Best Sub 2008 | Fernanda's International Market | Food & Drink | South Florida
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Best Sub

Fernanda's International Market

Tabatha Mudra

Don't tell Jared, but Fernanda's is the home of true sandwich artistry. Sure, it's a bit more expensive than Subway, and preparation takes an extra minute or two. But that's because the meat and cheese isn't sliced until you order it, which is the first mark of a marquee sub shop. And there's about a half-pound of it, piled high on bread still hot from the oven. Choose from among 18 special sandwiches, each with surprising ingredient combinations. While you're waiting for your order, cruise the market aisles for a rare wine or an exotic spice.

Best Sunday Brunch

Rosie's Bar & Grill

CandaceWest.com

Rosie’s is just a nice place to be. Their lanai is big and cool and blessed with a funky Hawaii-lite aesthetic that somehow demands a mimosa (which they serve in “French,” “Italian,” and “Grand” varieties, the last involving Grand Marnier). And at brunch-time — unlike, say, any other moment of the week — Rosie’s is quiet enough that you can actually hear your tablemates. Not that you’ll want to. Rosie’s brunch menu is filled with things that are a lot more appealing than a hung-over attempt at conversation. Like “Miss Truny’s Deep-Dish Southern Style Not-So-French Toast,” baked with a pecan-praline glaze, or “The Nelly Frittata,” an egg-white frittata with sausage, chicken, bacon, spanish onions, and red and green peppers. This is actually more delicious than it sounds, even when your stomach is doing loop-de-loops in flight from last night’s excesses. Heavy fare like this has a wonderful stabilizing effect. But there’s light stuff, too — fried green tomatoes with avocado, a delicious Greek omelet called “The Un-Teeny Santorini,” and a Belgian waffle topped with bananas, pineapple, mango, blueberries, and whipped cream that goes down like a confection and may even be healthy.

Best Sushi Restaurant

Sozo Sushi

Has sushi jumped the shark? These days your average American sushi bar seats 300 and serves baseball mitt-sized rolls filled with tropical, tex-mex, and Mediterranean ingredients. Italian restaurants hawk tuna tataki along with ravioli and garlic bread. Suddenly the ultra-minimalist Sozo Sushi looks very cutting-edge. The tiny bar in Wilton Manors seats just a handful of customers and serves only raw fish and a few appetizers; the proprietors, a transplanted family from Manhattan, are so focused it's scary. Their less-is-more philosophy pays off in extremely light, blissful mouthfuls of steamed crab shumai, glistening shrimp with chili cocktail sauce, ceviche of the day, and rolls that might combine, say, king crab, shrimp, tobiko, and wasabi vinaigrette, or eel with cucumber and avocado, but never steak, banana, or manchego cheese. Rolls and sashimi, from snapper and wahoo to toro and sea scallops, are made to be eaten in a single bite, perfect motes in a supersized world.

Best Taco

La Fondita Mexi-American Restaurant

Though the risk of employing the most unfortunate double entendre ever printed in this paper is high, we'll say it anyway: The cabeza de res at La Fondita Mexi-American Restaurant has to be the finest head we've ever gotten. And believe us, we love our head. Here, fatty bits of the slow-steamed meat are pinched off the cheeks of a cow head, spread onto two plush corn tortillas, and painted liberally with diced onions and frilly cilantro. That stuff is bliss, we're telling you, but if head isn't your thing, Fondita has a range of other meats — some adventurous, some more staid — to fit your fancy: pungent chorizo, shredded chicken, carne asada, and al pastor — pork carved shawarma-style off a thick spindle. Along with your tacos you'll get a basket of freshly fried corn chips and three bowls of salsa to dip, slather, and splatter on everything (a chipotle rich rojo, a peppery tomatillo, and a thin and smooth tomato variety). Show up on a Saturday, park your behind on one of the cute stone patio tables out front, and sip on a Modelo Especial while you eat, and you'll feel as close to noshing at a Tolucan taco stand as you can get here in South Florida.

Best Teahouse

Café Emunah

The pleasures of tea-drinking come from the taste, health benefits, and environment. Fortunately, Café Emunah, a Kabalistic café and tea bar, has you covered on all three. The teas are garden-direct and organic and contain all the antioxidants you'll need to get through the next five flu seasons. The café itself is an uplifting corner of calm billed as an "oasis for the mind, body, and soul." Its soft light, classy glass tables, friendly staff, and comfortable lounge area (with wi-fi access) make the place a perfect spot for relaxation or pleasant conversation. Sit back and lower your blood pressure with a cup of ancient emerald lily tea, rich with the flavors of melon, wild flower, and toasted nut. If tea-drinking works up your appetite, you should know that Emunah is also a kosher restaurant that offers sushi, salad, and seafood to sate your cravings.

Best Thai Restaurant

Bangkok Palace

Husband and wife Richie and Noi Kasinpila have imported the brisk, invigorating flavors of their native Chiang Mai to the Lauderdale Lakes strip that's become ground-zero for lovers of the Orient; the Bangkok Palace is a few doors down from the Chinese Silver Pond, an Asian barbecue, a Vietnamese café, and a couple of groceries selling bean buns and fish flakes. Bangkok Palace has settled beautifully into this milieu, answering the prayers of we who can't live without a bi-weekly infusion of authentic green papaya, catfish, or crunchy fried egg salad larded with basil, cilantro, and grape tomatoes. The menu is based on gentle Noi's family recipes: hearty seafood clay pot, chicken laab gaii, kew nam chicken noodle soup, and egg-battered frog's legs, each dish tweaked precisely to turn up the volume on a different composition of herbs and spices. And the Kasinpilas' hospitality is as warm as the reds and oranges on their painted walls.

Best Upscale Mexican Restaurant

El Chamol

"Upscale" doesn't have to mean expensive or snooty. At El Chamol, chef Lamberto Valdez's contemporary Mexican restaurant in suburban Lake Worth, it means impeccable service and beautiful table settings — waiters who pull out your heavy wooden chair and unfold your napkin; painted Mexican dinner plates and pale-blue-and-green goblets. It means ravishing dishes arranged with an eye for color and composition and a chef who periodically emerges from the kitchen to greet customers or see to a table's special order. And the place is still as laidback as an afternoon in a shaded hammock. The Mexican-born, French-trained Valdez goes far beyond guacamole and chips to experiment with goat cheese and puff pastry, with cactus paddles topped with corn and shrimp, with lobster stuffed into a quesadilla, and with huitlacoche (fungus-filled corn) as a condiment. Even the guacamole is served with flair, handmade to order and scooped from a stone molcajete with corn chips the colors of the Mexican flag. Look for the coarsely chopped and lime-infused tomato salsa, their specialty margaritas, beans simmered all day and served in a cast iron pot, and tortillas that taste like the Mexico of your dreams..

Best Vietnamese Restaurant

Sakyo

Lucky the locale where the Vietnamese population has reached critical mass: New York has it, L.A. has it, and finally South Florida has it. A big community of Saigon expats means more Vietnamese restaurants and the customers to fill them, ensuring long life for both a restaurant and its happy patrons. A bowl of pho per day makes you healthy and wise. The pho at Sakyo comes with benefits — it's served by a charming family, shy and sincere, in a pretty, understated room, where the chatter in the booths around you is as likely to be in Vietnamese as English. Sakyo's pho is a mysterious, smoky broth layered with thin slices of rare tenderloin and delicate, attenuated noodles, added to which a handful of fresh herbs, bean sprouts, and jalapenos, a squeeze of lime, and a few spoonfuls of peppery sauce produces a soup far more than the sum of its parts. Join this wicked brew with Vietnamese crepes, shrimp and pork filled spring rolls, or the house special barbecued ribs.

Best Wine Store

Hollywood Vine

What does a wine shop need beside great selection? How about cheese, gourmet foods, a knowledgeable staff, a non-pretentious setting, and occasionally a nice selection of liquor? That's Hollywood Vine. Trying to purchase the perfect bottle and have no one to share it with? Grab the hottie who just walked through the door, uncork the bottle you just bought, move over to their comfy seating area, and strike up a conversation. Like to try the grape before you buy? They have free tastings every Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. Can't find the bottle you want in their 600 selections? Proprietors Steven and Luciano are more than happy to find it for you — and they deliver.

Best Winetasting

Bi-weekly Tastings at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale

Even that dank package store down the block has a weekly wine tasting. Which makes it official: The winetasting market is officially saturated. For wine enthusiasts, this is great news: you can now go anywhere on any night and swish good stuff around. The catch is choosing the best party, and here Wine Tasting Nights at the Museum of Art wins hands-down. There's always a thrill of elitism that comes with entering buildings during off hours, especially museums. On select Fridays at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, you can get that rush while sampling great wines, checking out new art exhibits, and enjoying the extras the promoters schedule that night. Past tastings have featured live music, foreign films, and delicious snacks, all for a $20 cover ($15 in advance).

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