National gourmet macaroni and cheese month is now behind us, but it doesn’t mean we have to return to eating those irradiated looking cheese sauces and powders you find lining grocery aisle shelves. Your basic cheese sauce is cheap, easy and quick to make. It can be as thick or…

More than two decades ago, the Sardelli family opened Franco’s Pizzeria in Davie. It was the first time a young Fulvio Sardelli Jr., now 35, had worked in a restaurant. “My first job… was washing dishes and then rolling garlic rolls,” he says in a thick, slightly raspy Italian accent…

At The Tipsy Boar Gastropub the Sardelli family, long known for refined Italian fare, has set foot on a new path. There are no meatballs, no pasta, and the beer- and fried-food-centric restaurant is a far more casual than the upscale Fulvio’s 1900 and the recently opened Sardelli’s, $1.6 million…

We all dream about hopping on planes destined for the world’s greatest food cities. Yet the fact is flying often comes out of necessity and destinations aren’t always the most popular among food bloggers. When I recently booked a flight for the hills of western New York and Pennsylvania –…

Sure it looks as though South Florida is recovering from the real estate meltdown that led to the region being labeled as one of nation’s most troubled, but in the midst of panic came opportunities. “Weston Town Center was struggling in 2008 and I started buying up all of the…

Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo — famous for self-portraits she made of herself wearing ornate, brightly colored dresses and for her unmistakable, sometimes furrowed unibrow — had an unwavering loyalty to her country. When Julieta Bocos retold a story about the depths of Kahlo’s allegiance, her voice rose to an…

Expect a crash course in authentic Mexican cuisine and wide smiles when you step inside Casa Frida Mexican Grill. “Do you know what posole is?” asked co-owner Victor Bocos during one lunchtime visit. The blood-red soup, the day’s special, came with slow-roasted pork shoulder, big tender kernels of hominy corn,…

In my short timing reviewing Broward County restaurants for the New Times it’s been rare that chefs or owners have reached out, even for favorable reviews. Inedit owners Jose and Luis Varela sent us an impassioned, near angry response to our review in the February 21 issue. It’s understandable why…

“Wee are Fwench, so can you please speek a liddle beet slowlee?” a 30-something mother asked of her waiter as he requested their dinner order. “That’s great!” the stocky, sweating, bald-headed server exclaimed. “We’re sort of a French restaurant; the owner is French.” It was almost impossible to take the…

Voodka’s interior, with its vaulted ceilings, glittering chandeliers, and oversized faux leather couches, catches the eye of almost all who walk by on East Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Inside, owners Dan Ellia and Michel Karsenti have composed a mashup menu with everything from burgers to pasta with cream…

Through Falafel Benny’s narrow, squat entrance was a room of mostly men yelling at each other in thick Israeli accents. “How is the falafel?” owner Benny Regev gregariously bellowed at customers halfway through their lunch. He tried to buy some of his regulars’ meals. Some accepted, and others slammed a…

You never know what you might find inside Inedit, the Spanish restaurant that opened in late 2012 where Jorge Luis Fernandez’s La Barraca once stood. On weekends you’ll find black-clad guitarists, furiously slapping their instruments and a flamenco dancer in a flowing navy-blue dress clapping and stomping with the beat…

On a recent Friday night at Inedit, two tall, dark guitarists wore all black, furiously slapping their instruments as a flamenco dancer in a flowing navy-blue dress clapped and stomped with the beat, pushing her nose and breasts into the air each time she shouted “Olé!” Bottles of red wine…

Prepare your Costco-sized box of Kleenex for that friend who gleefully shelled out fistfuls of cash to obtain some of the last packages of Twinkies on earth. First because a U.S. bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y. on Monday gave Hostess Brands Inc. permission to auction of its Twinkie and…

After spending almost two decades running kitchens, mostly in New York City, where he was born and bred, chef Steve Zobel in April 2011 packed up the family and relocated to South Florida for better weather and a change of pace. After less than a year on Fort Lauderdale Beach…

On a weeknight at d.b.a./café on Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale we overheard diners carefully enunciating the name of the restaurant’s toque, Steven Zobel. “Zohhhh-bullll, one man said carefully to his dining companion.” The New York City-born-and-bred chef first arrived in South Florida in April 2011. Looking for better weather…

Pinche Taqueria, the Wilton Manors outpost of a New York City Mexican restaurant, has closed just shy of its one-year anniversary. It “was not making enough money to support the business in this area,” Stephanie Lee, who ran the Wilton Manors restaurant, wrote in an e-mail. “There will be more…