like a Man blog gives us the heads up that according to Forbes, Smashburger is America’s most promising company. As you may recall if you haven’t been yet, Coral Springs just scored its own branch in early November…

Maddox offers fightin’ words on his blog today about the most overrated sandwiches in America. It’s a gem of a post that includes the Philly cheese steak — “an exploration of sadness” and a “mouthful of suck”; the poor boy — “why not put nachos and jalapeño poppers on a sandwich…

[jump] “You want an extremely lean piece of meat for carpaccio,” said Dave Crumbaker of Smitty’s Old Fashioned Butcher Shop. Fillet is what’s traditionally used, though some restaurants shave meat from the eye of round. “It looks identical since it’s a cylindrical cut, but eye of round is much, much…

Mike Baitz hulks over a butcher block, making small talk with the customer behind him at the Meating Place West butcher shop in Boca Raton. He trims fat with a chef’s knife and wraps a pair of steaks with ease. Like the block that shows the wear of everyday use,…

My grandfather ran a company in which he made sausages for Italian, Polish, and German immigrants throughout Boston. My father worked there in summers between college. My uncle worked there for decades. I remember my grandfather telling stories about his craft and his customers, scenarios that culled my appreciation for…

Mike Saperstein and Evan David, the duo behind Charm City Burgers and El Jefe Luchador, will debut the Rebel House, a casual, chef-driven restaurant at 299 E. Palmetto Road, by mid-January.  As is the case at Miami’s newly opened Yardbird, whiskey and bourbon will be a focus at the bar…

Come January 1, no more taco Tuesdays — or anything else — at Treasure Trove. The beloved dive bar off A1A will shutter by year’s end. A doubling of his $4,000-a-month rent as of January 1 by building owner Sophia Enterprises is too steep for the business to maintain. After…

A woman accompanied by two guests left $15,000 behind in a Jimmy Choo bag at Philippe by Philippe Chow on Wednesday night. “What do you want me to do with this?” manager Jorge del Valle said when he showed CEO Stratis Morfogen the contents of the bag after the group…

How did I not know that Gran Forno had a second location on Las Olas? I did not. I’d been going to the bakery the past four months I’ve lived here, unaware of Gran Forno Pronto table service down the street. Why should it matter? Because the menu, the setting,…

Oceana Coffee debuted last week in Tequesta, one of the only local roasters in the area. It’s the brick-and-mortar result of three years of work for Amy and Scott Angelo, who spent time tasting beans, learning sourcing, experimenting with roasters, and building the cash to start the shop. The couple…

Eclectic food news from around the internets. Presidential contender Herman Cain told GQ that veggies are for sissies: “A manly man don’t want it piled high with vegetables! He would call that a sissy pizza.” Read more about sissy pizzas here. On the other hand, New York Times’ Sam Sifton…